Auto Spelling Errs...

Do you use your phone's auto-spelling feature?

My SO uses them and I can't count the number of laughs I had with it lol

Don't Lie

Well, being a parent is really hard.

Dropbox

I had made a previous post about Dropbox but haven't made any account in it. Until recently. One of my work-from-home jobs required having one since it's what their company uses. It's a cloud-computing company and everyone are working from where ever they want, which is not in the same office. I find it useful than emailing copies, though I still prefer Google Docs because it's easier to maintain and don't need hard disk space but Google Docs has it's limitations with file types.

Fast Lesson

Land on Your Feet

Happy 19th Birthday to me!

Earlier, I had posted that end of the world is my birthday. My birthday ended and nothing end-of-the-world-y happened. But what happened today are:

• 2nd day of another full time job. I applied, got interviewed, and started yesterday with this job. Though it's still in the testing phase, I hope this is the start of good start (redundant eh? lol)
• Lots of part-time opportunities. I need a part-time job now specially that I'm not sure how much I'll get in the testing phase of my current full time job, if any. Though I really hope that I'll get paid
• Just for laughs, I earlier posted that a job interview made me wait an hour and a half which resulted from the interview being cancelled by me. (Well, I really hate time-wasters). Now, the recruiter messaged me early in the morning inquiring what position I'm applying. I was surprised and I'm really wondering if I'm still interested for that job because I'm really not interested in working with her lol
• The highlight of my birthday is when our beloved pastor went to our home. I really feel blessed.

Firefox and Windows...

More Better

English is not my first tongue, and I didn't really think I'll be good in English but interacting with foreigners when I was still working in an office, and having foreigner friends and a loved one has helped me a lot in improving my English skills. In one of the research tasks I did for my part-time VA work, I found this link which made me realize grammar mistakes I might have made before but didn't know of. It also made me realize that even native English-speaking people makes mistakes that are common to non-native English speakers.

Remote Team Management

I'm on my fourth month now, enjoying working from home. During this short period of time, I've encountered the ups and downs of managing a team of online workers. I want to share with you some insights I had gained.

• Open communication is a necessity. You can impose a rule that without reports on what has been accomplished, they won't get paid. Setting up a specific time that they should be online and available for you to reach them and vice versa is also essential.
• Having their work submitted on a repository like SVN or Sourcesafe so that you have the codes, can check if they are working to your standards and so on can also catch slackers early on.

Screening developers:

• Resume, portfolio, work experience, and interview would tell how efficient a developer is. One can also give an exam to test their skills in the technology that you want them to use. Of course, having first-hand knowledge on that technology is essential.
• Based on http://developers.sun.com/toolkits/articles/manage.html , under the "How Do You Measure Up", I think giving the developers a character / EQ exam would also determine if they are fit to work from home or work in an office setup

(And based on that article, I found out that I really fit in working from home type.)


Here are some links I found that are worth reading:

• This gives a good example / analysis on remote management -- http://www.telogis.com/managing-remote-workers/
• This discusses problems (and solutions) encountered in remote management --
  http://remote-employee-management.blogspot.com/
• General guidelines in remote management
• http://www.bnet.com/article/how-to-manage-employees-in-remote-locations/165147
• http://developers.sun.com/toolkits/articles/manage.html

This post / research was inspired by a task given by my boss where I work as a part-time personal assistant.

Waiting....

One thing I've realized that I hate when going to interviews in applying for a job is the waiting period. It has been 2 years since I applied for a job and I already forgot about that. The interviews I have in my work-from-home job applications are always on time, which made me forget about that waiting time. Until now. I have an interview scheduled at 9:30AM and I hurriedly did the things I have to do before that time comes. But 30 minutes after and the interview hasn't started yet. I had already caught her attention by messaging her that I'm ready for the interview and she answered with an "okay". It seems she's the one who is not yet ready to give the interview lol. I am fighting the urge to interview her instead hahaha. Oh well. One of my flaws is I'm inpatient. It's the reason why I hate office meetings since I can't do anything while in a meeting. Which is very different when I'm working from home where meetings are productive. Oh well.... this waiting is really making me sleepy... *yawn*

Diapers and Politicians

Without God

The Link

The message made me laugh and also made me realized how things had changed. And I wonder who among you knows the link, or are wondering what the heck is this picture saying lol.

8 Twitter Mistakes

I have been currently active in browsing / interacting in twitter. And since I'm working from home, there are now more facets in the IT industry that I can try. One of them is using social networking media to achieve goals. I think this article will help a lot of twitter fans, both oldies and newbies, how to properly use twitter and be loved by your followers.

Happiness

Happiness isn't getting all you want. It's enjoying all you have.

And I definitely agree

Credit

Give credit where it's due. Pay your credit when it's past due.

This is from Chokoleit's twit, one among the good comedians we have

Cat Crash

You Are Above Them

Steve Jobs Died at 56

For those in the technology industry, or those who uses Ipad, Ipod, Itunes, and Mac, this is a sad day as Steve Jobs, founder and former CEO of Apple just passed away. More stories here

Leash

Now, just a thought... is this also applicable for human relationships?

H20

Unconditional Love

From an ex-co-worker's FB status:

Daddy (co-worker): Do you love daddy?
His son: Yes, because you have a touch-screen phone (which he was playing)
Daddy: What if I don't have a touch-screen phone?
His son: I'll still love you because you don't have a touch-screen phone

Haggling Tactics

My nephew, on his 4th birthday, doesn't want to wear his new formal shoes. He prefers wearing his red rubber shoes, red being his favorite color. Now, he eagerly wants to open his presents. His mom, my sister, told him he can open them if he'll wear his shoes.

Nephew: I'll wear my shoes then I'll open the gifts then can I take my shoes off after that?

Tot's Thoughts

As I have been hearing / reading / experiencing funny sweet tot's thoughts, I decided to put them here in my blog for some heart-felt smiles. This is also inspired by the blog I read when I need a smile.

Short Staff

Happiest People

No Need For Revenge

Better or Bitter

Greatest Problem

The greatest problem of most human beings is that they listen half, understand quarter, think zero and then REACT double.

Comfort Zone or Out of It?

Forgiveness

Forgiving takes time. And it's hard to forgive someone who constantly hurts you. I really wish that this thing will be settled soon so we can all move on. We deserve it.

Charity Work