It is their way of having you transfer the registration of your web address from your current register to them. In some ways this may not be a bad thing, because at least it’ll give you an idea when your domain name needs to be renewed. However most times their cost is much greater than what you may already be paying.

If you don’t remember, or you don’t know because someone else set up your registration and that person is no longer associated with you, that’s just sloppy record-keeping.

However it wouldn’t surprise me that this may be more common than not.

Questions to ask?
Do you know what names are registered? Have you just registered as .com? Did you also register as .net and/or .org?
If not someone else may have registered one of those and are using you to drum up business for them. This may not be that important for those who use .com as their Top Level Domain (TLD). But for those who use .org or .net, just remember that many people will automatically type .com. And if part of your business is supplying information, you may want to look at getting a .info TLD.

Do you know with which domain-registering company you originally registered the domain?
Domain Registration and Domain Hosting are not the same thing. And for many these two aren’t held by the same company. It’s your Domain Registrar that tells the Internet where to look for you.

Do you know when your registration expires?
Once it expires, the registrar will send the url to a default location. If not renewed, it’s free to be registered by another party. There is a grace period, but during that time it’s not displaying your site. Can you afford to have it down for the time it takes to bring it back?

This is just another of those things that can, but shouldn’t fall into an unknown crack in how you do business.

If you needed to ask a question of your supervisor, you dropped a dime or a quarter or two into a payphone and called the office, hoping they would be at their desk. If they weren’t, you made the decision yourself and moved along. If you were good at reading your manager you probably was already sure what the answer would be even before asking the question.

As time passed communications got easier and for the roaming employee more like a leash. First there were the one way pager. You received a message to call a telephone number and off you went to find a phone to return the call.

For a short period of time, the same time as mobile communications, the car phone, was developing there were 2 way pagers. You could receive a message, in 2 way paging it was usually a text question and you could returned an answer with one of the pre-programmed messages. 2 way pagers were much cheaper and more reliable than a mobile cell phone.

Mobile phones first were in the car and then in a portable device that resembled a brick. And as we progress in technology, instant communications became easier.

But it seems to me that at times as communications became more instant, people became less able to decide something without having another opinion. It developed not only in the work arena but also at home. Many times I have heard a husband or a wife call the other partner while in a grocery store asking whether a substitution was acceptable.

Decisions are made as a team or by the supervisor. Original thinking by a lower level employee sometimes was no longer commendable, but became insubordination even in middle and lower upper management.

One would think that with instant communications issues can be resolved quicker and with a better outcome. However, at times I wonder if with instant communications it takes longer and the decision may not be the correct one. The farther the decision maker is from the situation, the less that person considers the personal customer service aspect of the decision.

So I will ask.

Is Instant Communications Good or Bad?

What is your opinion?

I firmly believe that Business E-mails should be treated exactly like a business letter, following the same format. Although I will admit that not all emails sent to business associates are business emails. The majority of these Pet Peeves are in these non-business e-mails.

Here are a few of my E-mail Pet Peeves:
• Forwarded e-mail from friends, relatives or business associates passing along jokes and false or misleading information.

• Forwarded e-mails that have been forwarded multiple times showing the email addresses of all of those that it had been forwarded to.

• Receiving an answer to a question either through a new email or by reply without the question.

• Being BCC: on an e-mail without clear indication that the email was sent to someone else.

• Being part of the To: line when in reality the e-mail was CC:ed to you.

Stand-by power is estimated to be as much as 5 percent of all residential energy being used in the United States. A homeowner can see hundred of dollars per year being used by stand-by power. It is estimated to be about 65 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year costing consumers more than 5.6 billion dollars.

What are some common items that use this stand-by power? Anything with an external power pack, has a remote control or displays a clock will be using some stand-by power. The most common are TV’s VCR, Cable Boxes, Stereo Systems and battery chargers.

The real problem with this stand-by power consumption isn’t that they use power, but they have been poorly designed to use more power than necessary. Manufacturers presently have no reason to design their products with efficiency in mind. Only when consumers begin to evaluate brands with this as a consideration will that occur.

In many cases the older the appliance the more energy it may be using than with a newer model. When purchasing a new appliance look for the one that uses the least amount of stand-by power by checking the label and specifications.

While it may not make much sense to unplug the TV, VCR or DVD player when not in use, it may not be a bad idea to unplug these devices when away for an extended period of time such as when on vacation or even a weekend away.

One thing you probably would want to consider unplugging when not in use are battery chargers for items such as cell phone, MP3 players and blackberries. If you have all of these chargers plugged into the same power strip simply turn the strip off when not in use. Make it a habit to charge all of the devices at the same time and turn the strip off when done.

For more information on conserving energy: More Than Switching Off the Lights – Common sense ways to conserve energy

© 2007 Steven G. Atkinson – All Rights Reserved – tt4sb.com

There’s always the cable mess that seems to arrive with computers and other electronic items needed to perform your job. The electric cords and the large ‘bricks’ that accompany some items seem to always be in the way or causing an eyesore. Many manufacturers sell items such as cable ties to secure cable, wide outlet plug strips for those big bulky transformers.

