| Question |
Answer |
| Should you separate
business financial reports from personal financial reports? |
Yes. The profits from your business
(Revenue minus Expenses) is considered your income into your personal
financial life. You should run a Revenue And Expense report for your
business at least once a quarter, so that you can estimate your quarterly
taxes due. Most financial software has built-in reports for
businesses. |
| What type of class/training
device should I use to learn how to use a computer? |
Your local community college or adult
education center should offer basic computer classes. If you are new
to computers, find an "Introduction to Personal Computers" class
to get started, then take specific software classes afterward. |
| What does "ISP" mean? |
An ISP is an Internet Service Provider.
It is the company that connects you to the Internet, much like your local
phone company connects you to the telephone system or your local cable
company connects you to Cable TV. |
| My free AOL service is due to
expire. Which ISP would you recommend to replace it? |
If you are looking for a dial-in service
(connecting via your phone line), there are several options, including
AOL, Earthlink, AT&T, and MSN.
If you are looking for a faster connection, contact your
local phone company and cable company to see if they have high speed
connection capability in your area.
And remember, if you do a lot of travel with a laptop,
you will need a dial-in connection to connect from a hotel or a friend's
house while you're traveling. MSN has a 10-hour-per-month plan for
only $9.95, which I use when I'm traveling (I use a cable modem and
high-speed cable access when working from my home office).
CNET has a good article on Choosing
The Right ISP. |
| Is it worthwhile to purchase a
domain name for a potential website even if I don't have a website now and
won't use it for a while? |
Yes, absolutely. You can get domain
names for less than $9.00 a year at GoDaddy, so money is no object. You should
get your domain name now, if for only one reason: to make sure it's
reserved and ready-to-use when you ARE ready to have a website. Go
to Site Design Tips for more information
about where to register your domain name. |
| How do I get a website up and
running for my business? Where do I start? What order
should I do things in? |
Whew! That's a big question! I
can give you some basics: The first thing you'll need to do is register your
domain name. Second, you'll need to find a company to
"host" your website files. Third, you'll need to design
your website (too much information to go into detail here). Fourth,
you'll need to publish your website files to your hosting company.
After that, there's a lot of marketing that needs to be done, to let folks know about your
site and where to find it. |
| What does "PDF" mean? |
PDF stands for Portable Document Format.
PDF files capture the text, fonts, graphics, and colors from your word
processing file, and "prints" it to a PDF file. |
| For e-book creation, do you need
Adobe Acrobat, or will Adobe Acrobat Reader be sufficient? |
To create e-books in PDF format, you will
need Adobe Acrobat. Acrobat Reader is only a "reader"
software...it will not create the PDF files for you. |
| How can I link my Verisign
website email with Outlook? |
You set up the accounts that you want to send
and receive mail from by using the Tools, Accounts option in
Outlook. Check with your website hosting company (in your case,
Verisign) for the correct naming of the POP3 and SMTP account names. |
| What is the difference between
the Handspring PDA and a Palm Pilot PDA? |
Check out the PDA
product review by CNET for details. |
| How do I email a flyer that I
created in Microsoft Publisher? |
If you send the original Microsoft Publisher
file (.pub), the other person must have Microsoft Publisher in order to
open the file. Consider, instead, publishing the file to PDF format
and sending the PDF to them. Acrobat Reader is free software, so
they won't have to pay anything to be able to view your file. |
| How do I change web hosting
companies? |
After you sign up with a new hosting company,
they will give you the server names or IP addresses of the servers where
your files will be located. You then go back to where you REGISTERED
your domain name, and input these server identifiers into the appropriate
places on your profile. It may take a day or two for this
information to filter out into the entire internet community, so some
people may have trouble accessing your site until all the new information
is populate across the internet. |
| How can I make the best use of
the simple, 5-page website I already have? |
The biggest mistake I see small business
owners make is to
create a website which is essentially an online resume. Your website
isn't a place to showcase YOU...it's a place where you tell prospective
clients how you can help solve their problems. Take those 5 pages
and make each one about the CLIENT and his/her needs. Make sure you
add your contact information to each page, as well as your offer for a
free session. |
| How can I use my computer to
keep track of coaching certification records? |
I use a simple spreadsheet to record the time
I spend coaching clients, and another simple spreadsheet to record the
class hours I've taken. You could use a word processor to do the
same thing, simply creating a table and filling it in each week. |
