Month: January 2008

I Hired a Virtual Assistant

If you have read The Four Hour Work Week, you know that the author, Timothy Ferriss, writes about hiring a virtual assistant to outsource your life. One of the companies he suggests is named Your Man in India, which is not the right company. YMII is for Indian expats who need stuff done back home. There is another company called GetFriday.com which is the right one. They have virtual assistants on a variety of plans you can hire. SmartMoney’s A. J. Jacobs has the most well-known article on the topic of hiring virtual assistants. Other companies include Brickwork and Task Everyday. I have more modest needs.

Get Friday is a service that I have used before, and now am ramping up a bit. I had Get Friday on a retainer of $10/month. At this rate, tasks are billed in 15 minute increments at $15/hour. I’ve used them here and there for odd jobs. I’ve gone months without using their service just paying the $10 retainer. I figured that I had little to lose by keeping them on my payroll and on standby. I’ve used the service sparingly because, at $15/hr it’s more than I earn. I have to really, really not want to do something in order to outsource it.

Making assignments is simple enough. I send out an email to my assistant, Sahnaz, with the details of the assignment. She lets me know when it is done. I have not used my virtual assistant to do any shopping for me. Perhaps that will change in the future. In any event, my interaction with my virtual assistant has been very easy. What’s even cooler is that I received a Christmas card from Sahnaz today. I thought that was very thoughtful. It’s also my first piece of mail from India.

I have a feeling that things are about to get busy for me. I have demands from all different directions by people who want me on their team. For this reason, I have increased my monthly subscription to the next level. For $120/month Get Friday will give me 10 hours of service. The billing is in 10 minute increments. If I go over, then I am billed at $14/hr. They have other monthly plans at 20, 40, 80, and 160 hours per month ranging from $200 to $1120 per month. The more hours you contract them per month, the lower your hourly rate. Of course, it all depends on your needs.

I don’t know what task I’ll be sending Sahnaz for February to fill those 10 hours. I decided to buy the block of time rather than work up to 10 hours so that it forces me to delegate. Being a “boss” is a learned skill. You have to learn to let go of certain things and trust somebody else to get them done. I hope that she will be useful in earning more money so that I can upgrade my plan.

I have some ideas as to how Sahnaz will help me. One way in which she could help me out is to help me stay on top of important dates. Another possibility is to keep track of my business transactions. I enjoy fixing computers and helping people. I can’t say that I enjoy the accounting part. In fact, it makes sense to make Sahnaz a part of my business. My computer services business pays me more on an hourly rate than my day job. Using Sahnaz to help me with my salaried day job is all cost. Using her to help me make money is a cost of doing business. I only pay more when I make more money.

For now, this is experimental for me. I don’t know how hiring a virtual assistant for a fixed number of hours per month will help me. More than anything, I hope that I make smart decisions as to what I should outsource and what I should do myself. I’ll keep you posted at the end of February how things go.

No BarCamp Texas

Things have not worked out as planned, so my trip to BarCamp Texas at College Station has been scrapped. At first, I was a little bummed as I was looking forward to it. However, as the day wore on yesterday, things turned around. Many good things are happening as a result of my staying home this weekend. I’ve got several things going on this weekend after all, so it turns out to be a blessing in disguise. I’ll fill you in later as things develop.

Apple Air and Cloud Computing

So I’ve read about the new Apple computer. It’s thin as anything and has no hard drive. It’s supposed to put the whole concept of “cloud computing” to the test. I guess.

You know what I’d really like, and would probably mean steady income for Apple? I’d like to have a remote desktop. I’d like to log into my Apple desktop from a Windows machine, a Linux machine, or whatever other machine, and run my Mac apps just as if I were at my Mac. That to me would be cloud computing. I’d love to buy an app and “install” it virtually to my Mac desktop. If they could skip the whole thin laptop and just give me a monthly subscription to run a virtual computer on their servers, I’d subscribe. That way I could have my PC and Mac it too.

