Author Archive
Google Tool Bar Auto-Fill
Posted by: | CommentsGoogle is good, Google is great, but I resist using every tool they come out with. One I’ve resisted is the Google Toolbar as it takes up real estate at the top of my screen and I wonder what all it will know about me.
However, I was on a training call last week and our instructor mentioned she uses the auto-fill feature from the Google tool bar for filling out web forms. Quickly and effortlessly, the form was filled out with no loss of time or having to stop and look up information.
The download and install took under a minute and I immediately filled out two profiles using the AutoFill function – very easy. You can choose which is the default. You can add a credit card and require a password to access that for web forms. I chose not to do that right now.
Need several ‘identities’ for your web forms – perhaps a business and a personal? No problemo, feel free to make as many profiles as you need.
Of course, the Google Toolbar has many more features. Check them out along with detailed explanations for their uses.
Google makes using the Auto-Fill function of their toolbar even easier by making this very short video.
What are your favorite toolbar features?
Microsoft has updated their tool bar, which I find more useful since I use more of their services. We’ll look at that next week, perhaps along with the Yahoo toolbar.
Facebook Places-Why I Won’t Use It
Posted by: | CommentsThe new Facebook Places was rolled out with a big fanfare August 18th. It’s a 
location based ‘service’ whereby you can use a smart phone (there’s an iPhone app-other smart phone users will need to go to http://touch.facebook.com. The places function works if you have a GPS enabled device. It worked on two of my laptops that ‘know’ my location.
I saw a video from Facebook proclaiming the satisfaction you’ll receive from checking in when you get to various locations. They say that sharing your location with friends enriches your Facebook experience and your life because all this sharing is what Facebook is all about—right?? Do we really need Facebook to do this for us?
You Must Change Your Privacy Settings To Deactivate Places
I have no intention of using Places, so I really didn’t pay much attention to the roll-out—that is until I heard that all Facebook users are automatically opted in to Places. I should have known – whenever something new is rolled out, the settings are left wide open and it’s our responsibility to check our privacy settings.
When I say ‘opted in’, that doesn’t mean that FB knows where you are and is publishing it without your knowledge. You have to ‘check in’ to a place. (see illustration below.) The FB default is that when you check in, it shows your location to ‘Everyone’. It’s up to you to go in to your privacy settings and change it (if you wish). I clicked on the ‘Places I check in to’ and changed mine to ‘Only Me’. There is not an option to turn it off, but the only me setting makes it as private as you can get. I did this so I could experiment with how it works.
Then notice the “Include me in ‘people here now’ after I check in” section below. The ‘Enable’ box is checked (the default). If you leave this box checked, then anybody who visits a location you’ve check in at can potentially view that you’ve been there before.
The other setting you’ll want to review is ‘Friends can check me into Places’ , then your ‘friends’ can check in to a place and then go crazy adding other people as being there with them. I saw on a friend’s location that she and 21 of her friends were at a hair salon all at the same time! It can be fun and silly, or it could be done to embarrass someone by putting them in a place they’re not know to frequent.
While looking into Places for this article I found Lifehacker’s short video on how to change your Facebook Privacy settings. Take a look at this if you’d rather have visual instruction on how to adjust your settings.
Custom Settings
Facebook does allow for very granular custom settings. For example, from within your privacy settings, click on the ‘custom settings’ and you can really go to town and exclude or include certain people for Places (or other FB services). This is grand and glorious, however, you can spend a lot of time getting this set up. And it must be done for each privacy setting. What a pain.
Why I won’t Use Places
- I really doubt that my friends have time to be continually checking FB to see where I (or others) am.
- Places might be handy for a densely populated area with many locations/destinations close to each other, but where I live, that’s not the case.
- Do I really want to take the time to log into FB and do the check-in thing? Even two or three times a day might get to be tedious after a couple of days.
- Depending on our settings, our actions and locations can be seen by lots of folks. Do all those people need to know when I’m not home so they can come over to my house. Do you really trust all those people we say are our ‘friends’
- Think of how the marketers are salivating over how they will market to those using Places
- That old ‘creepy’ factor that lots of people like to mention.
