November-December 2006 - Issue 54

• Intro
  
• Article - The Most Irritating Website in the World by Gerry Mcgovern
  
• The Office Corner
  
• Grammar Question of the Month - Subject/verb agreement using "each"
  
• Tech Tips by Terence Kierans - Publisher, Word
  
• Writing Corner
  
• Word of the Month - Predominant
  
• Recommendations
  
• Judy's Corner
  
• Judy's Photo Gallery
  

* Looking to start your own home-based business...or take that business to the next level? Find out everything you need to know in the pages of "Entrepreneurial Freedom: How to Start and Grow A Virtual Assistance Practice." For more details, visit: www.EntrepreneurialFreedom.com - this book is co-authored by long-time friend, colleague, and client, Jeannine Clontz. She's the best.

* Do you offer some kind of a service? Are you struggling to attract clients? Marketing guru Robert Middleton says that without the essence of the following message, no one will engage us or use our services: "This is how I can render service and this is the difference it will make to you." Middleton has a dandy ezine. Do consider subscribing: http://www.actionplan.com

* Meet two of my most recent clients: Arizona BPW Foundation and Reliable Enterprises. Both are nonprofit organizations (501c3) and offer powerful support: the foundation awards scholarships to Arizona women 20 years or older who are returning to school to acquire better job opportunities, and Reliable Enterprises educates, encourages, and cares for developmentally and economically disadvantaged citizens of Lewis County, Washington. (I lived in Lewis County for 10 years and have many good friends in the area.) I thoroughly enjoyed developing the websites for these two dynamic organizations. Here are the links to their websites:

Arizona BPW FoundationArizona BPW Foundation: http://www.arizonabpwfoundation.com
Reliable Enterprises: http://www.reliableenterprises.org

* After reading Tom Lamm's article in our last issue, Terence Kierans offered a tip. Regarding Tom's statement that Windows XP has an automatic backup feature, TK says this is indeed the case for XP Professional, but NTbackup is not installed by default in in XP Home Edition. If you are running the Home Edition, it has to be installed manually, as follows:

Insert the XP CD and exit from the screen that is displayed. Open "My Computer"; right click on the CD drive with the XP CD and select "Explore."

Double-click the VALUEADD, then MSFT, then NTBACKUP. Double-click on the NTBACKUP.msi file and install it.

Don't miss Terence Kierans' tips for Microsoft Publisher and Word. The saving of various word processor programs can be a powerful help, especially for editors and writers!

* Have you ever been to the website of a highly successful business only to discover that you're going to have to fight through words and navigation to get to your goal? I have, and that's one reason I asked for permission to publish the following article. If you own an online business or manage a website, read on.

Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) may be in love with itself. But it shouldn't advertise this self-love on its website.

There I am on a Friday evening, about to finish for the week when I remember that flight I should have booked to Copenhagen. I'm multi-tasking here. I have the dinner on and the carrots have been boiling away. Will I have time to book and cook?

As I hurry to the SAS website, I'm listening to Yer Bounda Fara, a wonderful album by Ali Farka Toure. It takes me a couple of seconds to realize that there is this weird voice interrupting the beautiful music. I'm momentarily stunned. What on earth could this be? I pause iTunes.

"SAS! Sixty years! Can you believe it? Time flies and things happen all the time. Join me on the journey through time to take a look at the things we've done ..."

Can you believe it? Here I am on the SAS website. I just want to book a cheap flight. I've been listening to this great music and the carrots are nearly done, and what on earth is this voice doing talking at me?

Please, please, please, all ye organizations of the world, come close, gather round, listen carefully. I have something very important to tell, something that will have a profound impact on whether your website will be successful or not.

Nobody cares. I could not care less that it's your sixtieth anniversary! You didn't send me a card when it was our anniversary, so why should I care about you? If you want me to care, offer me 60 percent off, then I will gladly say: Happy anniversary.

What sort of weird and wacky drugs were SAS on when they decided to create this mega marketing muck-brained monstrosity? Did they by any chance allow an advertising agency to advise them?

What sort of vacuous vanity allows any organization to believe for one nanosecond that the customer has any remote Outer Mongolian desire to go on a journey and "take a look at the things we've done".

I can't turn the bloody thing off. It's torture. I'm staring at the screen, trying as quickly as possible to select Dublin to Copenhagen. Then it strikes me. SAS has one of the most awkward, time-consuming booking processes I have come across. Instead of having a list of destinations, you have to first choose the country, and then choose the airport you fly to.

My carrots are going to get soggy and I really don't like soggy carrots!! Please, all organizations of the world gather round (again). The web customer is always, always, always in a hurry. The Web is the land of attention deficit syndrome. People are improperly impatient. They just want to book a cheap flight as quickly as possible.

Repeat after me: "We are not the center of the universe. We are not the center of the universe." It's a big, bad world out there, full of unkind and cruel customers who care only about themselves.

You poor little organization. I know it's your anniversary and nobody has sent you a card. Come here until I give you a big hug. Now, chin up. Go out and serve the customer.