House Hunting



House Hunting

Originally uploaded by shainelee.

After church today, my wife called a builder to ask him to show us a home that is available. We are at the point where renting an apartment would cost the same as paying a mortgage payment, maybe even more.

This one is going for $110,000 and has 2,000 square feet. Financing, of course, is always the issue. Most of us don’t have a few grand just lying around.

Halo 3 on a Movie Screen



Halo 3 on a Movie Screen

Originally uploaded by shainelee.

I brought the kids to watch a Halo 3 competition at the historic Border Theatre (http://www.bordertheatre.com). The current tenants are working to keep the place open as a community center of sorts. So, one idea they had to generate some revenue is to hold a competition. If this first event goes well, they will have another competition next month for the rock star types. The cool thing about old movie theaters is that they have a stage up front for non-cinematic performances.

So, we are sitting here watching the competition on the big screen with the sound turned up. Next month should be cool to watch the players jamming out on stage. I think this is a worthwhile project. It keeps our youth engaged. I hope the theater is able to keep its doors open as a community center.

If you would like to rent an old movie theatre for an event, you should get in touch with them.

I Want Sandy, Seriously

My recent fetish with Jott has got me experimenting with some of the links to the service. One of the links is I Want Sandy. If you have used Stikkit from Values of n, then you have an idea of how I Want Sandy works. The system is able to interpret your messages and turn them into useful notes. Stikkit functions as a virtual post-it note. I Want Sandy functions like a virtual assistant. The mechanisms are the same, but the focus is different. For my purposes, Stikkit is not so useful. This prejudice makes me not want to like Sandy, but she is turning out to be the right thing.

Unfortunately, Jott is not the best interface for Sandy. I can’t think fast enough to phrase my entries in the appropriate way for Jott to transcribe to Sandy. Frequently, Jott misinterprets what I said, and butchers the message. So, Sandy often sends me back messages telling me that she doesn’t know what I want. I’ve pretty much given up on Jotting to Sandy unless I give my command serious thought in advance, which defeats the usefulness of Jott. At that point, I could just write things down. I still love Jott, just not with Sandy.

The upside is that Sandy works well with my other hero, Twitter. Typing a message to Sandy through Twitter works well for me. I can add contacts, notes, reminders, and all manner of info. Sandy then sends me a confirmation by Twitter and email. The best thing about Sandy is that she will send me reminders for things. I can also run searches on the information Sandy has through Twitter. I know this will sound geekishly pretentious, but Twitter is my command line interface for Sandy. Once you learn the syntax, you can manage your personal information through Twitter, i.e. text message. Who ever saw that coming? Maybe someday somebody will invent a linux shell that runs on sms. For now, I’m happy communicating with Sandy through my twitter account. The same ability to use Twitter by sms, gtalk, or web interface is what makes accessing a third-party app so awesome. I Want Sandy has done the best implementation thus far.

UPDATE

It was recently announced that I Want Sandy will be shut down on December 7. Sandy’s developer is moving on to a position at Twitter. I am sad to see Sandy go. On the other hand, some of Sandy’s features are said to be rolled into Twitter. There is no mention as to which of these features will survive.

Reinserted Google Ads On My Template

I upgraded my WordPress template recently and forgot to add my Google Ads back to the template. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to splice the code back in. I don’t mess with the template often enough that I know exactly what to do every time. It takes a little trial and error. In any case, they are back online.

I don’t make a killing off of the ads, but it’s nice spending money every once in a while. At the minimum, it offsets my hosting cost.

Jott for Your Mobile Life

Jott LogoIt appears that Jott has been busy making their service more and more functional. For a free service, they sure give you a lot. They have added more links to other useful services I thought I would share with you. The implications of Jott’s willingness to work with other sites is that it enables you to break free from a computer for simple things. You can live a very mobile lifestyle with your main weapon being your cell phone. You can use your voice, text messages, and mobile websites to get much of your work done, or at least remember to do it. I mention Jott because I love using the service. In case you are wondering, Jott transcribes your voice message and emails it to you, your friends, a group, or some service like those listed below. You speak it; and they write it down.

