When it rains....

You know, when it rains it doesn't necessarily pour down. Sometimes the clouds have a silver lining.
Being in a business that relies on the weather, I often get frustrated by the rain.....but really, I find that it allows me time to catch up on things that need doing ( that I'd overlooked, or hadn't even seen), had time to re-evaluate situations and sometimes just get a good rest.
Today was such a day, the heavens opened and work stopped.
So I set off for a few items from a supplier some distance away....by the end of the visit I found I'd picked up many things that we'd been needing, and had said, we'll get it later, etc .; and in so doing managed to get rid of a lot of those little message men that run about in the back of one's head saying you must remember to get this.....and so on.
Well, not a bad day's work.....hope your's was also successful.

Stepping back

Sometimes one needs to step back from things and look. Its really quite difficult to do this subjectively, but it really is quite worthwhile.I've been following a coaching mp3 which has challenged me to do just this....take a step back and look at what I'm doing and why....where I'm going to and how I'm going to get there - its not as scary as it sounds once one gets started. Its really a realization of what's happening, rather than going along blindly.
Had this in my inbox today...try it out......
Sit down at your desk or wherever, raise your right foot and start moving it in a clockwise motion, now take your right hand and draw the figure 6 in the air, your foot will change direction!.
There's more to us than meets the eye:-)

A n-ewe blog

A n-ewe blog is in the offing....the blog site for www.SheepStories.co.uk which is also under production. This comes about from a long time story-telling of the adventures of an elderly ewe who can only be described as a cross between Grandma Giles and the late Queen Mother . Very fond of a tipple ( usually a G & T), follows the sport of Kings (horse-racing) and generally gets into all sorts of situations.
She is very useful as a scapegoat, whenever something might be missing, forgotten, broken, taken or whatever, its quite probable that Daphne (we call her Daffers ) is to blame.
There had been talk at the last General Election to nominate her for government - but it was felt that her proposition for school lunches to include a Happy Hour was going a little too far.
Well, watch out world...Daffers is going Online!

What happens when...

What happens when you don't use spell checker....you get a posting like the one I did yesterday - ouch! I guess I was a bit tired, but oh boy does it show.
Well, this one's going to not only be spell checked, but also rather short as its Friday night and the lights beckon:-)
Have a Good One.

Working websites

Well, another working website is online at www.mawgangardeners.co.uk ...ned to finish optimising the site, and also there's a bunch more to add to it, but at least its up and running.

I'm of the opinion that its better to get somethingdone and uploaded, than to wait until the whole thing is perfect and ready - as in my case, at least, it would probably be a while before anything went online. Plus I find it easier to add contentt when I see the site online.

Still trying to get to grips with header graphics...it looks simple enough, but the layers never seem to want to separate, delete or do anything at all when I'm dealing with premade headers, so I generally create my own from scratch.

Quote for today " Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." Winston Churchill.

At a loss for words?

Could I really be at a loss for words? I don't think so, sometimes they come out jumbled up , a bit like a certain president who manages to take this to an art form, such as this one on my desk calendar: "If the the terriers and barrifs are torn down, this economy will grow."
It gives me hope that I can aspire to be a somebody one day:-)
Lately , I've taken to downloading teleconferences and the such on MP3 to my Ipod, to listen to during the day - frees up evening time on the computer and also allows one to rerun bits that are of interest. I did find out today tho', that listening to a Paul McKenna mind relaxation course is not something to keep the day moving....although I do find his books quite compelling. Its good to Live Life.

A troublesome type of day

Its been a troublesome type of a day. Minor things going wrong, such as lost keys just when ones heading out to work, the server deciding not to send email for one reason or another, an online order that's somehow messed up......but, at the end of it all, I guess its actually been a pretty good day. Lots of tasks accomplished, jobs completed and more potential orders in the pipeline.
Maybe if everything was plain sailing the day would have seemed a bit humdrum, successful but with no sparks : it takes a little adversity to liven things up and get the accomplishment feeling:-)

Tomorrow's just around the corner....

What A Weekend....

