Archive for Thoughts
Reflections on 2011 & Top 10 Posts
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Lynn with Sophie & Duffy (L to R)
Time to reflect on 2011 as it relates to my business and blog. I’ve been blogging weekly since May of 2007 on technology, organization, gadgets and how-tos. My goal in doing this is to bring readers to my site who are computer enthusiasts, small business owners or entrepreneurs. Once they are here, they do like to visit my Home Page (as you can see below, it’s the 2nd most visited page on my site. A secondary goal is to keep myself up to date with new software and gadgets coming out. To do this, I’m an avid tech pod/netcast listener. I also subscribe to various tech blogs and troll those headlines for interesting tidbits. Thirdly, a blog is a great way to drive traffic to your website—as long as it’s updated frequently with great, relevant content. I’ve gained one client because of my blog – he contacted me out of the blue one day. That was pretty cool.
Each year I like to publish the top 10 articles most read on my blog – so below are the top 10 and the number of views they had. Number one has always been how to sync your Windows Calendar with Google Calendar & Outlook. In fact, it’s number one every day! That means there are a lot of people out there who are trying to get their calendars and thus their lives organized by using technology. Syncing calendars seems to get a bit easier each year with Microsoft, Google and Apple trying to play a bit nicer with each other – at least in calendaring.
As we all get ready for 2012, take time to do a bit of planning and goal setting. Once you’ve set your goals, then you’ll need a plan to accomplish them. Just saying, ‘I’d like to get 2 more ideal clients and refresh my website” doesn’t mean it’ll get done. Write down a time to start and finish and then write down the weekly steps to attain them.
Thanks for being a reader, or if this is your first time here, I hope you’ll look around a bit.
The Best of 2010
Posted by: | CommentsAs 2010 draws to an end, I’d like to thank my readers for inspiring me to keep writing week after week. It’s heartening to look at those of you from Facebook who ‘Like’ my blog and to check my stats from time to time.
Last year I did a “Best Of” listing of my top posts and number of views for each post, so I thought I’d start a little tradition an
d continue this year.
There must be a huge number of people out there seeking the holy grail of calendaring as the top post was how to sync your Microsoft Outlook Windows calendar with Google calendar and Windows Live Calendar. I need to resolve to do more postings on calendaring in 2011.
Thanks again and to all a very techie New Year!
I, Me or Myself?
Posted by: | CommentsThis week I’m going to take a break from tech and write about a pet grammar peeve of mine—the misuse of the word ‘myself’ in everyday conversations and in writing. It’s an epidemic! What’s going on with people? I’ll give you my opinion. Keep reading. 
I don’t think of myself as a grammar expert and I can’t always quote a rule as to why something is grammatically right or wrong, In fact, I had to go and research why I know it’s wrong to say something like this: “If you have any questions, please contact, Bob, Joe or myself”. What’s the deal with the misuse of ‘myself’? It’s my opinion that most people don’t know whether to use the pronoun, ‘I’, or ‘me’, so they decide they’ll ‘play it safe’ and use ‘myself’. Another reason could be the speaker/author believes they sound more intelligent or academic. Wrong.
The Research
I’m not the only one on a soapbox about this – I found both the Grammarphobia blog as well as Grammar Girl, had both written columns on the misuse of ‘myself’.
They explain that ‘myself, herself, himself’, are reflexive pronouns’. You can look at the definition here. Instead of defining it, I think it’s easier looking at an example:
The cat washed herself carefully with her tongue. ‘Cat’ is the noun in the sentence and ‘herself’ is the reflexive pronoun. A reflexive pronoun refers back to the previously named subject (the cat) of the sentence.
According to experts, reflexive pronouns should be used for only two purposes:
- To place an emphasis on the subject. ‘Yes, I drove to town myself.’
- To refer to a subject already named. ‘She’s too hard on herself.’
Pronouns, like I, he, she and me, are our friends. Don’t be afraid to use them. Here’s a simple way to know whether to use ‘I’, or ‘me’ in a sentence. Just take out the other people’s names in the sentence and use only the pronoun. For example:
Dave, Nancy, Sarah and I decided to go to a movie last night. If you take out Dave, Nancy & Sarah and read the sentence, it’s correct. If you had ‘myself’ instead of ‘I’, it would sound wrong and would be wrong!
