Is It Safe To Copy Documents

If you have a newer digital copier, the answer may be no.  According to a story on CBS, most digital copiers made since 2002 contain a hard drive, which keeps digital copies of documents you copied in the past.  And guess what?  When your lease on that equipment is up, the leasing company most likely isn’t reformatting the hard drive before it resells the copier.

CBS looked at 4 randomly selected copiers out of 6,000  in a warehouse in New Jersey, and found copies of paystubs including names, addresses and social security numbers, a list of gang members wanted for [...] Continue Reading…

Tips for a Successful Business as a Virtual Assistant

  Today’s we have a guest post from James Mowery of Laptop Computers. Working as a virtual assistant sounds like an easy way to make money working from home. In reality, it can be a roller coaster ride between times when you have too much work and times when you don’t have any at all. There are a few things that you can do to help your virtual assistant career become a little more predictable from month to month. Don’t Rely on One Client Alone Make sure that you have access to several different [...] Continue Reading…

Setting Up A Filing System Part 5: More on Naming Computer Files

I talked about naming computer files in Part 4 of Setting Up a Filing System, but I mostly talked about Windows file naming conventions.  In comments, Layne made another suggestion: I would like to suggest in your series on “How To” set up a filing system electronically if you would include a write up on naming files. Some suggestions that make it easy to locate, uses consistency so when you sort you would see all the memo, letters, etc. separately. That kind of thing. I know you get the gist of what I’m saying. I [...] Continue Reading…

Screening Sales Calls

I’ve talked before about Screening Calls to Make Your Boss More Productive, but I didn’t discuss sales calls in particular.  Telemarketers are wily characters that will do their best to try and fake you out and get you to put their calls through.  It’s your job as an administrative or executive assistant to hold the line and not let them through. The Easy Calls Some calls are obviously sales calls “May I speak to the person in charge of purchasing decisions for XYZ?” “Who do you currently buy your [...] Continue Reading…

Weekly Links Roundup – April 9, 2010

Here we are again, links gathered from around the web for your perusal.  I’ve started to leave the retweet links in the lists, in case you’re interested in looking up the person I got the link from.  If there’s no RT name, then it’s one I came across on my own. Administrative Assistant Blog, Executive Assistant – Fully Utilize Your Talents – Optimization http://bit.ly/bb8Yep Six Questions to Ask for Powerful Testimonials | Copyblogger http://bit.ly/cYR3GH RT @danielscocco: New on Daily Blog Tips: 10 Tips to Manage Criticism http://bit.ly/cfJWLx [...] Continue Reading…

How to Share a Distribution List in Outlook

If you’re like me, you’re always creating different distribution lists to ease regular e-mailing.  I’ll have them for my boss’s direct reports, for his Chamber of Commerce contacts, for the Board of a non-profit he’s on.  Invariably, someone will realize I have the list and want to use it.  Sharing a private distribution list is actually quite easy. Open Microsoft Outlook, then open a new message. Open your Contacts in Outlook. Arrange your windows so that you can see both the new message and your contacts list. [...] Continue Reading…

Get a $50 Amazon Gift Card with OfficeArrow Bronze Membership

I’ve talked about OfficeArrow before and what a great community it is for Administrative Professionals.  Well, in honor of Administrative Professional’s Day, OfficeArrow is giving away a $50 Amazon Gift Card to the first 100 people who purchase a Bronze membership.  With the cost for Bronze only $99, that means you are getting the membership for only $49! The Benefits Look at the great benefits you get with a Bronze Membership: On-line training by Learn.com – 10 different courses available at the Bronze level. Online Library by SkillSoft’s Books24x7®: [...] Continue Reading…

Semi-Occasional Links Roundup April 12, 2010

Sorry for the lack of links lately.  I’ve been too busy to watch Twitter and read blogs, but I did manage to spend some time this week reviewing things and have a few links for you. Learning How to Say No "Being Negative in the Workplace Only Hurts One Person, Yourself" – http://bit.ly/6oah44 Do you tag your PDFs? Online Accessibility for the Visually Impaired Want to round numbers in Excel to certain multiples like .25, .50, .75? RT @mmangen: 10 Basics for a [...] Continue Reading…

Ask the Admin: Advice on Calendar and Travel

Yes, we have another Ask the Admin e-mail today.  This one is from Beatriz. I have worked as Personal Assistant/ Companion for the last seven years? I have never worked with calendars and extensive travel arrangements. Which books or websites do you recommend for learning how to manage Calendars and do extensive travel arrangements? Hi, Beatriz.  Thank for your question. Administrative Assistants have a number of places they can turn to learn new skills.  This blog is one of them.  I’ve written [...] Continue Reading…

Ask the Admin: Outlook Appointment Properties

We have another question today, this one from Sheila. Hi Jodith Is there a way in Microsoft outlook if you right click on properties for an appointment that you can see who created the appointment and when it was last edited and by whom? If there is a way to do that I would create a monument in your honor!   Seriously! Hi, Sheila.  Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m going to earn your monument, because I can’t give your the “who” in your question.  My understanding from [...] Continue Reading…