Archive for the ‘Virtual Assistant’ Category

I posted a while back that I was having issues with my precious Dell computer.It turns out that it was a bad install of Windows XP Pro.

My techie, Reg Kitchen of APlus Solutions came in – yes he does house calls – and did a fresh install of Windows 7 and updated my Office from 2007 to 2010. Thank you Reg you are the best!

Anyway, I thought I would share how delightful this computer has been for the past couple of weeks since Reg did the upgrade. It is runner cleaner and smoother and faster than it has ever been.

Office 2010 wasn’t too much of change from 2007 generally speaking just a few minor things that were a little different. Outlook on the other hand  is quite a bit different but after playing with it for a day or two I really loves it.

With all the upgrades this machine is much better to work with – but – I still love my Mac and can’t wait until Office 2011 for Mac gets released! I’m saving up all my pennies for it now.

I am just finishing reading Create Stunning HTML Email that Just Works! by Mathew Patterson from Sitepoint.

I am almost ready to add this to my arsenal of services for clients. I’ve been playing around in Dreamweaver and putting all the different elements together and I  feel very comfortable about offering this new service in time for the September marketing blitz.

Although I have been creating some HTML Email, I have a much better understanding of the different email clients now than I ever did before.

Thank you Sitepoint, you never disappoint!

I was asked the other day about the value of email marketing and if in fact it was really worthwhile. My reply was an resounding Yes! Email marketing is indeed valuable and every business should be looking at adding this valuable tool to their arsenal, if they haven’t done so already.

Social Media marketing is wonderful and I frequent Twitter and LinkedIn as much as I can. I try to keep up with the latest information coming in through these mediums. The fact is that there just isn’t enough hours in a day to jump in and keep up with  the hundreds and hundreds of Tweets that fly in every day and the all the responses to LinkedIn questions posted.

Ask yourself how much time do you really take to jump in and check out all the latest on your Social Media networks?

Now fast forward to email. How often do you read your email in a day? I would be willing to bet that you at least scan every piece that drops into your inbox, right? If there is a valuable piece of information, something simple and to the point you would take the time to read this, wouldn’t you. Maybe you would file it away to return to it a little later in the day where you could really focus and absorb what information was there.

Try sifting through all the Tweets to find that piece of information that you really wanted to go back to when you had the time. You know it is there, but the time and energy sifting through everything to find it again can be really time consuming.

If you are using Social Media to get information out fast, why not think about using that piece of valuable information in conjunction with an email newsletter. Chances are you will really get noticed and build your network at the same time.

I just heard the devastating news that Melissa Ingold’s (The Internet Marketing Sweetie)   baby passed away in his sleep. He was 1 week shy of his 2nd birthday.

Needless to say, the shock and sadness of this loss is difficult enough to bear, but having to cope with the financial burden of  funeral costs on top of this loss  is not an easy burden to bear. To add to the financial stress, the Ingold’s were in the midst of buying a new home when Kyle passed away.

Melissa is a contributing member of WAHM (Work at home moms) and they are running a fundraiser to help Melissa during this time.
Please head over to WAHM and take advantage of some great deals while at the same time helping out a colleague and talented entrepreneur.

This seems to be another year of PC woes in our household. First my husbands ten month old HP had a major crash and even after all my prompting to back up (which he kept putting off), he lost pretty much all of his files.

Being without a backup computer, he took that huge plunge and bought a MacBook Pro. He has the iPhone, which he loves and thought this might be a better solution for him. He was forced to learn the simplicity of it and unlearn the complexities of PC that he had been used to for years.

When he bought the HP machine, he had the foresight to add the additional service warranty to it. That being said, it still took 3 weeks to get it back after repairs and it still is causing headaches. So it sits there taking up all this space on his desk and now doesn’t even get a second glance. He is now a confirmed Mac junkie!

My precious Dell that I bought for my business just over a year ago (with next day on site service) has been having crashes and freezes and it is at the point that I just can’t trust it anymore. Dear Dell, doesn’t seem to know why this is going on and have changed memory, etc., to no avail. Yes, I do have multiple backups – Windows Home Server, external hard drive and Carbonite – maybe overkill but I’ve had too many crashes with PC’s over the years to trust them.

This past weekend I decided to take the Mac plunge too and bought a Mac Mini. I wanted to be able to transition slowly away from PC and beat the learning or unlearning curve. I’ve had it just under a week and I have to tell you, I LOVE this little machine! The graphic interface is beautiful for working on presentations and websites. I have to tell you this is pure pleasure!

