Shift 7 Consulting

Things to change about my IPAD.

2011-05-25T09:42:00.000-07:00

As you know, I love my IPAD. But with all things, I would like a few changes. I have researched these changes, and haven’t found solutions. If you know of solutions to my problems, please let me know!

First, I would like a slightly different keyboard. I really want a TAB key and an apostrophe. When I first bought my IPAD, I figured I would get an external keyboard. It turns out, I don’t need it at all. I have gotten used to typing on the screen and it works great, with two exceptions. I really need my TAB key and my apostrophe.

Second, I would like something like MS’s autotext. I want to be able to write s7c and have it automatically change it to Shift 7 Consulting, LLC. I would like to have a place to set a whole bunch of phrases like that.

I am sure I will think of some other changes, but for now, that will do it.

What is with Apple?

2011-05-20T09:40:00.000-07:00

As you know, I recently bought an IPAD. I love it. I have had an IPOD for a few years and I love that as well. Soon, I will be investing in my IPhone. So, with the exception of my main computer all my peripherals are from Apple. What is going on? I am not saying I want to move to an Apple computer, I really like my Windows 7 machine, but I think it is interesting.

At my very first “real” job in 1997, we used Macs. I have always believed that having my first work computer a Mac made computers more accessible to me. I understood better how a computer worked because I used a Mac. I think that is what made me interested in technology. Even ACT! worked on a Mac, back in the day. Apples are just easier. Why can’t I have a Mac as my main machine? Software. I personally think that Apple lost out on a huge opportunity. There are many older programs that don’t run on a Mac. When I say “older” I don’t mean programs that have not been updated, I mean programs like ACT! that have been around for a while, but never really invested in the Mac operating system. If Apple had offered incentives for programs like ACT! to build for their platform, I really believe that more people would be using Apples right now. I also think that the IPAD is going to change everything. ACT! is going to have to figure out how to make it work on an IPAD and hopefully that will move them toward Macs as well. So, in my humble opinion, operating system agnosticism is going to be the next step in computing. I can’t wait for my Iphone!

My IPAD

2011-05-18T09:37:00.000-07:00

I bought an IPAD about six weeks ago. I don’t want to be hyperbolic, but I will say it has changed my life. I love it. I love being able to have my whole computer with me on a little screen. It is the perfect size and weight and has everything I need. The IPAD commercial says something like: To us (Apple), it is just the beginning. I totally agree, I think that this is an amazing machine, but it is going to get much better.

Here are a few of my favorite apps for the IPAD. I use something called Logmein Ignition. I have used Logmein Free for years. Logmein Free is the program that I use to remote control my main computer from any computer in the world. I have used this countless times and it has occasionally saved my hide. Logmein Ignition enables me to login to my main computer from my IPAD. It does take a few minutes to get used to because there is no mouse. The mouse is basically your finger and while not as fast as a real mouse it gets the job done very efficiently.

The other main program I use is called Evernote. Evernote is a digital notebook. If you have ever been in a meeting with me, you know I write everything down. I have found that it helps me to process information. Evernote is a program that allows you to have different digital notebooks with pages and sections. So, for instance, I have a Work Notebook, a Personal Notebook and a Quick Todo Notebook. To be honest, I started using MS OneNote before I moved to Evernote. I actually like OneNote much better, but their IPAD app was terrible. Evernote’s IPAD app is wonderful so I moved to Evernote for the ability to have it on my IPAD and with me all the time. It keeps me organized, synchronizes and works great.

I do have a few things I would like to change on the IPAD. I will save that for another post.

How is your Backup?

2010-03-12T19:32:00.000-08:00

How is your Backup?
As many of you know, I am a bit of a backup fanatic. This is part of an occasional series that I send out called: How is your Backup. I like to send these out when I have a good or a bad example of how important it is to backup your database. Today I have one of each. All names have been kept confidential for obvious reasons. Both of these stories are 100% true and happened in the past month.

Example 1:
About one year ago, we upgraded a client’s ACT! database. During this time, we set up something called Second Copy. Second Copy is a product that costs $29.95. Basically, this program copies any file that has been changed during the day. We have set it so ACT! creates a ZIP file backup each night. This file then gets copied to her external hard drive, along with everything else that changed during the day.
She called about a month ago to tell me that her computer was hit with a major virus and she lost her entire hard drive. By the time she called me, she had gotten a new hard drive and needed help. (She had all her contacts on a Blackberry and had all the contact information for her database.) All we had to do was install ACT! and restore the backup from the external hard drive that was created from Second Copy. She was up and running in 1 hour AND SHE DID NOT LOSE A SINGLE PIECE OF DATA.

