Girl Power!

This is an interesting article on all-women networking and fraternal groups in the UK.

Solopreneurs and the Unexpected

As a solopreneur (a pretentious made-up word I despise that is nonetheless accurate) I hate when people talk about the downsides of working with a one-(wo) man show, but when it happens to YOU, as it has to me, you are forced to acknowledge that there IS a downside.

Small shops and freelancers have a lot of advantages over the big boys--we usually have more creative freedom and flexibility, we tend to think outside the box (if we didn't we'd be happy working in someone else's box) and, because of our significantly lower overhead, we are often a more wallet-friendly choice.

The downside? There's only one of me. When I get sick, I work anyway, unless I'm in the hospital--and I've been known to beg for a laptop and work from there, too. Sometimes, though, things beyond our control happen, things that take us so far outside of our normal lives that we simply have to drop everything else and try to deal with it. The death of a loved one is one of these situations, but not the only one, and what constitutes a crisis of this magnitude is different for everyone.

The long and short? I've been out of commission due to circumstances beyond my control for a little while. I am back at work today because I told my clients I would be. While I try to balance the business and the personal I am working reduced hours, 9a-1p CST, through 7/11/08, and possibly for longer.

For those of you who have stuck by me, thanks. For those of you who feel you need to move on, I understand. For those of you who have sent messages of support, thank you!

The best way to get in touch with me is still via email & I am responding to messages within one business day. For those needing phone time, it may take a day or two to set up since I am playing catch up right now.

And the Fun Never Stops!

*sigh*

Upgrade begets upgrade is the way of the world. In order to sync my calendars I have to upgrade my Outlook. Upgrading my Outlook is only $100 cheaper than upgrading my whole MS Office package, so I bit the bullet on that one today.

Tonight, we have fun with Microsoft installations :-S I'm not a huge MS fan anyway, as anyone who reads my posts on the OffAssist blog already knows, but I am really dreading this. MS installs never go the way they are supposed to. I married an engineer, so he and I have been the whole family's in-house tech support team for almost 15 years and these things never go as planned.

Wish me luck!

Oh, and to clarify yesterday's post, I am RECEIVING email regularly (actually, I'm getting 2-4 copies of everything, it's driving me batty!) I just can't SEND email. So if you need to get in touch, that's still, for the moment, the best way to reach me.

Unless you like to text. New phone has unlimited texting and a real keypad. Woot.

6:14pm - U P D A T E

Finally get all the important stuff backed up, it took ALL day. Then I couldn't get the ruddy box open. Check it out, I had to find a photo tutorial just to OPEN the box. I'm afraid now.

Update, Upgrade, Upheaval!

Ink Think is doing respectably well these days, after a long slow start, and I decided to reward myself this weekend. My old business (cell) phone has been having a harder and harder time taking a charge--the battery was fine, but the little connector thingy in the phone wasn't connecting unless you laid it down just right and held your mouth so. It was very WordPerfect 5.0!

After much thought and inner debate I decided to upgrade to a PDA. I denied myself 3 or 4 years ago when I got my last phone, unable to justify the expense for my tiny writing business. Now, though, I need it. I can edit documents while waiting for school to get out and not have to re-enter the hand edits on the soft copy when I get home. I hope. So I did it.

A cringe-worthy amount of money later me and my PDA headed home, a big grin on my face and a brand new picture of the kiddo, taken in the phone store, on my desktop.

6 HOURS later I finally got the ^&*%^# Windows Mobile syncing to work right and suddenly all was right with the world! My computer could see my phone.

Just not my email.

10+ HOURS later, and that's labor hours, real time is closer to 20 and yes, I did only get 5 hours of sleep last night, the process of migrating back to Outlook from Thunderbird is complete. Sort of. The messages are all there, and some are even sorted into the right folders, but some got lost, some ported over (a nightmarish 3-5 step process that either Microsoft or Mozilla needs to make easier!) blank, or were there but hiding in reams of code...

If you emailed me this weekend, well, it may have gotten lost in the shuffle. If I haven't replied, it's because I can't. I will be spending Monday on the phone with tech support, no doubt, figuring out why I can't seem to send through any of my SMTP servers. If you really need me, send me your Skype ID (or Yahoo, AIM, or MSN--pick an instant messenger) id in the email and I'll get back to you that way.

I wish this was it, but sometime this summer Ink Think will be migrating to a new computer, too. I must be nuts.

I'm So Proud!

My 7 yo got her first email account this week. Heavily controlled through a site with awesome parental controls, but yes, her first email acct.

She got an email this afternoon from an acquaintance in the UK and called me over to see.

"Mom, she spelled color wrong!"

It was colour. I explained about Brit spellings and she was okay with it, but still. A proud moment for Editor Mom.