It's All "Geek" to Me!
by Anita Pagliasso-Balamane
Author of "How I Made A Small Fortune as a Home-Based Travel Agent"
(www.redticketproductions.com)
President, Ticket To Travel (www.aticket2travel.com)
OSSN Western Regional Manager
Email: sanjoseca@ossn.com
Phone: 408-531-9228

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This incredible machine has made it possible for me to run my home-based travel business in the most sophisticated of ways. However, the relationship I have with this piece of equipment is more of a love/hate nature. I know that I am completely hooked on the Internet and realize that it would be impossible to run any home-based business without it. However, I am the type of person who buys a car and could care less what's under the hood. I just want to put gas in it and go! I don't care how it works, as long as it works. This is the same for me with computers. When everything is working properly, it's the most amazing tool in the world. However, when things go wrong, your workday and productivity are stopped.

I can sometimes be stubborn and think that I can somehow fiddle around and fix the mysterious occurrences when they happen. I would spend hour after frustrating hour trying to understand what happened until I finally called the toll-free number for Microsoft Technical Support. It costs $35 per case incident. What I found amazing is that they will stay on the phone with you as long as it takes to resolve the issue. One of my phone calls lasted over three hours! Now, whenever I have a Microsoft problem, I don't hesitate to pick up the phone and call them.

We have also found a local computer repair store where they promise a 24-hour turnaround on repairs. After we had established a relationship with this store and got to know the technicians, it was easier to call up for phone advice on small problems.

However, when it comes to home office equipment, you can always count on something needing attention. Sure enough, just as the computer issues get resolved, it will be more than likely that the paper in the printer will jam!

Canning the Spam

On a daily basis, I can get anywhere between 200 to 300 pieces of junk email. It clogs up my computer and my time. Even with the spam filter on Yahoo, as well as another on my virus protection product, I still have a huge amount of spam and junk that manages to get through to my regular mailboxes. I have found a software program called Mail Frontier that has been the most effective of catching the majority of it. After a few automatic training sessions on what type of emails to "Junk" or "Unjunk," the program identifies the sender, analyzes the content, and applies a review to every similar email. Between the three spam filters I have, Mail Frontier effectively catches the biggest majority of the junk. If, after scanning the Junk Mail folders, I find legitimate email, all I do is hit "unjunk" and it will remember to allow the sender's future emails. For a mere $29 per year, it has been a great investment.

Smileys and Emoticons :-)

A smiley is a sequence of characters on your computer keyboard that usually follow after the punctuation (or in place of the punctuation) at the end of a sentence. A smiley is meant to tell someone what you really mean when you make an offhand remark. They are also called emoticons because they intend to convey emotion, which the computer cannot do! Did you know that there are more than 500 of these types of symbols? From angry, embarrassed, surprised to YIKES!

Acronyms & Text Messaging Shorthand

These abbreviations are becoming commonly seen wherever people get online -- including emails, instant messaging, PDAs, Web sites, newsgroup postings and blogs. Just like the Smileys, there are hundreds of these, such as LOL. I started getting lots of reply email messages with the LOL sign, I thought people were telling me "Lots of Luck!" and I was starting to feel a bit insulted. It took me months to figure out that LOL means "Laughing Out Loud". Hmmmm, now I need to go back and reread those messages. Not sure which was more insulting, Lots of Luck or Laughing out Loud.

Out of the hundreds of these that I found on Google, my favorite was AAAAA: American Association Against Acronym Abuse.

TTFN -- Ta-Ta For Now!

Anita Pagliasso-Balamane serves as OSSN's Western Regional Manager. She's just produced a new CD titled "Anita's Toolbox for Home-Based Agents" which contains dozens and dozens of her most popular forms, letters and guides. This CD allows you to download her MS Word documents for your own personal use and customization. To purchase the CD or her book "How I Made a Small Fortune as a Home-Based Agent," go to www.redticketproductions.com.

[Note: This article was published previously in Agent@Home Magazine.]