Setting the default mail client to a web-based service

By Sandra Clitter  |  2010/11/07 15:09 Posted in Email Management, Web Tips  |  Comments (0)

Some people in this world actually do NOT use Outlook as their default e-mail client, but rather use Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, or Hotmail.  In fact, I would venture to say that a large portion of the population uses one of these web-based e-mail clients – at least in their private lives.

There is one consistent annoyance when trying to use a web-based e-mail instead of the ubiquitous Outlook (and, with the cost of Office, more and more people are not investing in this tool, opting for the free OpenOffice suite and web-based e-mail)…and that is when you want to click a ‘mail-to’ link on a web-page, and the computer you are on searches and searches and tries to open up Outlook to send the e-mail – regardless of whether or not you even have Outlook installed on that computer.

You end up cursing the computer, freezing it up, or generally frustrated.  RELAX!!!  Help is one the way :-).

There is a wonderful, FREE tool called GMailDefaultMaker (http://gmaildefault.codeplex.com/) that will allow you to set Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail or GMail as your default mail client.  You install it and forget it.  It does NOT take up system resources.  Simply download, install and forget it.  From that point forward, when you click on a ‘mail to’ link on any given web page, your web-based e-mail client will open instead of getting stuck with Outlook trying to open.

For some reason or other, the tool has not gotten a new name, but it should since Gmail isn’t the only web mail that it supports!

I’m published?!?!

By Sandra Clitter  |  2010/11/05 18:53 Posted in Business Processes  |  Comments (2)

As it happens, I love to write.  I’m not necessarily terrific at it, but I love to do it.  I love telling stories.  I wouldn’t mind writing a book, but I have no idea what the subject would be.  I guess that blogs may help the frustrated writer in some respects.  You don’t have an editor redlining you.  You get instant gratification.  The WORLD can see what you’ve written.  That’s all well and good, but no one is necessarily clamoring for my ‘pearls of wisdom’.

Well, imagine my surprise when an article that I’d written on the annoyingly critical, but boring, subject of Cash Flow actually made it to print this month in the November issue of “Construction Business Owner”.  I am thrilled that they thought my musings were worthy of valuable page space.  While I do want to start writing more for ‘real’ publications, I hope that some of the topics about which I get asked to write can be a bit more ‘funner’.

As many of my dear friends and clients who are in the Construction trades know, you can win some of the seemingly best contracts, or get sales on a remarkable number of houses with fabulous upgrades, but unless you can actually finance that construction, you’ll soon be wishing that you had never heard of that job (or those jobs).

Knowing what ‘good’ Cash Management is can be critical to the health and continuity of any business…it doesn’t have to be in the construction trades (though those work with some mighty hefty numbers).  Thinking about it BEFORE accepting a job or a contract is vital.  Make sure before you make that commitment that you’ve thought through how you’re going to pay for it BEFORE YOU GET PAID!!!

These were my thoughts on this scintillating subject as published by “Construction Business Owner” magazine:

http://www.constructionbusinessowner.com/topics/construction-accounting-finance/ensure-cash-flow-in-construction-projects.html

Buddy’s Big Adventure

By Sandra Clitter  |  2010/10/31 20:13 Posted in General, Social Media  |  Comments (0)

Monday was a beautiful day for a walk…really, it was. In fact, one of my house cats, Buddy, decided that it was a good day for a walk, as well, and headed out the front door as I headed into the house loaded down with laptops and shopping bags and no free arms. Not a big deal in many households, but it was in mine (don’t worry, this isn’t a scary story). You see, Buddy is 16 years old and is a house cat in the literal sense…he’s never been allowed outside (he grew up in Manhattan – the closest he’s ever gotten to the outside is the walk from the house to the car while he’s in his carrier). I dropped everything I was carrying on the walk (literally), and scurried around to the other side of the shrubbery, trying to get him before he darted off. What I didn’t realize is that Buddy wasn’t really trying to get away, he was just putting his paw in the proverbial pond and sniffing around to see what was outside his normal realm. I scooped him up (he did look rakish with branches clinging to his coat), hugged him tight and dropped him unceremoniously in the foyer in my house with admonitions to ‘stay where he belonged’. He looked at me, sniffed, and headed to his food bowl. Apparently the ‘great outdoors’ wasn’t all that fearsome or great.