How To Use Facebook Places
Trying to figure out how to use Facebook Places wasn’t so easy (at least for me). When I did some searches, I found plenty of places that wanted to show me how to change my privacy settings, but no instructions on how to actually use Places.
If you are just getting started and don’t have an iPhone app, just follow the instructions below:
- Point your browser to http://touch.facebook.com.
- Tap the Places tab.
- When you are prompted to share your location, tap “Share Location.”
Then if you need more help (and I did), just check out the Facebook Places Help as it goes into detail and explains what certain things do.
What have your experiences been with Places – would like to see your comments.
How To Track & Organize Tasks, Collaborate & Get Things Done
Posted by: | CommentsFinding the ultimate in how to manage and share tasks has occupied my thoughts, and I’ve spent some time doing research on ‘the best way’ to accomplish this.I thought I’d share my findings.
Web Based Task Systems
There are dozens of web-based tools to list our tasks. Here are a few to get you started: Jott, OmniFocus, Things, Remember the Milk and Reqall, I used Jott while it was free and it was pretty nifty. I just signed up for Remember The Milk and was looking through its features and benefits. But I really don’t know enough about either right now to recommend them or not.
Mail Based Task Systems
Yahoo – no task feature.
Live/Hotmail – no task feature.
Gmail – very rudimentary task feature. A box pops up and you can write things in it and check them off or forward to someone in an email. That’s about it – no date reminders, no color coding.
Outlook – the tasks are feature-rich with options to forward them as an email, a text, custom code, custom date reminder, option to make a task into a meeting request, prioritize them and more.
Outlook with Exchange – all the above plus you have the option to share your tasks with an assistant, so they can help manage your task list. The assistant can add to them, mark them as completed, change the due date, etc.
Paper Based Task Systems
Getting Things Done, by David Allen, is very popular with both the paper and electronic crowd. They have paper products if that is your preference.
Franklin Covey – they’ve been around for years and have a great paper-based system. I’ve not heard very good reviews on their digital system though.
Daytimer – another respected paper-based planning system that people have used successfully for years.
Notebook/Journal/Notepad – here we get down to the low-tech end of things.
The Winner Is…
Maybe you’ve stayed with me this far thinking that I’m going to reveal which method is best and what will solve your problems, make you super-efficient and never forget anything again. You’re right! The simple answer is…whatever works best for you. What a cop-out, you’re thinking!! Actually, people like David Allen of Getting Things Done, and Stever Robbins, from the Get-It-Done-Guy, have both said to do what works best. So the right answer is different for everyone.
Think about it – you have a certain way you arrange your desk, your supplies, your closet. There’s no right way to do it, you arrange things so you’ll know where they are and so its convenient for you. Why wouldn’t keeping track of your tasks be the same way? For me, using my trusty composition notebook works great. Although technically gifted and love to hear about and try different pieces of software, for my master to do list, it goes on paper. It’s not the only system I use. I use paper in conjunction with technology. For meetings, calls, webinars, those go on the calendar with a reminder set. For recurring items – those go on my Outlook calendar as well. That’s what works for me, so why change it?
I have a dear friend who is terribly disorganized and hasn’t submitted an expense report in years (can’t keep track of receipts), When I asked him how he keeps track of things, I still remember my jaw dropping when he pulled out a torn piece of paper from his shirt pocket and said, ‘here it is’. That torn piece of paper contained the information he needed for the day and it works for him (he’s still flourishing at his job).
The important thing is to get tasks from your head into a system where they can be captured and not forgotten. Perhaps you send an email or a text to yourself or an assistant, perhaps you jot it down in a notebook you carry with you. It’s important to collect them and then it’s important to review them on a regular basis in order to get them done. Have your list with you – my notebook is right by my monitor so I can see at a glance what is left to be done and what needs to be moved forward to the next day.
Everyone needs a system they can trust, fits their style and allows productivity. It’s not the same for everyone. If you have a system you’ve used that’s paper based but people are telling you to get digital, ignore them and use what works for you.
I’d like to hear your methods or of your journey to getting organized. Please leave a comment.
