Archive for April 2011

My little guy, who turned eight yesterday, will be in third grade next fall — in the latter half of his elementary school years. Years ago, I started a tradition in writing a letter to my children on their birthdays reflecting the past year. I showed my daughter several letters on her 16th birthday as a way to connect when we went to breakfast for her birthday. But I think I’ll give all of the letters to them on their 18th birthdays. (Unless you have a better idea.) So daughter gets hers next year.

Eight is a great age. Still young enough to be adorable, like cartoon and other movies tween boys typically don’t watch (He asked to see The Wizard of Oz and Aunt E gave him the DVD and we watched it together. 12-year-old brother didn’t join us.) and doing crafts like Pearler Beads. It won’t be long before I’m a mom of “older” kids who don’t do the cute stuff anymore. I try to make the most of every day of his life and his siblings’ too. They’re only a certain age for one year, kids for 18 and adults for way more than that.

Mazel tov, William and Kate.

Brain food…

• The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We’re All Going To Miss Almost Everything: If I can’t get into a book, I dump it. Too many books out there, on my shelves and in my Kindle to waste time on the unworthy ones. I also went through my wish list and deleted a bunch of books with this thinking in mind. [Link: Elisa, my sister -- yes, that would be Aunt E]
• The top 9 lessons I wish I knew when I started my business: I’m grateful I had my meryl.net email long before I started the business. It’s also sad because I’ve used it as my primary email for so long because lots of spam come to that account. I’d love to wipe out and change my email address (while keeping meryl.net, of course). But I’d have to forward all messages to the new address and spam will follow.
• Letter to Beginning Writers: Applies to all writers. [Link: BubbleCow]
• 6 Ways a CRM Tool Can Help a Freelancer: The hard part… finding the right one.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Don’t Just Polish Your Nails — Geekify Them: Takes patience and tiny fingernail brushes.
• Video Game Alphabet Pattern: Lemmings! I spent hours on that game. I feel like a geek failure as I don’t know all of the games.
• 12 Most Bizarre ‘Royal Wedding’ Merchandise: Why would anyone want a life-sized picture of Will and Kate on a fridge? Crown jewels? Prepare to LOL.
• Better Book Titles: “This blog is for people who do not have thousands of hours to read book reviews or blurbs or first sentences. I will cut through all the cryptic , and give you the meat of the story in one condensed image.” [Link: Elisa]

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Ohmygosh, school ends in five weeks! I wish I could be planning a vacation to England (One of the first destinations I’d want to go on the other side of the world — not because of the Royal Wedding). Instead, I’ll have to settle for Montreal, Grand Canyon and other places in the colorful, cartoonish Jet Set Go.

From Montreal to the Mayan Riviera, work with April to take your travel agency to new heights. Put together dream vacation packages in the agency, fill up your charter flights, and travel with customers to a variety of exotic locations to ensure they experience the time of their lives. Serve cheesecake in New York, take photographs at the Grand Canyon, or dance the Congo on a cruise ship in the Caribbean in Jet Set Go, a fun Time Management game!

Download and try Jet Set Go free

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

Being your own tech support person speeds up fixing the problem. While you’re not the expert in whatever fails to work the way you expect it, many companies have set up self-help systems anyway or they’ll ask if you did this ‘n that. So trying to solve the problem — or narrow it — can save you time as you’ll have the answers to standard tech support questions.

Photo from sxc.hu user laser

Tech support often follows a script. You contact them to report a problem. “Is it plugged in?” “Is it turned on?” They’ll continue down the list from the simple to the complex depending on your answers. Think of it like a flow chart: if yes, go this way. If no, go that way.

These steps are not in a specific order as different problems call for different approaches. The 10 steps will solve the most common problems.

