• Intro
  
• Survey Results
  
• Interview: Hal Alpiar - Do Entrepreneurs Need College Degrees?
  
• The Office Corner
  
• Free Stuff
  
• Grammar Question of the Month: Jones' Jones's or Joneses
  
• Tech Tips: Claudia Slate
  
• Tech Corner
  
• Writing Corner: Plagiarism
  
• Trivia
  
• Word of the Month: Typography
  
• Recommendations
  
• Judy's Corner: ebook Recommendation / Copyediting brings sales
  

* THE WINNER of Janet Attard's "The Home Office and Small Business Answer Book" is Elizabeth of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Congratulations, Elizabeth! Want a chance to win the book? Go to http://www.ossweb.com/freebook.html

RESULTS FROM THE POP-UP PREFERENCE SURVEY reveal that although quite a few of those surveyed use them, they don't like them on other sites. They say they're annoying, distracting, and intrusive. Here's one comment: "I like popups that provide a tidbit of information (a definition, email address, more info) but I detest with a passion those that popunder or chase you as you leave a site. The difference? The good ones, I control. I click when I want them. The bad ones try to control me and cause me to never want to visit the site again." Express your opinion in our surveys: http://www.ossweb.com/survey-index.html

PART 2 OF 3 - DO ENTREPRENEURS NEED COLLEGE DEGREES?

Q. Does a person need a college degree to start a small online business today, one that will thrive?

A. I used to start off college business courses I taught on entrepreneurship by writing on the blackboard (remember those?): "There are no rules in business!"... by throwing the textbook out the window to underscore my blackboard message...and by urging students who had no full-time employment experience to drop my classes, quit college, and go to work for a couple of years first.

I would also insist on clarity of verbal and written communications as the number one criteria for a good business course grade. No one needs to go to college to learn these points or acquire these skills. College does not teach subject matter. College teaches people how to think. If someone already knows how to think and how to clearly express herself/himself, college can be a terribly heavy anchor dragging behind the entrepreneur-ship!

If you know how to think, and you know how to communicate, and you are driven enough to take your ideas through to completion, and have the staying power to see your pursuits through the inevitable low points, your business will work.

Your business will work because you will know when and where to surround yourself with the right kinds of support that will help you grow, and you will --simply by your tenacious and inspired commitments-- succeed in attracting the customers and funding you'll need to thrive.

Nobody ever believes this except those who do it. Ask any successful entrepreneur and they'll tell you that pursuit of making an idea work attracts money; pursuit of money attracts failure. (There really IS no such thing as a "quick buck"!)

CREDIT: Originator of the terms, Corporate Entrepreneurship(tm), Educational Entrepreneurship(tm), and Doctorpreneurs(tm), Hal Alpiar taught college courses and ran hundreds of training workshops with corporate executives, teachers and physicians. Today, Author / Consultant / Entrepreneur and CEO of BUSINESSWORKS Management & Marketing Specialists, Alpiar consults with corporations and speaks at events like the International Internet Marketing Conference.

1. TYPINGMASTER ONLINE TEST Test Your Typing Skills for Free With TypingMaster Online Test you can assess your typing skills in minutes, free - within your web browser. Based on the short text typing sample, this Java applet will estimate your typing skills including typing speed, accuracy and net speed. You can also receive test results right to your email address. http://www.typingmaster.com/

2. USER MANUAL? USER'S MANUAL? USERS' MANUAL? Someone wrote asking which was correct. Wish I could've helped, but I've seen all three used (no pun intended). And I can't find anything in CMS14, the new "The Web Content Style Guide" by McGovern et al, or the AP Styleguide. The majority of my own manuals say: "User's Manual" or "User's Guide."

3. POSSESSIVE Which is correct: over 17 years experience or over 17 years' experience. According to The Gregg Reference Manual, it is years'.

4. ASCII TABLE Here's a page with several tables of code, two of which are ASCII, and it goes from 0 to 255.
http://www.asciitable.com/

5. AGENDA Someone recently asked what a meeting agenda was and what it looks like. The main point is to give information about an event: dates, times and places and topics of the various functions.
Sample agendas:
http://www.mindspring.com/~midwestacademy/page8.html
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/commission/Agendas/Agenda_Local_May22_02.htm
http://www.californiasfuture.org/SchoolInfo/GCSSampleAgenda.htm

6. FEELING LIKE A DOORMAT? Been there. Done that. In fact, at one job, a colleague felt so threatened by my presence (and work experience) that she began a campaign to get rid of me and my newly created job. It worked. Many of us have gone through such experiences, or watched others go through them. I'd like your opinion on the column below. Let me know if I can share your thoughts (anonymously if you wish) in our next issue. http://www.careerknowhow.com/ask_sue/doormat.htm

FREE BOOK! Subscribers are eligible to sign up to win a free copy of "The Home Office and Small Business Answer Book: Solutions to the Most Frequently Asked Questions About Starting and Running Home Offices and Small Businesses" by Janet Attard. Sign up once a month at http://www.ossweb.com/freebook.html - Winners announced here!

FREE DICTIONARY! Webgrammar offers all site visitors the chance to win a free Webster's dictionary, monthly. Sign up now! www.webgrammar.com/contest.html

Q. What is the right way to use Jones when it's a plural? And what about when it's a possessive?

A. According to the The Chicago Manual of Style, 14th Edition, if it's plural, it's Joneses. If it's possessive (one person), it's Jones's car. If it's possessive, and is more than one person, it's the Joneses' car.

Vizual Einstein: Free Database Program

Writers and researchers may find this FREE database program useful. Vizual Einstein ME Millenium Edition Version 6.0 for Windows 95/98/ ME/NT/ME is the latest upgrade of Vizual Einstein 32, a revolutionary freeware standalone application for investigators, researchers, academics, lawyers, scientists, essayists, students, and writers.

