Templates can be a lifesaver

At the end of the day, I suffer from many of the same challenges as many of you. Many of us are business owners. All of us never seem to have enough hours in the day. We are constantly confronted with too many tasks and not enough hours in the day to deal with them. There are so many documents, spreadsheets, and flyers that must be created. It seems to never end. It’s a challenge to create statements, legal documents and marketing materials from scratch. When your confronted with needing to get something delivered under the gun, often your creative energy is not flowing at 1am. To help me deal with these challenges, I have turned to the power of templates. Templates give me the option of developing high quality documents in a fraction of the time. I am a technology expert, not a finance expert, marketing expert, or a legal expert. Templates help me look professional. As a small business owner, my budget is tight. I can’t afford to hire all these experts to develop my documents. Templates help me look like I do. As recently as today I found a template for a time tracking database. With a few adjustments I now have a solid time tracking database tool to help me manage the billable time for my growing workforce and my clients. I have used templates for marketing flyers, invoices, agreement letters and database tools. They have been a lifesaver for me.

Microsoft has come a long way in providing these templates. They have a wealth of templates for the office, home, or for school. There is quite a catalog to support any of the office applications. Just got to http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/default.aspx and run a search for whatever it is you need. I’m sure you will find these templates the time saving life saver that I have.

Good Luck!!

Thoughts on Vista

One of the most common questions I have been getting recently is “What do you think about Vista?”. To be completely honest, I tried to update one of my laptops, but that proved to be time consuming, and futile. I have dabbled with a few demo versions, and previewed the small set of clients that have bought new machines with it pre-installed. So from personal experience, I don’t have any strong thoughts yet pro OR con.

What I do understand from over 17 years of technology experience is how these major upgrades are adapted. I also try to keep up with the readings of other professionals who are MUCH better writers than I am, and whose job it is to compare and contrast these technology changes. One article in PC Magazine really nailed it for me. John Dvorak wrote a very pragmatic commentary on the overall adaption of major upgrades like this entitled “The Consensus on Vista”. I certainly agreed with his take that it is probably not a good idea to upgrade an existing PC to Vista (As I discovered first hand). It is still going to take many months for the other hardware and software manufacturers to get their drivers and interfaces up to speed and the coming hard disk upgrades Dvorak mentions make it worthwhile to wait out this initial surge. For the small business community especially, I would not advocate using Vista until Service Pack 1 is rolled out and the new hard disks are more widely available. Otherwise you may be looking at spending precious upgrade dollars twice.

If you’re in desperate need of an upgrade now, I suggest striking while the iron is hot. Get your hands on a remaining XP machine. You’ll end up with a great processor, upgraded memory, and possible a Vista grade video card. Most of the manufacturers are phasing out their XP stock, and you may have to push the sales staff to hunt down an XP version. If you wait much longer you may be forced to go with Vista. Another option is the used computer market. In addition to eBay, there are many local companies that deal in used but solid performing computers. Many of these companies deal in recycled business computers. They are in great shape, with probably a few scratches on the case. If it buys you another 18- 24 months before needing a brand new system, then it’s worth it in my opinion. I recently bought one for my mom, and saved $500 off of a similar new system price.

In the long run, I’m sure we will all be saying how great Vista was and laughing about how we used to put up with XP, but for now patience is the key.