Backup Outlook 2010 & How To Restore An Earlier Version
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I’ve been using Microsoft Outlook 2010 since it was released and really like the interface. There are so many features that I’ll not experience them all. This article will show you how to do a backup of your Outlook 2010 (it’s definitely different), as well as show you how to restore a previous .pst or other Microsoft office document file from an earlier time period.
Export Your Outlook File To A Backup
The old familiar export/import commands used with Outlook 2007 and earlier are gone. I looked and looked for how to export my .pst file and found it doing a web search. So I wanted to post this in case someone else goes looking.
Click on the ‘File’ tab and roll down to ‘Open’ (yes, not intuitive at all).Then select ‘Import’.
Then things started looking familiar with the Import and Export Wizard familiar interface coming up next. Since I was backing up, I selected ‘Export to a file’ and then at the next screen selected ‘to an Outlook .pst file’.
Then the next screen is where you select your inbox and subfolders (if you want them).
Then you can choose to rename the generated name of the backup and also choose where you want your backup. Since it’s a backup, it’s probably a good idea to NOT store it alongside your current .pst file. Now your backup is complete.
Microsoft Outlook PST Backup Tool NOT Available for 2010
When I was researching how to backup Outlook 2010, I found several sources that said that Microsoft’s downloadable .pst backup tool was not available for Outlook 2010. Hopefully, they will have one at some point. They do point out that there are backup tools available built right into Windows 7 that can help with that.
When Things Go Very Wrong-Restore An Earlier Version
I’ve heard of people losing some of their Outlook mail folders and always wondered how it could happen. Sometimes, they are moved inadvertently, sometimes accidentally deleted, sometimes it’s a mystery! Well, it happened to me! I noticed that some client and other folders directly under my Inbox were missing recently. I thought somehow I’d moved them and I’d be able to find them.
The next day, I did an extensive search throughout my various folders and email accounts I have coming into Outlook 2010 – no luck! I started doing some web searches to see what others said about it. I was going to try something, but wanted to make a backup first. That’s when I found out how to backup my .pst file with the above instructions.
I knew my folders were there on a certain date, but how to get that date back? Well, Windows 7 and Vista (not sure about XP), have a very handy restore feature. To get to it, simply go to the file (or even a folder), in Windows Explorer, right-click on the file and a box will pop up with many options. Select ‘Restore previous versions’ and the below box will pop up. Then select the file you want to restore.
Warning – your later file will be overwritten with the file you’re restoring and this action can not be undone. So be sure it’s what you want to do, or save your current file as a different name and put it somewhere else.
So I selected the Outlook file from the last date I knew they were there. Now, I did lose all my emails for a couple of days. However, I did make a copy of my .pst file just in case I have a need to retrieve it. To do that, I’d make another email account, import the file and get the ones I wanted, then I could delete that account.
How Can I Be Sure I Can Restore From An Earlier Point
This is actually a setting that is defaulted to be set as below, so you don’t need to worry about turning this setting on.
From Windows 7 Help Section – Previous versions are automatically saved as part of a restore point. If system protection is turned on, Windows automatically creates previous versions of files and folders that have been modified since the last restore point was made. Typically, restore points are made once a day. If your disk is partitioned or if you have more than one hard disk on your computer, you need to turn on system protection for the other partitions or disks. Previous versions are also created by Windows Backup when you back up your files.
The restoration of previous versions of files also works with any Microsoft document. So if you updated a document and wished you hadn’t, go to the latest version of the file in Windows Explorer and right-click and restore an earlier version.
This is a handy tip to remember.
Link my Windows Live IDs-Fast Account Switching
Posted by: | CommentsIn this post, I’ll show you how to link more than one Windows Live ID for fast and easy switching from one
account to another. I have two Live IDs and some others I manage. It is so nice to be able to switch from one account to another to check on something or complete a task without having to sign out and sign in again. With the Windows Live ID linking, you sign in once and manage all the accounts you’ve set up.
I’ve blogged recently about some of the new Microsoft Live Wave 4 services. You can get the Live Essentials Wave 4 here. But you don’t have to have it to do the linked IDs.
