My Life With IT

With the rising number of people being retrenched, I can see that there is no security in any job. Even with recession proof jobs like teaching, nursing or food industry, it all boils down to a matter of choice for the customers or consumers. There has been quite a number of businesses that are started by those who have been affected by various reasons to start working from home.

Most people think that working from home means waking up at a comfortable time and having more flexibility in the working hours. For those who are freelancing, you may want to check 0ut how to simplify your life. It is so easy to get distracted by the Internet clutter: comic strips like Dilbert, emails, MSN, Twitter, Plurk, Tumblr, Posterous, and many new social media sites springing up are being reported by technology blogs or sites.

If freelancing at home means a lot of discipline, it is no different from working in the office. Just that no one will look at you to make you feel guilty. Personally, I prefer working from home in a truly comfortable manner. Meaning, despite the distractions, I am still being productive and earning a decent amount of money to pay the bills and enjoying trips around the world.

Working from home should be simple; that’s why I chose to work from home instead of spending 3 hours of travelling time just to get to the office and back home. That’s why my internet access should be free from worrying about some boss checking if I am surfing non-official sites during office hours. That’s why my lunch time can be as long as I want it to be.

That’s why I shouldn’t have to worry about my business even if I’m on vacation for more than a month. It should be a happy choice that I can still enjoy life and really be able to enjoy the fruits of labour that I have been working so hard for. Teachers taught us to work hard and have a high paying job. But we were never taught how to have something that will give us income security even when we are unable to work due to medical reasons.

I know I haven’t been the best of communication. I usually forward text messages of holiday greetings until I got the threaded message version for Samsung Omnia. It’s a pain to select, change keyboard, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V and then send a mass text message.

I have grown lazy or weary of such routine greetings. Therefore, I have resorted to using Facebook status to just wish everyone. Oh my goodness. I have indeed resorted to such tactics. I did have half a mind to make some Christmas cards and send out to my friends until I realised that I have no idea where I kept my address list.

I wonder if I will send out Chinese New Year cards, those that you can look at them physically and write with my ugly handwriting. Either that or I shall be using e-cards. Such is the life of using technology that the joy of receiving and sending put cards have been lost. Although I will try to build up my address list somewhere I can find it more easily.

It’s 2009 and I hope that it will be a good year ahead with opportunities to be grabbed hold of and cherished.

I have problems trying to login to my account in Who Lives Near You. I created it quite a few years back and have been trying to login again after being away from it for a long time. I can’t recall my login name for the life of me.

Thus, I tried the Forget Password feature. Nothing. I got a blank page after submitting my email for sending the password. I tried it on Flock, Firefox2 and IE7. All failed to load. Therefore, my last resort was to send an email via the contact form provided.

I never did find out if I have successfully sent the email since the page displayed that I have sent and never did receive a copy of my email. I expected to receive a CC or even some sort of auto-reply that an email has been received by them. Nothing. Nada. Nil.

So, my final conclusion about this site is that despite the improvements made to the site, they have poor customer service. I don’t remember if I have deleted my account either. All I needed the thing to work is to send an email about my password and ID. Not some blank page and no reply from a service.

The email was sent on Sun, thus, I expected some 48 working days for a reply. It’s Wednesday and I have yet to see a reply. Did the email get eaten up during the hops? I had an email being eaten up during a hop. I emailed for the information and finally received a reply.

The difference between working in the office and from home are what I have noticed.

Office

1. No MSN allowed.
2. No other software allowed to be installed even if they help with work. No open source.
3. No non-offical websites to be surfed.
4. No loud music or radio to be played.
5. Fixed working hours and over time may not be paid.

Home

1. MSN is allowed.
2. Any software that helps with the work is allowed. Open source is often used.
3. Any website that aren’t blocked by the ISP allowed.
4. The music can be played as loud as possible. However, you will go deaf in this case.
5. Flexible working hours. Over time to be claimed from clients depending on the contract’s terms and conditions.

These are just some of the differences. There are more such as the lack of social contact and facing the same room everyday and sometimes, forgetting to take breaks and put in more working hours. There are pros and cons to each but I am now much happier not to face the cubicles and most of the time, the privacy to doing my things without being interrupted at inappropriate times.

I am happy to do other things away from the computer when it strikes me. I am happy to just work in front of the computer without having the need to dress up appropriately for work. I am also happier that I can install as many web browsers and tabs for my convenience.

I am also happy to work in short bursts of energy on the necessary things that need my attention.

Mothers who are bloggers can register with The Young Businessman. Note that slots are still available and in addition, a dinner to meet other mothers who are bloggers is in the works. Preview of who will be attending:

1. Rachel: http://www.xtralicious.com
2. Elaiine: http://x-thatsmylife-x.blogspot.com/
3. Rachel: http://www.mamobuta.blogspot.com/

Business owners who wished to sponsor the dinner, do contact bomberchia[at]gmail[dot]com. Mothers are the greatest as they cook, they clean and they have beautiful homes too. (Yea, stolen from Mocca.com advertisement.)

