FolderShare – My files from anywhere!

Greetings,

Now that I am going to be working from the “road”, I will need to access my documents and other data remotely.

My first thought is that I need the contents of the “My Documents” folder on my desktop computer in my office. I have a USB hard drive that I could transfer data to and from and take with me every day. I could use the synchronization software that I use for backups to keep the data current on both machines. That is, as long as I remember to do it.

A few months back a client asked me to take a look at a program he learned about. It is called FolderShare and does exactly what I think I need to gain access to my data.

The service is free and is now owned by Microsoft, which I am sure will scare some of you off. I have downloaded the program, setup an account and used the software and online service to share my folder.

As far as I can tell the program does what it is intended to do. I am now able to access all the documents in my desktop “My Documents” directory for any computer. The remote computer does not have to have any additional software loaded. Everything is done via a web browser.

The program has a synchronization feature that I have not played with yet. I’ll let you know if it is another way to make sure we backup of critical data.

Let me know what you think,

Marc

A Road Warrior - Sort Of!

I’m becoming a road warrior of sorts.

It’s not that I am going to be traveling anywhere in the near future or anything exciting like that. I am going to try to do more work during my regular workday by taking my laptop with me so that I can work on my projects when I have down time.

My current business model is completely reactionary. Someone calls with a problem and I respond. Today I reinstalled software for one client and reconnected a network printer for another. I made a few visits to clients I hadn’t seen in a while to see if they needed anything and then I was done for the day.

Going home early is always an option. I have plenty of work that needs to be done. If you saw the stacks of papers in my offices you would be overwhelmed. That’s what happens to me sometimes. I have so much that needs doing that sometimes when I get home from a day of solving other peoples problems, I really don’t want to deal with my own work.

I have tried with some success to bring work with me and use a computer at one client’s office when I have some down time. This works out well if I am in the area. My clients are spread throughout the Salt Lake City area and sometimes I am too far from an available computer to stop and do anything.

Another factor in my becoming a road warrior comes from one of my long term clients who just completed the integration of 3 new locations into his existing business. The new locations were purchased from a competitor and now have remote access to the accounting/order entry/inventory system at the main location. Each office connects via Microsoft’s Terminal Server to the main system.

At this point I now have about 15 new workstations that I have to help connect to the main server and make sure that the users can function. Due to the newness of the system to the users and the importance of the program to the business function, it is very important that down time is kept to a minimum.

For the past few weeks as we have been working out the kinks in the system, I have been logging in via Terminal Server and fixing what ever I can remotely. For the most part I have been able to stop by my closest client’s office and use a computer to log in.

When I thought about the benefit of having my laptop with me for my work and for my client’s troubleshooting needs, it all started to come together. If I had some down time, I could stop anywhere and have my work with me. If I need to login to solve a problem for my client, I could find any wireless hotspot and be logged in a few minutes.

So now I am a road warrior. I have a mobile office. In the next few days I will be setting up my home office to allow me to access all my data and programs remotely. I will be sharing the trials and tribulations here.

Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Marc

Extracting Outlook Express Messages

Greetings,

After the Tropical Storm the other day with the OE backups, I came across an interesting program that allows us to save our OE messages as individual files. I have had a few people ask me about this over the years, and now I have an inexpensive solution for them.

DBXtract is a cool program that cost me $5.00 to download. The program allows us to save an entire folder of email messages as individual files with just a few clicks of the mouse.

Why would we want to do this when we can just save them in our OE files? We have backups don't we? What good is this?

Great questions, I am so glad you asked! First as we have learned our backups won't always save us. Second, sometimes we just need to save a bunch of messages and delete them from our OE files, but we are sure we will need them at some time. Archiving email with OE is not easy to do, though I have a new idea on archiving that I am in the process of testing.

With DBXtract, you can save multiple emails as individual files and then burn those files to a CD and store them forever. I have a few projects that I have worked on in the past, that are now complete. I thought about deleted all the emails relating to these projects, though I hesitated doing so in case I ever need to refer back to them.

Using DBXtract, I saved the folder with all the emails (over 100 of them) and made a folder on my hard drive for them and burned a copy to put in the client file. If I ever need them, they are there. I have deleted the emails from my OE folders.

Let me know what you think,

Marc

FreeMind Mind Mapping Software

Greetings,

Over the years I have learned about the concept of Mind Mapping and have at various times used this process to solve problems or create a website. Most times I just use a pen and a pad of paper. The problem I've run into is that I have too many sheets of paper with ideas on them.

My process for organizing these sheets of paper is to stack them and then shuffle them. I have stacks of papers and notebooks and even a napkin or two with what I am certain are brilliant ideas and money making schemes. Every so often I shuffle through these papers and try to read my handwriting and get an idea of what I was thinking.

Obviously, this has not worked very well. I have hundreds of sheets and a dozen yellow pads and notebooks full of things I can't read or understand.

While Googling for "mind mapping", I came upon an open source program called FreeMind.

With this free program, I am able to create mind maps on my computer of all my brilliant and not so brilliant ideas and projects.

As an example as I was brainstorming about a recent training session I was planning I was able to type in all my ideas as they came to me. After I had about 20 items I was able to organize them by type or catagory and create a heiracrchy of tasks.

A great feature of the program is the ability to add hyperlinks. I can link to either a web page or a file on my local hard drive. This saves valuable time trying to find a source.

Give it try and let me know what you think.

Marc

Surfing the Web with GreenBorder

Greetings,

Most likely the biggest source of problems that I encounter in my business is spyware and malware that has been downloaded from the internet. These programs usually download without our knowledge or permission.

Until recently I have not found a reliable way to combat these unwanted download. I have recommended using Windows Defender as one line of defense, though this product has some limitations and liabilities.

Recently I became aware of a program called GreenBorder. GreenBorder creates a virtual session in which you Internet Explorer runs. Since the session is virtual, the company claims that we are protected from all the malicious events that we encounter.

I have installed GreenBorder on two of my systems and have been testing it for the past two weeks. So far I have been impressed. I have seen no slowdown in response times and according to the meter, I have had many things blocked for reading and writing to my hard drive.

For the time being the program is free to download and if you give them your email address you get a free year of service.

Try it out and let me know what you think.

Marc