Jim's Biz Talk posts

Adobe Designer Guru out there?

I may be looking for a wiz at Adobe Acrobat 7 Professional or Adobe Designer. I'm trying to get a fillable from to perform validations prior to printing, and to send data via the internet that I can capture in a spreadsheet or database. Anyone have any experience in this? Thanks.

TraxTime

Anybody else out there need to track client hours for billing? Do you ever find yourself switching gears from one client to another, and wondered at the end of the day who gets billed for what? Did you ever just want a simple application to track it?

It's rare that I give praises like this without being bribed, but I came across something called TraxTime by Spud City Software. I can clock in for one client, then clock out and clock in for another when the other calls me. I can log memos for time segments in case they question my bill. I can adjust times if I've forgotten to clock in. I can set up additional accounts for a client if I'm outside of Washington to I can separate out those hours and not pay Washington taxes. I can run a variety or reports and display them, print them, or output them to a comma delimited file. And it has a very intuitive user interface.

It's a free fully functional demo for 30 days, then you buy the key to continue using it for $39 or $44, depending wither or not you want the CD.

OK. Commercial break is over. Back to work.

Anybody out there work on retainer?

When I was laid off, I've obviously been looking for work. Freelance consulting via Import Geeks was sort of a Plan B when I wasn't finding much traditional work in Seattle, but in my head, it has become the Plan A.

I have just been approached by a company (that I’d interviewed with for that traditional job – they don’t know about Import Geeks) that would like to hire me, but only on contract. They need my talents in the short term, but are hesitant about keeping me challenged and happy in the long term. I read between the lines that they can't pay me in straight salary what they think I'm worth. On the surface, this is excellent: steady work while I develop other business for Import Geeks. But since they don’t know about Import Geeks yet, I’m wondering how they will react to my desire for freedom to pursue other business. So I’m thinking about offering to work on retainer.

So does anyone out there do retainer based work? How do you deal with the issue that you are not working round the clock, 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week? Do you guarantee a minimum number of hours per month to allocate as you see fit?

Thanks!

A blog by any other name

I'm thinking about a blog for my business, but have a few concerns.

First, my audience is not exactly cutting edge. If anything, they are traditionally conservative businessmen. I think if they saw a blog on my site that they might run away screaming about subversive subcultures. So I would not want to even hint that it would be a blog in which they are participating, but rather new items to which they can comment. So, ideally, they would never see any blog service's logo.

Second I've noticed that most of the blog service providers tend to have their own templates. The result is something that looks very different from the person's or company's main web site. I would like a blog that fits seamlessly into my web page format. Is there a service that would allow me to just paste the code where I want it to appear and it would pull in the blog content? In addition to a more professional appearance, this would further alleviate by first concern. Site is www.importgeeks.com.

Thanks.

How about a search feature for Biz Talk?

I would like to see a search feature rather than endlessly scrolling. I think by subject line would be best, but perhaps give one the option of searching entire messages. Is something like this possible?