Digital Technology

Creating A Small Business At Home

Creating a small business does not have to be as hard as some people make it out to be and if you do it right, you can be making a lot of extra cash. Everyone has the opportunity to start a small business, but it is up to you to make it successful. Decide whether you want to work part-time or full-time. Before you make a decision to own a small business, you need to do some research and learn how it all works. Here are some ideas for small businesses that will most likely be profitable.

Pet Sitting – A pet sitting or dog walking business can be a very profitable small business. Talk to people in your area who have done some pet sitting and ask questions about the rate of pay, what you are expected to do, etc. You can earn a lot of money by just walking dogs. Say you charge $10 per walk and you are walking 4 dogs that day. You can make $40 that day!

Fitness Coach – A fitness coach is someone who helps people with exercise and health. You may need to get some experience before you become a fitness coach. You will need to be physically fit. When becoming a fitness coach, you want to start with something that you will be most comfortable with and will make the most sense.

There are many other ideas for small businesses that can prove to be very profitable. Investing in UFX markets is a great way to help you budget. The important thing is that you find something you love to do and will have fun with. Many small businesses can be started in your own home.

Get Shareaholic

Filed Under: General, Resources Tagged With: Business, Insurance, Small business

Technology in the Wi-Fi and 3G World

Technology is a part of everyday life in the modern world. Children are learning how to use them at younger ages. Computers are part of the elementary school systems. My daughter’s school supply list for this year included an electronic dictionary and flash drive. Though these items were optional and not required, it still demonstrates the changing world, since these types of items were not on school supply lists a couple years ago. Before long they will be required items along with pens, pencils, notebooks, and erasers.

EReaders are becoming more popular and eBook sales are increasing. EReaders use Wi-Fi and 3G networks to wirelessly receive materials, which is quicker and more efficient than downloading to a computer and then transferring the publications to the eReader from the computer. Libraries are offering lending for digital publications as well as physical books. Magazine and newspaper subscriptions are also available, which is great news for people concerned with environmental issues associated with print publications.

Cell phones like a blackberry smart phone can do everything a computer can do. Many coffee shops, fast food restaurants, and even stores, especially bookstores, allow you to connect to the internet via Wi-Fi or 3G technology on your cell phone, IPad, or laptop. You can surf the web, download music and even play games at an online casino. Applications now make it possible to access and view information on a computer in another location, allowing you the freedom of mobility without losing access to any important information.

The downside to being connected all the time, no matter where you go, is that you are connected all the time. It is harder to get away from work, to go on vacation and escape the everyday when everything is will you in your pocket. If you are watching your child’s soccer game and texting or working via your portable device, are you really paying attention to your child’s activity or just there in body but not mind. When things are important remember to disconnect, leave your phone in the car during the game, unless you are an on-call doctor, most likely whatever is happening can wait one hour for your attention.

Get Shareaholic

Filed Under: Devices, Technology Tagged With: E-book, Mobile phone, Wi-Fi

Software: The Necessity of Advancements

Image by xeeliz via Flickr

It’s a familiar warning — a message opens on your screen, citing software advancements and the need to claim them. You frown, uncertain if you can spare the time (or the hard-drive space). Downloading is tedious and seems to offer few rewards. Any attempts to secure supposedly better programs have failed: yielding indecipherable results and unimpressive new features. There’s nothing to gain from progress. You think it’s instead a mere sales tactic.

That sales tactic is essential, however — and you discover this when a virus infects your computer, old software allowing it to slither in. An update would have saved your system. Now you’re left with a blank screen and a battered connection.

Software is ever-changing. Progress defines source codes, allows them to perpetually transform. Such transformations aren’t fickle, though — offered for the sake of simply being different. Instead they’re meant to keep pace with the endless viruses and spamming Trojans. Advancements aren’t just given to computers. They’re instead claimed by hackers.

As of 2011, there are 1,000,000 unique strands of malware (with all of these shifting to new formulas, the algorithms mutating often). Users master these, shoving them into systems and stealing information. It’s necessary therefore to prepare for any possible invasion — and software updates offer such preparation.

