new client activity

one thing can lead to another.

the minutos have been clients for nearly ten years. mostly, i keep there ‘puter running. they started with a packard bell (a cursed machine) that would completely quit working every couple of months. after rebuilding that machine several times, we finally built a new machine. from there we kept moving up, finally switching to a 24″ iMac (alum) early this year.

Frank is a professional artist — very prolific. he also teaches for the Palos verdes Art Center. Debs is a photographer, and she specializes in artist’s portfolios – photographing the originals and printing quality giclees. every once in awhile she calls for help with a project in photoshop. her call this week was to create a CD of one of Frank’ss series to present to galleries. it was an excellent time to introduce her to lightroom.

we used lightroom to adjust the images of a few of the photos and to create a screensaver of the series. we also experimented with how it would create a webpage presentation of the series. they liked the result so much, we’re finally going to put Frank’s work online! as i’ve been pushing for this for a couple years, i’m absolutely delighted.

we’re now figuring out just exactly how we’re going to upload the files. one new aspect we’re going to try is embedded videos of Frank’s “gallery statements”. we’re going to give him approximately 10 minutes to record a short description of the series, as though he were presenting it in a class lesson. we’ll probably use viddler, but (just in case) i’m going to try a few things with garageband. after showing the screensaver to another client, there’s even a possibility of having some original music for the site as well.

i guess i’m branching out into “production”.

haha! on me…

being single-minded doesn’t always work out.

i was so “focused” on getting the office cleaned up, i just kept piling the mail up on the end table. oops. friday, i finally sorted through all of it. one “late” notice, several catalogs (straight into the trash bin, this time), a bunch more magazines (more about them, later), and a few bank statements.

well, really, that’s not so bad. the “late” notice bothered me, i didn’t remember getting the first bill, but it wasn’t a major problem – it’s the first time in about four years. paid the bill on the phone (bugs me, they charge for that particular service) and now i don’t owe them anything. the bank statements are usually not a problem.

i check my bank balance nearly every day. it keeps me balanced, and i learn early if something is “out of order”. last year, i discovered a fraudulent charge (ultimately, three of them) the day it occurred. managed to contact the company where it happened and get their cooperation, and the bank covered it. eventually, the hubby got a new ATM card, and it hasn’t happened again. NOTE: i wouldn’t recommend netzero to anyone, ever. THEIR response was “we’re not responsible for the misuse of your card…” very peculiar circumstances, really. whoever was trying to use the card, did so ONLY to try setting up an online FAX account. the first time, it was used to set up a one year service. the next try was a month-to-month service. after the third try, they gave up.

back to the main tale–i hadn’t checked my accounts online for ten days. it took me four hours, saturday, to balance the checkbook! at first, i thought i was off by about $750. pulled out all of the receipts for last month and double checked that i hadn’t entered anything more than once. then i printed a month’s worth of transactions from the bank site (i don’t just download the transactions – it confuses me). checked off item by item, and discovered i had not entered a couple deposits and several online transactions. eventually, it all worked out. whew!

i love using quicken. i joke that “i never learned to count; that’s how i got my kids.” it’s really true. until i started using quicken, i could never balance my bankbooks. i’m a little obsessive about it, now (“i check my bank balance nearly every day”), but everything stays balanced and up to date. i probably could take more advantage of the program. there are neat little graphs to show you where you’re spending your hard earned moneys. and there are other graphs to show whether your funds are growing or shrinking. the best part is having the numbers show up red if you’re overdrawn; i haven’t seen those “red” for a long time, but i know they’re available.

once i balanced everything, i figured i should finish paying the bills. there really weren’t that many, but it took me all night! amazing! of course, i started around 9:00 pm. but i didn’t finish until after 6:00 am. sheesh paying the bills includes printing stamps, and filing, and checking when i last paid for that particular subscription or donated to that particular cause… have you noticed that paying for a subscription immediately gets you a “renew now and save” offer? or that donating to an organization gets a “thank you, would you like to give us some more?” you could run to the poorhouse faster if you just gave them everything, right?

so that brings us to sunday. hubby gets up and wants to know if i’m planning on sleeping any time this weekend. he was right; i definitely needed a nap. 1 hour and 20 minutes later, mom calls wanting to know if quicken can print her checks for her. i like talking to mom. her eyesight really is giving her fits, she’s not sure she’s doing her checks right, and yes, quicken will print out her checks. she just bought a new house! we talked for quite a while. in the meantime, hubby has started working on last year’s taxes.

please, would i dig out the taxes from 2006 so he could compare them? did i pay estimated taxes for the state? no more napping. back to cleaning out more office stuff (there are files we could put in the garage, i’m sure). just how long are we required to keep old tax records, anyway? questions answered, old files refiled, and taxes for 2007 are now complete. california wants copies of new mexico taxes, and viceyvers. so now i’m making copies of tons of paper. i also need to run to the mail boxes, etc. store for envelopes. don’t i have some stuff i want notarized?

later, gators.

little reminders

listening and watching leo during “the techguy” broadcast, today, i was reminded about being prepared. his video stream went down after just two hours because he forgot to bring his power supply cable for his macbook pro.

it’s such a little thing; a simple cable can ruin a session with a client. same thing for card readers, backup drives, e-manuals… i’ve done it myself.

a couple years ago, i had the opportunity to create a DB for a client on a new eMac (new then!). “the DB is ready!” i proclaimed over the phone, and set up a time for delivery. to my chagrin, I had loaded it on a floppy disk, completely forgetting his new ‘puter did not have a floppy drive… completely wasted my afternoon (not a “close” drive), and disappointed my client, terribly.

