The Girly Anti-Geek

This week’s feature is relatively new to blogging, but not new to the technology world.  She’s got some great ideas, and I can’t see what she can do with a cheesecake.

Readers, I’m pleased to introduce you to Computer Help and Advice.

**Your Blog(s):  I only have one site at the moment and it’s http://www.computerhelpandadvice.com  It’s not the name I really wanted but it’s ok.  It’s got a little bit of computer tips and stuff but a little bit of personal stuff.  I still consider it a work in progress as I learn to do more with it.  I am working on another website; http://www.blueeyedgrits.com  It’s going to be about recipes, food, etc, but specializing in cheesecakes.  And I will probably throw in some personal rants here and there.

**How long have you been blogging?:  Honestly, about 3 or so months.  It’s a little difficult to work into my schedule because I work two other jobs and this is a job in itself.  I am learning a lot about maintaining a website.  I’ve always considered myself a fairly intelligent individual but trying to learn Dreamweaver is proving to be a little more difficult than I thought.

**What kind of Geek are you?:  When I first started in the IT field some 14 years ago, most of the guys I met in the field didn’t really seem to have much of a personality.  That has changed over times.  I think it helps that I actually had children and worked in other fields before the IT field.  I’ve worked different areas of the IT field from desktop to switches and routers.  Honestly I like the networking side more than the desktop.  And I like the switch\router side more than I like the server\client side of the IT field. 

**Are you a Geek offline?:  Yes I am a Geek offline.  My second job is actually at a Best Buy working for the Geek Squad.  I started out doing that to make a little extra money for Christmas and I’m still there.  I know the Geek Squad gets ridiculed a lot but it’s not really that bad.  Even though I was told that you really don’t have to be ‘technical’ to work there but they like to have someone who is, just in case.  The location that I work at has two people that are, me and one other guy.  The supervisor is not too bad but he really doesn’t have that much technical experience.  These positions are ‘geared’ toward customer service.  

**What is your favorite thing to do when you’re NOT blogging?:  Well I really don’t know how to answer that one.  I work so much when I’m not blogging and then I try to catch up on sleep.   I guess spending time with my grandson would be my favorite thing; he and I love to go to the library.  I do go karaoke every once in awhile with my sister and she and I talk on the phone a lot. 

**Who is your target audience?:  I think everyone and anyone that would like some tips on computers in a way they can understand the terminology. 

**How do you generate traffic to your site?:  I joined Entrecard to generate traffic to start.  I also sent emails to friends on myspace and facebook.  I’m still learning how to do that. 

**Tell us one “secret” or “tip” you can share with us non-Geeks who are learning.:  Although you can screw up a computer by deleting a certain file, normally they can be fixed.  But when you purchase a new computer be sure to either let someone or do it yourself, but create the recovery disk.  They are worth it because if you don’t it’s a pain to call the vendor and pay to have them send you one.  Also, back up your pictures and important files.  Get an external hard drive and copy whatever is important to you onto that external drive.  Or burn them to a cd\dvd.     Another thing, working on computers can sometimes take a little longer than you expect because the unexpected could happen.  Be Patient!  And finally, research the internet for questions you may have or things you don’t understand.  There is a lot of good information out there.  It’s where I look when I have something I can’t figure out. 

**Tell us more about YOU:

Well, I will be 50 this year.  WOOHOO!!  I have two children; ages 27 and 21 and a grandson that’s 8.  He is so much fun.

I actually started working when I was 17 in an office.  I worked mostly bookkeeping jobs until I was 34 and then had several ‘life changing’ events happen and ended up in the IT field working in a call center.  I really wanted to move to ‘tech’ support so I purchased Novell study guides and took 7 tests in 8 months and obtained my CNE (Certified Novell Engineer).  I started taking other jobs to ‘get’ hands on experience and my experience and career in the IT field has grown ever since.  I do have my MCP but I ‘flop’ back and forth on whether to pursue my MCSE.  I am actually leaning towards a CCNA.