Choosing every possible new program is essential. Frequent installations provide protection, helping networks battle any concerns. The advancements offered to software match the dangers that try to infiltrate them. Achieving a balance between these is vital.

You must not ignore updates. Instead you must embrace them.

Get Shareaholic

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: Computer program, new features, Source code

Best WordPress Plugins for Collaboration and Discussion

The Internet brings together people from many different genres, cultures, and interesting places. Online, you can have conversations with people who live and work in different time zones, allowing you to maximize your personal contacts and business dealings.

The WordPress software is a great tool for webmasters, writers, and bloggers to enhance the look and functionality of websites. WordPress offers two plug-ins that are ideal for collaboration and discussion for those who are in different places, tele-work, or have limited access to Internet connectivity at sporadic times. The plug-ins work well for note-taking and keeping all interested parties on a project abreast of developments and changes. They are also compatible with any type of computer applications, from Apple tablets to laptops to HP desktop computers.

- Peter’s Post Notes

Peter’s Post Notes is one of the optimal WordPress plug-ins used for issue collaboration and discussion. The plug-in allows you to add notes, edit them, and edit the pages screen on the sidebar in the tool. This feature is available on versions of WordPress that are 2.8 and up. In this feature, the user also has the capability to send the sidebar notes along with any emails. You can use the settings to send notes that are in the collaboration workflow. You can set the plug-in so the notes system on the dashboard is available for general or private viewing. This security feature works well for large workgroups or for information that is confidential among the group. You can use the plug-in for brainstorming among the group and creative thinking dialogue between members.

In the summary on the dashboard of the WordPress plug-in, it shows a summation of notes and collaborative markings from the participants. You can convert this information into a discussion panel for team building or use it to compile information for another note-taking session.

- Peter’s Collaboration Emails 1.2 and Up

This comprehensive plug-in enables you to send automatic emails to the pertinent users of a project at various post-status transitions. This includes post information like pending posts, posts tagged for approval, or scheduled posts. You can use it when posts are in the pending-, draft-, rejected-, or approved-status.

In using this plug-in, you can email a list of approved statuses to the owner letting him know when a post is ready for review/acceptance once a contributor submits an article or a post for submission. The plug-in provides a link to the post, which allows the owner to edit the post as necessary.

After approval, the post contributor receives an email stating who approved her post and whether the company published the item. If an editor approved the item, there will be a link that will take the poster directly to the page. The plug-in can notify the author with a date and time for publication if the article is not live on the site. When it goes live, the author will get another indicator email with the new link. When you use this plug-in with versions of WordPress 2.7 and higher, users have the option to leave notes that accompany the emails for each step in the project’s workflow.

Get Shareaholic

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Automattic, Plug-ins, WordPress

When We were Your Age

Remember when your parents told you (repeatedly) that they had to walk three miles a day to get to school? Then they had to walk three miles home. Uphill. In the snow. That was one of the gut-wrenching hardships of “The Olden Days.” Needless to say, there were more.

For the 2011 college graduate, the following is a list of tragic hardships:

Leaving the house without your cell phone
No cable box in your bedroom (you can only watch basic cable)
No GPS – how will you ever find the fraternity party
The microwave is broken (I’ll starve!)
The oven? Seriously?
Not allowed to text while driving (obedient and scared of Dad)
Get a job. Now!
Here’s the title to the car we’ve allowed you to drive. Start paying for gas and insurance using prepaid card.

All of the above items involve high tech luxuries many of us didn’t know about when we were 21. Baby Boomers, who will always represent the majority of the American population (until we die off), witnessed the arrival of many technological advances:

Automatic transmissions
Color TV
Neil Armstrong walking on the moon
Microwave Ovens
Beta Max
’67 Mustangs
SSTs and 747s
Personal Computers
The Space Shuttle
Disney World
Digital cameras
CDs and DVDs
Microchips for pets
Cell Phones
The Internet
Global Positioning Systems
Lo Jack
iPods
Kindles

In the next generation, today’s college graduates will be telling their kids about all the stuff that wasn’t invented yet when they were growing up. It won’t make an impression on those kids, either.