Thanks to my husband who actually gave me the idea for this topic, although unintentional. My little rant is over and I feel better now. Feel free to write with your grammar pet peeve.
Digsby Review- Faster & Feature Rich
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Digsby
If you’re a social maven with multiple email accounts, social media sites and IM accounts, give Digsby a try. If you use more than one computer, get a Digsby account and then you’ll never be parted from all your networking sites. Just sign into your Digsby account (requires a software install), and find out what’s happening across all your social networks.
Digsby rolled out a huge update in June, 2009. They promise they are lighter weight (consume about 50% less resources), and they’ve fixed many bugs.
I’ve had it on my work laptop for many months and just decided to install it on the family computer with the Windows 7 RC. It seems to be really snappy with Windows 7 on my older Dell.
Digsby seems to be covering all their bases with the social networks, email & IM. Here’s a list of what can be aggregated for you:
Social Networking
Facebook MySpace Twitter LinkedIn
Gmail Yahoo Mail Live/Hotmail AOL Mail IMAP POP
IM
Yahoo MSN Google Talk AIM ICQ Jabber
What’s To Like
- As long as I have Digsby installed, I can simply sign in once and have instant access to all my social media accounts
- With the addition of LinkedIn, Twitter, POP & IMAP mail, I can truly have everything aggregated in one desktop sidebar.
- I like the ability to turn on and off notifications – I usually leave them off as it’s too distracting to see so many pop-ups. But if you’re waiting for a particular message, it would be helpful.
- It is more lightweight on my systems – good news since I’ve got multiple things running at all times.
- Ability to post updates right from Digsby. I save some screen real estate and resources because I don’t have to log into LinkedIn or Twitter to see what’s happening or to post an update. This is a big plus.
Not To Like
I didn’t care for all the add-ons being pushed on me during the install. The Freeze search, the video player and maybe something else. For the unsuspecting person, I’m sure they just hit accept for all these things and then wonder where it came from. I wish this could be eliminated – but perhaps this is how they keep it free.
Still Figuring Out
POP Mail. Specifically I’m looking at getting an Outlook mail account from one computer to work on a different computer. I understand that if I have Outlook installed on both computers, but with different email accountson each computer, I can’t pull up an email. However, I can view a list of emails currently on that computer with a short preview.
Reading the Digsby forums, people were asking for Digsby to support accessing their webmail instead of a desktop client (like Outlook). They said that they had added this feature, so I looked in the advanced settings and saw that there is a place to cut and paste your webmail URLs (one for in-box and one for the compose box). I tried this, however, it crashed my Firefox browser! I got a Java applet error.
I will try it again and try it with IE to see if I get a different result. If any Digsby users out there are reading this – would like to get your experiences. I’ll post an update next week after I work on it more.
Estate Planning, Living Trusts & Alternatives
Posted by: | CommentsPlanning for when I die is something I’ve procrastinated for years now. Well, I take that back. My husband and I quickly put a will together before a trip out of the country a couple years ago. We wanted to be sure our daughter would be cared for in the way we intended in case we didn’t come back.
I decided it was time to do a little research on living trusts. I wanted an instrument that would side-step the public and sometimes long and expensive probate process. Interesting to note that while researching, I didn’t find any ‘lay-people’ blogging about this – seemed only attorneys or people selling products were talking about it.
There are a multitude of on-line resources, but I also got a great book from Nolo, Make Your Own Living Trust, written by Denis Clifford (also available at your local library). The book comes with a CD containing all the forms you need should you decide to tackle this project yourself. If you complete the process on your own, it’s probably a good idea to have an attorney, or other professional certified in estate planning to look it over.
For those of you who want an on-line process, you could try either Nolo’s or LegalZoom’s websites where they guide you through the process, asking pertinent questions. They will figure out for you which forms are applicable and after all questions are answered, you can decide whether or not you want to purchase their package. Not quite sure why one would want to invest a chunk of time to do this before deciding to purchase the service or not. Nolo charges $170 and LegalZoom has packages from $219 and up. I didn’t choose this route, so I can’t review the process.