Thank you, Rena, for participating in this week’s feature.  That grandson of yours is ADORABLE!  I can understand why you spend any free time you have with him. 

I must post about my secret love affair with the Geek Squad someday. 

Readers, be sure to head on over to Computer Help and Advice, and let her know Grandy sent you.

If you are a Blogger, you find yourself walking the fine line of what to share and what not to share.

Ever since I started my blogging adventure, I notice that my outlook on life has changed.  I will walk into a situation and think to myself, “I wonder if I should blog about this?”  Typically the answer is ALWAYS a YES.  However getting it down into a post that is still funny to the rest of the web, is a different story entirely.

How does one know when they’ve shared too much? Sometimes I think some bloggers can use a little guidance in that arena.

To me though, I think being a blogger means you have to be a little bit like this banana.  A little bit perverse, and you might scare some away, but who the hell cares.

HAPPY MONDAY EVERYBODY!!!

Ever since I posted about having to end my relationship with Entrecard, at this site, I have been inundated with ad requests.  In the last few days I have literally rejected 22 ads.  I don’t think I ever had that many requests BEFORE my announcement, and I’m not assuming that anyone even read my announcement, but WOW!

Because I am always trying to be polite, and never want to hurt anyone’s feelings, I am sending the following message to everyone who tries to purchase an ad:

Hello;

I’m afraid I’m not able to accept your ad.

Although I truly appreciate it, we will no longer be able to run Entrecard on our today.com blogs. I do still have my Functional Shmunctional site (http://functionalshmunctional.blogspot.com) at blogspot, if you’re interested. But I understand if not.

I can’t get a message to you through the regular decline, so I wanted to send you this note so you understood why I was declining the ad.

Thanks again!!

Grandy

For some reason, I’m NOT able to put a polite message in the actual rejection, but I thought sending this little note to all my potential advertisers was the right thing to do.  Let’s face it, I don’t want to turn anyone OFF of this blog. 

The cyber world is a small place.  Everyone should consider how their actions, or interactions, can affect them in the future. 

I DO appreciate your interest in placing an ad here.  I’m sorry I cannot accept it.

Thank you so much, everyone!!

If you read my other blog at all, you know I’m new to Facebook.  I signed up about a month or so ago. 

It is so very cool to connect with friends from all aspects of my life. 

The thing I don’t understand is what the heck I’m supposed to do with all these application thingys?  The messages you get that say, “Denise has thrown beads at you.  Throw back!” or “Stephanie has shot you in the butt with a water pistol.  Wanna shoot back?”

Why would I want to engage all these people in a cyber water fight?  Or even send out other spam for that matter?  I don’t mind “Giving chocolate back” but what is the point of all these little things?  Is it just that it give people a chance to play cyber “tag” with their long lost friends? 

There are Pet Society invites, Food Fight requests, Water Fight challenges, A Kidnap request, and all sorts of other stuff.  What’s the point of it all?

Do you play these?  Anybody? 

While trying to learn all about these blogging terms (bounce rate, visitors, SEO) I bounce back and forth between my “night life” of blogging, and my “day job”.  Did I really just refer to blogging as my night life?  Really?  Wow…maybe some of this geek thing is rubbing off after all.

*Digressing again*

I’m afraid my day job has nothing to do with blogging.  I will admit there are times that I want to go online and just read blogs, do research on what some of this stuff means, and learn learn learn (yep, definitely more geeky than some of my friends).  However, my workload doesn’t really allow for much of that.  I tend to be kind of a work-a-holic.  My husband can’t understand how I even want to be anywhere near a computer when I work on one all day. 

I originally started blogging as a creative outlet to vent my thoughts, open my heart, and share.  I started this blog as a format to document my struggles with what comes naturally for all of you out there.  Sometimes it feels like a delicate balance with the workload, and producing “quality” posts.  Writing is my therapy though, so it’s really quite important to me and my “mental state”. 

