So here is my verdict:

• I was extremely disappointed that there was not an upgrade available from Office 2008 to Office 2011, unless you purchased this version in August. Ultimately, if you just happened to have purchased Office 2008 sometime this year prior to the August date, you were out of luck and needed to buy the full version of Office 2011.
• You cannot buy any of the apps individually. They must be bought as a Suite. Unlike Office for PC where each app, including Outlook can be purchased separately.
• There are 3 versions which you can purchase, Home and Student (which can be used on 3 Mac’s, down from 5 in 2008) without Outlook. The Home and Business edition for 1 Mac or the Home and Business for 1 user and 2 Mac’s. A major disappointment and expense.
• The major reason that I decided to upgrade and buy the 2 license version is that I am a business and wanted to be able to access this on my desktop as well as the laptop. I also was so excited about the fact that Outlook was included in this version. This has proved to be another MAJOR disappointment.

Although Word, Excel and PowerPoint have had a major overhaul and is almost on par now with Office 2007/2010 – Outlook has failed to impress me. It is like taking a journey back in time to when I first started using Outlook on the PC.

I have to admit it is still far better than Entourage but with all the media hype and build up I truly expected to see something better than what Microsoft packaged. It is a like going from Outlook Express to Outlook in the much earlier versions of Windows. I honestly didn’t have expectations that Outlook would be on par with the latest versions of Outlook on the PC – but I truly expected a little more than what was packaged.

There is so much functionality missing, from they way that you can configure your email accounts and test them before leaving the set up dialogue to the lack of styling your signature. I actually had to open a new email and write in my signature line, style it with my fonts and colour and then copy and paste it into the dialogue.

Another major disappointment with Outlook is the fact that there is no Business Contact Management system with this and working with the contact list is terrible – you have to scroll through every contact to find what you are looking for. Even earlier versions of Outlook for PC managed this much better. For a so called Business Suite it certainly does not impress.

As I mentioned, it is a far cry from Entourage – but come on Microsoft – smarten up! I knew it wouldn’t be anything like Office 2010 but if you could have given Outlook the same care and attention that you did with the other Office apps – you would have had a big hit and more people chomping at the bit to buy this product.

So if you are seriously thinking about upgrading, look at the lower end of the scale without Outlook and save your money for now, I wish I had!

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 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!

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.

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.

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!!!

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.

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.

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.