And you can always use a wireless keyboard and mouse to keep those cables out of hand and sight. They have their problems as well. They run on batteries that need to be changed or recharged. Not to mention they need to be turned on before use and off afterwards, otherwise the batteries are replaced constantly. Sometimes it may seem just as easy to have those couple of wires on the desk instead of the constant changing of batteries. But like everything, that’s a personal choice.

But you may be totally surprised to find that clutter resides in your computer. Clutter in your computer could be anything from the adware and spyware that has been installed onto your computer without your knowledge, to just a bunch of old unused and long forgotten files (programs and documents) and folders.

The huge hard drive you purchased thinking it was so big that you would never fill may now be starting to run out of space. Music and video files, even those compressed, when you have 100’s and 1000’s of them take up a lot of room.

Here are a couple of things you can do to help ease that filling hard drive. Take a look at the programs that are on your computer. Is that program you tried a while ago, decided you hated and now have never used still on the computer? It’s probably time to look, evaluate and remove any programs that you have never used.

Another thing you may want to do is check your emails. Do you have old messages that have huge attachments in them? A few may not seem like much, but if doesn’t take too many message with pictures to take up a lot of storage space.

Don’t forget to check your music files. Podcasts have become a common element in today’s life but do you download a daily one, listen to it once, but have no desire to ever listen to it again. Are they still residing on your computer’s hard drive. It’s just like the pictures in your email a few isn’t bad but once you have 100’s it takes up room.

Then again there is another, more technical, answer in case you are running out of room on your hard drive. You can always buy a new bigger one.

I firmly believe that Business E-mails should be treated exactly like a business letter, following the same format. Although I will admit that not all emails sent to business associates are business emails. The majority of these Pet Peeves are in these non-business e-mails.

Here are a few of my E-mail Pet Peeves:
• Forwarded e-mail from friends, relatives or business associates passing along jokes and false or misleading information.

• Forwarded e-mails that have been forwarded multiple times showing the email addresses of all of those that it had been forwarded to.

• Receiving an answer to a question either through a new email or by reply without the question.

• Being BCC: on an e-mail without clear indication that the email was sent to someone else.

• Being part of the To: line when in reality the e-mail was CC:ed to you.

What’s yours?

1. Don’t drive if you don’t have to.
If you are close enough to your destination to walk or ride a bike. Not only will it save on use of the gas, but also you will be getting exercise.

2. Combine errands.
Plan the trip before you even start it making the stops in the most efficient route. This not only saves money on gas, but also can save time.

3. Use the air conditioner smartly.
When traveling at speeds over 40 miles an hour you actually use more fuel by having your windows open, then using the air conditioner. In Stop and Go traffic though it’s more fuel efficient to turn the air condition off and open the windows.

4. Keep the vehicle well maintained.
Under inflated tires can decrease gas mileage. Many newer tires may look properly inflated, but still be under inflated. Seasonal temperature changes can also change the air pressure of the tire. You will also want to keep the other parts of the vehicle well maintained such as keeping the air filter clean and regularly changing the oil.

5. Lighten the load.
Each extra 100 pounds can decrease the gas mileage by 2%. Don’t leave the golf clubs in the trunk unless you are planning on using them.

6. Don’t unnecessary idle the vehicle.
A non-moving vehicle gets 0 miles to the gallon and starting a vehicle uses no more gas than one sitting idle for less than 10 seconds. The best way to warm up a vehicle is by driving it. You don’t need to have it idling to warm up, even in cold weather.

Search
Many times when we open our browser we are going to search for something on the internet. Google is a favorite for many. There’s also Bing and the old stand-by yahoo among others.

Social Media
Social media is used by millions and many have selected one of the big four, facebook, twitter, MySpace and Linkedin, as their home page.

Your hometown Newspaper
Printed news may be decreasing, but most newspapers have an on-line version. One that may post breaking news when it happens.

National News/International news
CNN, Google News, Yahoo News or even international sites such as BBC are used by those who crave news all day long.

Your Favorite Blog
There are millions of blogs and millions of postings on them each and every day. Some will selected their favorite blogger or blog as their home page.

Your Business Homepage
This is an obvious one.

My home page is google search. What’s yours?

Some consider the two the same. Which of course they aren’t.

In short Transfer is the act of taking a call and then transferring it to another location. This could be another extension, telephone user (inside or outside of the organization) or as it may have been for the past 15 years or so, to someone’s voice mail.

To Forward is to have all calls that come to your number forwarded to another number. Presently this in most cases is to your voice mail box.

Now you may be wondering, How can I get one and how can I have it show?

The following gives a very good detail procedure on how it’s done.

http://www.expand2web.com/blog/creating-and-using-wordpress-gravatars/