The Final Touch

Recently I learned about a tool called Robo­Form* — and when I find some­thing really use­ful, I want to share the news!

At first, I assumed it was too good to be true or, worse, that it might actu­ally com­pro­mise my secu­rity online. But then I heard about it again, from a source I trust greatly and who has years of online expe­ri­ence (shout-out to Sab­rina Gib­son!), so I decided to look into it fur­ther. I gave the free ver­sion a try and fell in love! Seri­ously! I am SO DELIGHTED to have this new tool in place that when I reached the free-version limit (10 pass­words, I think), I imme­di­ately upgraded to the Pro ver­sion (under $25) for my 40+ pass­words!

Robo­Form stores all your inter­net user­names and pass­words so you don’t have to fig­ure out a sys­tem for remem­ber­ing them all. Fur­ther­more, nowa­days there is such a threat of iden­tity theft and hack­ers get­ting into our inter­net accounts (two friends of mine have recently been phished on Face­book), that I was glad to know Robo­Form helps pre­vent that, too, with its optional random-password gen­er­a­tion, which gen­er­ates a unique, strong pass­word for each site that calls for one. Robo­Form stores them all for you so you only need to remem­ber one, to enter the Robo­Form pro­gram and access all your oth­ers. You can view, copy, or change your pass­words at any time under the “Edit” option on the menu, but as far as any­one else is con­cerned — any­one who doesn’t have your Robo­Form pass­word — the pass­words are secured with military-level encryption.

One other thing: Robo­Form can also auto-fill forms for you, if you find your­self at a lot of dif­fer­ent web­sites that require the com­ple­tion of long forms with per­sonal data. You sup­ply the infor­ma­tion in an ini­tial set-up, and then click an icon when­ever you need a form filled. (I do make sure to read over the form just to make sure it all got filled out cor­rectly, and because some­times I might want to change the email address I’m sup­ply­ing or such, but it’s a help­ful resource nonetheless.)

In short, I think Robo­Form is one of the most use­ful resources I’ve ever encoun­tered for online work (and play!). At the very least, why not click here to learn more?

* http://​cmp​.ly/5

Yes­ter­day I took advan­tage of a webi­nar on Social Net­work­ing offered by Sab­rina Gib­son. She’s the Social Net­work­ing leader I’ve been learn­ing from in online train­ing since Decem­ber. Here’s what another mem­ber of the class had to say about her:

Linda Rus­sell on Sab­rina Gib­son — Social Net­work­ing (YouTube​.com)

Although this was an “intro” webi­nar, I decided to lis­ten in. I fig­ured either it would be good to have what I already knew reit­er­ated and rein­forced or she’d have some new infor­ma­tion to share, or both. Well, it turned out to be “both”!

I pro­moted this to some of you through my email list (If you are inter­ested in know­ing about resources like this, please fill in the brief form at the right of my home­page; I will NOT bom­bard your mail­box, and you can always un-subscribe if you change your mind), but I know some of you had sched­ule con­flicts yes­ter­day. So I am thrilled that Sab­rina has now made the record­ing of her webi­nar available!

Fol­low this link to check out what the webi­nar offers: http://​www​.Social​Max​i​miz​ing​.com/​V​i​deo3. And as a teaser, here are a few excerpts from the info page:

So many net­works, so lit­tle time! Have you put off Social Net­work­ing as just another “waste of time”?
Are you using Social Net­work­ing and not really find­ing any results? Are you con­fused as to what to do, when to do it or how to do it?…

If you are like most busi­ness own­ers you:

• Are smart with where you spend your time and money
• Rec­og­nize mar­ket­ing is a MUST to suc­ceed (espe­cially in this “new economy”)…
• Desire to grow your business
• May not under­stand tech­nol­ogy but rec­og­nize it is vital for success…

What I would like to share with you is a sim­ple step by step strat­egy so you don’t waste your time “tin­ker­ing around” with Social Net­works.  If you are not seri­ous about grow­ing your busi­ness, you can just stop read­ing now!  If you plan to “sur­vive” and even thrive in this new econ­omy, you need to do things differently…

Sab­rina has stated that the link to the webi­nar will only be avail­able for two weeks, so I strongly encour­age you to take advan­tage of it right away! (And while the info page says it’s a 1-hour event, it was actu­ally between 1–1/2 and 2! Can’t beat that for FREE!) Enjoy!

Oh, and please stop back here and leave a com­ment about what you thought of the webi­nar after you’ve viewed it. I’d love to hear!

Whew! After quite a few days of frus­tra­tion, I learned yes­ter­day (through Sab­rina Gib­son, my social-media coach) that Host­Ga­tor was the place to go to work out my Word­Press kinks!

See, though I don’t really under­stand it and prob­a­bly can’t explain it well, Host­Ga­tor is what enables me to have a “self-hosted” blog — to take my domain name (Final­Touch­Proof­readin­gAndEdit­ing) and use Word­Press blog­ging fea­tures with­out hav­ing my name buried inside a Word­Press URL. Don’t worry if you don’t under­stand that; I just fol­lowed Sabrina’s direc­tions for set­ting it up (and if you have a busi­ness you want to blog for, you might find it use­ful to learn more about this — I can put you in touch with the right people).