Vizual Einstein allows you to visually develop a project document with notes, headings, subheadings, and hyperlinks. Vizual Einstein is also Web-enabled and has full database search functionality. There are many other features, including bibliography and formatted essay report output.
http://www.aadconsulting.cjb.net/einstein.html

Claudia Slate
Dakota Technics
clslate@dakotatechnics.com
www.dakotatechnics.com

1. COLOR COMBO.COM
Visualize harmonious color combinations with this four-panel scrolling side-by-side color combination demonstrator. A bonus for Web developers! Thanks, Claudia Slate, for the tip.
http://www.colorcombo.com/

2. HOW BIOS WORKS
BIOS is the first thing you see when you turn on your computer. It performs the power-on self-test and boots the operating system. Learn all about BIOS and how you can upgrade it.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/bios.htm

3. HOW COMPUTER MEMORY WORKS
Computer memory shows up in all sorts of electronic devices, from PCs to car radios to cell phones. Learn about the different memory systems in use today.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/computer-memory.htm

Plagiarism

My colleague and client, Jackie Eastwick, has a problem. She has a site at http://www.allisonlane.com/ and for over a year people have been stealing text from her site and using it on theirs. They're particularly using two areas on the home page with bulleted lists. Eastwick says, "...this year alone I have contacted 18 people using this or other portions of my text."

She's contacted the people (and their ISPs when contacting the people didn't help), but because she doesn't have the original site on her hard drive, can't prove beyond a certain date that the material is hers.

What if this had happened to you, after you'd struggled to get the words just right? Or has it happened to you? What would you do? Or what did you do? Ideas welcome! We'll publish them.

1. MUSEUM OF HOAXES
Begins with pre-1700 hoaxes up through 2001. Take the "Gullibility Test."
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/

2. KEIDEL BATH AND PLUMBING
Almost 300 pages dedicated to educating the public about bath fixtures and plumbing. Articles cover such topics as: design trends; how to choose faucets and fixtures; all about pipe, valves, fittings; all about water (including quality, problems, conservation); and safety issues involving plumbing in the home. Resources include a glossary of over 800 plumbing terms, legal matters (building codes, etc), do-it-yourself references, and all about the mechanicals. Very user friendly, and I recommend you use it as a model for building an effective site.
http://www.keidel.com/

3. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COLOR AND INTERIORS
Useful tips regardless of how one uses color.
http://www.keidel.com/resource/wellness/color-psych.htm

4. WOODY'S WATCH
Subscribe page for ezines with help on Microsoft Windows, Windows XP, Access, Office, and Project. Woody Leonhard.
http://www.woodyswatch.com/winxp/subscribe.asp

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary: Main Entry: ty·pog·ra·phy - Pronunciation: tI-'pä-gr&-fE The style, arrangement, or appearance of typeset matter

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. The art and technique of printing with movable type. b. The composition of printed material from movable type. 2. The arrangement and appearance of printed matter.

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001. Now created on computers, new typographic styles (type faces) continue to develop, to suit myriad uses in the design of advertisements, posters, newspapers, greeting cards, almanacs, and fine books.

1. BIBLIOMANIA
Literature, study materials, poetry, interviews, short stories, etc.
http://www.bibliomania.com/

2. TRACER TAGS
If you've ever lost, or accidentally misplaced your cell phone, laptop, keys, camera, luggage or other personal items, you probably want to visit this site. Awesome idea and reasonably priced. Tracer Tags puts control back into your hands, and substantially increases the chances of recovering your lost items. Plus, the company has all your personal information. The tags have your Tracer Tags unique number and an 800 number.
http://tracertags.com/

3. TIME AND QUALITY CONSTRAINTS
This is a brief, must-read commentary on how the Internet can be addictive and destructive unless people learn how to manage their lives. Adam Boettiger tells what he's doing to get a life.
http://www.email911.com/publications/0502.txt

1. I recently copyedited a book for Renee Kennedy and Terry Kent: "Create Web Content THAT SELLS!" I loved working on it, and kept saying to myself, "If only I'd known all this when I started creating my site!!" It has a strong marketing thread throughout, while focusing on content, search engine strategies, and graphic design. I highly recommend this book to website owners who haven't been able to provide a clear picture of who they are, what they do, and how they can help potential customers and clients."
http://www.thewritemarket.com/content.shtml

2. COPYEDITING SELLS!  Recently someone posted to an Internet list saying that the site wasn't getting any sales, and wondered if a shopping tutorial would make a difference. I've not seen the site, so I'm not sure. But most of the time, potential customers/buyers are put off because they want to know as much as possible about details like shipping and handling costs BEFORE they get to the last page.

I recently copyedited a site from "Swenglish" to English. Problem was, once the site was up and running, there were no sales (product had, however, been selling nicely in Sweden: thus the concern.)

Curious, I went into the shopping cart area, and saw that the information about shipping and handling was confusing. It gave the cost for shipping the first set, but said other s/h costs would be determined at the end of the sale. Not good.

I suggested to the owner that we put the following on every page: "Shipping and handling is US$9.95 for the first set. Free shipping and handling for all additional sets ordered at the same time." Owner agreed, and uploaded the new copy.

Voila! Sales are booming, and I have a happy client. Incidentally, he'd wanted to say something like "...no charges for additional shipping and handling." I figured "free" was more powerful than "no charge."

Lesson learned? If something isn't working the way you think it should, brainstorm with others to find out why, and what to do about it. (My client and I have built a good relationship that allows for brainstorming.) Then, begin testing for results. Be patient. It takes time.

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