Archive for the ‘Working Virtually’ Category

The US Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy has announced their top ten issues to work on for 2008, as part of r3 initiative. The r3 initiative takes nominations from small businesses and puts together a top ten list of issues to act on during the year to help small businesses. r3 stands for Regulatory Review and Reform.

The SBA forwards the list to the agencies in charge of each issue, posts the list on their website, and posts updates to the issues twice a year.

This is not the same as the IRS initiative we mentioned back in August. For more details, check out the accoutingweb article, or go straight to the list on the SBA website.

The one most interesting to OffAssist is the request for a standardized home office deduction. I know that I don’t claim the home office deduction because the rules are draconian and the tax complications if we ever sell our house make it more trouble than it is worth. A simpler system would be great!

It’s no secret to any of my clients or colleagues that my husband and I work together from our home offices and we have 2 kids. (Both will be in school this Fall – woohoo!). I will be the first to admit that I haven’t been able to do as much as I have wanted to as OffAssist explodes with growth and I’ve been at the helm of IVAA, but still… I have and do just randomly take the kid not in school somewhere in the middle of the day, or after we pick up the oldest, or “yes, yes, mommy CAN set up the pool outside at 2pm on a Tuesday”. Heck, last year we decided at 8pm at night to spend the day at Sea World the next day. WHO can do that?!?! Yeah, I had to stay up late the next day to catch up, but ya know? It didn’t matter. I made sure I could take the time off and we did it.

Anyway… these videos are showing up on YouTube, it’s someone advertising a travel thing or something, whatever… but I liked this one:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNOcV5y0kxU]

Google recently released a new, “Team Edition” of its software package. It is, apparently, designed to make collaboration between team members over the web easier. I haven’t had time to check it out yet, but trust me, I will.

Find the news article I read here: “Google Releases New Online Software for Businesses“

Find the goods here: Google Apps Team Edition

My birthday is this weekend. I’ll be 29 again (shut up, Tom). One of my clients sent me a huge bag of goodies from Austinuts – one of my favorite addictive places – Yum! Oohh… it had those praline pecans I love… It came in a big pretty box, but my daughter confiscated the bow for her stuffed dog and the box “for her party dolls”.

Sometimes, you just don’t ask questions.

I love the folks over at Improv Everywhere. They are always doing something silly if not bizarre. One of my favorites was their Best Buy thing.

The latest? Bring a full CRT and tower to Starbucks….

Check ‘em out:

I’m a dork, yeah… I giggled when I saw the Windows 95 symbol.

Messy enough to bring in the big bucks? MyFax Internet fax service is holding a contest to see just messy an office can get and still have someone working in it. Top prize? $10,000!

For more details, visit the MyFax contest site at www.myfax.com/messyofficecontest/. Deadline for entries is noon on Monday, February 25, 2008.

If you see an office with blue & yellow striped walls and a large abstract painting that looks likes it was done by a 2-year old (three, actually), well, I wouldn’t know anything about that

I doubt I was the only one trembling in my boots last week when the word went out that MegaSoft (you know, they really should change their name, they haven’t been “micro” in a looong time) was putting the moves on Yahoo!

Why? Yahoo has history. Way back when I was heading back to work after the birth of my daughter, our house flooded and I needed a web-based email to use in applying for jobs that didn’t have a goofy old bbs handle in the address. I went with Yahoo and, well, EVERYTHING is tied into it since I’ve had it so long. I really don’t want to have to switch, but I will if Microsoft takes over. I do NOT want Bill Gates in my inbox, connected to my groups, filtering my mail, etc. No No No.

I, like most of us at OffAssist, am an open-source fan, but I am not a fanatic and still prefer to do the bulk of my word processing, spreadsheets, and desktop publishing in Microsoft applications because I know how to use them. So, they are not all bad, I’ll grant them that, I just think they are too hungry and there is already too little competition in our modern world.

The MS search engine leaves a lot to be desired, and new media is the way to go, but I’m concerned by Microsoft’s history of ‘free’. As in things only stay free til you’re hooked, like a dealer handing out penny bag samples, then they’ve got you!

Yahoo! You go! Fight back. But in case you lose, I’m off to open a gmail account.

PS – Happy Valentine’s Day y’all!

Time Warner wants to know. According to them, 5% of their users use 50% of their bandwidth. That means ~everyone~ with broadband access, whether it’s cable or DSL, is paying for the success of bandwidth heavy applications and their users.

Like to watch TV on the web? Internet Hog! Play an MMORPG? You thief — stealing bandwidth needed by high schoolers to lookup information for their homework!

Time Warner is testing a new usage-based billing system in Beaumont, Texas. For average users, they won’t see a change. High bandwidth users will see an increase in their bills if they go over a set cap, though no word yet on what this cap will be.

I can tell you, as the wife of a gamer, this scares the heck out of me. Sure, gamers use a lot of bandwidth, but if their method for de-stressing after work starts to cost more than just the monthly WoW subscription fee — which gets them unlimited gaming time for a set fee–well, there’s gonna be a lot of unhappy people. Both gamers and the people who live with them and have to deal with their withdrawal symptoms.

And that’s not even touching on folks who like to waste time on YouTube, download music and movies from iTunes, or catch up on their favorite TV shows online.

Or, well, folks like me and Candy and all the other VAs out there, people who conduct business full-time on the Internet. I know I already pay more each month for my bandwidth than your average high speed customer for exactly this reason. I work on the web and I’m willing to pay for it. I’m just having a hard time stomaching the bottomless well usage-based billing could become.

Honestly, I am surprised the corporate folks, people like Blizzard, Apple, YouTube, MySpace, the television networks and more, aren’t raising heck over this. Usage-based bandwidth billing is going to negatively affect their bottom line, too. On the plus side — the writer’s strike is primarily about royalties for new media streams. If the ISPs dry up that revenue stream for the producers maybe the strike will end since there will be nothing left to strike about.

For an alternate perspective, check out this article: The Internet Isn’t Free.

Microsoft, being the software mega-giant that it is, has such a large target over it, metaphorically speaking, that no one can resist trying to hit the bullseye. Google has been quietly chipping away at Microsoft’s appplications for a while now, most notably with the Google docs group of features.

Now someone else has their eye on Microsoft Live, the software company’s online tool suite. Ulteo, a company whose motto is “My Digital Life Made Simple”, went into beta-testing last month with a portable, web-based version of Open Office, including Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base and Math. The actual applications, NOT watered down portable versions.

For more info straight from the source, check out Ulteo’s blog .

Want to work from home?

Sure! Who wouldn’t? But as anyone who has ever wasted days on the Internet looking can tell you, legitimate work at home jobs are hard to find. Now imagine being a teenager…

Yea.

One enterprising teen, not unsurprisingly the daughter of a virtual assistant, has decided to make legitimate work at home opportunities a reality for teens and college students.

Her press release about the site’s launch is here.

Or, go straight to the source, workinmyroom.com – a site dedicated to offering pre-screened, legitimate work at home opportunities to the next generation.