Services That Work With Jott

  • Twitter is a messaging system that answers one question: what are you doing now? Twitter allows you to keep in touch with friends all at once easily via text messages or instant messenger.
  • Yahoo Groups is a well known forum-type of service. You can Jott your replies rather than type them in.
  • Jaiku is a Twitter-like service. I’m on it, but don’t use it as much.
  • Zillow allows you to look up real estate estimates. I don’t use this service as it is not in my line of business. If you are in real estate, you may want to check it out and combine it with Jott.
  • Blogger, as the name implies, is a blogging service. If you are already on Blogger, Jott is handy. The only drawback is that you can only record for 30 seconds. So Jott is good for very brief blog posts.
  • LiveJournal is a blogging service just like Blogger.
  • Tumblr is in between Twitter and a blog. It’s just a place to collect photos, short notes, and other media.
  • 30 Boxes is supposed to help you get your act together. It has a calendar, to do lists, and such. I just never quite got into it. However, if you are on 30 Boxes, you now have the ability to use it via voice command through Jott.
  • Recommendr is a site that is supposed to help you make informed buying decisions. I haven’t used it, but it sounds promising.
  • Toodledo is another service I haven’t used. It seems like a to do list service.
  • Remember the Milk another to do list service. Nothing wrong with it; I simply use another service.
  • WordPress is turning out to be the champion blogging platform. You can use it like Blogger, LiveJournal, or TypePad.
  • Google Calendar is a service I just linked to my Jott today. I think it promises to be a great addition as I am neck-deep in Google services.
  • Sandy is a virtual assistant service, which I gather is like 30 Boxes. I signed up for it today. It looks promising, especially with Jott.
  • Xpenser is another service I linked to my Jott today. I totally love the concept. Xpenser allows you to keep track of your expenses. Now with Jott, you can call in your notes and save yourself some data entry.
  • Gumiyo is for mobile online classifieds. I have not looked at it, so can’t say how useful it would be. You are welcome to share your experience with them.
  • Trapster seems like an interesting service. It allows you to report where speed traps are located. I rarely speed, so find this to be of limited use. However, some of you scofflaws may find it handy for sharing intelligence amongst each other.
  • Mosio allows you to ask any question and have it answered by real people. Not much use for me as I know everything.
  • Vitalist is one of my absolute favorite services. When I signed up with them, I was looking for a GTD system. Their implementation came the closest and is the easiest to use. Plus, it has a mobile site I can check after Jotting into my inbox.
  • TypePad is another blogging service.

So What’s the Big Deal?

The big deal is that any combination of these services can be accessed via your phone. This is not quite the Star Trek computer that can do anything via voice command. It is pretty darn close. Jott started off as a service for itself. I think perhaps their direction has changed from a simple reminder service to being a gateway for mobile people to access their online accounts while out and about.

Jott can handle most of the services that these other sites offer. Jott has reminders, you can create a to-do list folder, you can create a folder for notes, you can message people by email or text message, you can even message groups of people like Twitter. Many of the things these outside services offer are already a part of the basic Jott service. What has made Jott infinitely more useful is that they link to the services listed above. This makes Jott a useful interface to our favorite services. What is more, they probably have more subscribers for that reason than simply providing a standalone service.

Mission, Texas Video Project on Kaltura

I was fooling around with Kaltura just a while ago. It seems like a handy site for editing video as a team. I don’t know yet if it would be good for a finished product, but at least it can help with fleshing out the project collaboratively over the web. If this embed works out right, you should be able to see the video progress with each successive edit. We are working on the script, so neither the title or video are any representation of what will end up being our finished product. I’m going to upload footage so that we have it handy as we work on ideas.