Until this morn­ing, I’d been tear­ing my hair out. See? It’s a lot shorter now than it used to be! Com­pare this — before the glitch –

Heidi with longish hair (Photo cour­tesy Gabriel Mann, age 5)

to this — after I’d yanked out half of my locks!

Heidi with short hair (Photo cour­tesy Gabriel Mann, age 5)

(Of course, it was a wel­come change for summer.)

Any­way… my point is that Host­Ga­tor turned out to be the place I needed to go for answers! What’s more, they are so strong in the customer-service realm that the three issues I brought to the Live Chat tech­ni­cian (and one more that I added in along the way) are now all resolved, so I am out of panic mode and back into lov­ing my blog!!

So, you should see more of me in the near future! (And I just may become a Host­Ga­tor affil­i­ate, but for now, FYI, I make no “com­mis­sion” off of pro­mot­ing them here, other than the fun of pass­ing along a great tip and resource to my friends!)

Oh, and the change in the look of the blog is “col­lat­eral dam­age” from all the tech prob­lems. I may end up chang­ing it back, or chang­ing to some­thing a bit fancier, but for now, I’m just glad to be here, back with you!

Sorry for the short notice on this first one, but if you can fit it in, you won’t regret it!

For six months now, I’ve been tak­ing an online course called “Social Net­work­ing with Sab­rina Gib­son.” Sab­rina has over 15 years’ expe­ri­ence in the inter­net field and is widely con­sid­ered an expert in up-t0-the-minute infor­ma­tion and strate­gies to help business-people use social media (Twit­ter, Face­book, LinkedIn, blog­ging, etc.) to get the word out about what they have to offer to others.

Today (June 9) from 12:30–2:00 p.m. (PDT), Sab­rina is offer­ing a FREE webi­nar on get­ting the most out of a Face­book Page for the sake of your busi­ness. You can still reg­is­ter this morn­ing at: How to Use Face­book for Your Busi­ness.

If you can’t make this event, I strongly urge you to try to work the fol­low­ing two into your schedule:

• June 30, 9:00–10:30 a.m. (PDT) How to Use LinkedIn for Your Busi­ness and
• July 28, 9:00–10:30 a.m. (PDT) How to Blog for Busi­ness.

Sab­rina is dynamic and fun, and has a TON of infor­ma­tion to share! I’ve had a blast learn­ing from her, and I’m cer­tain you will too! (Even if you don’t have a busi­ness to mar­ket, you might still want to check these out for fun. Face­book Pages can be used for non-business pur­poses as well; LinkedIn is intended for pro­fes­sion­als of any sort, whether you work for some­one else or for your­self; and blog­ging… well, blog­ging is just plain fun!)

This is amaz­ing!! A reminder that when we fall down, we need to try and try and try again until we find the strength to get back up. God will give us that strength. Do not lose hope! If Nick Vuji­cic can live in hope, so can you!

Thanks to my friend and social net­work­ing coach Sab­rina Gib­son for pass­ing along a sim­i­lar video about this inspir­ing gentleman!

What a moti­va­tion he is for us all!

Nick Vuji­cic on YouTube

I just dis­cov­ered the Writer’s Digest Com­mu­nity http://​ping​.fm/​Z​JpCT and am excited to link up in yet another way with fellow/sister writ­ers and editors!

It astounds me how much I’ve heard and read in just the past week regard­ing con­nect­ing with oth­ers via social-networking sites! I know all these arti­cles and ideas didn’t just come about this week, so I gather it’s because my mind has sud­denly been opened to the con­cept, thanks to a sis­ter busi­ness­woman who has quickly become some­one I count as a friend (shout-out to Tanya Mor­ri­son: www​.360de​gree​woman​.org !) and who led me, in turn, to link up with Sab­rina Gib­son (www​.Social​Net​work​ingRock​Star​.com) under whose tute­lage I will begin a Social Net­work Max­i­miza­tion men­tor­ing pro­gram in just a cou­ple of weeks.

Social-networking sites have grown by leaps and bounds over the past few years, and they’re not just for swap­ping gos­sip or quips about one’s day any­more! Not that there’s any­thing wrong with that casual social­iz­ing, but I find myself intrigued and fas­ci­nated by the (still rel­a­tively) new oppor­tu­nity for broad­en­ing our com­mu­ni­ties, our busi­ness net­works, the knowl­edge base from which we may ben­e­fit, and — if we are will­ing — our world­views in such a rel­a­tively easy and inex­pen­sive way. Even those of us who are self-employed and fairly “solitarily-employed” are by no means “out here on our own” any­more! In the words of the beloved Mis­ter Rogers, “It’s such a good feel­ing…!” and “It’s a beau­ti­ful day in the [cyber-]neighborhood!… Won’t you be my neighbor?”