Quick and Easy Search

After watching a friend painfully scroll through 1,000 messages in her inbox trying to find one from the right sender, it occurred to me that a lot of people don't realize how easily you can use the keyboard to find a message in a sorted list, or how easy these lists are to sort.

Almost any list control in Windows will let you type the first couple of letters in order to focus the selection on the item that matches in the current column. It's not exactly a new technique, but judging from that experience I felt it was worth sharing.

For instance, in Outlook 2007 you can sort by the "Arranged By:" header by clicking on it…

Normally, Outlook sorts by date received. You can leave the sorting by date and still quickly find your e-mail by typing the first couple of letters in the Search box.

Suppose you have already filed the e-mail in a folder. Obviously the search won't find it because it's looking through your Inbox only. Just select "Try searching again an All Mail Items".

I know so many people that are given this tool at work and told "just use it for e-mail". They are never taught about the little tricks and all the powerful tools that can make their lives so much easier and more productive. For all of you that were thrown to the wolves out there, I hope these tips and tricks help.

Spring has sprung…

It's a beautiful Sunday morning. Spring is coming. I can hear the birds and see my flowers and roses starting to sprout. We had massive thunder storms yesterday, so everything is bright and clean today. There is a big window in front of my desk that overlooks my back yard.

One of the reasons we bought this house 12 years ago was for the back yard. Sounds silly doesn't it? I remember clearly that it felt like owning 3 different houses. Walk out the front door and you enter typical suburbia – no curbs, everyone has kids and a dog, school buses….you know what I mean. Leaving by the side door allowed you to walk through the woods – peaceful and calm. Of course, the woods are long gone and have been replaced with other typical suburban houses, but at the time it was great. And here's the selling point - open the back door and you're at your favorite vacation spot. Large back yard with an in-ground pool, but close enough to the ocean so you can smell the salt water. You can even take a quick trip to the beach if you want something different. I love water and this was as close to perfection as I could get. The only problem is that for the last 11 summers I have had a J.O.B.! Every day I would leave at 7 in the morning, drive over 100 miles, and return between 7 and 8 at night. That doesn't leave much time for enjoying the back yard.

All of that leads to why I am so enjoying this beautiful Sunday morning. It doesn't matter that it's Sunday – it could be Tuesday or Thursday or even Friday and I would enjoy it just as much! As a virtual assistant, I now work out of my home (in my office with the big window that overlooks my back yard) and can enjoy both the view and the back yard whenever I want.

Shortly, I'll take my coffee, laptop and phone outside to sit on the deck. The pools not open yet, but if it was, I could take a quick swim before the phone starts ringing with clients needing assistance. And since I work virtually, and I've never actually met any of my clients face-to-face, I can work in my bathing suit if I want. No more business suits and heels – what a relief! Spring has sprung, I have a new business I love and I can fully enjoy my back yard…..does life get any better?

Pat Zappavigna is the owner of Instant Office Assistant, a professional administrative support services company. You can contact Pat at pazappa@verizon.net or through the website www.InstantOfficeAssistant.com.

View Multiple Windows on the Taskbar

If you are like me, you probably have dozens of windows open at any given point, so if you want to work with just a couple of windows you have to minimize everything and then hunt for the windows you need - over and over again.

Since I bill by the minute, spending time searching is not cost effective for my clients, but closing all the other windows I'm working with is not the most efficient use of time for me. Solution? Open the two windows you are working with side-by-side!

There's a simple trick that's been built into Windows forever… hold down the Ctrl key while selecting taskbar buttons and you can select more than one at a time. The benefit is that you don't have to minimize any other windows in order to tile them (or close them).

Hold down the Ctrl key while clicking on a taskbar button, and then while still holding down the Ctrl key, click on another taskbar button. You'll notice that they are both selected. (Note that you can click on a button again to deselect it.)

Now that they are both selected, you can right-click on one of the buttons and choose to cascade, stack or show the windows side by side.

I don't find cascading or stacking very useful, but side-by-side is something I use quite often.


This can be extremely useful when you are trying to look at two windows at once, especially when you've got a ton of windows open but only want to tile two of them.

Try it! It's fun and a real time saver!

Are You Joining Earth Hour?