Move over PC – Mac is my new love now!!!

My name is Caroline M. Jarzabek and I’m a Virtual Assistant.

Sounds like something from AA, but honestly, being a VA is like an addiction. One that I’m very passionate about.

My next greatest joy is software and learning new skills, this too is  like an addiction to me. I enjoy expanding my knowledge and accumulating new productivity tools.

I have been in Administration for more about 30 years and I love it. I can’t imagine doing anything else.

My main objective in this Blog is to try and pass along some information that I find helpful to my business and hopefully you will find useful in yours as well.

This was posted on CVAC (Canadian Virtual Assistant Connection) and I thought this was really valuable information. Some of this I hadn’t thought of either. I want to thank Diane Coville for sharing with us.

There has been a flurry of activity on the CVAC board with others who have either had similar things happen to them or friends and family who have.

GPS
A couple of weeks ago a friend told me that someone she knew had their car
broken into while they were at a football game. Their car was parked on the
green which was adjacent to the football stadium and specially allotted to
football fans. Things stolen from the car included a garage door remote
control, some money and a GPS which had been prominently mounted on the
dashboard.

When the victims got home, they found that their house had been ransacked
and just about everything worth anything had been stolen.

The thieves had used the GPS to guide them to the house. They then used the
garage remote control to open the garage door and gain entry to the house.
The thieves knew the owners were at the football game, they knew what time
the game was scheduled to finish and so they knew how much time they had to
clean out the house. It would appear that they had brought a truck to empty
the house of its contents.

Something to consider if you have a GPS – don’t put your home address in it.
Put a nearby address (like a store or gas station) so you can still find
your way home if you need to, but no one else would know where you live if
your GPS were stolen.

MOBILE PHONES
I never thought of this…….
This lady has now changed her habit of how she lists her names on her mobile
phone after her handbag was stolen. Her handbag, which contained her cell
phone, credit card, wallet… Etc…was stolen.

20 minutes later when she called her hubby, from a pay phone telling him
what had happened, hubby says ‘I received your text asking about our Pin
number and I’ve replied a little while ago.’

When they rushed down to the bank, the bank staff told them all the money
was already withdrawn. The thief had actually used the stolen cell phone to
text ‘hubby’ in the contact list and got hold of the pin number. Within 20
minutes he had withdrawn all the money from their bank account.
Moral of the lesson:

Do not disclose the relationship between you and the people in your contact
list.

Avoid using names like Home, Honey, Hubby, Sweetheart, Dad, Mom, etc….
And very importantly, when sensitive info is being asked through texts,
CONFIRM by calling back.

Also, when receive a  text from friends or family to meet them somewhere, be
sure to call back to confirm that the message came from them.

A few weeks ago, I received an email newsletter from someone that I didn’t know. I noticed that it was a fairly local phone number, so decided to email to find out where this person had met me and/or how she got my information.

This person emailed back and stated, that she had found my information on the BWNA (Business Women’s Networking Association) directory.

I immediately, emailed back and very politely asked if she could please remove me from her list – simple request.

This person wrote back, quite upset that I had opted out of her emails and stated that was the reason people’s names were on the directory so that they could be contacted and to promote business. She then went on in a little tirade that she was quitting the group because of this.

I’ve actually asked quite a few people to stop sending me email that I didn’t sign up for (another two today) without this sort of response.

Now, I ask you, is it me or is this just plain rude to harvest names from a directory and start sending email, newsletters, beg for business, etc. especially when you have never met the person?

I found this neat little tool http://www.printgreener.com/ that lets you edit a document before you print it and best of all it is a free download.

GreenPrint scans print jobs and removes pages that it determines are a waste, like web pages with just one line of text, advertisements and unwanted graphics.

It resides in your printers folder so that you can use this with any program that you have on your computer.

You can preview your print job and remove pages or specific text and even print to PDFs.

Another neat feature is that it will track how much paper, money and greenhouse gases you have saved.

To learn more about GreenPrint, click here. or watch a demo of GreenPrint.

I am passionate about being a Virtual Assistant and working on client projects.

It is true what they say about being a business owner, you spend more time working “in” your business and not enough time working “on” your business.

So today, I took a couple of hours out to do just that, work on my business, and updated my web site. It feels wonderful getting the few tweaks done that I’ve been meaning to get to for ages.

I hope that you will stop by and take a look.