I have seen a lot of articles recently demonstrating some of the cool things you can do with your files once you have saved them to Google Docs. Yet all of them throw in the caveat of limited storage.

Example Articles:
Play Music from Online Storage
Stream Video Files From Google Docs
Google Docs Stream to Android
Google Music Beta

From my understanding and experience when another google account shares a file with you it does not count against your storage space, yet you still have access to it. So if you want extra storage space for your Google Docs you could create additional emails, load your files and share them all with your main account. You could even get creative with your email addresses to stay more organized. Like newzealandpics@gmail.com. This would give you an “unlimited” amount of storage.

Of course this may be against Google Terms of Service or something like that and I don’t really like the idea of Google hating me so I haven’t tried this as I have described. I have however used my work email, a google account, to expand my storage space. So if you have Google powered email accounts you only use for email you may want to reconsider your cloud storage options.

Anyone have experience with something like this?

At least it will after it indexes this post.

Goal: Have at least 10 images of me indexed within the first 2 pages (I now realize this depends on your screen resolution) of Google Images when you Google Image search “Chris Durham”. (At the start of this challenge I already have 1)

Why: A good friend of mine, Peter Lang , shared an article with me about a girl who got revenge on her ex by posting pictures of him to a website where funny and crude comments were put on the image. When you searched for him the entire first 2 pages of results where the same picture of him with insulting text. This gave me an idea, how cool would it be to have a majority of the images returned from Google actually be of me and not of the million other Chris Durham’s out there. When you type in a celebrity name you only see results of that person. It’s time to become a Google images celebrity.

Research and Analysis: When this idea occurred to me I searched for myself and found that I did in fact pop up in the results, it was just at the bottom of page 2. So I tried to figure out why the pictures above mine where above and why mine was below, here is what I figured out. The first 2 results are located on on pages with a higher ranking than mine. The other images had an equal ranking but where titled as ChrisDurham.jpg or the text Chris Durham was located very close to the image. So, since I have access to the site where my image was located, my work website, I logged in and got to modifying. The first change I made was renaming the file from 1235.jpg to Chris_Durham.jpg. This change alone, once Google reindexed, moved my image to page 1! After this result I changed “Chris” which was near my image, to “Chris Durham”. (At the time of this writing I am still waiting for Google to notice the change.)

Now these changes may not have as big of an impact for you depending on what kind of results pop up when you search your name. If your name is Justin Bieber good luck getting your images to appear on page 1.

Game Plan: Originally I was thinking about how to get my images on to higher ranked sites but it looks like only the first 2 images for “Chris Durham” have higher Page Ranks than this page right here so… I plan to put a few images of myself into this post, each titled Chris_Durham_”descriptive text”.jpg and make sure that in the descriptive text right under the image I include my full name. I will also add an additional picture to my Chris Durham work page bio and any other page on a site I have access to. I will then submit those page’s url to be indexed by Google, something that would happen on it’s own eventually but I’d like to speed up the process. Then, I wait and see.

Have you tried to impact your name searches? Share your efforts in the comments below.

Chris Durham Studying Abroad in France in 2007

Chris Durham on a rainy street in front of the Arc de Triomphe, Paris, France 2007

Chris Durham: In 2007 I studied abroad in Paris, France with my friend Peter Lang. We attended the Leonardo da Vinci University, located near the ‘La Grande Arche’ station, in the La Defense District.

Chris Durham with friends from Egypt and Ecuador 2009

Chris Durham with Fulbright Scholars from Egypt and Ecuador

Chris Durham: Friends visiting Fresno from Pepperdine University.

This is the first of a series of blog posts. Let me explain.

I want to write a book, but I can’t. It is too large a task and my mind moves to new ideas to quickly. This is a weakness, I struggle to finish things I start, but I am not trying to improve my weaknesses. They are weaknesses for a reason, because of a personality trait or something else hard to change, and to improve them would require lots of work and only yield incremental results. Instead, I plan to apply the 80/20 Principle to just about everything I do and focus on my strengths. Improving my strengths will yield bigger results and if I utilize them properly, can compensate for my weaknesses, voiding the need to improve them.

Example, these blog posts. Blog posts are short and quick when compared to a book. I can write blog posts, I can’t write a book. Yet, If I combine enough blog posts, I have a book. Strengths compensating for a weakness.

Because I move on to other things quickly any challenge or task I give myself must be able to be completed quickly. I am not focusing on the quality of this post as much as I am just getting it done. I know that if I try too hard to write something profound I will have a great half completed blog post, which is the same as no blog post at all. So, here is the plan.

Each post will be a challenge. That challenge will need to be completed within 24 hours. The challenge must be measurable and ideally still worth something even if failed or only partially completed. Each post will outline a hackers guide to completing the task. Research and data will be gathered and the 80/20 principle applied to it. Actionable goals which focus on effectiveness rather than efficiency will be set which will contribute to completing the challenge. A completed challenge must yield one or more of these things, money, benefit others or provide me with a sense of satisfaction or pride. These things must be measured at the end of the challenge and reflected upon.

Now, what kind of book is this going to be. Well, it may change, but I expect to have something that inspires and provides an outline for people like me to improve their lives and start getting things done. Plus, who cares, I just want to be able to say I wrote a book