Living on the edge of your inbox

Posted by callthatgirl on July 21, 2010

I wake up everyday and first thing I do is check my Blackberry to review what email I got over night. I know it’s an addiction at this point, so you don’t need to tell me that. I am aware of it. If they had a Blackberry anonymous group, I would probably go!

Lately though, I have noticed how much email I have been getting a day and realized that I needed to start getting it under control. It was at around 150! And since I am running a business, I would spend each evening organizing and replying to all of these emails. Very exhausting. The idea of starting to  use rules and subfolders for my email is something that a professional organizer would probably want to do for me, so I stepped up and started doing it myself.

Here is what I have been doing, and it’s a process. You have to do it almost everyday to make it work. I have noticed results and it’s getting better. I woke up to 2 emails today instead of 20.

First let’s start with this.

Today, only answer the important emails. The business critical ones, the ones that really need to be answered. Let the rest go, do not move them or delete them or anything. Just let them sit.

Tomorrow morning will be when the work starts. If you are like me, you probably wake up to 20 emails, mostly all the newsletters and updates you have subscribed to.  I got to the point, it was annoying and wanted them gone. Just sick of them and needed them organized or to not come to me anymore.

Tomorrow am: Open each email with a directive thought. Here are a few examples of my emails.

1. Things I must do NOW
2. Things I must do later
3. General FYI, but I need to keep the info
4. Newsletters
5. Special Projects
6. Etc

Next, create a subfolder in your email program to reflect these needs. Then move all of those emails to those folders with the exception of the newsletters.

Once your email is organized a bit, then attack the newsletters. I started unsubscribing from newsletters that I didn’t want anymore and then created a rule for ALL newsletters to go to. I want to read them, just not today. I prefer to read through them on weekends when I have time. So now I know where those are. My email inbox is now pretty clean and in just 3 days, I have already noticed a big change! I love it!

I am by far not a professional organizer, but this was pretty easy for me to get going with, took a few minutes a day and well worth it. Trust me, I had the feeling of living on the edge of my inbox and now I’m not feeling it so much. Yes, I’m still addicted to the Blackberry and yes, I still check emails every morning, but now I feel better I don’t have to clean up so many emails when I get on the computer.

whew!

Looking for a new wireless router, try the Cisco Valet

Posted by callthatgirl on July 12, 2010

Wow, this thing is awesome! I just set one up for a new restaurant that is opening soon in Rochester.

Here is how easy it was.

I plugged in the usb easy set up key into the computer

It didn’t auto-install as I expected it would as it says “easy set up”, but it did open up and I hit the “connect” icon.

It literally walked me through 2 steps to connect the Cisco Valet

• Plug in the wireless router power 
• Plug in the cable modem’s network cord to the Cisco Valet.

The Easy Set Up usb key configured the computer/router/everything. No extra network cords needed (even though the Valet gives you the standard blue network cord). It skips all the technical words that confuse the average person and it was so simple, I was really amazed.

This wireless router sells for a bit higher price of $125-$149, but it’s really nice and has a great range if you are in a big house and having issue with getting good access. This one should get full range of 125 feet.

I don’t write up reviews much, but I loved this wifi router so much I had to tell everyone.

Full review at PC World, pictures compliment of PC World

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2362115,00.asp

Software repair versus hardware repair

Posted by callthatgirl on July 9, 2010

This past week, this was our client work load…Norton causing computer crashes, usb ports going wonky, Microsoft Security Essentials disappearing, two new computer set ups, Belkin router set up issues, viruses, gotomeeting.com not working,  slow computers, Macintosh training and a few Outlook calls. Most of these problems, with the exception of the usb ports going bad were all software repair. Even the usb ports issue was somewhat of a software issue because the port issue caused the operating system to crash, and I had to fix that first to figure out what was wrong with the computer. I got it fixed to the point I could get the user’s data and find out, the usb ports were crashing when plugging in power related external camera’s or hard drives. Keyboards and mice were fine.

Many people are quite shocked to learn that we are a software business, but it makes sense when you figure 90% of computer related problems are due to software not working right.  Hardware is also so cheap to just replace, many folks don’t want to pay $200+ to fix a motherboard (the hardware inside your computer) when getting a new computer is just about that cheap. Is that the way to go? Sometimes, on older computers I would say yes.

There are many things going on inside your computer in regards to hardware. Many years ago, hardware was easy and fairly cheap to replace. These days, some issues are not so cheap to fix as some of things inside your computer are working together. If one thing breaks, you must replace many things.

Why we are staying out of hardware…because there are enough hardware repair businesses out there. I am good at software, the market is there, the software problems are there, so why not do what I do well and focus on that. My competition doesn’t understand how I can survive off software, but in all reality, it makes sense.

What is software? Any programs on your computer that you use to enjoy your computer time. Your internet, office programs, cameras and printers, Gmail, Hotmail, antivirus, Firefox, Facebook..the list could go on and on.

A few answers for you…

• Yep, most viruses are software related (we can fix these, even remotely)
• Yep, most computer crashes are due to software (we can usually fix these, not all remotely)
• Yep, if your internet works, the chance we can fix your software problem remotely is GOOD.
• Nope, if your computer doesn’t boot up at all, it’s probably a hardware issue and needs to go to a repair shop.
• Yep, feel free to call us and ask us what we think before you take it to a shop 952-681-7969

Please consider Call That Girl next time you have a computer glitch or something is going wrong. If the computer boots up, it’s something we can tackle!