Friday, December 12, 2008

Don't pay for AOL

I've been getting together with a lot of old friends and clients here in Fort Lauderdale. Many of them are back in the 'olden times' of the Internet. You know ... 2 - 3 years ago! One friend wanted to have her email be more professional - name@herbusinessname.com instead of @aol.com. We found that her business name was available as a .com and I got her set up with the domain name, and an email for a mere $10/year.

She said, "oh good, now I can get rid of AOL, that costs me $12/month. I'll be happy to save that expense." OMG, she's been paying $12/month for the last 2-3 years for nothing! Since sometime in 2005, AOL's email has been free. The only need to pay AOL is if you need them for your Internet connection. My friend here has a cable connection to the Internet, so she's been paying AOL for nothing. AOL didn't publicize this change too much! If you kept paying them after the change, they just figured that you were using the Dial-up service.

Just thought I'd mention it here in case any other readers out there are in the same situation.

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Monday, December 08, 2008

Work at Home

Am I working or am I playing? It's really hard to tell. It's all done in the same motorhome, a total space of 30 feet by 8.5 feet. And, most of it is done sitting at the computer. There's stuff I do for fun on the computer, and there's work too. Only I know the difference! (actually, I don't think I do) I have never been good at time management, but I keep trying. With a laptop I'm learning that I can go somewhere else - the club house or my Mom's house - and it's a little easier to focus on work. By 'work' I mostly mean recording the tutorial videos for our Geeks on Tour online classroom and managing that website. Right now I'm creating a series on the new Picasa 3. I've made some progress, but I have lots more to go. There are now 11 Picasa 3 videos on the Geeks on Tour Picasa Tutorials page. *Sales Pitch**Sales Pitch**Sales Pitch**Sales Pitch* Although there are some free samples, you need to be a member to view all the videos - over 120 of them now, a little over 10 hours worth. You can also buy a gift membership for someone else. Dontcha think that's a great idea? I sure do :-) It's only $39 for a whole year and it doesn't automatically renew - $39 is your total commitment. *End of Sales Pitch!* Marketing is the other business skill I'm working on! Right now I've worked my way up to writing over a dozen articles every month as part of my marketing ... I write a Picasa tip every Tuesday, and an article for RV.net's blog every Thursday. Once a month I write the Geeks on Tour free newsletter with at least 3 articles in it. I've promised another feature article for Family Motor Coach magazine, and recently wrote one for Country Coach magazine. I've retooled my WiFiSavvy.com blog to be a repository for all our geeky articles. That way, they're easily found. They're all categorized and tagged. You can also use the Search feature to find any article by its content. Little by little, I'm making sure that all past articles get added to WiFiSavvy.com - so it's the complete Articles database. Once in a while, I have an idea for an article that isn't in any of our standard categories, so I throw it in on WiFiSavvy too. Like one last week on Mailing Labels for Holiday Cards, complete with a tutorial video. The great thing about being entrepreneurial is that you get to work on your own ideas and see them come to fruition. The bad thing is that you have *way* too many ideas to work on them all successfully. You have to choose. I think that's what time management is all about. Oh yeah ... I'm also doing websites for clients. That's something I actually get paid for! hmmmm, maybe that should be a criteria for choosing what I work on? Ya think? Luckily I did my chiropractor's website in trade for adjustments made neccessary by all this sitting! Ok, I know, I gotta get to work. If I've promised something to anyone out there and you haven't heard from me ... please remind me OK? You would think that, since we're not in travel mode these days, I would have more time, but it doesn't seem to work that way. I have greater expectations of what can be done when we're not traveling and I fill the time up at least twice over! When we're traveling, I at least have the down-time of when Jim's driving and I get to watch the scenery. I don't expect to get anything done then. Unfortunately, I've started using our cell phone tethered to the computer to get online even when we're traveling now. I did turn off the computer on Thanksgiving day. Maybe I'll do the same on Christmas. .. .. n'aaa, how would I track Santa's progress then?
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Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Speaking at Kiwanis Club

For something completely different! This morning, Jim and I spoke at a local Kiwanis club meeting. We didn't speak about computers. Instead of the 'Geek' part, we concentrated on the 'on Tour' part! We had a slide show with pictures showing the process of becoming full-time RVers. From selling our house and all our stuff, to learning about the RV, to campgrounds, rallies, and Natonial Parks. We had about 50 slides, and Jim and I took turns doing the narration.

It was a 20 minute talk and it was SO much FUN. People came up to us afterward and said that was the best presentation the club had ever had. We want to do more of that!

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Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Mother-in-Law Suite

People are already amazed when they learn that Jim and I live - and work - full-time in a 30 foot, class C motorhome with no slides. So, where does my mother stay when she travels with us?

In the mother-in-law suite of course!

The cab-over area of this old Safari class C motorhome is amazingly versatile. It's big enough to be our TV room, our library, our workbench and staging area when we need to spread stuff out, and, best of all, our mother/mother-in-law suite! I don't know of a 40 foot class A that provides such a nice guest room! Mom says she loves it up there! She even picked up a book in our 'library' and said, "Let's do this!" The book? Ooooohhh ... would that be cool? Kind of like recreating my first RV trip. When I was 10 years old, my Mom and Dad piled all our belongings into a truck camper. We left Anchorage, Alaska in January and traveled as far as Guatemala where the road got washed out by rain so we couldn't continue. Let's try again?!

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Monday, December 01, 2008

Petra and Lion Country Safari

Hanging around Fort Lauderdale means I get to spend time with my Mom. One of the main things we spend time on is editing the video she's taken on her many trips. The one we just finished is on her recent trip to Cyprus and Jordan. The highlight was Petra. Here's 4 minutes on Petra:


 Don't know what happened to the short one, but here's the full hour video on Cyprus, Jordan, and Petra - at the end.

 We had also promised to take her on an RV trip somewhere. We decided on just a 2-night trip a short distance away to Lion Country Safari. In addition to the African Adventure Zoo, there is a KOA RV park with a Wi-Fi system we've been wanting to check out. Pretty weird to hear Lion's roaring on the other side of the fence from the campground. It's really a well-done place all around, RV park, Wi-Fi, and free ranging (kind of) zoo.
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