• Reboot or shut down/turn back on. This works for almost every computer, accessory, mobile device and other electronics. When my digital video recorder (DVR) freezes or acts weird, I shut it down and turn it back on. This solves the DVR’s problem 99.99 percent of the time. We had to call the service provider once or twice in all these years. With laptops and PCs, try to shut down the computer before rebooting. Sometimes it can take a long time to shut down. Go do something else for a while and if the computer looks frozen, then turn it off. Wait a few minutes before turning it back on. I had a monitor acting weird (the other was fine) and asked my husband about it. He told me to turn it off and back on. (I can’t believe I didn’t even think of this.) It worked. I had never encountered this problem and sometimes we overlook the obvious.
• Run and update your anti-virus (daily) and anti-spyware software (weekly). I know plenty of successful professionals who don’t have their anti-virus applications automatically checking for updates on a regular schedule (more than once a day). Sometimes a situation requires turning off the anti-virus app and people forget to turn it back on. They forgot they turned off the software and never turned it back on. Most standard anti-virus apps run a full-system scan at least once a week.  Make sure yours does.
• Check cables and switches. The cable on my printer sometimes falls out. (The cable is barely long enough.) So first thing I do when printer doesn’t turn on — check that cable. My son has a laptop that only works if plugged in because the battery is dead and not worth replacing. He said the laptop wasn’t working. It was the surge protector where he had it plugged that was turned off.
• Go to manufacturer and developer websites. Manufacturer and developer websites often have forums, Q&As, support pages, knowledgebases and documentation with common problems and their solutions.
• Search the problem. Some of us forget that people experience the same problems and post them somewhere outside of the developer or manufacturer website. Look at this post I did in 2008 that solves the problem of the mouse not working in Microsoft Word. Notice the latest comment is a couple of months old. This is a three-year-old post. It’s tempting to ask a blogger, writer or expert for help. They won’t all respond or take the time to help because they get many requests like yours. They’re not trying to be rude, but they have jobs to do plus they are thinking “Let me Google that for you.” Be specific as possible in your search by entering error messages (if you get one) and the name of the application. Copy the error message or take a screen shot.
• Know how to save, export and import files in different formats. Many people emailed me when Office 2007 came out because they couldn’t open the .docx, .xlsx and .pptx files. Two solutions: Have the sender save these files as .doc, xls and ppt, and download the free Office file converter from Microsoft. Make “File > Save as” your friend. Thankfully, we’re seeing more standard formats like CSV files and ical, which you can import into Outlook, Gmail, Apple Address Book and more. Also find a resource (search for them — many free ones out there) that lets you save files into Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format because the reader is free and everyone can open and view them.
• Narrow down the causes. A new tablet kept posting a notification that the new microSD card may be corrupted. I looked for a microSD card reader so I could test it out to rule out the possibility it was a bad card. Two of my readers were broken! Luckily, I found one and it confirmed the microSD card worked. I also verified there were no files on it. If it had files, I would transfer them somewhere else for safekeeping before reformatting the card. Problem solved. No more notifications.
• Uninstall and reinstall. After trying everything, remove and reinstall the app unless it’s something big like an operating system. First, back up your data files to a safe place.
• Test it on another computer or app. A client’s website looked weird in Firefox. Rather than panicking thinking the client’s website had a serious problem, I checked the website in other browsers and it showed up fine. The problem was a small one (it would’ve been a biggie had it happened on all browsers).
• Backup and sync all data. I have a stand-alone external drive that holds a backup of all my computer data AND I also backup to a cloud service. The cost of various backup solutions have gotten cheaper so there’s no excuse for not having a backup. Remember to backup your devices, too.

Solving the problem on your own saves time, avoids sugary sweet scripts thanking you for being a valued customers and how they want to help you or waiting for someone to respond to your call or email. Even if you can’t find the answer, you have a list of steps you’ve taken and can get through the script faster.

What tech support tricks do you have?

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

Dream Chronicles is back! Doesn’t feel long ago since The Book of Air came out. In Dream Chronicles: The Book of Water Collector’s Edition, Lyra has found her way home only to find her town hit by a devastating storm. In search of power, the evil fairy queen of Dreams has cast a terrible curse over all of Wish. With her father gravely ill and her mother missing, Lyra must find a way to break the spell. Journey through beautifully enchanted places, solve challenging puzzles, and seek answers to save Lyra’s hometown in Dream Chronicles: The Book of Water.

