Your data deserves to be protected — even at home.
If you thought cybersecurity was a concern only in businesses and governments, you’d be wrong. Your home network can be just as tempting a target as any office, and with more people working from home these days, cybercrime continues to be a growing concern.
With so many poorly protected home networks conducting business — oft-times with sensitive business data — there has never been a greater need for awareness of security risks and how to counter them.
Why is your home office such an attractive target?
To begin with, there is a lot of exploitable tech already in place. Nearly everyone owns a cell phone these days, and around 75% of people have laptops or desktop computers at home. When you take into account tablet devices, that number goes up considerably. Of all those networked devices sitting in private homes, very few have any serious cybersecurity measures installed. …
You don’t need to get up that much earlier.
I’m a guy who likes his sleep but also tends to have many responsibilities in the morning. I don’t have the luxury — as much as I would like otherwise — to hit the old snooze button a few dozen times or three. I need to be up and productive at a fairly obscene hour of the morning.
My biggest freelance clients are located on other continents with their exotic and mysterious time zones and all. That means it’s not unusual for me to have emails I need to respond to at criminally early hours and sometimes some rush work.
This is on top of getting my family up, fed, and ready for their day as well. …
Opportunity is all around you if you are open to it.
What if I said that you could hack your life or your career with a simple exercise in managing expectations?
Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not a big believer in New Thought philosophies or magical thinking. But I do believe that we can train our minds to work better than they do when it comes to finding and seizing opportunities.
You could call it affirmations, but I prefer to look at it as affirmations-in-action. It’s not enough to repeat to oneself, “Money comes to me easily and freely.” …
It’s all about ushering visitors to your Call To Action.
You have about 10 seconds to get your reader’s attention, impress them, and keep their attention before they lose interest and wander off to another website. That’s a contact lost, a sale not made, and a growth opportunity missed.
If you want to keep a reader on your page long enough to get to your Call To Action and to feel good about responding to your call, you need to address five questions to them quickly.
Who are you?
Your website’s home page is where you make your first impression on a new visitor. This is the time to introduce yourself. But make it short. Your website should have a separate “About” page where you can get into your whole life story. …
Writer’s block doesn’t have to be a big deal.
Hey, does this sound familiar?
You’ve been handed an assignment from a digital marketing agency to knock out a thousand words on property management services. You’re getting paid pretty well, which is good because the cell phone bill is coming due.
You sit down and do some research. You bookmark a few pages to refer back to. You open up a new Google Docs file and…
Jeez.
Like a needle scratching a record, it abruptly comes to a stop. “How should I start this?” you ask yourself.
And you do that thing where you rub the back of your head and look around and then back at the page and still… nothing. …
Small actions can lead to big savings.
When talking about energy efficiency and green living, homeowners get a lot of attention and advice. But what about those who choose to live in apartments and condominiums? It’s not like they wouldn’t like to save some money on their costly energy bill each month.
Here are seven easy ways you can get significant savings on your utility bills, plus a few bonus tips on making for a greener world.
Switch to LED Lighting.
LED lights have really come into their own these days. They work just as well as traditional incandescent bulbs but last longer and use less energy. You’ll save money on replacements and your utility bill. …
Improve your work and reduce stress all at once.
I belong to a Sunday night Slack group with a mix of freelancers and traditional employees who work from home. We’re started as part of a larger group of folks who all used to play the same online game. I don’t think many of us still play that game, but the group itself outlasted the game, and we were a big enough group that it spawned small subgroups. One of those subgroups ended up a Slack support group channel for people who work from home.
Isn’t the Internet a wonderful place? Anyway…
Last week a conversation came up in which we shared and compared how we each organize our schedules to best be productive. It was kind of interesting to see eighteen different people use nearly eighteen different methods. I was only one of four who uses a physical planner. Everyone else used various apps or online systems. …
Like it or not, they’ve earned their place.
Indulge me. Instead of listing words that we should be putting in our rearview mirror, I’ve decided to look at some terms that are here to say whether we like it or not.
These have been some tumultuous times of late, and whenever a society experiences Big Events, the lexicon reflects that. It would be dishonest to banish certain words or phrases because we’ve grown tired of them. In a hundred years, scholars will have a better idea as to what we were all about by looking at the language we used at the time.
So, with that in mind — here are 5 terms that can officially join the contemporary lexicon, plus a quick look at an older phrase that means more than ever these days. …
A young person’s forum? I don’t think so.
I’ve recently turned 54 — like… a few hours ago.
The good news is that I’ve not collapsed into a pile of dust and blown away. Not yet, at least.
Actually, I don’t feel like a man in his 50s. I’ve rarely felt my age and often forget exactly how old I am. Maybe that’s a sign of age-bidden forgetfulness, but I’m going to assume more that it’s because I’ve always felt a bit young at heart.
Or immature. Your call.
54 is hardly old. Well, it’s not very old. It’s solidly middle-aged these days, so long as those more senior than me keep moving the goalposts. I’m in relatively decent health. As far as adulting goes, I’ve hit the most major milestones — career, marriage, mortgage, parenthood, AARP membership offers, etc. I’m a little late in the timeline, thanks to a ten-year detour into alcoholism. (That’s a story for another time. …
For my 201st article, some insights into my process.
As I embark upon my next two hundred articles, I thought I’d share how the sausage is made here. My process is pretty straightforward, and it’s served me well. While some articles don’t gain the traction I wish they would, I’ve had a few go viral.
Overall, I enjoy steady traffic, and that’s pretty damn good these days.
The Idea
I’m rarely short of ideas. I record most of my thoughts in Google Keep then check them off as I write them. If nothing on the list inspires me, I might look back at some past pieces and see if I can’t put a fresh spin on one. …
About