Why on earth is she telling this story, you’re asking? Using a trick that a wonderful newsletter writer (Ellen Fisher, Editor of the Women’s Yellow Pages of Greater Philadelphia http://www.philawyp.com) has demonstrated to me via her eZines (if you want a good laugh at the beginning of every month, I highly recommend that you subscribe), I want to take it back to a business lesson. Really…just bear with me a moment more.

Buddy is 16 in calendar years. He’s an old man. He does NOT like change. When I inherited him upon my father’s death five years ago, he hid under the bed for six months – literally. If I move his food dish to the other side of the kitchen, he wails until it moves back. Change is NOT his friend. Yet…on this one sunny afternoon, he chose to investigate, go outside to a ‘brave new world’, and try something different.

This week, I was at a wonderful program put on by NAWBO Philadelphia (http://www.gonawbophilly.org) on Social Networking. A panel of esteemed bloggers was present to give their thoughts on what Social Media can mean to our businesses. Many of the attendees were (how do I put this politely?) on the north side of 40. There was much fidgeting (literally) and gnashing of teeth (figuratively) as terms such as tweets, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogosphere, tweetdeck, microblogging, etc. rang out around the room. Why? Because it’s uncomfortable, and unknown, and yes, overwhelming. Yes, it’s ‘new stuff’. At a time when most of us are experts in our fields and successfully run our own companies, we have to go back to a virtual kindergarten and learn something totally foreign. Those guys even speak a different language!

I started thinking about the best way to approach this for those of us who are “mature” in years and/or in experience. The answer…just like anything else…don’t try to do it all at once…just like Buddy – take a short stroll, test the waters. You can always go back for more (though that option will NOT be offered to Buddy). Maybe it’s not that bad. It will get less scary the more familiar you get. Take a bite…don’t eat the whole thing at one time. The analogies are endless…its no different with this ‘stuff’…one baby step at a time.

My first step: Set up a Twitter account (eeekkk!!!!). I think that the only way I’ll understand it is to ‘lurk’ for a while and see what it’s all about. Apparently, my name is @sandraclitter…can someone verify that that works?

Be brave…take that first step! You’ve gotten this far…you’re reading this blog…now you can stretch a little further!

Some fun for a Friday Afternoon (absolutely seriously not business related!!)

By Sandra Clitter  |  2010/10/31 20:12 Posted in General  |  Comments (0)

I’m sitting in my office late on a Friday afternoon (post-closing time) waiting for one of my clients to call and say ‘the coast is clear’, so that I can do some off-hours work. While waiting, I decided that I could sift through some of the paper that seems to accumulate on my desk when I’m not looking. While doing this, I came across an Post-It with the single word “Halloween” written on it!

Hmmm…I don’t have anything particular planned for Halloween. I don’t have kids to worry about getting costumes ready for the big night. It’s a Sunday and the World Series will have Game 4 that night, so I didn’t plan anything else. Hmmm…

Then it dawns on me…I wanted to send people that I know a note about a MARVELOUS, INEXPENSIVE ($5.00) and EXTREMELY creative book on Halloween Costumes written by a wonderful woman by the name of Bonnie Neubauer. Bonnie loves games…any sort of games. That includes word games. Over the years, she’s accumulated an assortment of puns (she loves puns that make you groan), so she got industrious and published a downloadable book full of these low/no cost costumes which will make you the life of any party requiring a costume. Maybe you can even wear one to work on the 29th to get into the spirit.

If you want a laugh (or a groan) [even if you don’t need a costume] visit http://www.punnycostumes.com and check out the 252 creative costumes that Bonnie’s thought up for you. Next time I need a costume, I’m digging out my copy of “Punny Costumes” and picking out my favorite pun.

(Somehow, it seemed appropriate to post this on Halloween night while I’m moving previous articles from the LinkedIn discussion to the blog!)

A funny thing happened on the way to my Google search…

By Sandra Clitter  |  2010/10/31 20:10 Posted in Web Tips  |  Comments (11)

Google is an everyday part of my life, as I’m sure that it is for many of you. I use iGoogle for my Home Page (that’s a personalized start-up page on Google, tailored to my specific wants and desires). Its not often that I use ‘classic’ Google. Sometimes I miss some fantastic Google Doodles because my iGoogle page uses the standard Google logo, and doesn’t substitute the Google Doodles.

