Lisa Hendrickson is the owner of Call That Girl. She is an Outlook Expert and Microsoft 365 Consultant.
I get many folks asking me what laptop they should buy, which one is the best, etc. All models of computers/laptops end up in my shop, so they all break at some point. My opinion? Follow these simple rules and you just bought the best laptop!
1.) Figure out a budget. Remember that with a new computer, you may need to buy new software. The Office suite can run up to $300 for the full package, so keep that in mind.
2.) Make sure you buy a laptop in person. Buying online gives you no sense of how the computer feels, weighs or views in bad/good/extra light.
3.) Go to a store and make sure to check out the next few things…
That’s the quick and dirty…many folks also ask about the processors and hard drive space, etc…my answer is you’ll be ok probably if you can find a computer that fits your needs with the list I gave you. Those are much more important. Of course, if you need a 320 gig hard drive, then you will of course find one that has that. Most folks today are fine with 160 gig hard drives. One of my computers at the office has a 20 gig hard drive and I am just fine!
Happy Thursday!
Lisa
YAY! It only took seven months of writing and editing and even more editing and writing. I am finally done folks!
To purchase or read more about the book, click here. —–>>>BUY NOW
I LOVE this tool! If you have a few documents that you need to share on two+ computer sytems, this is really the LIFESAVER. I have a few documents that I use daily and with 4 computers, it was hard to keep up with. I used to email them to myself back and forth. Very time consuming and many were large, so it took awhile to email and whatnot.
Last winter I heard of Drop Box and installed it, but wasn’t sure how to really use it. Then a colleague asked me if I was using it and I was “yeah, but not”….he said “DO IT” and then I did it and LOVE it! OMG.
I only share the important files, but I can see this becoming a tool that I really need to use. I found it you can allow many users access by allowing their email accounts into certain folders, so they have limited restrictions.
It’s cool, so if you have two+ computers needing the same files and are not on a network, this is a great solution! Test it out with their 2 gig no fee test. If you need more, you can purchase more then. Here is a link that gives me some more free space if you try it out, I get no money, just space.
https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTU1NzkwNjE5
Comment below if you have any questions,
Lisa
I wake up everyday and first thing I do is check my Blackberry to review what email I got over night. I know it’s an addiction at this point, so you don’t need to tell me that. I am aware of it. If they had a Blackberry anonymous group, I would probably go!
Lately though, I have noticed how much email I have been getting a day and realized that I needed to start getting it under control. It was at around 150! And since I am running a business, I would spend each evening organizing and replying to all of these emails. Very exhausting. The idea of starting to use rules and subfolders for my email is something that a professional organizer would probably want to do for me, so I stepped up and started doing it myself.
Here is what I have been doing, and it’s a process. You have to do it almost everyday to make it work. I have noticed results and it’s getting better. I woke up to 2 emails today instead of 20.
First let’s start with this.
Today, only answer the important emails. The business critical ones, the ones that really need to be answered. Let the rest go, do not move them or delete them or anything. Just let them sit.
Tomorrow morning will be when the work starts. If you are like me, you probably wake up to 20 emails, mostly all the newsletters and updates you have subscribed to. I got to the point, it was annoying and wanted them gone. Just sick of them and needed them organized or to not come to me anymore.
Tomorrow am: Open each email with a directive thought. Here are a few examples of my emails.
Next, create a subfolder in your email program to reflect these needs. Then move all of those emails to those folders with the exception of the newsletters.
Once your email is organized a bit, then attack the newsletters. I started unsubscribing from newsletters that I didn’t want anymore and then created a rule for ALL newsletters to go to. I want to read them, just not today. I prefer to read through them on weekends when I have time. So now I know where those are. My email inbox is now pretty clean and in just 3 days, I have already noticed a big change! I love it!
I am by far not a professional organizer, but this was pretty easy for me to get going with, took a few minutes a day and well worth it. Trust me, I had the feeling of living on the edge of my inbox and now I’m not feeling it so much. Yes, I’m still addicted to the Blackberry and yes, I still check emails every morning, but now I feel better I don’t have to clean up so many emails when I get on the computer.
whew!
This past week, this was our client work load…Norton causing computer crashes, usb ports going wonky, Microsoft Security Essentials disappearing, two new computer set ups, Belkin router set up issues, viruses, gotomeeting.com not working, slow computers, Macintosh training and a few Outlook calls. Most of these problems, with the exception of the usb ports going bad were all software repair. Even the usb ports issue was somewhat of a software issue because the port issue caused the operating system to crash, and I had to fix that first to figure out what was wrong with the computer. I got it fixed to the point I could get the user’s data and find out, the usb ports were crashing when plugging in power related external camera’s or hard drives. Keyboards and mice were fine.
Many people are quite shocked to learn that we are a software business, but it makes sense when you figure 90% of computer related problems are due to software not working right. Hardware is also so cheap to just replace, many folks don’t want to pay $200+ to fix a motherboard (the hardware inside your computer) when getting a new computer is just about that cheap. Is that the way to go? Sometimes, on older computers I would say yes.
There are many things going on inside your computer in regards to hardware. Many years ago, hardware was easy and fairly cheap to replace. These days, some issues are not so cheap to fix as some of things inside your computer are working together. If one thing breaks, you must replace many things.
Why we are staying out of hardware…because there are enough hardware repair businesses out there. I am good at software, the market is there, the software problems are there, so why not do what I do well and focus on that. My competition doesn’t understand how I can survive off software, but in all reality, it makes sense.
What is software? Any programs on your computer that you use to enjoy your computer time. Your internet, office programs, cameras and printers, Gmail, Hotmail, antivirus, Firefox, Facebook..the list could go on and on.
A few answers for you…
Please consider Call That Girl next time you have a computer glitch or something is going wrong. If the computer boots up, it’s something we can tackle!