Example 2:
I got a call from another client yesterday. He had wanted to get in touch with me for a few days but didn’t have my phone number or email address anywhere except his ACT! database. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get to his ACT! database. Like my previous client, a virus got hold of his machine and he lost all of his data. He had been using an off-site backup system but unfortunately, unbeknownst to him, his ACT! database was not being backed up. Also, not incidentally, he had an extremely hard time getting the data downloaded from the off-site backup. The last ACT! backup that we could find on the off-site backup was from September 2008 that I created when I did some work for him. He had not made manual backups and unfortunately, has lost all the data that he entered in since September 2008. He is using Constant Contact so we were able to import in the email and contact names from those contacts that existed in Constant Contact but not ACT!. But emails and contact name is no replacement for 18 months of lost data.

What can you do?
1. Check it - If you have a backup system working, please check it – early and often. Set a reminder in ACT! (or some other program) to check it. I check mine one time a week.
2. Get it – If you don’t have a backup working, get it going immediately. Today.
3. Be Redundant - Have redundant backups. As I mentioned I use Second Copy to backup my hard drive to an external hard drive. This works well unless there is a fire in my house. So, I also use Mozy.com to backup a small subset of my data to their off-site location.
4. Understand it - Understand how backup works. If you don’t understand the following words, please call me or your IT consultant:
a. Backup
b. External hard drive
c. Off-site backup
d. ZIP file
e. Restore

Your data is your world, it is so important to protect yourself. I am happy to help you with your questions, please let me know as soon as possible if you have questions. If you don't have an IT Consultant, please let me know, I have several great recommendations.

Color Coding your Calendar

2010-03-02T12:54:00.000-08:00

I have been using a Color Code system for my calendar for years. Recently, I have noticed that others are using a similar system so I thought I would write this post for those of you not using a color code system for your calendar. I find this to be an excellent way to quickly determine what kind of day, week or month you have ahead. After years of playing with it, here are some of my thoughts:
1. Use 3 or 4 Colors. I have 3 or 4 colors that I use to denote different kinds of meetings on my calendar. Green usually means a billable meeting. Blue means a prospecting or networking meeting. Purple is a personal meeting and black is for everything else. Some of my clients have many more colors on their calendar and if you can keep all the colors straight, then go for it, but I seem to max out around 3 or 4.
2. Use a Filter. If you are using ACT!, you know that you can schedule a call, meeting or a to-do on your calendar. I have also added Conference Call and Birthday on my calendar. The conference call is important because it is not really a call and it is not really a meeting. I like to be able to filter my calendar to show only my Conference Calls and my Meetings. I created a new one for Birthday as well because this really is its own type. I have discussed how I love to use my dashboard to show upcoming birthdays. Keep in mind that Colors cannot be filtered. In other words, you cannot show only activities that are Blue. You must use an Activity Type to be able to show only some items on your calendar.
3. Taking it with you. Unfortunately, colors will not show up on your Blackberry. You can print out your calendar and the colors will show up.
In short, I really think using a color code system on my calendar helps me to be very organized. I hope this helps you as well. Do you have any tips on making your calendar more user friendly? Please let us know!

All About Dashboards

2010-01-14T13:11:00.000-08:00

All about Dashboards
The Dashboard feature has been a part of ACT! since ACT! 2008. Since then, I have loved it. There are very few ACT! users that use the Dashboard, even the experienced ones. By default, the ACT! Dashboard will report on Activities and Opportunities. ACT! 2010 also has the ability to report on limited history and some other cool features. For this entry, I am going to focus on the Activities Dashboard. Before the Dashboard was available, I mostly lived on the Task List. This was the place where I went to organize what I was going to do for the day. I do still use the Task List, but really only to print out a list of things I have to do for the day.
When I am at my computer, I work from my customized Dashboard. I have my Activity Dashboard set up into 6 different panels. Here is basically what it looks like:

Today’s High Priority Phone Calls & To-Dos // Today’s Medium and Low Priority Calls

Today’s Meetings // Today’s Medium and Low Priority To-Dos

Today’s Personal Activities // Current Month’s Birthdays

Setting it up this way has made it so I am more productive and can see immediately what I need to get done. In order to have Birthdays in a separate panel, you would need to set up a Activity Type called Birthday. I can explain that in another post, but that is another one of my most favorite, small changes that you can make so that you work more efficiently.

Working with Templates

2009-08-27T13:50:00.000-07:00

Working with Templates

A lot of my clients use ACT! as they always have and don’t realize there are features that have been around forever. These unused features can change the way they get simple tasks done. One of those cool, unused features is the Mail Merge.

First, what is a mail merge? A mail merge is using the same “template” to send personalized letters to multiple people. The act of mail merging is really pretty easy, but it does incorporate a whole bunch of ACT! skills. Here are the basic steps:
· Create or have an existing template
· Create a lookup
· Run the Mail Merge Wizard
· Check it to make sure it looks the way it should
· Print
· Print Labels

In this post, I am going to focus on the creating of the Template. My newsletter reviews how to create the actual letters. I will also probably cover that part in another post.
When would you use a Mail Merge? I have used and seen my clients use them for a variety of reasons – invitations to events, invoices, introduction letters, special offer letters, proposals and many other reasons.

