My 2¢ Worth

've been thinking about road construction a lot lately. There's quite a bit of it going on in my area right now. Everywhere I go, I see those orange road construction signs.

hen, of course, while I was on vacation I ran into a lot of road work too. It seems as though no road is ever complete. They are constantly evolving, changing to make things easier for those who travel on them.

eb sites are a lot like that too. No Web site is ever completed. Web sites, too, are constantly evolving. Content changes and gets updated. Navigating sometimes changes. New pages are created.

here is, however, one small difference between Web sites and roads. While Under construction signs are necessary on roads both for the protection of drivers and the road workers, they are NOT needed on Web sites.

here is nothing more tacky that all those cute little construction signs on Web sites! Get rid of them! If a page isn't ready, don't post it or the link to it.

eople on the Web are searching for information. It's frustrating when they click on link thinking they're going to find the info they're looking for and then come face to face with an Under construction sign. You can't bet they won't be back to that site again.

Feature Article

And Never The Twain Should Meet

by: Elena Fawkner AHBBO

For many people, working from home sounds like an ideal arrangement. You don't have to waste time commuting to and from the office, you can be there for your children when they come home from school, you don't have to answer to anyone but yourself and you can work the hours that suit you ... not your boss. All very well in theory.

On the other side of the coin, though, are the challenges of working from home. "Working your own hours" all too easily can become "working all hours" if you don't set a workday schedule, while rowdy children can become an almighty challenge when you need to present a professional image to the prospective client you're speaking with on the telephone.

The fundamental key to a successful transition to a home- based business is to keep your business and personal lives as separate as possible. Decide up front how many (and which) hours of the day you are going to allocate to your business and stick to this schedule. What you don't get done during today's business hours can and should wait until tomorrow. Don't succumb to the temptation of allowing your business to encroach on your personal and family time.

One trick to keep your business and personal lives separate is to have separate areas of the house for each. If at all possible, allocate a room of your house or apartment exclusively as your business office. Make sure that all members of your family understand that when you are in that room, you are working and are not available except in an emergency. Likewise, don't use that room for any non-work activity such as a TV room.

By strictly separating areas in this way, you will reinforce in your mind (and the minds of other family members) that your office is a place of business and is to be treated as such. Just as your family will learn to respect these boundaries, it will also help you to "switch off" at the end of your work day if you can literally shut the door of your office and return "home" to your family.

One temptation that, if indulged, will blur the line between your business and personal lives, is attending to non- business tasks during the hours you have allocated to business. Avoid leaving your office to run a load of laundry, unload the dishwasher, clean the bathroom or organize the kitchen cabinets ... any of the myriad of things that can assume an almost overwhelming urgency in the face of that business task you are putting off starting. These sorts of distractions will only serve to keep you in your office much longer than necessary.

Another important tip for keeping your two worlds separate is to have separate business telephone, modem and fax lines. Do NOT allow your children to answer your business phone. Arrange for an answering service to take your business calls during your non-business hours. Similarly, when you are working, try to ensure your children are otherwise occupied when you make business calls. The last thing you need when trying to convince that prospective new client that you should win his account is a screaming five year old right next to you.

If you have very young children, hire a sitter for the times of the day or week when you know you will be conducting business on the telephone. If you have older children, deputize one or more of them to occupy younger siblings. You might want to pay your 'deputy' for this service as a way for him or her to earn some income or pocket money. The money you spend on sitting services will be more than outweighed by the professional image you will be able to project to prospective and existing clients and customers.

As important as it is to choose for your business something you love to do, don't allow your business to take you away from your family. After all, your family was likely one of the primary reasons you decided to work from home in the first place.

It is one thing to be present physically. It is quite another to be present mentally and emotionally. The more rounded you are as a person, the more you bring to the table ... both personally and professionally. The enjoyable activities you engage in in your non-business hours can energize your business life. So, instead of thinking about the work you could be doing on Sunday when you're at the beach with your spouse, think of the fun you have on that day as an investment in your business for the coming week.

Give 100% of yourself to work during the time allocated to work. Then shut the door on it. Your family deserves 100% too.

**************

Elena Fawkner is editor of A Home-Based Business Online ... practical ideas, resources and strategies for your home-based or online business. www.ahbbo.com

E-mail Button Link

If you would like to enable your visitors to launch their E-mail program with a button to send you a message, paste the following code in your HTML document where you would like the button to appear.

<form>
<input type="button" value="E-mail Us"
onClick="location.href='mailto:your-name@yoursite.com'">
</form>

This is the button just created with the code above.

You can customize the fields in red to reflect how you'd like the button to read and to your own E-mail address.

* Get these syndicated tip feeds for your web site, free. *

Second Article

When Pesky Programs Won't Go Away

by: Stephen Bucaro Bucaro TecHelp

Are you a shareware junkie? Have you installed and removed many programs from your computer? This can make your computer take longer to start and run sluggish, or even cause reoccurring error messages.

During installation a program copies files to the applications folder, the Windows folder, and creates entries in the registry. The problem is that when you uninstall a program, it may leave behind pieces of itself and entries in the registry. Your hard disk and registry can become bloated.

To solve this problem, Microsoft licensed the Install Shield software to establish a standard Install and Uninstall procedure. When you install an application on your computer it copies its own uninstall utility to your hard drive. This Uninstall utility properly removes every piece of the program and removes every entry that it made in the registry.

If an application does not automatically install itself, you can install it with the Add/Remove Programs utility in Control Panel. When installing an application this utility searches the application for a program named setup.exe. Programs that comply with Microsoft's logo requirement provide a setup program that lists the application in the Add/Remove Programs list and registers an uninstall utility.

To remove an application from your computer, use the Add/Remove Programs utility. Just deleting the program without using the Add/Remove Programs utility leaves behind pieces of the application and entries in the registry.

Unfortunately sometimes the Add/Remove Programs utility doesn't work. Either the application didn't register an uninstall utility, or the uninstall utility is not at the location indicated in the registry. Sometimes the uninstall utility can't remove all the pieces of the program because they're not at the location indicated in its uninstall log.

Some programs, particularly shareware programs, don't list themselves in the Add/Remove Programs list. To delete these programs, first check for an uninstall utility in the program's Start menu, or in the program's folder. If none exists, drag the program's folder to the Recycle Bin, then restart your computer. If your computer restarts without an error message, you can safely empty the program from the Recycle Bin.

If you receive an error message when you restart your computer, check the folder c:\ Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup for a link to the program that you removed. If there is no link, run the Registry Editor (Start | Run | regedit) and check the following keys.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\RunServices

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Run

If you find an entry related to the error message that you are receiving, carefully record that entry, or back up your registry before deleting that entry. If there is no entry in those registry keys, you may want to restore the program's folder from the Recycle Bin until you learn how to dispose of it cleanly.

If you are not comfortable messing with the Windows registry, you can purchase a commercial utility like McAfee's UnInstaller or Norton's CleanSweep to do the job for you. These utilities are experts at removing abandoned program pieces and orphaned registry keys.

**************

To learn how to maintain your computer and use it more effectively to design a Web site and make money on the Web visit bucarotechelp.com
To subscribe to Bucaro TecHelp Newsletter Send a blank email to
bucarotechelp-subscribe@topica.com

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