For some reason, I used the ‘classic’ Google page the other day and was mesmerized by a Google Doodle that was a bunch of bouncing balls. Every time that I moused over the Google logo, the logo disbursed into a bunch of bouncing balls, then as I moused away, they settled back down into the logo. I actually commented on it during the day to a client or colleague…how incredible to have such a recognizable logo that you can afford to ‘mess it up’ on a regular basis. In fact, people COMPETE to mess it up. Now, THAT is brand awareness.

(forgive me, I digress on the way to my ‘real’ point today)

Today I happened upon ‘Google Instant’ which some of you may have noticed if you searched for something using Google yesterday or today…but only if you use the classic home page…not the iGoogle home page. Again, I was ‘out’ of my iGoogle page and on the classic Google home page. A funny thing happened as I started my search…the results appeared directly below what I was typing…I didn’t even have to hit ‘enter’. What’s going on here? Switch back to iGoogle…same old behavior…type the search string, hit enter, get results. Go to the classic Google home page a www.google.com and the behavior is different. What’s up with that?

Of course, I had to search ‘Google Instant’ to find out what was going on. In a nutshell, Google decided that their searches were taking too long (really!?), so in classic Google they have started showing the results underneath the search box as you type. This allows you to scan the results at the same time that you are typing, allowing you to more quickly locate the information you were searching. Google claims that it can save me 2-5 seconds per search (I really didn’t realize that I was wasting so much time!). More astonishing…Google estimates that it will save 3.5 BILLION seconds searching every day – that’s a productivity improvement globally of over 950,000 hours/day! Guess we’ve really been slackers, haven’t we?!

Be careful when relying on Flash for your website

By Sandra Clitter  |  2010/10/31 20:07 Posted in Web Tips  |  Comments (0)

I spent last weekend redoing my website which was only about 9 months old. If you look at it it doesn’t appear to have changed much. The change was to remove Flash from my site and made it strictly an HTML site. Why? There were a couple of reasons. First, because I found Flash very cumbersome and difficult to work in when I wanted to make what I felt were relatively simple adjustments to the site. Second, and perhaps most important, was the fact that Flash does not display on many Smartphones – most notably, the iPhone. So, if someone with an iPhone went to my site, they would get nothing.

Today, articles are appearing saying that Adobe (the maker of Flash) will NOT be releasing a version that will run on iPhones (Apple and Adobe have a long running feud). As portable devices such as various Smartphones (including the iPhone), iPad, etc. become more important in how people reach their information (most particularly the web), this becomes critical when constructing websites.

My recommendation (I believe in renting some of my scars from others and learning from their mistakes), use Flash only sparingly (if at all) on the web…trust me, ‘un-Flashing’ something takes some work!!! Most people aren’t on your website for the ‘glitz’, they are on your site for the content.

Here’s the article about Adobe’s abandonment of the ‘Flash on the iPhone’ project: http://tinyurl.com/y5rspbu

Has your computer ever…

By Sandra Clitter  |  2010/10/31 20:06 Posted in Tech Tips  |  Comments (13)

I could probably complete that line 100 different ways, and someone or someones would answer ‘yes’. We are all too familiar with the quirks of computers. Why does something behave this way on one computer, and that way on another computer? Sometimes the answer is obvious, sometimes not so obvious.

While I enjoy doing presentations (either in person or virtual), I tend to stress on ones that involve my computer, a projector or virtual sharing tool like WebEx or GoToMyPC, and/or Powerpoint. Why? Because something always seems to go wrong. Maybe the setup takes longer than expected. Maybe the projector refuses to display the screen. Maybe my assistant hits a key on my keyboard at an inopportune moment (some of you know that my ‘office assistant’ is a 16 lb. cat who believes that it is her God-given right to sleep across my keyboard whenever she chooses – I know, I know…shut the door to the office with the cat on the outside…got it!). Regardless, ‘stuff happens’. I’m sure that each of you has your own ‘moments’ and stories.

One issue that can happen all too often is that the presentation is going along just fine (maybe you’ve avoided the setup gremlins altogether), and you pause to answer a question, or review a topic in more depth. All of a sudden something catches your eye on the screen. You turn back to look at your computer screen and the photos from the last family camping trip in Yosemite are scrolling across the ‘big screen’. Oops…forgot to turn off screensaver. Or perhaps, the screen has gone black. WHAT THE HECK!!! It was probably the Windows ‘power saver’ settings kicking in to gear.