I am so appreciative of all my readers, whether you comment or not, because I know how much blogging can take out of you and your time.  Especially if it’s not considered your “day job”.  Hopefully you all will forgive the occasional “sucky” post, and focus on the good ones. 

Can you all tell Grandy is having one heck of a week at work???

Many of you in the blogging world are aware of the changes happening over at Entrecard.  It’s really unfortunate that we are not able to continue our relationship at our today.com sites, but I still don’t get it  totally understand.  No really!  Grandy thoroughly understands a business need to part ways.  What I don’t really understand is…what everyone is saying.

I’m not one of those “power droppers”, I’m afraid.  As a matter of fact, I was more of a “power dripper”. 

Really!  I would read blogs about their drops, and could never figure out HOW people could possibly drop 300 EC a day, for each blog.  When I started this blog, I wasn’t even dripping 300 cards from my original site.  Have you ever noticed that when I post my “Top Droppers”, Functional Shmunctional, has never even been in the top 5? 

*sigh*

I have discovered many bloggy buddies through Entrecard.  This blog has only been around since January, but my relationship with Entrecard began before that.  I will continue my account there from my original site, for now, and see where it gets me.

Oh well.  Maybe now I should focus my efforts on how to generate some real traffic to my sites.

Until then…I’m afraid I will no longer be accepting any new ads here at this site.  I will let the ads run their course, and then remove my widget.  Thanks to all the sites that have purchased ads from here.  And thank you to all my top droppers here:

You all rock my bloggy world!!  I’m linking you here so I can remember my faithful ones and be sure to come see you!!

I have posted before about the traffic issue.  I know I’ve discussed the visitors vs. traffic issue in the past.  But here’s the deal…Grandy needs you to spell it out to her.

How does this work?

I had my highest traffic for one day on Sunday…except…it didn’t register all the visitors?  Here’s what it shows me:

2009 - 03 - 22     “Unique Visits” - 24    “Visitors Total” - 428

HUH?

428 visitors?!  RIGHT ON!!  But what’s the deal with 24?

To try and research this I went into Entrecard, just to cross-reference who stopped by and left their card.  That…regretabbly… was not helpful at all.  Guess what it told me for drops? 

39

WHOAWHOHUH???

Does that mean that the Entrecard droppers are in the Visitor Total, rather than the Unique Visit Total?  Maybe not.  When I break it down to see who came from where, I get the following information:

HOWWHOHUH?????

It looks like it’s only registering 5 visits for Entrecard.

Now I’m really conflustered.  Perhaps I should register this site with a WTF Wednesday Theme also.

Can any of you smart people send me the “Traffic Crap for Dummies” book?

I would be FOREVER grateful!!!

This week’s Geek Feature is so exciting for Grandy. I love that I can focus this feature on technology bloggers of all ages, all levels, all EVERYTHING.

I am truly a NERD that likes to KNOW who you are!!

I think these answers will speak for themselves. I was pretty amazed by his accomplishments, but you decide.

Readers, I would like to introduce you to SOUTHP4RK of…

Yo Your Blog(s). – 

TechnologyInsanity.com

ExtremeTechie.com

H   How long have you been blogging? - About 4 months now.

    What kind of Geek are you?  You know…Your Technical Focus (is there such a thing?): -   I’m mostly a computer geek, but I play with all kinds of technology.

A   Are you a Geek offline? - Pretty much. All my friends ask me for advice with computer and electronic related stuff. I’m also fairly interested in science and math.

     What’s your favorite thing to do when you’re NOT blogging? - When I’m not blogging, I usually hang out on my forum, listen to music, chat on my ircd or play video games. It’s hard to pick a favorite, since I do a lot of those things at the same time. I also spend quite a bit of time tinkering with electronics.

     Who is your target audience? - Anyone who likes technology, or needs help solving an issue.  I post about general technology and specific problems I have solved so others can hopefully find it through Google and solve the issue quicker than me.

     How do you generate traffic to your site? - Right now, Entrecard and Google are my primary sources of traffic. There are some others such as YouTube and other search engines.