If you have ever taken an ACT! class by me, you know that I like to take the easy way to get to the end result. Here are the steps take to create a template:
1. Pull down the Write Menu, select Edit Template, select Letter or another template
a. I like to take an existing template and edit it, rather than recreating the whole template. I recommend that you edit the Letter Template to either have room for pre-printed letterhead or put your digital letterhead in the template.

2. A Word document opens up with ACT! “placeholders”. These fields tell Word where to put the ACT! fields. A Fields dialog box appears and you can select different fields to go into different places on your letter.
a. It is easy to see how the address block works, but you can also do personalized fields so you can say: I hope the weather in [City] is nice this time of year. The [City] would be replaced by the city for the particular contact you are on. I have a field in my database that indicates which version of ACT! the client is on. I can search by that field and I can also use that field to mail merge a letter with the user’s correct version.

3. Once you have edited your Template, do a Save or Save AS and rename your template.
a. This template looks like a Word document, but it is actually a .ADT (ACT Document Template).
b. If you have Word Documents that you want to use, we just have to copy the text into a newly created template.

4. Close the template, run your lookup, go through the Mail Merge steps and use the template you have created.

5. This also works for emails!
What are some great novel ways that you all have used Mail Merge?

My Second Favorite - Second Copy

2009-05-14T09:49:00.000-07:00

Speaking of backups, did I mention that you must backup your backup? My favorite product for small business is called SecondCopy. If you have a large network, there are probably better options for you, but if you have a small office or home office network, then SecondCopy would be a great choice. You can check it out a www.secondcopy.com. Basically, it is a very affordable option to backup your computer.
Here is how I make it work for my office. Every night, ACT! makes a backup of my database to my hard drive. Sometime after that, SecondCopy goes to work. I have created a backup set and every night, that set gets copied onto my external hard drive. It only takes a few minutes because it is not backing up everything every night. It will only backup what has been changed. Not only am do I backup my ACT! Zip file, but I am backing up all the other documents on my hard drive.
The interface is very easy to manage. It produces nice reports and lets me know if there are any errors. All in all, I think it is a great product and would highly recommend it. Do you have any favorites for backups?

These are a Few of My Favorite Things

2009-04-27T20:12:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons I started my blog, was because clients were always asking me about programs that I use. So, I will use this forum to let you know a few of my favorite things. Please feel free to send us your favorite programs or time savers. I can’t believe how many I have learned from my clients.

I have many, but first, I will tell you about PrimoPDF. I love being able to turn anything into a PDF. I do this for lots of reasons – first, sometimes you want to send something to someone and you don’t want them to be able to edit it. Enter PrimoPDF. Sometimes, you have a program that someone else doesn’t have and you want to send them a document. Enter PrimoPDF. Sometimes, a document is too big – enter PrimoPDF.

Actually, it doesn’t even have to be PrimoPDF, but any free PDF creator will do. I like PrimoPDF because I have been using it for years and never have had an issue. Basically, you go to PrimoPDF.com, download the free version. Install it. Now, when you print something, one of the Printers is PrimoPDF and it opens to a PDF file on your machine. You have to save it as a PDF file on your machine and then you can post it, email it or whatever else you might want to do.

More favorite for another time include: logmein.com, Vista snipping Tool, Print Screen – screen capture and many, many more.

Backup Backup Backup

2009-04-17T17:58:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blog. I intend to give you all, my readers some tips and tricks that I learn along the way. For any of you who know me, it should not surprise you that I am going to start with Backup. I am kind of a backup freak. And for good reason, let me explain. I will not use names, to protect the innocent, but these are all real stories that happened, just this week.

First, I have a client whose database was corrupted. In January we fixed it all up and sent them on their merry way. We set the database to automatically backup. I made sure to tell the IT guy to be sure that the folder that we were backing up to, was also backed up. Unfortunately, they had a hard drive fail and the folder had not been backed up. The only backup they have is from before we did the work to fix the corruption, so not only do they lose the data for the past few months, we have to do the corruption fix again.

Second, one of my clients called. I installed ACT! a few months ago on his speedy new computer. Apparently, speedy new computers crash too. He called me earlier this week to tell me that he is getting a new hard drive but the last backup he has is from February 19. He had an external hard drive but forgot to plug it in, so no backup since February 19. He has lost 2 months of work.

Third, and most confusing is a story of one of my clients. She has an older version of ACT!. She was working yesterday and received a Fatal Error from ACT!. She closed it down. She called me and we spoke this morning. I opened up her database, but something didn’t look right to me. It wasn’t. This was an old database, probably over a year old and it hadn’t been touched. I am not sure what happened, but her database was gone. Thankfully, she made a backup to her hard drive 3 days ago. We restored that one and she was on her way. She lost a few days of work, but nothing too serious. Thank goodness!

On another day, I will tell you about when 2 of my computers died on the same day. Until then, please backup your database. Please also have a backup of the files on your computer. You can backup to a flash drive, an external hard drive or use a subscription based program that backs up your files each night. Or, you can use all of those, like me. More on this topic soon.

What are your backup stories? Successes? Horror Stories? Feel free to share with the group.