keep up with your clients’ requirements! double check your travel kit for cables, necessary peripherals, etc. and back up! back up! back up!

newsletter

i write a monthly newsletter called “Digital Papyrus” for the Other Worlds Cafe SF chat group (there’s lots more than just chat). this week, i’ve been working on a supplement – a mini-review of LOSCON 34, which i attended Thanksgiving weekend in 2007.

i am totally enthralled by adobe lightroom. i’ve used adobe photoshop for many years, but lightroom puts some “speed” into my work process. having recently convrted to a dSLR camera, i now have some huge photos to work with. lightroom simplifies cataloguing and some of the early editing, without damaging the files.

even though the pics i took at LOSCON were .jpgs from a “point and shoot” camera, lightroom helped me adjust the tones and details immensly. and the CS3 “quickselect” tool helped me create smart objects in a number of photos in less than a third of time it would have taken just 6 months ago (before i upgraded).

should be able to finish this issue in just an afternoon, now

bill-pay

so i’ve neglected my inbox for almost 3 weeks. my bad… good news; only one bill was late, and only 1 day late at that! i do love managing my finances online. instant payments can really save your bacon

another really cool advantage to online banking is the ability to find up-to-the-minute account information. i was able to balance my checkbook and three credit accounts to the penny as of 2:20pm this afternoon. there’s nothing better than knowing exactly how much you owe and what funds you have to rely on.

i just wish Quicken home & business was available for the mac…

shouldn’t be allowed

some people just shouldn’t be allowed to run a computer.

i spent 6 hours, today, removing the same trojan from a client’s computer that i removed three weeks ago. the virus has changed; last time it only took 4 1/2 hours.

the user hasn’t changed. after years of trying to teach this client safe internet usage, my client is still operating the machine with an admin account. willy-nilly clicking on e-mail links, downloading and installing files, and just generally NOT learning from past mistakes. and today was NOT the day to call me for emergency recovery. if it happens again, i’m charging them double my regular rate.

the machine is once again “clean”. and i have created a user account. the admin account now has a password; the client does NOT have the password. we’ll see just how long this works. my threat is now “system recovery, whether you have a back-up or not”. no hesitation, i will brick the machine to keep the client off the internet.

did i say i’m in a rather nasty mood?

resolutions

in august?!!!

yeah, i’m a little early (or a lot late).

1. switching to mac is really paying off. so much so, that i practically have to force myself to use the monstro. not that the monstro is a bad thing, although it only runs vista right now. i will be adding suse to it, eventually. but i’ve decided to invest in one of the new iMacs. not willing to wait for the mac pro – i have the money for the iMac, now! and it cuts the cost enough that i can afford to get the software i want, and/or the cintiq monitor.

2. blogging is nice, but i really need to do it more consistently. i also need to start adding some more useful/interesting content. so i’m going to be scheduling myself “blog time” on a calendar. i’m also reviewing my archives, and trying to add some pictures, links, etc. this will make it worth running back thru the archives to see updated posts.

3. speaking of schedules… i’m always saying i want to learn some programming, a new language, etc. so that’s become a daily scedule, of sorts. almost like a “class schedule at a regular school. i just might put some of my “progress” into my blog.

i think that’s enough resolutions for the time being. pretty big goals i’ve set for myself; don’t you think so, too?

that was a surprise!

started to use quicken this morning and discovered there were no shortcuts in the startup menu!

i’m a neat freak when it comes to computing. every install seems to add clutter to the desktop. so i’m constantly throwing out icons. guess i should have checked to be sure those icons were duplicated in the startup menu, hunh? easily repaired, but it means i should now check the menu pretty carefully before i go any farther.

regardless. i am now reassured that there is still money in the bank and there are no bills overlooked. good thing i made sure everything was up to date before i started re-configuring the monstro. would hate for everything to end up in the proverbial “handbasket to h#@!”

this is going to take more time

actually, it’s not that bad. but i forgot that i’ve got grandboy duty for the next two weeks!

got the macromedia apps installed and ran into issues with serial numbers again. where did i put that last disc? this is really getting to be an issue. a busy office is hard to manage. worse still when you bring in so many non-essential activites. first priority this month (june) is to “de-clutter”!

once i’ve completed that task, there will be room for the mac pro. maybe i can bypass all these reg numbers completely in switching.

installing adobe products

i really don’t want to upgrade on the PC. but it may end up going that way. if it does, i could end up having to buy a full edition for the mac. very painful! lots of dollars! the possibility that i could get a break on the creative suite for the mac if i don’t upgrade on the PC is good. i’d like to keep it that way.

right off, i ran into issues. forgot that i needed to have a previous edition installed to install acrobat 7.0. scrambled to find the 6.0 disc, which, of course had to verify the 5.0 disc. one of these days, i’m going to have to succumb to buying the full edition instead of the upgrades. i’m just cheap!

while searching for these prior discs, i ran into a copy of photoshop elements 4.0. handy – i can install that in parallels on the macbook! nice. i do looove working with the macbook.

installing illustrator CS2, now. things seem to be running a little more smoothly.
& now for Photoshop CS2. this installer objected to a previous copy existing in the original folder. simple fix – remove the folder.

going to reboot and check all three for activation & updates.and again, and again, and again… ad infinitum. of course all the updates require permissions.