To get started, go to home.live.com and sign in with one of your Windows IDs. Then at the upper right of the screen, click on your name and you’ll see a drop down – select ‘Options’. You’ll then be taken to the screen you see here with all your options. Of course you’ll want to select ‘Linked IDs’
Next, you’ll see the Manage linked IDs and you’ll click on the ‘add linked ID’ and then simply fill in your information, accept the terms, if you haven’t already, and you’re up and running.
Now that you have all your IDs set up, in order to switch, simply click on your name in the upper right part of the screen, you’ll see a drop down with all your IDs listed, simply roll down and select one of them and you’ve just switched accounts – painlessly.
Upgrade Your Live/Hotmail Email Account
Many people don’t know there’s an option to get ad-free mail. I just upgraded my account – it’s $19.99/year and with it you get:
- 10GB of total Windows Live Mail space
- ability to send larger attachments
- account is exempt from expiration policy
- no ads!
It seemed to me that the ads had gotten larger and more intrusive, so decided to do the upgrade. Here’s the link if you’d like to upgrade.
5 Reasons To Be In The Cloud
Posted by: | CommentsEveryone talks about the cloud – many of us are taking steps to transition there, some of us are already there. I’ve got a mix – I heavily use the cloud for collaboration, storage and personal satisfaction. I’m not quite ready to put everything there, but it is convenient and reassuring. Here are my top 5 reasons to be In The Cloud…
1. Anywhere Access
This is huge for most of us. How convenient is it to be able to log into all your email accounts, your files and folders, be able to share pictures, write a blog post, revise a document for work and send to a colleague? All of this and more is available right now. As soon as I offload pictures from my camera, I try to immediately publish them to my Microsoft Live Photo Gallery. Then I can access them from anywhere and send out a link.
2. Offsite Backup Included
We all need to backup our stuff. We constantly hear it from all the talk show hosts, don’t we? Do you do it? Most of us have our stash of stuff first on our local computers – right? When a decision is made to upload our data to the clouds, that means we now have 2 copies-less stress and we’ve got a backup. In addition to cloud storage, I also strongly urge everyone to use a backup service like Carbonite or Mozy. It’s also a good idea to have a copy of your most important things on an external drive. Redundancy is good.
3. The Mobile Employee/Entrepreneur – No Location Restrictions
Some companies are forward thinking enough to allow employees the freedom to work from various locations, maybe not even in the same city, maybe they are in the office a few days a week. The Entrepreneur with a small business can appear as if she’s in her office keeping up with work and tasks all the while doing so from some exotic location.
4. Not Tied to Software – Reduced Cost
Let’s face it, most of us need some kind of word processing, email and most likely spreadsheet and presentation software. There’s a flavor for everyone. I’m very excited about the new Microsoft Office Web Apps and how I can create, save, retrieve and share documents all from the cloud. Microsoft is also working on an Enterprise version for collaborating and exchange email in the cloud. If you like Google Docs (not as robust in my opinion), you can use that. There’s also OpenOffice, Zoho, and even IBM has its Lotus Notes software.
5. Collaboration
As a Virtual Assistant, my clients look to me to find the best ways to share information and work together efficiently and effectively. In the past 3 years, more and smarter ways have been developed and will continue to develop. Again, there are many choices/tools out there. You can look at my archives on calendar collaboration, using Microsoft Office Web Apps and go elsewhere to research other tools. With cloud services getting better, secure and easily accessible, being in the cloud is essential. Remember all the fuss about ‘The Wave’? Maybe there are lots of folks out there using it, but I just don’t hear about it much anymore.
Being in the cloud means, theoretically, we’re always available. Having balance between work and home/personal has been a hot topic for years now. But figuring all of that out is another column, probably more than one!
What are your top reasons for being in the cloud – sound off here!
Erase Files Securely From Your Desktop-EraserDrop Portable
Posted by: | CommentsDo you ever need to securely and forever delete files—make them unrecoverable? I just discovered EraserDropPortable. I’ve used several programs for erasing hard drives, like Eraser, from Source Forge or Darik’s Boot And Nuke. But for getting rid of files and folders, I didn’t have anything.