I just came across a nifty utility that will assist in bypassing such embarrassing moments. It is called ‘Mouse Jiggler’, and it simulates mouse movement, so that your computer thinks that you’re tapping away at the keyboard, and the computer stays ‘awake’. Its a tiny utility that can be downloaded from http://mousejiggler.codeplex.com/. Read about it here: http://tinyurl.com/254abqc. I think that I’m going to like this little guy :-)…I’m hoping it will save me from some embarrassing moments – be they in person or virtual ones!

Is a Paperless Office Possible?

By Sandra Clitter  |  2010/10/31 20:05 Posted in General  |  Comments (0)

I came across an article about “The Paperless Office” the other day (http://tinyurl.com/yersuh2). It’s title is “Is the ‘paperless’ office here at last?”

Hmmm…seems to me that back in the dark ages – when I was just getting into business, and computers were new on the scene – that that was one of the main reasons given for getting a computer! “Get a computer, it will cut down on paper”. “Get a computer, you’ll be able to ditch your filing cabinets”. The list went on and on.

Yet, in the ‘early days’, I think that computers created MORE paper. We saved EVERYTHING a computer printed (and it could print a lot more than anyone could ever put out on a typewriter). We saved the original, and the ‘proof’ that we had entered it into the computer. We printed and kept reports that no one ever looked at (heck, there were probably many reports that no one actually understood).

Fast forward to today…many, many documents are transmitted solely via electronic means. An individual may choose to print out select reports to review the ‘hard-copy’, but more and more, they are reviewed, marked-up, returned – all via electronic mechanisms. No longer do we have to keep every bank statement – we can always recreate it if we need to down the line. Many vendors allow us to sign in to accounts to view invoices precluding the need to keep all of those (stapled to the stub of the check).

In fact, checks themselves are moving towards the obsolete as more and more transactions are completed moving money around electronically. And we no longer get copies of the checks back with our monthly statements.

When I first went into business 12 years ago, I had several filing cabinets – one for personal ‘stuff’, one for the business back-office (invoices, bills, check stubs, etc), and one for client files.

Now, I can’t remember the last time a client gave me a file in printed format. If they try to, I respectfully ask them to e-mail me the file. If they can’t do that (and I have some for whom that is still a challenge), I’ll take it back to the office, scan it, and shred the original.

Today, I have one drawer (rather than 3-4 entire filing cabinets) of a filing cabinet that is used for traditional filing. In fact, now that I think about it, I’ll have to figure out why I have that one. The other drawers seem to be storage space for unused file folders (Pendaflex, anyone?), CD backups of computer data from as long ago as 10 years (those probably don’t even work any more), magazines and newspapers that I want to save (the Philles World Series victory in 2008 seems to be very well represented!), and assorted envelopes (it seems that I can mail almost anything in an appropriately sized envelope).

Perhaps we really ARE at the cusp of the paperless office! It’s taken 30 years, but it does seem possible…ah, yes…now that I think about it, I have one client who has NOT ONE original document in the office. They don’t own a filing cabinet – every document – every single one – is scanned and filed – ELECTRONICALLY! Maybe we’re already there if we put our minds to it.

I think that I’ll go clean out that last file drawer of mine!

OK…I’ve heard of ‘road rage’, but ‘e-mail rage’?

By Sandra Clitter  |  2010/10/31 20:03 Posted in General, Tech Tips  |  Comments (7)

Its the end of a long, difficult day. You’re driving home from the office or a client when this numskull cuts you off or almost sideswipes you. Your blood pressure elevates about 50 points, you try to think of suitable ‘retribution’, you come up with a perfect tongue-lashing (remember, you’re in your car), but by the time you have formulated a rejoinder, the offending car is far enough away that you can’t effectively ‘attack’. We’ve all been there. Substitute a careless pedestrian, ignorant shopper, you get the idea.

What ‘saved us from ourselves’? What kept our tongues in our mouth, or our cars in the proper lane? Oftentimes, it is not self-restraint, but lack of opportunity. By the time we knew HOW we wanted to respond, the opportunity was gone…just because the object of our ire kept moving.

Hmmmm…what does this have to do with e-mail? EVERYTHING!!!! I love this CNN article because it is so appropriate. There are times (and we’ve all had them) where we felt attacked via an e-mail. We’re blind-sided by a comment (direct or indirect) in an electronic missive. As the author says, “When was the last time you were driving down the digital highway and felt like you were shot by words?”.