Get Shareaholic

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: Global Positioning System, Mobile phone, Neil Armstrong

Who Left the Apple on Teacher’s Desk?

The first Apple computer, built by Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, was sold in 1976. Although it was something of a bomb, it was a remarkable attempt at creating a computer that could be used by ordinary people. In 1977, the new Apple 2 hit the market and took off like a rocket. It was the first computer to produce a color display on a TV screen, and was sold for just under $1,000. It came with a keyboard and some very basic programs – primarily games.

It surprised the entire computer industry when the state of Minnesota bought lots of Apple 2 computers to put in their schools. They had educational programs written for their new computers, which started a frenzy of Apple 2 units being purchased by school systems all over America. Districts knew they could buy the units from the new Apple Computer Company and educational programs from Minnesota. Schools started writing additional programs for the computers, and so software applications for teaching increased exponentially in just a few years.

There were computer applications appropriate for every age learner. Young children learned to identify shapes, colors, letters, and numbers by matching pictures on the screen at their own pace. Elementary students learned sight words and math concepts through simple computer games. Students increased competency and speed by playing against classmates or by trying to better their own scores.

Since the Internet and access to the Internet became readily available, a new dimension has been added to the existing educational applications.

In the 30 years since computers were first introduced into classrooms, they have improved dramatically. It is the norm these days to find several computer units in every classroom – not to mention the one on the teacher’s desk.

Get Shareaholic

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Apple, Minnesota, Steve Jobs

Small Business and Computers

Before user-friendly computers came on the scene, keeping records for a small business involved many hours of tedious pencil and paper work. It would be extremely difficult to reconcile the physical inventory to the recorded list if somebody forgot to write down the sale of a number 13, extra large green widget. Not only would the inventory be off, but it’s also likely the accounts receivable would be off by the cost of the big green widget plus any other items sold but not recorded. Other small businesses like online trading (working as a online trading broker) are also greatly benefited by modern computer and technology.

Thankfully, those days are over. Every salesperson now has an identification number, and every item has a stock number. When orders are received, the items are entered into inventory. When someone rings up a sale, they enter their employee ID, the inventory number assigned to the product(s) being sold, and the quantity of items. The computer already knows the price of the item so, with the small amount of information entered at point of sale, the computer updates the inventory and can yield reports corresponding to:

Number of products sold
Dollar amount of products sold
Collectible amounts, including applicable taxes
Products sold by each salesperson
Dollar sales by salesperson

If the management has sales expectations for each salesperson, they are stored as quotas. The computer can spit out a summary of the percentage of quota achieved on any given dollar amount or specific products at any given time.

With a computer keeping track, products, dollar sales, and quotas are much more likely to balance. Discrepancies, if any, are easier to find. The green widgets should be all present and accounted for.

Get Shareaholic

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Inventory, Sales, Small business

Training Technology

Once upon a time, overhead projectors were the primary means by which training slides were displayed to a classroom. A teacher or trainer would start with a printed slide that would be projected onto a screen or white wall at the front of the room. The entire presentation would be shown on a succession of slides. Because the slides were clear plastic, they could be written on with erasable colored markers. Trainers wrote on them to show examples, calculations, multiple choice questions, or illustrations. The slides could be used repeatedly. It was a happy day when technology produced slides that could easily be printed by common laser and inkjet printers.

In 1997, a usable version of Microsoft PowerPoint became available and changed the way most major training materials were prepared. With PowerPoint, the various slides became a slide show, built or loaded on a laptop computer wired to a small projector. The final appearance of a PowerPoint presentation is determined by the person who builds the presentation within the PowerPoint software. This need not be a software programmer. While PowerPoint is somewhat intimidating to the newbie, it gets easier with practice. Visual effects of sliding or fading are worked into the presentation along with other visual effects. The graphics available in PowerPoint are very strong, and illustrations from other programs or photo files are easily imported.