EraserDrop Portable was developed by John Hiller (he developed a Firefox Portable App), and is part of a suite of portable apps. So this app can be downloaded to a memory stick and used from machine to machine, or you can install to your local drive and use it from there.
What It Does
It securely erases files and folders. Just drag and drop to the icon you’ll see on your desktop after installation. Then you choose what method of erasing you want it to perform – from a 1-pass to Gutman. You’ll get a message when it’s finished telling you what it did and if there were any problems.
In addition to securely erasing your files and folders, you can also tell it to erase the free space on your drive. What’s free space and why would I need to erase it? Reading up on this, I’m finding that when/if you delete files by putting them in the recycle bin, they are deleted, but still recoverable. By using EraserDrop Portable’s wipe free space, this shreds and makes unrecoverable all that data previously deleted. I haven’t done this one yet, although I’m sure it’s OK as the documentation says that only free space is overwritten, not my files!
Download, Install & Start
There’s a link in the first paragraph for the download. I had some problems with the install. I clicked on the .exe and it started like all other installs start, but when it got to the directory to install to, it didn’t choose to put it in my Programs folder. Instead, I got the box below with no destination folder selected.
It took me a couple
of tries to find a folder it liked – it wouldn’t let me put it in the Program Files folder, instead, I chose a subfolder and then when the install was finished, I simply moved the folder up a level so it can be found within the Program Files folder.
The directions say to find the folder and click on the app icon to start the program. I did this a couple of times and it looked like something was starting, but I never saw anything. I went back![image[11]](http://extremevirtualsupport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/image11.png "image[11]")
and read the instructions again and it said a little icon would appear on my desktop. Well, it was there, but I really just didn’t notice it for awhile because it was so small. So look for the little icon that’s below with the red line through it. It seems to appear at the top left of any application I’m using.You can right-click on the icon and change the picture or hide it.
In my research, I found other shredding and deleting programs that do the same things. I feel good about this one because it came from Source Forge, a respected name and offers great, free, open-source software.
How To Add A Facebook Badge To Your Website
Posted by: | CommentsLast October, I wrote about how to add a Facebook Fan Page to your website. Since then, many things have changed and been updated, so I thought I’d update my post to show what Facebook has available in July of 2010.
A few months ago, Facebook changed their terminology as it relates to ‘Fan’ pages. Instead of ‘Fan’, they now say we ‘Like’ a particular page. I still prefer ‘Fan’ to ‘Like’, but we’ll work with what we have.
At any rate, Facebook has added several types of badges available to put on your website. You can see below I’ve highlighted the Page Badge and it defaulted to a page that I’m an admin for. Then, you’ll be presented with 3 options – Blogger, TypePad or Other. I use WordPress, so I clicked the ‘Other’ button and copied and pasted the code it gave me into a widget in my sidebar. It’s as simple as that. Of course, the graphic has a hyperlink where someone can click and be taken to your page. Or they can simply choose to click the ‘Like’ link and stay on your site.
Another way to add a badge is right from your Page site. You do have to be an administrator in order to get the code. Click on the ‘Edit Page’ link after you get to your Page and then look way over to the right side and all the way down the page and you’ll see the below.
To take a quick look at the other badges…The Profile Badge will show your current profile picture and a link to your Page.
The Like Badge is for choosing one of the pages you’re a ‘Fan’ of and highlighting that page with a small badge on your site.
The Photo Badge puts up to 8 photos (random) from your photo albums on your website. I’m assuming they rotate, but I don’t know for sure.
Social Plug-Ins
In addition to the above Badges, Facebook has made it easy to get a number of Social Plug-Ins to put on your website.
Looking at these Plug-Ins, it seems like there’s a lot of information that can be put out for everyone to see, so check into the help section of Facebook so you will be aware of expectation of privacy. When you first get to this site, you’ll see several links (you’ll have to click about 3 times), to get to the place where Facebook explains, in detail, what is exposed. There’s even a video you can watch.
Help Center & Other Resources
Since Facebook is always changing something, refer to their Help Center for what’s new, what they’re calling things and how to utilize it for your business or just personal use.