Other Dream Chronicles

• Dream Chronicles
• Dream Chronicles 2: The Eternal Maze
• Dream Chronicles: The Chosen Child
• Dream Chronicles: The Book of Air

Download and try Dream Chronicles: The Book of Water.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

PC and Mac Catch of the Week: PuppetShow: Mystery of Joyville : The puppet show in Joyville was once a wondrous attraction until the great fire. Now, rusted gears and dark mysteries lay within strange machinations and disheveled puppets. A young boy, Simon, is the most recent in a long line of missing people. In PuppetShow: Mystery of Joyville , you are tasked with solving nefarious puzzles, finding hidden clues, and uncovering the dark secrets of a town that is anything but joyful.

Sounds like a town that needs to change it name or change things to live up to its name.

Catch the deal for your PC! Use coupon code CATCH299

Catch the deal for your Mac! Use coupon code CATCH299.

This $2.99 Catch of the Week runs through Sunday, May 1, 2011, at 11:59pm.

Other PuppetShow games:

• PuppetShow: Souls of the Innocent
• PuppetShow: Lost Town

Remember Big Fish Games has a Daily Deal offering a different game for $2.99 every day. (Look to the right.)

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

Calm before the storm. Next weekend is kuuuhhraazzyyyy. Not only is it my youngest child’s birthday, but it felt like everyone wanted to schedule something that weekend. I’ll be heading to a family event with my mom and one unhappy son while hubs and son go on a scout camp out. Then, Sunday is the birthday / movie party for my baby. Dang, I can’t believe it’s been eight years since I held him in my arms for the first time.

Photo by sxc.hu user ba1969

Happy Easter to all who celebrate. Here’s an Easter smile: 10 Geekiest Gadgets to Celebrate Easter.

Brain food…

• 40+ free ebook tools for authors: Mah-velous list. [Link: Porter Anderson]
• The Comfort of Bad Reviews (That Aren’t Yours): Even the classics get bashed. [Link: Therese Walsh]
• Spring cleaning (and organization) for your social networks: By Cousin Sarah Evans. OK, She’s not really my cousin, but I wish because she’s awesome and thanks to her, I dumped big files in Gmail with Find Big Mail.
• 4 PR Lessons I Learned from Saved by the Bell: Yes, that show. I loved it and admit having the theme song on my MP3.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Book rug: <3 this rug by Pamela Paulsrud. She has other book sculptures — just click prev/next. My second fave is alphabook. [Link: Bitrebels]
• iPaw’d: I’d get this for my dog, but she doesn’t hear very well anymore. [Link: Bitrebels]
• 8 Snarky Song Charts Cleverly Illustrated: I had seen “Friday I’m In Love” before, but not the others. Delightful collection. Prepare for songs to play in your head.
• World’s Biggest Pac-Man: Holy, Inky, Blinky and Clyde!!
• The 20 All-Time Funniest Twitter Bios (part 2): S P E C T A C U L A R V E R N A C U L A R

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

With the upcoming big royal wedding, I thought it appropriate to post this hidden object game. Will you watch the wedding? I have plans, so I won’t be near a TV set. I missed Prince Charles and Lady Di’s wedding because I was away at camp. No electronics.

After learning about your royal heritage, you’re off on a fantastic adventure to undo the amber curse and save the King and Queen! Return to your kingdom and free the people, animals, and objects from the Dark Queen’s treacherous grip. Fulfill your destiny and stop evil from taking over the entire world in Spirits of Mystery: Amber Maiden, a hidden object puzzle adventure game.

This is a special Collector’s Edition release full of exclusive extras you won’t find in the standard version. As a bonus, Collector’s Edition purchases count toward three stamps on your Monthly Game Club Punch Card!

Download and try Spirits of Mystery: Amber Maiden

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

In coming home from a long doctor’s appointment, I decided to take the tollway for most of the way to get home faster. I rarely drive on the highway, so you’d think I’d be more alert about the exit. Yep, I missed it. I caught the sign for the exit, but thought I wanted the next one. And, of course, it was further than the usual distance to that exit taking me a bit out of my way.

Photo from sxc.hu user maavi

How did I miss it? I had too much on my mind with paying attention to cars, looking for exit signs and noticing all the construction I hadn’t seen before. I had too many filters in my mind getting in the way of the one filter I needed — the right exit.

