For Free Long Distance Calling, Skype’s the Limit

We were working on an important proposal just at the time when my business partner, Dave Nicholson, and his wife Judy were scheduled to travel to Mexico on vacation. Since Dave’s job is to keep me from giving away the farm, it was important for us to collaborate on this proposal no matter where in the world he happened to be at the time. So we decided it was a good time to try out some long distance Internet telephone usage.

We agreed ahead of time when Dave would be available for a call, and when I contacted him I found him (naturally) in a bar. Judy was using his laptop at the time, so she informed Dave that his computer was “ringing”.

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Save Time and Money with a Content Management System

If a website is going to be successful, fresh up-to-date content is the key but updating your website can quickly become a hassle if you don’t have a content management system (CMS) in place. You could rely on your web design firm but that can become costly, and cutting out the middle man is always faster.

A simple content management system allows you to easily update your website’s copy, add news releases and update images. More advanced CMS will allow you to manage files, events and send e-mail newsletters.

Finding the right solution to suit your needs is a challenge in itself. Time and care should be taken in selecting your CMS. For more information on things to consider when choosing your CMS:

10 Things To Consider When Choosing The Perfect CMS

and for more technical considerations:

Too many content management systems

Have any good or bad experiences with a content management system you’d like to share?

Mapping a USB Drive to a Folder

When you plug in a USB pen drive Windows automatically assigns the next available drive letter. This can become a little confusing when you are dealing with multiple devices. The following are instructions on how to map a USB device to a folder:

1. Create a subfolder under “My Documents” called USB;
2. Under the USB folder create a folder for each USB device you will be mapping;
3. Attached the USB device to your workstation;
4. Run diskmgmt.msc (Press Windows+R and type diskmgmt.msc);
5. Right click on the USB device;
6. Select “Change Drive Letter and Paths”;
7. Click “Add”;
8. Browse to the folder you created in step 2;

How to Use a Bookmarked Text in the Footer of a Document

1. Select the text you wish to be displayed in the footer;
2. Click the “insert” tab;
3. Click the “Bookmark” icon;

4. Enter the name for the bookmark and click add;

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Holiday Mixture – Remix

Last year for the holidays I rallied the troops at my office to see if we could come up with tips and trick that you can use every day when using technology and we came up with quite a number of suggestions.

Once again our staff gave generously and here is this year’s list for you to unwrap:

1. Always be skeptical of an email’s origin, regardless of whether or not it’s from a known sender. In particular, do not open attachments that end in .ZIP or .EXE unless you are sure of what these files are and from whom they came.
2. If you inadvertently delete a file, chances are you’ll be able to find it in the Recycle Bin.
3. Speed up your computer by “defragmentation”.  You can find this by double-clicking “My Computer” and then right-clicking on the disk drive, opening the “Tools” tab, and choosing “Properties”.
4. Make sure your laptop data is backed up in case you damage or lose it. You’d be surprised at the tales of woe I hear all the time. One thing to consider is a small business server, where several people’s files are centralized and backed up. You can synchronize your laptop with the server which means any changes you make on the laptop will be done on the server. This may be cheaper and easier than you think.
5. When creating PowerPoint presentations, remember “Lucky number 7”. Put no more than seven words per bullet, and seven bullets per slide.


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