The Office Gal

At The Office Gal, I wanted to start the week off by bring you a variety of links that I have read around the large blogoshpere, as well as a few Web sites here and there. The links will take you to a great blog post or article that can help get you get focused on your goals and work life path.

Each one I have read and have really found to bring a bit of truth to how I need to succeed. From turning the negative to positive and keeping on track, I am hoping that you will be able to pull from these a positive statement and clearer path for yourself.

• Slash Your To-Do List! at Health.com.
• Turning Negative Situations into Positive Opportunities at Freelance Writing Jobs.
• Four Ways to Beat Workplace Stress at Office Stuffer.
• Organizing Your Work Life at Oprah.
• 7 Ways to Keep Your Career on Track at Daily Career Connections.

What piece of advice could you give for setting and keeping goals? How do you beat workplace stress? Do you categorize your to-do list? Share your tips and offer suggestions!

Popularity: 47% [?]

Want to now how hard it is to write about procrastination? It took me over three weeks just to bring you this post. Why? It was more difficult for me to write about procrastination than any other topic I could have brought you. No explanation as to why, just how it is.

So, in order to still give you some enlightenment on how to overcome procrastination, or at least ways to help battle the up-hill emotion procrastination gives us, I am going to share some links from around our friend the Internet. These links I have found to not only be great reads, but are helping me in my own personal procrastination hole.

From various times within the last six months and various parts of the Internet, these posts and articles will give you some tips for both work related and personal procrastination. I believe one affects the other. Here is to you and battling procrastination.

• The Nasty Four-Letter Word That Keeps You From Writing at Copyblogger.
• An Affair with Fun: At Work and in Your Personal Life at Divine Caroline.
• Procrastination is in the Way! at Ask the Coach on Sparkplugging.
• 6 Habits To Avoiding And Overcoming Procrastination at ZME Life Tips.
• Seven Ways to Procrastinate for Better Results (yep, that’s right - a How To of sorts) at LifeHack.
• 10 Ways to Make Laziness Work for You at FreelanceSwitch.
• Beating Procrastination: Find Your Root Cause at InkThinker.
• How To void Procrastination As A Freelancer at Freelance Folder.
• Motivating The Unmotivated at AllBusiness.

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The service itself is a new concept, but still within the PC range - using an online service as your computer; nothing is actually held or stored on you desktop or laptop. Actually, PC’s and laptops would no longer be needed. This device is your gateway to your information online.

This idea is a great starter for the individual or small business that really wants to control costs initially. This would also make a great second computer to have on hand. The FREE Nimbus Cloud system includes:

• Nimbus Cloud computer
• Network cable
• Power adapter
• Keyboard
• Mouse
• 2GB storage
• Automatic back-ups
• Virus & Spyware protection
• Automatic upgrades
• Nimbus Dynamic Desktop (shown below)

Actually, both the free and paid plans include what is listed above, but with an additional monthly fee of $19.99, your Nimbus Dynamic Desktop will not feature an ad panel to the right side of the layout (ad panel seen above). Personally, the ad panel is not a huge distraction and leaving it alone will save me $239.88 annually.

The service does not come with a monitor, but the Nimbus supports typical monitors used with any computer. You do have the option of purchasing a monitor with your Nimbus system and if you choose this option, you will be charged a one-time additional fee.

As time goes by and your business grows, you may see the need to increase you current storage capacity of 2GB. Nimbus offers additional storage plans that are sure to meet a variety of needs for any business size. Ranging in size from 5 GB to 25 GB, with prices ranging from$7.95 to $24.95 per month.

The only additional charge that I can see from reviewing the Web site is a $50.00 hold that will be placed on your credit card. This is explained in more detail on the site, but this hold is a “just in case” - you do not return the system after canceling your service.

I have not personally tried this service, so I can not speak to how user-friendly the system is and if it can truly offer everything that you will need. The buzz around has been really strong on the Nimbus, so that is why I wanted to bring this information to you.

Readers - do you have a Nimbus? Are you planning on ordering? Let us know your thoughts on all the ins and outs here at The Office Gal.

Popularity: 62% [?]

Fax machines can waste paper, cost money - not just for the initial purchase, but also constant repairs and supplies - and plainly take up much needed space for the home or small office. An alternative to the bulky fax machine - use your email to send and receive faxes. A reliable resource, using your email will cut down on space issues and offers many features a traditional fax machine doesn’t.

Using email as your fax service, you can cut down on paper usage - no need to print every fax that comes in. Email will allow you to create handy folders for you to file faxes as received and print only what is needed. Plus, no additional printing materials, such a print cartridges, to buy and replace. Both of these help decrease our use of natural resources and we won’t be adding to our landfills.

One feature that I really enjoy with using email as my fax service, I can attach documents that are received to emails and send within my team or company if needed. Now there is no need to fax to everyone - receive one fax and everyone can be on the same page.

There are an abundance of email fax services littering the Internet. Most offer the similar plans for a monthly fee and can give you a certain amount of outgoing and incoming faxes based on your monthly program. Some services offer free programs for those individuals and small businesses that rarely use faxes.

I suggest that once you have decided to take the plunge to use an email fax service, research all of the offers out there and truly only take the plan that best matches your company profile. No need to take too much right away and waste money. After you have used your service and feel you need more, move up to the next best plan.

Here are a few suggestions:

eFax
MyFax
TrustFax
Fax
OneFax
ExtremeFax

If you are using an email fax service, leave a comment and let The Office Gal know what you think about the service.

Popularity: 52% [?]

Teams and offices of all sizes can now rejoice for finally there is an easy way for you to connect with your team in real time, regardless of where everyone is located, for free! Yes, I said free! How? Well Dimdim of course. No, not dumdum - Dimdim.

Dimdim is a real time web conferencing service that allows teams spread across the country to come together in a simple-to-use meeting platform. Meeting members will be able to: share desktop information, show presentation slides, talk over the last meeting, chat about upcoming events, collaborate on projects, and broadcast meetings via webcam. View feature list.

Dimdim is extremely easy to use. Once your profile is created, you can set up meetings, or join meetings, all with a few simple clicks. There is no need to install software on to your computer and Dimdim is fully integrated with both Outlook and iCal, so your meetings can easily be placed onto your calendar - no manual calendar entry.

There are several formats of Dimdim available. The free format, allows for up to 20 members to participate within the meeting. The free version is really great for small teams to work together that may be within the same area, but all work from home offices.

Two other versions are available for larger groups at a cost. Professional, allows up to 100 members, and the big daddy, Enterprise, allows for up to 1000 members. Both of these versions are still at a fraction of the cost of other web conferencing and those other guys are still a hassle to use.

So, go take a peek at Dimdim and let yourself be open to a world of possibilities when communicating with your team.

This is an original The Office Gal post.

Popularity: 47% [?]