Gwen's Sententia

: Name: Gwen (Vass) Nicodemus; Location: Broomfield, Colorado, United States

I'm an abecedarian who happily lives with my husband, son, daughter, dog, cat, and two ferrets.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

New Venture

Hi,

Nine months ago I started a new venture with three other people. We launched the beta version today.

1TherapyPlace is an online library of mental health articles and an online directory of therapists.

--gwen

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Which company should I use for email marketing?

There are many choices of internet-based companies to choose from when implementing an email marketing list. I made a matrix comparing the companies. Several of the features I evaluated are subjective because I have not done a study or survey in regard to this matrix. My skills and abilities are probably different from yours, so take that into account when you use the matrix.

Mailing list and service options matrix

The companies I evaluated were StreamSend.com, ConstantContact.com, 1ShoppingCart.com, VerticalResponse.com, Trackvia.com, aWeber.com, iContact.com, GetResponse.com, EliteEmail.com, Listrak.com, and BenchMarkEmail.com.

Features noted were whether or not the company offers a free trial, cost, opt-in methods, difficulty in using, what emails look like, support, and the spam policy.

Cost of email marketing companies

There are three basic ways these companies charge. Some offer a monthly fee, others charge per email sent, and others charge based on how many email address in the database.

Opt in verification

There are two common forms of opting into a list. The first method, single opt-in, simply requires people to enter their email address on a web page. The name is submitted to the database and it's used for email campaigns. Single opt-in makes it easy for people to submit bad email addresses and email addresses that are not their own.

Double opt-in, or verified opt-in, has the user enter their name on a web form. Then they receive an email. They must click on a link in the email or reply to it. With this method only people with access to an email account can sign up for lists and bad email addresses are avoided.

Difficulty to learn

Some of these systems require you to have a knowledge of programming to get them to work. Some of these systems are so easy my Grrandma could set them up. I've rated these on a scale of 1 to 5 stars, with 1 being easy and 5 being really hard. I didn't do a study or evaluate a survey. This rating is my opinion and consequently subjective.

What the emails look like

Some of the companies send out the email with their own logo attached and you can't configure the system to eliminate it. Other companies send out emails with virtually no easy way to identify the company and it looks like it was sent from your own server.

Support

I don't have complete data for the support column. I have experience with the support at StreamSend, 1ShoppingCart, and aWeber. I've simply related my experiences in these columns. Again, I consider this to be statistically insignificant because I didn't do studies and surveys.

Spam policy and how it's enforced

Does the company have a strict spam policy, or do they simply make you follow CAN-SPAM rules? How does the company enforce these rules?

Mailing list and service options matrix

Labels: email list, virtual assistant

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Q&A: I deleted a program and my computer now says it has less space than before. Why?

Humans count by tens, 'cause we have ten fingers, but computers count by twos because they use on/off switches (binary). So we have a one's place, multiply by ten to get a ten's place, then by ten again to get a hundred's place etc.

1000 100 10 1
or
10^3 10^2 10^1 10^0

Computers count in binary, so they have a one's place, multiply by two to get a two's place, x2 = four's place, x2 = eight's place, etc.

2048 1024 512 256 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1
or
2^11 2^10 2^9 2^8 2^7 2^6 2^5 2^4 2^3 2^2 2^1 2^0

The bottom line is that 1024 is a round number in binary, not 1000, so:

1K = 1024
1M = 1024*1024 = 1048576
1G = 1024*1024*1024 = 1073741824

So 4,262,293,504/1,073,741,824 = 3.97Gb

Another reason hard drives "lose" space is because marketers want them to sound as large as possible. A 40Gb drive should be 40*1024*1024*1024 = 42,949,672,960 bytes, but they're actually more like 40,000,000,000 bytes.

Also, there's some overhead on the disk for the computer to know where it stores files, the names of the files, etc, (the technical term is filesystem metadata) so you can't use the whole 40,000,000,000 bytes for storing files.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

The ebb and flow of competence

Sometimes I feel super competent, like I can do anything I put my mind to. Every time I solve some crazy computer problem that was really hard and wracked my brain for days, I get a surge of competence feelings.

Sometimes I feel completely incompetent. Yesterday, for instance, I went swimming with the kids. I carefully applied sunscreen to the progeny, but haphazardly applied it to myself. Needless to say, I turned lobster red and experienced great sunburn pain.

I need another computer puzzle. I want to be competent.

Monday, June 30, 2008

New Writing Gig

I am a member of IVAA, the International Virtual Assistant Association. I don't actually consider myself a virtual assistant anymore, since I'm not the best at making travel plans, answering phones, and keeping a calendar for someone else. I'm more of a virtual professional in that I fix things for people, like their websites or documents that don't work correctly. If interested, my web page for work is ShinyNewts.

IVAA puts out a monthly newsletter called the IVAA Cast. I wrote a test article for the editor and submitted it. She seemed to like it, and this is the first month I submitted a real article. This month's theme is "generating passive income." Here's my first article.

What’s your product?

A classic way to generate passive income is to sell a product. Do you have a product and don’t even know it? As you read these examples, think about your own life. Have you done anything similar or equitable?

So, what’s your product? Let’s find out.

Have you made something that you give to clients, friends, and family over and over?

This might be anything from a computer procedure to a recipe. My sister glues fake flowers on hair clips in artistic ways and gave away a ton of them. She makes them as a hobby, but she now sells them at SnazzyClips.com.

Has something in your house broken and you fixed it with a unique design?