What a weekend - finally the individual bricks are starting to form a house (albeit, a small one), but after so long a time fighting with the vaguaries of different web publishers, FTP 's and the like, it's a breath of fresh air to finally tie everything together and be able to concentrate on the content of the sites, rather than worry as to whether or not its ever going to actually see the internet.
My joy is in finding Xsitepro as my stand-alone website software. It has combined everything into one,so that its straightforward to understand. There are video tutorials that I've found invaluable, as well as a full written tutorial and 400 page manual, all supported by an online knowledge base and help desk....all of which I use to guide me. Its maybe not the cheapest software out there, but its well worth the money and headaches it saves. www.coastalgardens.co.uk is now up and running and www.workingsolo.co.uk will be the next site to undergo the change.
Keep on building:-)

What a fool am I

What a fool am I - I've been fussing at not being able to upload some of my sites; been on to FAQs, emailed tech support and finally called the call center.......what had I been missing? '.' Yes, a '. ' in my instructions for uploading.
Life's like that too, one's looking for all these big reasons why thing aren't working out as they should: round and round we go, when all the time the answer is very small indeed.
The advice from the call center had been to check all the publishing details very carefully and its so easy to miss a '.' , a bit like looking for a needle in the haystack.
The good thing is that all but one of the sites is now functional, and high hopes for the final one to go live tomorrow.

Smiles and Hurrahs!

Slightly Embarrassed

Well, I'm slightly embarrassed to say the least...
I've been with my present web hosting company for four years and I always thought them a little on the lean side when it came to extras like hosting forums, guestbooks and etc. Well, they've been there the whole time - I had jumped to conclusions early on, and then never checked on them again.(Till Today!)
I'm now going back over everything else to find out what else I've been missing.
I guess it's very much akin to offline activities -one jumps to a conclusion and then doesn't stop to go back to square one and finds out that all the time one had missed that nugget of information.
It reminds me of way back when I was studying what was then known as Data Processing 101,and the first dictum of programming was ' Garbage In, Garbage Out'.......you get out of it what you put into it - sorta like life:-)
Persevere and Prosper.

Information overload

Suffering from information overload?
Currently emails run on average 100 + each day and what with news, ezines,software and internet lingo that seems to change daily.......is it a wonder one feels a tad overloaded.
Prioritizing seems to help...not getting sidetracked and still watching for those gems of information that come along is the real trick.
I guess we only use a very small capacity of our brain power, therfore this shouldn't really be a problem - however, getting the time to do all this is another matter!
Any suggestions or answers to the above would be gratefully received by the way.
Have a Great Day:-)

So much to do.....

So much to do, and so little time to do it all in....do you ever feel like this?
Running a full time business and trying to create websites on top....sometimes feels like an uphill task......however, I've pledged to at least do a little bit each day - and then when time allows I can really give it my all.
I love computers and the technology that goes with them...but oh boy, can they cause headaches:-( this item doesn't want to upload for publishing, or this header graphic doesn't want to separate its layers for editing; you know how it is....just when one needs time to spend on creativity, hours get sucked in trying to sort out the gremlins.
Well, I've had my 'whinge' for the day....guess I can join the grumpy old men programme:-)
Whatever you're doing...stick with it...it will work out in the end.

A new site just added

Well,
we've just added a new site to our collection .....http://www.coastalgardens.co.uk. Its only the home page, but its been a while getting to this point so we're quite excited, as there's so much more to come.
We've been using NetObjects Fusion for webpage production, and it does a really good job; but then we heard about Xsitepro, and wow....its so much easier to get where you're going. The new Working Solo site is going to cover more on the xsitepro programme...so watch out for it.
Cheers,
Andy

A New Start - A New Day!

Welcome to the first blog for Working Solo.
As we start to revamp the original site - we're looking forward to helping so many more people get started with their own online enterprise. There's just so much to show and tell that it's difficult to know what to put in and leave out:-)
This is such a far cry from the early days when we had Commodore VIC-20's and then the 64.A monthly magazine called 'Run' had various software printed in it, which one typed into the computer to get your game or application! Then came bulletin boards - remember Prodigy?
It was so much excitement to get online at 300bps (wow) and finally onto the early days of the internet....the first website with Geocities and then designing and uploading with all its trials and tribulations.
To be able to set up and get writing in just a few minutes with all the features that are now available to blog with, is just fantastic.....just as it is to use Xsitepro to create websites: the power is here to be used...I'll happily let others do the groundwork of designing and coding.
Let us know what you think, what you'd like to see or any questions you have - we'd love to help.