     Tell us one “secret” or “tip” you can share with us non-geeks who are learning. - Everything takes time. I have spent an insane amount of time learning how to do the things I do. Once you get used to it, many other computer or technology related things come to you much easier.

     Tell us more about YOU!! - I’m an 18 year old senior in high school. I have been into computers since I was 8 years old. I built my first computer when I was 12 years old. Anyway, soon I’ll be heading off to college to study Electronic Engineering Technology.  I launched the blog because I was trying to learn PHP and thought I needed a server to test certain functions. I ended up turning it into a blog project instead. This ended up in another project; I wanted to learn how to setup my own server.

So now my two blogs are hosted on a VPS, or virtual private server. This means that I have full root access, and I can install and setup the applications behind a web server any way I want.

Music/TV/Movies

As far as music goes, I like to listen to various Rock and Metal genres. Television shows would include South Park, That 70s Show, Star Trek TOS, FireFly, Stargate SG-1, Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT, Yu Yu Hakusho, Full Metal Alchemist, and Family Guy. As a kid, I used to watch TechTV and all the cartoons J Favorite movies are all the Star Trek TOS movies, Star Wars, Back to the Future, and V for Vendetta. 

There’s some more I could probably list here, but you’re probably bored by now.  J

I don’t know about any of you but I have read this site a few times, and only upon reading his answers discovered his other blog, and I NEVER would have guessed that this blogger was only 18.  NEVER!!

I must say, Dylan, I am impressed!! 

Thank you so much for your willingness to play along here.  You have great responses.  I can’t wait to see how far you take this blogging thing.  Please let me know when you’ve developed the latest craze on the internet.

Congratulations on your success AND your knowledge!!  You are going to do well at college next year!!

Let’s face it folks, after working on my taxes for about 15 hours on Saturday, my brain was fried all day Sunday. I did get most of it done. I need to get a couple more invoices dug up, but the bulk of it is all done.

I was definitely glad that I could post my Monday Funnies today because I needed something to smile about. I don’t know about you but going through the family finances over the entire weekend definitely put me in panic attack mode. I’m getting better, and trying to get smarter about our money (as I try with so many other things) but sometimes I just feel like I’m doing it all wrong.

Story of my life.

Maybe Grandy is just feeling a bit like a jack of all trades…master of none.

Nevermind. The brain just hurts. It’s tired. It needs some random silliness.

So today is the day I slowly kill my husband prepare our taxes.

As the wife of a self-employed truck driver that is not the easiest task.  There are self-employed people out there everywhere, and to all of you I applaud you AND your spouses. 

Every year I get a little smarter about the whole process.  Our first year, I spent 2 weeks getting all the documents into different categories and took FOREVER to figure out what categories were what.  The following year, I had a better system set up and the hardest part was still gathering all the documentation. The next year I tried my best to categorize things intermittently throughout the year, I had the envelopes done early.  What I realized though was that HE doesn’t follow that system.

This year I was smarter.  I would put everything in a stack.  I gave him a bowl for his receipts as he got them, and throughout the year I would just dump them into a big bag.  Yep…it was a trash bag folks.  My husband’s entire 2008 business documents were trashed. 

I may try to get a designated bag for next year, since the thought that it wasn’t accidentally thrown out is a small miracle.  But it did help!!  I sat down last night and sorted every tiny receipt and invoice from 2008 for his business.  This is a better alternative to spending 2 weeks tearing through every paper in the house. I really DO try to get more efficient.

Today is the day I put it all in my Excel Notebook. 

Friends have told me I should use Quicken or Quickbooks.  I found a Quickbooks free application on my laptop and downloaded and got it all set up.  Guess what…it has everything I DON’T need.  It gives me Payroll, Sales Invoices, and I forget what else…but it wasn’t what I need for what we do.

Is there a program out there people that would make my life easier for when I do 2009 taxes next year?  This year is shot, and I’m keying the excel as we speak, but is there a program that will help?  

What do you use?  Any ideas??