Content management solutions: Gerry McGovern
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com
gerry@gerrymcgovern.com
Reprinted by permission

1. SMALL BUSINESS VIDEO SEMINAR From the New York Public Library. View a smallbiz how-to do business seminar. Each session can be viewed in parts, watch the video and text slides together, or download the audio only to an MP3 player. Even if you don't live in New York, you'll find tips of value.
http://www.nypl.org/research/sibl/smallbiz/video.html

2. PRESENTERS UNIVERSITY: All about presentation, including PowerPoint. Templates available at no cost.
http://www.presentersuniversity.com/

3. THE 10 DEADLIEST WORDS AND PHRASES IN BUSINESS BY GARY BLAKE
http://www.businessknowhow.com/marketing/tendeadliestwords.htm

4. 720 FREE POWERPOINT TEMPLATES: http://powerbacks.com/

5. CONVERT YOUR FILES TO PDF (Thanks, Maria Marsala!): -MS Word (DOC) MS Publisher (PUB) -MS Word (RTF) MS Excel (XLS) -MS PowerPoint (PPT) HTML (MHT) MS PowerPoint (PPS) Text (TXT)
http://www.pdfonline.com/

6. WHAT IS A DOLLAR WORTH? Want to find out find out the exact Cost of Living percentage increase, or how much one of your fixed costs has gone up?
http://woodrow.mpls.frb.fed.us/Research/data/us/calc/

Which is correct: My cousins each have or has a bicycle?

Gregg Reference Manual says (1009.c) that when each follows a plural subject, keep the verb plural. In that position, "each" has no effect on the number of the verb. To test the correctness of such sentences, mentally omit "each."

Use "have."

Which is correct: Each of my cousins have or has a bicycle.

Gregg Reference Manual says (1009.a) that when "each" is used as the subject or as an adjective modifying subjects, a singular verb is required.

Use "has."

PUBLISHER
DON'T CUT AND PASTE

Did you know that Publisher enables you to import text from many popular word processors, including past versions of Microsoft Word, Microsoft Works and WordPerfect. When you want to use text you have already typed elsewhere:

1.	Click the "Text" tool and draw a text frame where you want the text to appear.
2.	From the "Insert" menu, choose "Text File". In the dialog box, change "Files Of Type" to the type of file you want to insert (you can even use *.* if you are not sure).
3.	Find the file, and double-click it. Publisher will insert the text into the frame.

WORD
SAVING VERSIONS OF WORD DOCUMENTS

Manual saving of differing versions of a file works OK so long as you do not lose, accidentally delete, or overwrite any copies of the document. However, Word provides a way to track different versions of your document, making it almost impossible to lose old versions.

1.	Go to "File/Versions" and click the "Save Now" button. The "Save Version" dialog box will appear with a "Comments On Version" field in which you can type notes regarding the how and why of the version. Click OK. If the document had not been saved previously Word will prompt you to save it. This process can be repeated for as many versions of the document as you like.
2.	To review an earlier version of the document, go to "File/Versions". In the "Existing Versions" section is a row corresponding to each version of the document that has been saved. Click the View Comments button to see all of the comments entered.
3.	Double-click on any version listed in the "Existing Versions" section of the "Versions" dialog box, Word will open a new window with the document as it appeared when that version was saved. If you make changes to this version and try to save it, Word will force you to rename the file.
4.	To delete a version of the document, go to "File/Versions", select the version, and press "Delete".

Terence Kierans
Cyberspace Virtual Services
tkierans@virtualservices.com.au
http://www.virtualservices.com.au/
We keep your project on the boil, while you sleep

1. J-LEARNING How-to guide for hyper-local community media.
http://j-learning.org/

2. OPENING SENTENCES THAT CLOSE THE SALE by Karon Thackston
http://www.businessknowhow.com/marketing/opening-sentence.htm

3. LITERATURE MAP Find authors with similar writing styles. And more. Excellent site. Works like Visual Thesaurus, but it's online.
http://www.literature-map.com/

Main Entry:pre-dom-i-nant
Pronunciation:-n*nt
Function:adjective
Date:1576

1 : having superior strength, influence, or authority : PREVAILING
2 : being most frequent or common synonyms see DOMINANT

*By permission. From Merriam-Webster's Collegiate(R) Dictionary at www.m-w.com by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated.

1. DELIGHTFUL BLOG WITH ALL KINDS OF DESIGN: Artwork, clothing, vintage, jewelry, chocolate, etc. If design interests you, visit this blog!
http://ohjoy.blogs.com/

2. THE PRICE OF SILVER. All about photography. Al Kaplan
http://thepriceofsilver.blogspot.com/

3. HOMW Sewing association for the sewing enthusiast. Something here for everyone, even sewing for your pet.
http://www.sewing.org/enthusiast/enthusiast.html

4. AMERICAN ACCENT-ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION VIDEO TRAINING DESCRIPTION: A unique English Pronunciation-Accent Reduction Video Training Program via DVD or on-line. All instruction is by Speech Language Pathologist. Free American accent tips and free idiom book are available.
http://www.pronunciationworkshop.com

Thank you for being such a faithful subscriber. I deeply appreciate you and the fact that you enjoy my ezine. Because I have quite a hearing loss, I wanted to share with you this website I discovered: Timeline of Hearing Devices and Early Deaf Education
Deafness in Disguise

And I'm finding new and different ways to enhance my hearing. Like an assistive telephone and new behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aids with receivers in the ear (RITE). I'm a walking acronym! Kind of new, and kind of different. I'm evaluating all of them and will give you more details later.

I hope and pray that your new year is filled with experiences that will enrich and strengthen you. You're simply the best.

Tiny Orchids: Holualoa, Hawaii

White Ginger: Holualoa, Hawaii

Monstera Deliciosa: Holualoa, Hawaii

Monstera Deliciosa edited in Virtual Painter: Holualoa, Hawaii
Wishing you a happy holiday!

ARCHIVES FOR ALL COMMUNICATION EXPRESSWAY ISSUES
http://www.ossweb.com/ezine-archive-index.html

Questions, comments, recommendations?
Contact Judy Vorfeld at judyvorfeld@ossweb.com

TO SUBSCRIBE TO COMMUNICATION EXPRESSWAY
go to http://www.ossweb.com/ezine.html