I’m not sure what to make of this but it smells like what Felix had received before. I received this in my private message in Yebber. I thought something might be interesting and boy oh boy, I’m the trusted recipient to help some guy named Serge who is yet of age 24 to help him keep the money. Does this count as a hoax or spam or abuse?

Dear Friend,

I came to you because i saw your profile and contact in this site and believe that your names has planted you in the centre of relevance in my life.

Before I go further I will like to introduce myself to you. I am Serge Micheal Konan, 17 years of age, the only child of my parents, Dr. and Mrs. Arnaud Leonard Konan. My parents were Natives of Cote d’Ivoire before they migrated to the United States where I was born and we lived at No 215 West Wieuca Road Northeast Atlanta, Georgia USA and I attended the famous Frederick Douglass High School, 225 Hamilton E.Holmes Drive, N.W. Atlanta, GA 30318, Georgia USA, but when my mother fell sick and died June 2004, My father became weak every now and fall sick often, i believe it was the shock of my mum’s sudden death that deteriorated his health. He got retired from his office, Fidelity National Insurance Company at No 200 Galleria Parkway Southeast Atlanta GA 30339 USA October 2005.

Then December 2005 my father called me and told that he doesn’t want to die in a foreign land. That he has made so much money, he felt the best thing for him to do now is for us to relocate back to his home country of Cote d’Ivoire so that he can set up his own Insurance company and give job opportunities to his people and he also told me that he wanted me to learn about his people and their culture. On the 14 of December 2005 we returned back to Cote d’Ivoire, On our arrival, my Dad deposited all the money we came with that we want to use to set up the company in a security company as family valuables because according to him, he doesn’t want anybody to know anything about the money till he has settled and ready to use it, for the purpose of which he suffered to bring the money down home. Then after some time my dad started to look for properties to buy
to use for an office, in several occasions i went out with him to inspect for this purpose.

But unfortunately On the 6th of February 2006 My father died, but before his death he brought out all the documents he used in depositing the money with the security company, name and address of the security company i will also give you later, and gave them to me. So four months after the burial of my father, i approached the company and asked for the release of my deposit to me as the only child of Dr. and Mrs.Arnaud Leonard Konan but to my surprise the company refused my request. I have been to the company time without number and all they said was that the only way that they can release the deposit to me will be when i am 24yrs old or if i can find a guardian that will stand for me. Please i would like to ask for your help here, i want you to please accept my humble request that you stand as my guardian and i then introduce you to the company and you receive the deposit for me.

My situation here is so unbearable that i cant really wait to possess this money.

This is the true situation of things as it stands now. Please, take your time, go through this mail and let me know the best way you feel you can help me. On my email: smkonan225@yahoo.fr

Yours sincerely
Serge

Seriously though, I can’t see why on earth I am chosen to be the one to look after his money when he doesn’t even know me. And it’s been 2 years since his daddy passed away. Oh, I’m so touched that I’m the centre of relevance in his life.

Nowadays, you get invitations to events the electronic way. Via email, e-cards or Facebook. I have used Evite and Ecircles (now defunct). The most commonly used way I have used is email. I just select the names and hit send. Not that it isn’t good. Just that it isn’t that well collaborated in a way whereby I can easily list down who are the attendants.

Facebook is quite popular and I have just received an invitation to attend a dinner with my ex-colleagues. It’s quite easy to use too. Just a reply if you will be attending, maybe or just a no. Easy peasy. With Evite, you select the event type, picture if you like, the list of people you have imported, some polling on the attendance and that’s it. It really depends on your preferred method of invitation.

I have even received an e-card for attending a ROM. So, it’s nothing new, it’s just a way to inform my friends that I am inviting them to some event. Saves paper and environment. Wait, they still have to switch on the electricity. Darn it.

I often cringe when I see an email whereby all the email addresses are in the To and CC list. This is because when the email is traveling through the hops and servers, they leave a digital mark that can be culled by robots which are collecting email addresses and that’s when I start receiving spam emails.

This is especially more important if a company provides newsletters via emails, it’s supposed to use BCC instead. This reduces the robot’s chances of retrieving the valid emails and I don’t get spammed and neither will I need to write an email to inform them that it’s violating the privacies of the subscribers.

I have friends who forward emails using the To list. I use this only if it were to gather discussion and feedback on the dates availability. How I wished that all of them have Yahoo accounts so that we can just dump everything into the Yahoo Groups. However, not all of them have and some don’t want to create new accounts. So, I’m stuck with emails.

If you need to forward anything, please, please, please use the BCC since it doesn’t require any interaction between the recipients and sender.