It helps me to make a ‘Pros & Cons’ list, so here we go…(this column is my opinion and conclusions after reading the book and on-line sources, I’m not a lawyer)
Pros of a Living Trust
- The grantor, or trustor (you), have complete control over the trust and are able to make changes to your living trust at any time
- Private – upon death, the details of your trust remain private, no court appearances, no probate and no attorney to probate a will for you. The successor trustee (person you name to take over upon death), executes your trust for you. The successor trustee and beneficiary can be the same person.
- Immediate – there is not a waiting period after your death. Your wishes can be carried out right away
- Out of state real estate can be transferred without probate (this is usually the case according to the author)
- No trust recordkeeping is required of you during the lifetime of the trust. No special forms need to be filled out for the IRS, etc. Keep doing what you were doing.
- You have the ability to name someone to manage trust proceeds for a young beneficiary (Nolo defines young as up to age 35). This is not the same as appointing a guardian-more on this later
- Ability to transfer LLCs and closely held corporations into your trust (consult the by-laws of your entity to accomplish this)
Cons of a Living Trust, or more aptly, what a living trust won’t do
- It will not reduce taxes owed. The personal estate tax exemption allows a dollar amount of property to pass tax-free, no matter who it is left to. The amount for 2009 is $3.5 M, in 2010 there is no limit (crazy, I know). Then in 2011 it goes to $1M (unless congress extends the repeal). If your estate is over this amount, perhaps an AB Living Trust could work for you. If you fall into this category, you certainly will want to consult with an attorney.
- It can be a tedious process to do all the paperwork necessary to legally change the names of your accounts and real estate to your Living Trust name. As time goes on and you buy and sell property, open and close bank and brokerage accounts….well you see what I mean.
- You have the responsibility for making sure your living trust is up to date and securely filed away and that the right people know the location of your trust.
Other Ways to Avoid Probate
(not a complete list)
I liked this book because the author points out alternatives to a living trust and has questions you ask yourself to see if a living trust is right for you. He went on to mention other ways to avoid probate.
You may or may not know that life insurance and IRAs do not have to be probated.
If you have assets in banks or brokerage houses, there are forms called “Pay On Death”, POD, or Transfer On Death, TOD that will transfer these types of assets directly to your beneficiary. The form is similar to a life insurance beneficiary form. This form is available in all states (except Texas-sorry). If you use these forms, you wouldn’t need to put bank and stock brokerage accounts in a living trust. These are relatively new.
Several states have a similar form available for transferring real estate to a beneficiary upon death. It’s called a transfer-on-death real estate deed and is available in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio and Wisconsin. Hopefully, other states will make this available as time goes on.
What About A Will?
The author also pointed out that in addition to forming a living trust, you will certainly want to have a ‘Back-up Will’. This will (not subject to probate), resides within your living trust and can be used to carry out your wishes for distributing your personal property and effects, i.e. I’ll let my sister have that special Christmas ornament she said I swiped years ago! It’s also used for more serious things like designating a guardian for minor children. You can construct it to cover any property or accounts you left out of the trust, but that belong to you.
Conclusion
We are thinking of using both the Living Trust as well as using the POD and TOD forms to take care of bank and brokerage accounts. Less paperwork. Since we’ll be doing the financial side of things, it would be a good time to fill out a Durable Power of Attorney and some medical directives. Just get it all done.
Here are some resources and further reading:
Why You May Not Need A Living Trust
Standard Legal’s take on ‘Pay On Demand’ vs. Living Trusts
FDIC Coverage for Living Trusts explained by a lawyer
Reached the breaking point yesterday–took the plunge and reformatted my business laptop…life is much brighter today!
Thought
Posted by: | CommentsI”ve learned that it is impossible to teach without learning something yourself.
What I’ve Learned
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve learned that you should hope and work, but never hope more than you work.
What I’ve Learned
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve learned that all the advice and wisdom in the world cannot help you unless you apply it daily in your life.
What I’ve Learned
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve learned that a strong code of ethics is as reliable as a compass.
—from The Complete Live and Learn and Pass It On
