SoHo Trends

Shark Tank is a reality television show where both novice and seasoned entrepreneurs pitch their products and ideas to a committee of five uber-successful businesspeople (the “sharks”) in hopes of enticing one (or more) of the sharks to invest money in their company.

As an aside, do you know what a group of sharks is called?  The answer is at the end of this post, so read on…

My family got hooked on watching Shark Tank when it first came on, and now we’re big fans of the show.  As a parent and a small business owner, I find that Shark Tank is one of the very few television shows on a major U.S. television network that is both entertaining and educational (not counting The Simpsons , but I digress…)  Allowing, even encouraging, my kids to watch Shark Tank is a classic Randy Pausch head fake.  My kids watch the show for two reasons.  First and foremost, they like the show because they like the sharks (and the banter between them).  The key for reality television shows is to create super-sized personalities that people can identify with easily.  Let’s start from left to right (yes, even sharks have assigned seats) Kevin H — well, I’m actually not sure why Kevin H. is on the show; he seems to say no to every deal.  Daymond is the cool, street smart entrepreneur who can relate to everyone.  Kevin O is my family’s favorite shark and easily the star of the show.  He’s the Simon Cowell of Shark Tank.  Kevin O says what everyone else, including the four other sharks, is afraid to say.  Barbara is the nurturing mother hen who keeps the peace between the four male sharks (especially Kevin O and Robert).  Last, but not least, Robert is the Goldilocks of the bunch.  He’s not too nice… not too harsh… just right.

The second reason my kids like the show is that the show’s producers have done a great job of showcasing entrepreneurs with a wide range of personalities and products to pitch to the sharks.  Some of my favorites include Mr. Tod’s Pie Factory, Ava the Elephant and my personal favorite, Pork Barrel BBQ.  Now that Shark Tank has one season and several episodes under its belt, the producers have started to provide updates of contestants from previous episodes.  Of course, you only see the success stories, but it’s still a nice touch.

Why do I like watching the show and encourage others to do the same?  I’ll talk about the lessons that I’ve learned (and what you can learn) from watching Shark Tank in an upcoming post.  My original intent for this blog post was to talk about what I’ve learned from watching Shark Tank; however, as I started to write the post I discovered that there was too much for a single blog post.  You’ll just have to come back to SohoTrends.com and read part two!

If you want to learn more about the show, check out Wikipedia or ABC.com.

So, what do you call a group of sharks?  According to the USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center web site, a group of sharks is called a shiver.

If you’re a geek like me, you probably have several makes and models of computers in your home office.  At the world headquarters of Soho Trends, we’ve got one PC desktop, one Mac Mini, one Dell Latitude D630 laptop, one Compaq 8510w laptop, one Brother MFC-7340 multifunction laser printer, and a partridge in a pear tree.  One small, inexpensive piece of hardware that has been invaluable is my KVM switch.

The KVM in a KVM switch stands for Keyboard, Video and Mouse.  Simply put, a KVM switch is a piece of hardware that will allow multiple (usually 2 or 4) computers to share a single keyboard, video monitor and/or mouse.  Why is this necessary?  Well, I do most of my writing, e-mailing, internet surfing, programming, etc. on my Dell laptop.  I hate the keyboard, mouse pointer and trackpad that comes standard with most laptops.  Instead, I use a really cheap external USB keyboard and USB mouse.  For some of my consulting work, my clients provide me with a dedicated laptop to use.  Instead of constantly unplugging my external keyboard and mouse from one laptop and plugging it into a second laptop, I can use a KVM switch and switch from one laptop (or desktop) to another without my hands leaving the keyboard.  The KVM switch that I have (which is shown in the picture on the right) is an IOGear 2-Port MiniView Micro USB PLUS KVM Switch.

I have a second, identical IOGear KVM switch that is connected between the PC desktop and Mac Mini upstairs in our family room.  Since I’m sharing two desktop computers, in addition to a common keyboard and mouse, I have a monitor that is shared between the two computers.  The only (small) glitch is with sharing a keyboard between a Mac and a Windows PC is that I haven’t been able to find a keyboard that works for both PC and Mac computers.  The standard PC/Windows keyboard has special keys like the Windows key.  The standard Apple/Mac keyboard has special keys like the Command and Option keys.

If you look closely at the picture, you’ll see a label with the words “scroll lock” on it.  What’s that?  Well, this particular KVM has a soft switch.  To switch between two PCs using a standard PC keyboard, you press the Scroll Lock key twice rapidly.  On an Apple/Mac keyboard, you use the F14 key.  Most low-end KVM switches have soft switches.  Some may have hard or actual physical switches that you use to switch.  Higher-end KVM switches — usually those that you use to control dozens of computers, have video overlays that allow you to choose which computer to switch to through a more user-friendly menu.

While I purchased my IOGear KVM switch at my local MicroCenter (great store for us geeks), you can buy it at Amazon for around $30 dollars.  Setup and installation is a breeze.  There are two USB ports — one specifically for the keyboard and one for the mouse — on the front of the switch.  The RGB port sits in between the two USB ports.  There’s an Audio port on the right side of the switch.  At the back of the switch there are two sets of cables.  One set of cables is connected to each of the two computers you’re switching between.  Each set contains a RGB connection (video), a USB connection (keyboard and mouse) and an Audio port.  Connect the RGB to your desktop/laptop.  Connect the USB to a free USB port.  Connect the audio plug to the speaker/audio out of your computer.  That’s it!

While I haven’t had problems with my home office setup, I have heard that a handful of users have had problems with KVM switches, not just the IOGear switches, with non-standard setups, such as keyboard adapters (USB to PS2). If you have a common setup like I do, you shouldn’t have too many problems.

As the owner of several web sites, I have found Google Analytics to be the best web analytics tools in the marketplace.  Not only is it free (as in beer) to use, but Google keeps adding more functionality!  Today, the Google Analytics team announced several new features, including:

• Annotations (finally!)
• Support for Custom Variables in Advanced Segments and Custom Reports
• Easier Setup of Analytics Tracking Code
• New Version of the Analytics API.

Of the four major features announced earlier today, I think the simplest — annotations — will turn out to be the most helpful.