My brother-in-law has a dishwasher that breaks a lot. The wheels on the top rack break, frequently, and instead of fixing those tiny wheels, the fix is to replace an entire rack in the washer. My brother-in-law got tired of this waste and made replacement hubs so people can fix the wheels, permanently, instead of buying new racks. He sells these at MaytagWheelHubs.com.

Have you ever invented a little, tiny thing?

I don’t know Jeanette and Bob Williams, but I love their product. Bob, a retired college professor, got tired of dog-earing pages and highlighting passages in books. He didn’t want to ruin his books. Bob and Jeanette invented book darts. These treasures are tiny pieces of metal folded over to make tight clips. One end of the dart is pointed, and can be used to mark lines in a book or a page. Bob and Jeanette initially made these in their basement and sold them at BookDarts.com.

Have you written a book, part of a book, or pieces of a book?

I love to research topics. I get all excited about something and read every book I can find on it, watch every movie or documentary, and visit in person the object of my attention if possible. To organize my thoughts, I write. That writing usually turns out to be a full-fledge unit study or book. These can be sold.

Have you made anything that you use regularly to make your job easier?

Do you have a tool that you created and you use that most people in your field don’t have? This might be a checklist, a notebook, a chart, a procedure, an Office template, an audio, or a picture. Have you made a special Access database that you could convert into a template and sell?

Pretty it up

Have you found your product? If so, it’s just a matter of “packaging” the product to make it sellable.

What do you need to do to package your product? The packaging depends on what your product is.

Is your product writing?

Before I can sell my “books” or unit studies, I have to pretty them up. I make a cover page, format the document consistently, have someone proofread it, make sure all the images are legal by buying them or drawing my own, and make a new pdf. IVAA has some excellent proofreaders and cover page designers if you need help with that.

Is your product computer “soft” ware

If it’s a template or a piece of software, you’ll need a website page, a photo, a description, and some testimonials. Don’t let the testimonials stop you; they’re easy to get. Someone probably told you they liked your product and that’s why you’re selling it. Who was that person? Hit them up for a testimonial.

Can you hold your product in your hands?

If your product is physical, you need to polish its appearance and find a nice way to package and mail it. My snazzy clip sister had embroidered labels made to cover the glue that fastens the flower to the hair clip. A quick search on Google and help you find any boxes or packaging you might need.

You have a product, you’ve packaged it, and now you need to sell it

How are you going to sell your product?

If your product is a book, decide whether or not you want it to be strictly an e-book, or if you want it printed. If you want it printed, you can set this up with lulu.com for no out-of-pocket money, and they’ll sell it on their site for you too. Additionally, you can get an ISBN number from them and sell it on Amazon.

Well, for all types of products, books and non-books alike, you can sell them on your website. If you already have a shopping cart, you can incorporate it into that. If not, you can set it up to sell it on PayPal easily.

The basic procedure for selling a product on PayPal is to:

Register for a PayPal account, attach a bank account to it, and confirm the bank account
Create a web page that features your product on your website
Create a thank-you web page that gives instructions for obtaining the product
Login to PayPal and go to the Merchant Services tab
Click on the link for “Buy Now Button.” Fill out the form and hit the “Create Button Now” button.
Copy the HTML code that PayPal generates into your website.

Once you have identified your product, packaged it, and done the set up for the product to be sold, you’re well on your way to generating passive income. Let me know how it goes.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Karate Quinn

The kids asked for a family show tonight. What does that mean? They wanted to be in the same room with us and cuddle under blankets.

The kids understand that we won't cuddle under blankets with them to watch Scooby Doo. We'll cope with Scooby in the background, but we won't actually watch it. They've figured out that we'll actually watch Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, and various flicks like The Last Mimzy, ET, or the Bridge to Terabithia.

Leon had been waiting for the next "we want a family show" request, however. He bought The Karate Kid. We thought that the progeny should be old enough to understand it. Four-year-old Quinn liked the first half, and then he got bored. Seven-year-old Anna seemed to like the whole movie. We're not sure if she liked Leon and I commenting through it, though.

Anna: Isn't that cool? He got a car.
Leon: It's more cool how he did all that work.
Gwen: Yeah, he wanted to learn something and he practiced
and practiced and worked really hard.
Leon: Yeah, that's cool how he worked really hard to learn karate.

Overall, I think the kids' favorite part was the handkerchief that came with the DVD. Quinn called it a magic head bandanna and managed to go to other parts of the house, alone, at night.

Both kids got something from the movie. I'm not sure it's exactly what we intended, but I'll take it.

Labels: children, family, television, terabithia

Thoughtful Gifts, 2

My husband does an excellent job of picking out presents. I finally picked one just as well as he did.

We recently celebrated my daughter's 7th birthday. Anna wanted a ferret themed party, and she was pretty strong in her weasel-themed decision. She told me she wanted me to make her a ferret coloring book, so I did. I printed the coloring book out and inserted one copy in each of the loot bags. She wanted a ferret stuffed toy. I found some relatively cheap plush ferrets and stuck one of those in each of the loot bags. In the weeks before the party, Anna expressed great interest in those stuffed ferrets and she kept telling me how she "needed" her stuffed ferret and how she was going to play with it.

Well, the day of the birthday came and this included the great present opening. I spent $7 on Anna's birthday present, a stuffed ferret. The birthday ferret was of a bit better quality than the loot bag ferrets. She smiled and giggled and showed the ferret each of the other presents she opened.

Whew!

Labels: animals, birthday, children, ferrets, gift giving strategies, gifts