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The Editor's Desk - From Beneath the Clutter
Feature Article - Getting work done when you just can’t distract the kids
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Guest Article - 7 Reasons to Switch to FireFox
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As of this writing, I am in the process of changing servers, so you may see occasional problems. The nameservers are in the process of being changed, so the discussion boards may be just a touch unreliable today or tomorrow, depending on when the switch happens in your area. I'm hoping to avoid losing any data, but it's not easy. This host gives me quite a bit more flexibility and more features, so I think it will be worth the switch.
Ok, so right when I could have the baby at any time is one heck of a time to decide to change hosts. Maybe it's nesting! Instead of cleaning the apartment, I'm trying to get my business more organized! Am I online too much?
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When you work at home, one of the biggest challenges can be keeping the kids busy. There will be the days when the usual tactics won’t distract them, but you just have to get some work done. It might just be time to do something the kids won’t expect.
Some work at home jobs and businesses may not require you to actually be at home. Can you bring a laptop or briefcase and work at the playground, library or fast food restaurant? You’ll still have to keep a sharp eye on the kids, but they’ll have a chance to release that pent-up energy.
What about things you can do with your kids at home while working? Older children may be able to help you with parts of your work, knowing that this will free you up to play with them sooner.
Other times you may have to take advantage of any flexibility in office hours your work at home job or business will allow you. Go play! Dance with them, play a board game, paint… just find something fun to do with them for a while. Don’t make a habit of this, or your generally cooperative kids may suddenly expect you to drop everything to play with them, but there are times when you make exceptions to your office hours.
Not all work at home parents can do this, of course. Some jobs do require set hours. In that case, have someone you can call on to help. This doesn’t have to be another adult. Even having an older child from the neighborhood come over to play can be enough to let you get work done.
If you are regularly having problems with the kids needing your attention while you are trying to work, it may be time to reassess your office hours. Children’s needs do change as they get older, so the schedule that worked perfectly for your toddler may not work now.
Remind yourself as often as necessary why you decided to work at home in the first place. It’s easy to get your priorities mixed up when you have a schedule to keep, deadlines to meet, etc., but your children need you too. Keep them high in your priorities and let them know how much they mean to you.
Stephanie Foster is the owner of Home with the Kids, a resource that knows that there's more to staying home with your family than just business. For more stay at home tips, visit the site at http://www.homewiththekids.com/ and subscribe to the free newsletter.
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The Firefox browser has exploded on the scene. At the time of this writing there have been 23 million downloads of this innovative competitor to Internet Explorer. Minor drawbacks aside, most who use it love it – myself included.
One stand out feature is the customizable search bar that’s built into the Firefox menu bar. As a long time AOL user I had 10 hot keys set up for sites I visited all the time. With Firefox all I did was set the search bar up with those very same links. Suddenly what seemed like a reason to mourn the loss of AOL vanished.
Then there’s tabbed browsing. This is a new way to use a browser as you can access more than one page in a single browser window. Which makes it easy to switch back and forth among multiple web pages. Makes for a great time saver.
But a big benefit is the ability to install little applications that perform specific tasks. In the FireFox world these are called “extensions”. If you’re like me you’ll find extension are sorta like potato chips – you just can’t have just one.
So let me share my 7 favorites. I believe they will save you time or effort while enhancing your FireFox experience.
Favorite Extension #1: Auto copy
Auto copy is a killer keystroke saver. You’ll never Ctrl-C
again. Simply highlight the desired text on the web page
with your mouse and it’s instantly copied to the clipboard.
Jump over to whatever application you want to paste that
text into, paste it and you’re done.
Favorite Extension #2: ScrapBook
How many times have you book marked a site only to return
and find it changed? Or worse it’s vanished? That makes
the ScrapBook extension the web researcher’s indispensable
friend. It lets you take a snapshot of any page. Or you
can grab just a chunk it. ScrapeBook keeps such snapshots
organized and even lets you add comments if you like.
Favorite Extension #3: TinyURL Creator
How often do you want to sent a friend a URL only to
discover it’s a mile long? Like this one for instance?
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=&num=50&hl=en&btnG=Google+
Search&as_epq="john+gergye"&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as
_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&saf
e=images
Wouldn’t it be easier to send something like this:
http://tinyurl.com/427gg?
Good news. There’s a handy extension that will cut any
unwieldy URL it down to size using TinyURL. Even better it
will also inventory those you’ve created in case you want
to use any of them again.
Favorite Extension #4: Popup Blocking
Okay so this technically isn’t an extension. It’s more of
a killer built in feature that will stop pop ups dead in
their tracks. I mean there’s nothing like seeing this
message “Firefox prevented this site from opening a pop up
window” to give you a warm glow inside.
Favorite Extension #5: Google Pagerank
Want to know the Google PageRank of a page? Sadly the
Google Toolbar only runs in Internet Explorer. But never
fear. If you like to eyeball PR, say to check out
potential link partners, the Google Pagerank Status
extension displays pagerank. Even better it’s also in
numeric form so you don’t have to mouse over to see the PR.
Favorite Extension #6 LoremIpsum Content Generator
Whenever you need some quick content to check a web page
layout this is your tool. You can tell it to create so
many characters, words or paragraphs. Giving you a variety
of “Latin-like” content like this in the blink of an eye.
Favorite Extension #7: Copy URL
Instead of copying a snippet from a page and then going
back and grabbing the URL you can do it all with one tool.
Copy URL. Another addictive research tool.
All of these tiny apps can be downloaded from here:
https://addons.update.mozilla.org/extensions
Or if these 7 have whet you appetite for more, you can nose
around there for other extensions to enhance your FireFox
experience.
One other tip
To check your extensions go to ToolsExtensions
There you’ll see all extensions you’ve installed. Newly
downloaded ones will typically display this message:
“This item will be installed after you RESTART Firefox “
Do so and you’re set.
Anyway, these extensions alone are seven reasons to love FireFox. At the risk of sounding like a shill, I can’t urge you strongly enough to try it. I’m sure you’ll like it.
------------------------------
John Gergye is the author of “Street Smart Linking”. To
learn more about this 131 page, step by step link building
guide visit http://www.highprlinkclub.com/j/ssl_sya.shtml/
Or test your search engine IQ by taking his seo quiz http://www.traffic-test-tube.com/search-engine-quiz.shtml/ and get the free special report "Coming Out On Top".
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