The most recent development in training is the “Webinar,” or seminar presented over the Internet. Once registered for the event, an attendee is given an Internet link to click when it’s time to log onto the scheduled presentation. Unlimited numbers of students can get the same training simultaneously. Many college courses are now taught via webinar. Education resource sites such as eLearners offer access to thousands of online training courses and colleges who may offer this feature. There is usually a mechanism for interacting with the instructor via microphone or keyboard. Tests are conducted over the Internet. It’s like attending college without leaving home.

Get Shareaholic

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: Microsoft, Microsoft PowerPoint, Training

Computer Speak

Times have changed and methods of communication have changed with the times. The way of learning through accredited online colleges are booming too. The scope of business writing has evolved and given birth to many opportunities for misunderstandings and career damage. Here is something to keep in mind at all times: The computers you use at work are company property. Material entered into a work computer becomes company property.

There is a saying about dressing for success. “Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.” You want your dress, speech, demeanor, and communication to exude competence, business etiquette, and maturity. Keep personal chitchat to a minimum. It’s OK to ask in an email if a coworker had a good weekend, but it’s probably a bad idea to ask him whether he made the spread on the Laker’s game. It would be career suicide to defame your superior or any management staff. For example, “As much as I hate that stupid project of Jim’s, we better get on it.” Wouldn’t you think common sense would prohibit that type of email chat? You’d be surprised.

Keep in mind that anything on the Internet can live forever. It can be used against you. This is especially true of social network sites. It has become commonplace for prospective employers to check out employees’ comments and pictures on FaceBook and other sites. If you have pictures of yourself and/or coworkers in an intoxicated state, for heaven’s sake, don’t post them! Teenagers love to post pictures of themselves in all sorts of questionable situations. It seems funny to them at the time, but those photos may cost them a job. Much can be interpreted about a person’s character by what they publish about themselves. Employers are using this to gain insight about potential employees.

Last but not least, control your urge to use common texting abbreviations like bff, brb, cya, etc. A woman recently asked, “What does lol mean?” On being told it was short for Laughing out loud,” she seemed relieved. “Oh good,” she said. “I thought people were calling me a little old lady.”

Get Shareaholic

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: Business, Employment, FaceBook

How is Your Handwriting?

In their early childhood years, all schoolchildren learn to print, generally using pencils and erasers. For America’s “Baby Boomers,” cursive writing was introduced in the third grade and report cards had a space for Penmanship or Handwriting. Those grades – as well as all other subject scores – were handwritten by the teacher on every quarterly report card. There would usually be a nice handwritten note from the teacher, containing comments about the child’s progress in school. Any subject in which a child was not performing well would be reinforced by endless repetition of suitable practice drills. Penmanship was no exception. A child would be asked to practice writing drills on lined paper until his cursive writing became legible.

In following generations, the worldwide race for technological advances became increasingly competitive. The American government and society increased pressure on educators to elevate academic achievement. Standardized testing became the means by which educational competency was measured. English grammar and vocabulary, math, and science scores became the indicators of competence for schools, school districts, states, and teachers. There came to be an unfortunate – but necessary – teaching trend called “Teaching to the Test.” Schools and teachers learned that students’ performance on standardized tests became correlated with school funding and teacher retention. Standardized tests were objectively scored by computers, which read and recorded patterns of dots blackened by students using soft lead pencils. There was no mechanism in the standardized tests to measure the growth of softer subjects, such as art, music, physical education, and penmanship.

Unfortunately, some of the less quantifiable skills received less classroom time in favor of the skills that could, and would, be measured by standardized tests. While many young adults excel in math and science, they might be hard pressed to write a legible shopping list. Luckily, most of us have easy access to computers and online courses. For those of us who still value the elegance of cursive penmanship, there are computer fonts for that.

Get Shareaholic

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: Cursive, Penmanship, Standardized test

Digital Technology

Creating A Small Business At Home

Technology in the Wi-Fi and 3G World

Software: The Necessity of Advancements

Best WordPress Plugins for Collaboration and Discussion

When We were Your Age

Who Left the Apple on Teacher’s Desk?

Small Business and Computers

Training Technology

Computer Speak

How is Your Handwriting?

Categories

Recent Posts