A Weekly Publication of the Bradenton Rotary Club
A couple drove down a country road for several miles, not saying a word. An earlier discussion had led to an argument and neither of them wanted to concede their position. As they passed a barnyard of mules, goats, and pics, the husband asked sarcastically, "Relatives of yours?" "Yep," the wife replies, "in-laws." Read More...
The Advantage of Email
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Why is email a more effective communication system than the snail mail, telephone, fax, instant messaging, chat rooms / blogs and “Voice over IP”? First let's take a look at the Pros and Cons of each communication system and how they might be suited for your particular business, or simply keeping in contact with friends or family.
First off the most obvious con of snail mail is the down time between delivery and responses, although one thing it offers that none of the others can is tactile feel and a more personable system of communication. Telephone is instant and great for fast communication, although it's not time stamped and usually not documented. Fax is slower than the telephone because it requires documents to be scanned before they are sent, and can only be sent to people who also have a fax machine. The advantage is like snail mail, the recipient has a hard copy of the document. Instant messaging, a new informal way of talking to friends, is “timed stamped”. However once a conversation is closed the information is lost. IM's can only be recovered with 3rd party programs.
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Chat rooms / blogs / forums are also a more informal method of communication and usually are open for the public to view. Voice over IP programs such as Ventrilo or Teamspeak used primarily by the gaming community have not crossed over to the mainstream yet. Unlike the phone, they have timestamp and recording features.
Then there is email which contains all of the required features for a business or working environment. Emails are time stamped making them viable documented communication between you and your client. You can organize your e-mail and save drafts with ease. If checked often, response time can be very quick. Also you can check it from any computer or location. The current problem with email is spam attacks which can flood
your account.
No matter what method of communication you use it's important to remember if it is not documented in some way (for instance a notepad) with the date, time and a signature the conversation never really happened.
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Name: Julia Riley
Occupation: : Keynote Speaker for Constant Source
How do your company's services benefit the general public?
My work with Sage-ing ® helps people deal proactively with aging, looking at life review and life repair and exploring the passion and mystery of the unlived life. We are reframing retirement to a time of “refinement.”
Greatest achievement to date?
Integrity…knowing what you know and don't know, making and keeping commitments, and being honest with yourself and others.
Character trait you most admire?
waking up at 4:30AM with a creative solution to something I have been working on and the energy to implement it.
When are you the most productive?
It is not unusual for me to wake up at 4:30AM with a creative solution to something I have been working on and the energy to implement it.
When are you the most bored?
When I have just finished a big project. There is a let-down and “what's
next?” time.
How do you define success?
Knowing that your life has made a difference to people. Professionally, for me that is supporting nurses to revitalize their lives and their practice.
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Personally, for me that is having balance in my life with loving relationships with my family.
Are you involved in, or have you had any experiences/extra activities that you would recommend to our clients?
I have been exploring the use of creative expression for healing. To maintain a balance between one's body, mind, and spirit, I recommend clients find a creative outlet such as art, music, dance, or writing. When you are immersed in the creative process you experience a sense of “flow” and learn to trust your intuition. These transfer to one's professional life as well. From your experience/expertise, do you have any suggestions for small to medium sized business owners just starting out?
Yes, it is important to have boundaries between your professional and personal life and a practice of self-care. Of course, as an entrepreneur, sometimes, I work 12 hours straight, but then I need to take some time to revitalize myself. This is an ongoing challenge for me and we even went so far as to purchase a time share in assure I would take a vacation each year. I travel when I speak and this looks like vacation but is not!... Without careful planning.
If you were granted one wish, what would it be?
Let's see, should I wave my hand and say, “world peace?” My wish would be for good health for myself and my family so we can continue to have a full,
meaningful life.
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5 Things Every PC User Should Know
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Calibrate your monitor's color
When viewing images and web elements your personal color display settings can often be skewed from the original. If you want to get a more accurate color out of your monitor without trying to manually adjust every setting you can download Monitor Calibration Wizard, which can walk you though several simple tests.
Remove your tracks
No one should be able to see what you do on your personal computer. If you share a system with a nosy roommate or family member you may want to scrub the memory of what you have been doing while on the computer. The first thing you can do is configure your Internet browser to maximum security. You can also manually erase your history under the tools>internet options>clear browser history. You can remove cookies and other information here. When protecting your Windows activities the best suggestion is to use a password when logging in and always log out completely after every use. It would also be wise if using a wireless network to set up a password.
Moving Files
When sharing large files such as images, PDF's and sounds it's generally rude to email them. Often email servers only allow a limited
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amount of bandwidth for downloads which means it will be very slow. That's if the recipients are even capable of downloading the files. If the recipient is in your local area you can use a Flash Drive, or CD to transport the data. If that is not an option you can use a file transfer website like files-upload.com or gigasize.com.
Computer Recovery Disk
This is one of the most important things you can do to protect your computer. Creating a backup disc for your PC is a pain, but you should always do it. The backup disk will allow you to reset your computer like the first day you got it, even if your computer is totally bugged out. For more advanced users I would suggest using a partitioned C: and D: drive so you can store secure data without losing it if you are required to use a recovery disk.
Plug-ins & updates
It's always a good idea to have all the up-to-date programs and plug-ins. For instance most 3 rd party programs like QuickTime, Windows Media Player, and Video Drivers should be updated. You can usually download the updates through the program or at their website. This will simply make everything run at its full capacity. |
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How to Fight Spam
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Subject: “Hey this is my new email”
From: “Bob”
If you have an email account you have probably received a message like this, and more likely than not it's not the Bob from IT at work. This common problem is one of the Internet's largest trouble makers and it's called spam.
Before 1990 spam was conceived by a small prankster community. Now that the Internet has been commercialized spam has taken on a new face of free mass advertisement. The idea of commercialized spam is not new; people have had their mailboxes stuffed with junk mail many years before the Internet. The primary difference is the content, which can be very vulgar, as well as the overall quantity.
So you're probably wondering how you got on the mailing list. The simple answer is when you first make your email account. Often with free email providers like Hotmail you must select something that interests you. And from that point on your account is compromised. This also includes any time you fill out a form that requires your email address. |
An obvious solution is to make a fake email account for online forms, and keep your personal account spam-free by only giving it out to your personal contacts. That idea will help reduce spam at first but there are other ways they can find you. The use of Meta Crawling allows programs to endlessly search the Internet for your email account. And small viruses embedded in spam that was sent to someone who listed your email address in their address book can be hidden in a message they send to you without both parties ever knowing.
To stop this attack the United States and other countries have attempted to help restrict corporations from this Internet Graffiti, but the fact remains the Internet is not centralized and can't be governed by any single country's laws. Many ISP's (Internet Service Providers) offer spam blockers with their email service, but they still require that you manually read through what has been blocked. The best advice is simply never enter your email into an online form, unless it is a trusted website and never open mail from strangers.
more info at ftc.gov/spam |
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