I can think of an instance just last week where this happened to me. E-mail affords us the apparently ‘perfect’ opportunity to respond – often quickly and without thinking things through. The best idea offered? “Back away from the computer”.

Stop. Think. Compose the e-mail response but do NOT hit ‘send’. Sleep on it.

E-mail allows us to ‘knee-jerk’ react. That reaction can just escalate an issue which may (or may not) go away on its own. Imagine if all the people who cut us off on the road (or otherwise maligned us – either intentionally or unintentionally) were as ‘accessible’ as those who ‘attack’ us via e-mail? The world could get ugly – quickly.

Its good food for thought. Just because we have the ability to respond quickly to an e-mail doesn’t necessarily mean that we SHOULD respond quickly. Take your time. Get some perspective. Allow your blood pressure to return to normal. Then, and only then, respond in a manner that allows you to maintain your professionalism and your relationships.

http://tinyurl.com/2vjctq9

Be careful when applying security/anti-virus updates – make sure they are legitimate before clicking!

By Sandra Clitter  |  2010/10/31 20:00 Posted in Tech Tips  |  Comments (0)

Everyone has heard about various internet scams – like getting $1m from some Nigerian if only you hand over your bank account numbers – but increasingly, the scammers are getting smarter, and looking more ‘authentic’, and getting well-educated professionals to fall for their scams. Before you say, “Sandy, I wouldn’t be that stupid…”, make sure you’re aware of the current ploys that they are using.

I probably would have ignored this article (http://tinyurl.com/29tpjsg) a week ago, but two separate people – people that I respect – got ‘snagged’ by scams such as this. I’ll give you the examples…

In the first, a good friend and colleague of mine (a CPA) and I were chatting on the phone about an issue a mutual client was having. In the middle of the conversation, she says ‘Oh shoot (feel free to insert stronger language should you think it appropriate), my computer has a virus!’ When I asked her if her anti-virus software was up-to-date, she responded, ‘Yes, but this is a message from Windows telling me that there is a breach. I just clicked on the button, and it’s fixing it now’. ‘STOP’, I yelled into the phone, but I was too late. The virus (which had been ‘packaged’ to look like it was a Windows message) was already wreaking havoc on her system. Off it had to go to the computer hospital for emergency surgery.

In the second instance, my brother called me (thank goodness) before clicking on a link in an email that appeared to be from his internet provider. The first clue that it was a fake was that it was addressed to ‘Dear Subscriber’, rather than his name. There was no information contained in the e-mail that actually proved that they knew who he was – or which he could use to verify that the e-mail was legit. No account number, no subscriber name. He was insistent that it was legitimate because it LOOKED like the link went to www.aol.com/whatever. I had to explain to him that the link can actually go to www.themostharmfulsiteever.com and be masked to appear as if it were going to AOL. He wanted to click to prove it, and it took all my persuasive power to convince him that if he clicked to prove me right/wrong, then it was too late because he could have unleashed the virus/malware simply by clicking. Ultimately, I got him to stop from clicking by saying ‘If you were so sure that the e-mail was legitimate, why did you pick up the phone and call me?’. That one stumped him, and he decided to believe me.

Anyway, this is a long way around of saying – you KNOW how your operating system (be it Windows, MacIntosh or Linux) delivers its patches, as well as your Anti-Virus/Anti-Malware (be it Norton, McAfee, AVG, or any of a host of others). If it doesn’t look like the ‘typical’ delivery, then DON’T CLICK ON IT!!! Instead, take a minute, take a deep breath, and go to the website (via your browser, not by clicking on a link in an e-mail) of the software supposedly offering the update. Perform your system update via your account on the website, rather than by clicking a link or pop-up. If the update is legitimate, it will get downloaded that way. If you take this additional minute to navigate to the appropriate website yourself, and log in to your account, you will get all the legitimate updates.

That said, McAfee just had a MAJOR meltdown this week. It distributed a legitimate anti-virus update that had a bug in it and wiped out many a computer. McAfee promises to ‘do right’ by its customers and offer them some compensation (I have no idea what, and if you lost a couple of days dealing with the issue, then I’m sure you’re not impressed by the gesture), but it just goes to show that even ‘real’ updates can go awry. Don’t make it worse by accepting illicit update offers.