A Filter Problem

I use Gmail more than meryl.net email. The meryl.net email has been around for years meaning 100 spam emails come in daily. The email app does a good job of diverting spam into its dump out of the way. Still, spam messages clutter email on the mobile device, which makes it harder to identify good emails. Gmail relies on all of its users in creating effective spam filters, so I rarely see spam in Gmail outside of the spam folder.

Some of my regular email newsletters stop appearing where they should. They ended up in the trash despite having their assigned labels, which should’ve filtered them to the label folder. Gmail, why are you throwing away my good email? I studied the “delete” filters to see if something confused Gmail like my multitasking on the road did to the point that I missed the exit. Having used Gmail since 2004, the list of filter felt like a mile long. (It’s still long after the clean up, but it’s more efficient and updated.)

Fixing Filters for Fitter Filtering

Time to take Gmail filters for spring cleaning. I remove every filter that deleted an email and clear many label filters. The only ones that remain — it’s still a bunch — are the ones most recently created. The nice thing about Gmail’s filters is that appear in the order they were created. So the top ones are old and go bye-bye.

When I unsubscribe to an email newsletter, I also delete the filter. But sometimes I forget. This cleaning helps clear those. I prepare myself for piles of emails showing up in the inbox after the filter wipe out. Anytime an email comes into the inbox, I either unsubscribe or create a new filter. It’s hard to let go of some email newsletters, but I tell myself that a cleaner email account is more important than subscribing to the email newsletter just in case I get around to reading it.

I’m paying attention to my actions when reading emails with several labels (email newsletters, for example). If I delete them every time, then I unsubscribe unless there’s a reason to keep them such as the rare coupon. If an organization sends too many emails, I see if they have another subscription option to get fewer emails or unsubscribe. (I don’t think any organization needs to send an email more than once a week aside from the Groupon types.)

Inbox, Spam and Domains

The only emails coming into the inbox are the quick ones that I read and delete in an instant from looking at the subject lines (Groupon is one). I also try to avoid creating filters with subject lines or @domain.com with no user name. For “@domain.com” filters, I limit those to clients from companies unlikely to have unrelated emails coming from their domain. For instance, if I had a contact at Apple, I wouldn’t create an “@apple.com” filter since it’s plausible I’d receive newsletters and notices from that domain. In this case, a filter with the contact’s complete email address works best.

I also bring back the spam folder. I had done away with it and told Gmail to send all spam to trash. But after the filter clean up, I want to check the spam folder for anything that slips through.

You can apply these steps to any email account with filters.

Results: The two email newsletters that kept landing in the trash stopped going there. I also have fewer emails coming in since I shed some of the email newsletters.

Next: Cutting down on checking email. I’ve been working on this habit all year and have improved a little. But I still check emails too often. The problem is that I need Gmail open most of the time so my husband can reach me through Google chat. I tried the chat window pop out, but it felt awkward. Even with the pop out, Gmail must stay open or else it closes the chat window.

Multitasking has its strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes when the brain or filter has too much going on, it can let something slip through. Choose your multitasking activities wisely. Sometimes it’s more efficient to focus on a single task than to do many. Or in Gmail’s case, clear the filter cobwebs so it can make better choices.

P.S. Instead of checking emails this morning, I wrote this blog post. Now let’s see if I can work for a couple of hours without checking email. (Oh, boy. Help!)

What tips do you have for managing emails more efficiently?

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

When I drink my morning coffee, I always choose my Alice in Wonderland mug first. (It’s based on the Disney cartoon movie.) Although I love Alice in Wonderland, I haven’t pushed myself to see Tim Burton’s version. I’ve caught bits and pieces of the movie and it feels strange to me. OK, I know strange describes Alice in Wonderland, but Tim Burton goes further. If you can’t get enough of Alice, here’s another opportunity.

Embark on an amazing adventure through a fascinating story book in Slot Quest: Alice in Wonderland. The task at hand asks you to restore four famous stories that are being maliciously rewritten by four evil characters. Defeat the evil villains, including the Queen of Hearts, Wicked Witch, Mr. Hyde, and the Evil Dragon. Unlock new slots as you progress through each storybook. Complete quests, earn Achievements, and win!

