Home Office Site

I have been looking for a way to incorporate forms into my business management. My priorities include privacy, efficiency, ease of use. I want to be able to tell a worker that they can go to a defined page and enter information that I can accumulate and use elsewhere.

Well I’ve tried out more than I bargained for. I don’t have much of a budget, but I will be willing to pay a small amount eventually….at least if the forms create more business.

The two I have looked at the most are Zoho Creator and JotForm. Both are free until you want more…..I haven’t gotten to the point of choosing more.

ZoHo is going to deserve a long dedicated post of its own…..it is downright amazing all of the free services offered by this site. I have already used it for formatting and submitting an excel sheet into a blog, for instance. I have created a online job application form with this also.

Now I have finally started a Google Payment account and want a form program that will integrate with Google the best. I am leaning towards using Jotform, because it is so clear what I am will get for $9 a month. You wouldn’t believe how many companies I have eliminated from consideration because they bury their pricing information…….on the assumption that if they loop you in with a free trial you will jump on board. Me….I get pissed off that they will waste my time by surprising me with the cost after I’ve delved into the program for a day. I just don’t give those suckers a second look any more. If you can’t be upfront and easy about what you charge I don’t want to deal with you. I don’t have time, thank you very much!

So JotForm is the one I will try for payment…..to be continued. Gotta pick up my high school freshman. Be right back!
love and peace

It is very simple to set Gmail as your default email client in FireFox.

Open your Tools tab and click on Options.  Then open the applications tab and scroll down until you see the mailto:  in the content type list.  Set it to Gmail and now when you click on a mailto: link Gmail will open up a compose window for you.

Google Labs has come up with a new feature where you can attach a Google document to your event listing.  This is very handy if you want someone to be able to print out details.  Do you have a flyer for the event that you would like those who share the calendar to post? Well this is one heck of an easy way to do it.

Here is an image of a calendar event with a document attached.

I won’t hide the fact that I have been a big fan of Google products all along. I long ago converted to Gmail, and recruited whatever friends I could to use Gmail for their email application. I soon afterward switched to their calendar system…….(this will involve a separate post). And now I am a big fan of iGoogle.

At first I didn’t quite “get” iGoogle. It just sort of seemed like a playground area to decorate a favorite landing area when you first log online. However, while I was setting up this blog, editing a website, and keeping track of links for a program I’m setting up for my employees all in the same afternoon, iGoogle’s usefulness became apparent in almost a trite “Aha!” type moment. I was able to arrange my iGoogle page into several useful tabs.

I have iGoogle set up as my homepage, and once I log into my Google account, my landing page on iGoogle shows me my most recent emails, my current to-do list, my calendar entries, my google bookmarks (another favorite), and my favorite news sources.

I have two other tabs set up….I’ve been too lazy to name one of them, so it is still called Name this Tab. I go their infrequently to play a quick game of Sudoko, learn my Spanish word of the day. That kind of thing.

My third tab is called numbers. I keep domain IPs, login reminders (pre-treated with my own personal disguises that I understand), and a yellow pages gadget to look up phone numbers.

This is all done with the use gadgets that you can get by clicking the links at the top of your iGoogle page. This is all so easy. On the typical afternoon I was talking about I would go from one of my Mozilla tabs back to my iGoogle page to log important links and article ideas. I jotted down login info for my cPanels. Since I operate more than one Cpanel I also had FileZilla open on the desktop so that I could transport files to servers. I was taking phone calls and wrote down my notes to later enter into my calendar(s). If I needed to close down my desktop quickly (and I did) all those little jots of notes were still there when I came back without closing down notepad, word, etc. I’m probably not doing justice to how handy this iGoogle page is, so play around with it and see if it helps you keep your life sorted.

By the way, I just had a conversation with a friend who wasn’t using iGoogle because she thought that anyone could see her iGoogle page. This just isn’t so…..everyone sees the standardized iGoogle page until they log in and then they can see their private iGoogle page. The privacy level is the same as it is for your calendars and email.

I wrote a few days ago about QuickBooks.  Since then I was surprised to discover that they have a free  product available to small business owners called Online Invoices.

What’s included?

Unlimited Invoicing
Multiple Invoice Templates
Address Book Management
Accept Credit Cards & eChecks*

If you want recurrent invoicing, or you want to create and send estimates, the  cost is only $9.95  per month.

It  seems to me that using this product is a complete no-brainer.  I have many friends and acquaintances who operate small  businesses out of their  homes.    Cash flow  needs to  be a top priority for all of us, and  having  an organized system of invoicing customers (especially those late  in payment) is critical for your success.  I am not an affiliate with Intuit (maybe I should work on that) …….I  am giving this recommendation to  you to help you out!  If you don’t  have the money to invest in  QuickBooks…….start here.