Do know that if you have a hosted WordPress account (you have wordpress in your url), inserting badges and plug-ins won’t work for you. I found it only works in the self-hosted wordpress.
I like Duct Tape Marketing for small businesses. They have some great resources – both free and paid. Here’s a free Video on Facebook for Small Business from Duct Tape Marketing. It’s about an hour long.
Facebook for Business from John Jantsch on Vimeo.
Windows Live Mail – Wave 4
Posted by: | CommentsWindows Hotmail, or Live Mail, is being upgraded. Although I downloaded Windows Live Essentials – Wave 4 Beta, my Live mail hasn’t changed yet. It’s being rolled out region by region. I’ve gone through a couple other mail upgrades, but I think with this one, we’ll have some real enhancements. Although I don’t have the new Live mail yet, I have some screenshots Microsoft has provided to show you what’s coming:
- Smart Screen Technology (new & improved spam filter)
- Mail sorting/viewing options
- View Office documents in your browser – and you don’t have to have Office installed
- Integrate Gmail, Yahoo Plus, AOL mail & POP mail in your Live/Hotmail account
- Contact duplicate eliminator
Smart Screen Technology (Spam Filter)
This is something I’m hoping really works. All mail I receive is verified by this Smart Screen. It’s supposed to be smart enough to figure out if an email I get is from a spam source AND if I’m thinking about opening up a particular email that’s marked as spam, it’ll tell me in a message at the top of my email. It warns that the source has been marked as ‘spammy’, and to be careful about opening it.
Have you ever told your mail client that something is not spam, but you continue to find messages from that sender in your spam folder? We’ll see if this is fixed.
One other important thing about the new spam filter – after 10 days, anything in the spam folder is automatically deleted. So when you do get the new Hotmail/Live Mail, watch and train your email diligently and be sure to check your spam folder regularly.
Mail Sorting and Viewing Options
Both Outlook and Gmail have enhanced sorting options for your mail. You can choose to view messages by conversation, or threads. Now Live Mail/Hotmail has this feature as well. Threading/conversation view was a ‘big thing’ when Gmail first came out, so adding this feature was a smart move for Microsoft.
View Office Documents In Your Browser
With the new Live Mail, office documents can be opened and viewed without having to open Office on your computer. This is because of the new Microsoft Web Apps recently rolled out. Simply click on the icon and the document will open up in your browser. What I was reading didn’t say, but I’m assuming that you could revise and save the document to your Office Docs in the clouds if you choose to.
Enhanced Picture Sharing Via Live/Hotmail -
Sending and sharing pictures will be easier and more elegant with the new mail. When uploading photos, do remember to set your permission level after each upload – the default is to share with everyone.
Integrate Gmail, Yahoo Plus Mail and POP accounts
With Live/Hotmail, you’ve had the ability to bring in all these accounts to one place for some time, but they are still promoting that. They did not mention that you can also add POP accounts into Hotmail/Live Mail. Here’s an article I wrote that tells how this works. It should be noted that you must have the Yahoo Plus mail in order to import it into Hotmail/Live Mail. The free Yahoo mail does not import.
Manage Your Contacts
A great feature of Live/Hotmail is the ability to clean up your contact list. Perhaps you have imported contacts from other mail accounts or sources and you have multiples of some people. Simply click on contacts and then click on the drop-down ‘Manage’ button and choose to clean up your contacts. You’ll be presented with options for all duplicates found.
This feature is in Outlook (but harder to manage). I didn’t see it in either Gmail or Yahoo mail. I know Plaxo offers it, but it is a paid service there.
Summary
I think there’s a lot to look forward to when we all get the new Mail. I like the interface much better than Gmail, having the easy access to my photos, documents and Microsoft Web Apps is very useful for me. One thing about Hotmail on the web are the large, annoying ads that are on my home page. When they flash and change, it’s even more annoying. I’m considering upgrading to the $20/year premium mail where I won’t have to see those. Yahoo’s ads are rather bothersome too. I think Gmail has the least offensive ads and they are smaller.