Download and try Slot Quest: Alice in Wonderland

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

For most small-business owners, keeping the books isn’t a highlight. They prefer to focus on improving and expanding their core business. Bookkeeping? That’s a chore. Yet, running a successful business requires effective bookkeeping.

Photo from sxc.hu user Morrhigan

As a small-business owner, you might not have the budget to outsource your bookkeeping responsibilities. Instead, you have to learn how to survive without a full-time bookkeeper, balancing your time between nurturing your business’ core values and recording, monitoring and tracking your business’ finances.

Here are five tips for small business bookkeeping.

Understand the purpose of bookkeeping. Before getting started on a good bookkeeping system, it helps to understand how these financial records fit into your business. With a clear picture of how much money your business makes and expenses on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis, you can better evaluate what’s works and what doesn’t.

You may discover one products using more resources than it’s bringing in profits, it may be time to cut that product. If another product or service produces high profits one month and remains consistent the next few months, you can look at what you did differently and expand your opportunities from there.

An effective bookkeeping system can also help you meet budget goals and evidence of a stable, well-managed business if you ever need support from banks or other sources of capital.

Make bookkeeping a part of day-to-day business. Accurately keeping track of your business requires recording your finances on a daily basis. Find a bookkeeping system that works for you, and then set aside time each day to record your cash and credit sales, accounts receivable and accounts payable, and detailed summaries of transactions.

When bookkeeping becomes a routine part of your business, it gets easier with time. Once tax season arrives, you’ll want those records to prepare an accurate income tax return. The more organized and up-to-date your bookkeeping system, the less you’ll have to spend on accounting fees, and the less frustration you’ll have to endure come tax season.

Use the right bookkeeping programs. Accounting software programs makes it easy to automate the bookkeeping process. These do everything from tracking purchases to analyzing purchasing trends. FreshBooks, QuickBooks and Sage Peachtree are accounting programs that offer products catering to various business types. If you’re a small startup, you probably want to choose the most basic package, and upgrade as your business needs grow.

Be aware that accounting software programs still require a great deal of training and education to use properly. Attending a workshop can really help you better understand how to get the most out of the program for your specific business needs.

Once you’re set up and ready to start automating bookkeeping procedures, you can integrate the program with your payment process to further streamline business. If you have a merchant account provider, find out if it can synchronize your merchant account with your accounting software to avoid double data entry and receive reports that are more accurate.

Manage your paperwork. You need to keep those receipts and documents for your records. The key is to stay organized. Maintain a clearly labeled filing system sorted by product lines, expenses, clients, date – whatever works best for you. Protect important, confidential files in a fireproof safe. You can even scan your paperwork to import directly into accounting software, so you can keep all your files in one place and find them quickly.

You may not have to worry about piles of paperwork as much anymore since more businesses have gone paperless. Sign up for automatic withdrawals and deposits with your bank and electronic invoicing with suppliers or utility companies. Provide your customers with paperless options to minimize billing costs and better organize invoicing details.

Also, consolidate your vendors whenever you can. For example, with a credit card processor that offers all the services you need, you’ll receive just one statement for services like payment processing, recurring billing and terminal rentals – rather than three different statements from three different companies.

Don’t mix business with pleasure. Keep your personal accounts separate from your business accounts. Using business funds to pay for personal purchases complicates the bookkeeping process and filing taxes. If you’ve given an employee access to credit cards and account numbers for office spending, monitor those purchases to limit inappropriate purchases and maintain control over your finances.

With the right software, a bit of organization, and daily maintenance of your finances and paperwork, bookkeeping can turn into a simple routine. You can do it on your own, and use the money saved from not hiring a full-time bookkeeper toward something to grow your business. Just remember to record it in the books.

About the Author: Jacqui MacKenzie is a writer for Straight North, a premier Chicago Internet marketing agency that works with BluePay, a leader in small business credit card processing solutions. To start a discussion on effective interactive marketing strategies, visit the Straight North Facebook page.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans