Just in case you haven’t heard, Dynamic Edge co-owner and resident fitness guru, TIM NEIMAN traveled to New Hampshire this past weekend to compete at the annual Timberman Triathlon Festival, named the #1 “Must-do Triathlon Adventure” by Triathlete Magazine.

But, not to be mistaken with the throng of international superstars-turned-triathletes, Neiman didn’t hire a former Olympian to coach him through this race, which was three times the distance and pain of his last competition. He trained solo, spending long hours after a full day’s work running, biking, swimming and (I would guess) wincing in pain.

The 70.3 mile race included 56 hilly miles of biking, a 1.2 mile swim in clear, blue Lake Winnipesaukee, and a 13.1 mile run along its shores… a trek that most of us would only hope to make over a series of days. His time was 5:36:1!

Congratulations and Admiration are due to Tim Neiman, Our Fearless Leader… who inspires us to go further, push harder, and curl up in the fetal position to cry like babies.

… Who would have thought (those of you who read my first couple of entries, that is) that you would ever be reading about me explaining something at least marginally technical to one of our clients?!?

We started testing out a new email program, called MyEmma, which allows us to generate and email newsletters to our subscribed clients at the end of June. Since then, we’ve really gotten the hang of this thing and are now implementing this email marketing for our clients. And who, do you think, is responsible for handling this all?? Exactly! Weird huh?

So far, I’ve learned that the biggest drawback to the utility is the initial startup cost. At $250, a number of our clients have shied away at first, but the benefits really outweigh the cost… for sure!

First, you can register as many of your clients/customers/contacts as you want, with as many different lists as you need. You can upload them from a spreadsheet program, and you can send out as many different mailings as you’d like. This is huge, considering most other services limit either the number of contacts you can set up or the number of  lists you have. It’s all spelled out very clearly on the service provider’s website, and best of all there are no hidden fees. You simply get billed for what you use. Here’s how it breaks down:

If you have questions about writing an e-edition newsletter, building an email campaign, MyEmma or anything related give me a call at ext. 129 and I’ll try and help you out!

And there was much rejoicing…

Deb has been having a hard time seeing the videos on YouTube, which wouldn’t be a big deal except that on a somewhat regular basis, a rather hilarious YouTube will come around the office email system, and she’s just wondering what’s so funny.

We identified the problem: No Flash Player.
The solution to Deb’s little conundrum was clear and simple to me, as I’ve been immersed in Techland for nearly three months, we needed to download a Flash Player for Deb’s laptop.

Okay, so it wasn’t exactly rocket science. As Trevor pointed out, “You’d be amazed by how far you can get with technology by simply reading.” Not to burst my own bubble, but he was right. Alas! In the area where Deb’s YouTube video frame should be appearing, was black text that read “YOU NEED FLASH PLAYER TO WATCH THIS VIDEO” in not so explicit terms, of course.

Three clicks later and Voila! Deb’s YouTubing with the best of us! I helped somebody, life is good

ttyl, stormie

Imagine a day when you open your email to find that all of your messages are from actual people that you know. No offers for prescription drugs, home loans or sexually explicit content, and no more sifting through mounds of trash to find the few messages you actually want to read…

… okay, so maybe that will never happen. But while eliminating all that junk mail may be impossible, there are a few things you can do to seriously limit the amount of spam you have to deal with in your inbox.

1. Protect Your E-mail Address: The best way to avoid getting spammed is to keep your personal and business email addresses private. If the spammers don’t know you exist, you’re not a likely target. To stay off their radar, avoid Newsgroups, bulletin boards, and chat rooms that require you to enter your email address. (And if you can’t resist, try try tip #2.)

2. Create a Spam E-Mail Account: If you’re finding it difficult to keep your personal e-mail address completely private, setting  up another email address may be the solution. Email accounts are easy to set up and often free, and this address is perfect to use when you have to register for that newsgroup, bulletin board, sweepstakes, or in any other situation where you’re not quite sure your privacy will be protected. The best part about this is that, because you aren’t expecting any important mail at this account, if it becomes over run with spam, you can throw it away and get another one to catch all your unwanted spam.

3. Message Rules in Outlook / Outlook Express: If you’re using Outlook or Outlook Express as your e-mail client, you can create message rules in the “Tools” drop down menu. You can set up rules that allow you to analyze sender’s names, subject line and message body before processing them. For example, you could set up a rule  that automatically sends any message with an offensive word in the subject line to the Deleted Items folder.

You can also add notorious spammers to your “Blocked Senders” list without having to create a rule… and in a few clicks, a sender of unsolicited e-mail can be added to your personal blocked senders list. Whenever mail arrives from this sender in the future, it will skip the inbox and go straight to the Deleted Items folder.

4. Third Party Software: There are tons of applications that you can for purchase (or download for free) that were designed to filter spam as it enters your inbox. Basically, these programs recognize the telltale signs of spam and keep them out of our inboxes. There are a lot of companies out there producing spam filters, but they all do essentially the same thing: allow users to take control of the spam in their Outlook or Outlook Express mailboxes.

5. Server Based Solutions: Most major internet service providers offer a spam filter as part of the package offered to its subscribers. At DE, we use Barracuda Systems to keep our mailboxes clean… and since we’re an authorized Barracuda partner, we strongly recommend this product to our customers. (As a testimonial, I’ve been at Dynamic Edge for about three months now, and have yet to receive any spam at my business email address.) If your office email is being spammed, it may be because you’ve inadvertently signed up for it… but it could also be because your server’s spam firewall isn’t performing. Call us at 734.975.0460 if you’d like to talk to one of our expert consultants about that!

Final thoughts:
Spam is a nuisance that impacts just about everybody on some level. Even if the content is not inappropriate or offensive, it is a waste of time and money. That said, protecting your email address and  getting the appropriate spam filter will greatly reduce the amount spam in your life… which leaves you more time to read blogs, like this one!

Here’s a little discovery that was made last week:

The key that’s called “Num Lk” is not, in fact, your computer’s shortcut to a very cold lake.
Its actually a function that allows you to enter numbers.

If you’re using a desktop PC, these keys will be in a block to the right of the keys you generally type with. Yes I know… obvious. But if you’re using a laptop (specifically, one that looks like mine — pearly pink with silver keys) you won’t have those off to the side. The numbers are actually hidden in with the lettered keys. Ok, so you probably already knew that too.

But on my laptop, they’re really small. I mean tiny, small. So small that I didn’t know they were even there.

Here’s the point: if you press “Num Lk,” you will not be able to type normal letters. And until you find that magical key again, you’ll be typing 0123456 instead of m, j, k, l, u, i and o… which can be really agitating. My suggestion: find your “Num Lk” key and NEVER push it.

later!

storm

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could activate Excel 2007’s Formula bar without using the mouse? You can… try this!

Press the F2 key. This will let Excel know that you want to edit the contents of a cell. The first time you do this, Excel will probably expand the information in the cell and let you to edit the information inside that cell… but you can tell Excel you want F2 to open your formula bar by doing thisi:

1. Click the Office button and then click Excel Options. Excel displays the Excel Options dialog box.
2. Click the Advanced option at the left of the dialog box.
3. Make sure the Allow Editing Directly In Cell check box is cleared.
4. Click on OK.

And that should do it… Now you should never have to take your hands off the keyboard while you’re putting together those worksheets!