For one hour this Saturday night nearly 200 cities around the world, will go dark in what the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is calling the largest planned power outage in history. This event is an effort to raise awareness about power consumption and climate change.

More than 2.2 million people participated in the inaugural Earth Hour last year, in which just one city – Sydney, Australia – went dark. The one hour outage produced a 10 percent drop in energy usage during the hour – double what had been predicted.

On March 29, 2008 at 8 p.m., join millions of people around the world in making a statement about climate change by turning off your lights for Earth Hour.

In the United States, we are a “throwaway society”. Because of the great economy we have experienced in the past, it was just easier to throw things away and buy new. This mentality applies to energy as well, and we don’t think twice about hopping in the car to drive to the store down the street. We are paying for this lifestyle now, though, with global warming and reduced natural resources. Unfortunately, it’s hard to change habits that have formed over a lifetime, and I find most people “allergic” to change. Two things that will go a long way towards changing this mentality is the fact that global warming can no longer be called a dooms-day prediction by hysterical scientists, and the very real recession we are facing in the United States.

Facebook has this new Facebook Footprint Calculator that I thought was very informative. If you’re not on Facebook, there’s also a One Minute Calculator. While this calculator is very general, and you may be instituting different things in your home and workplace to reduce your footprint, it is a real eye opener for people who have no clue how their daily living impacts our environment. To get even more detailed try this calculator, this drills right down to what state you live in.

According to the Facebook calculator, by becoming a Virtual Assistant, I reduced my carbon footprint from 23.08 to 7.21 tons per year – Wow! According to the more detailed calculator, my footprint is only 1.8 tons per year. The national average is 7.5 tons per year, and while I feel that I can do more to make a difference, I think it’s a good start.

The only difference that this calculator could determine was the driving. I used to drive 100 miles a day (at minimum) to get to work. I now work at home and reduce my footprint even more, since being a business owner I get to determine the standards and policies to implement. I use recycled paper, but in today’s technological world, I don’t have very many things I actually have to print. I use compact fluorescent lights in my office, and am in the process of changing my home lighting. I turn off the computer, printer, calculator, lights, etc. when I leave the office.
For those of you who are not aware of this term, a Virtual Assistant (VA) is a highly-trained independent entrepreneur who provides a myriad of business support services virtually via phone, fax and internet based technology to support and meet the growing needs of businesses worldwide. *Source: Virtual Assistant Networking Association (VANA)

A few examples of lowering your carbon footprint in your home are:

• Switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs to save money and reduce emissions. Lighting accounts for around 5% of household greenhouse gas emissions, and compact fluros use 75% less energy than an equivalent incandescent bulb. Although the bulbs cost more up-front, you will actually save money through the energy saved and extended life of the bulb.
• Turn appliances off while not in use. Unplug any appliances like mobile phone chargers, TVs, microwaves, MP3 players, which are not being used and are on standby. Appliances on standby consume up to 10% of your electricity bill.
• Turn off anything that doesn’t need to be on. A good rule is to turn off anything not being used. When you leave a room or leave the house, turn off your lights or appliances like the TV or computer.
• Use less hot water. This is not only a good water saving tip, it saves electricity too. Spend one minute less in the shower.

At work:

• Get off standby. Speak to your office manager about turning off any equipment at work that is not being used, including computer screens, photocopiers and printers, particularly when you leave at night.
• Turn off lights at the end of the working day. Before you leave your place of work remember to turn off any lights in your workspace and your computer if you use one at work. Remember to unplug your mobile phone or laptop charger when it’s not in use. Speak to your office manager about installing motion-sensor lighting after 5pm when most people have gone home.
• Find out what’s happening in your workplace. Ask about your company’s emissions reduction policies and find out what’s already happening. Look for ways to reduce energy use in your workplace and encourage improvements. If employers know their employees are keen to make their workplaces environmentally friendly, they’ll be even more inclined to take action.
• Encourage your organization to have measurable emissions reduction targets. Many businesses are committing to emissions targets and have plans to be carbon neutral by a certain date. Switching to green power, reducing and offsetting energy use and travel, and incorporating this into all areas of the business are critical to this process. Does your company have a plan?

Many companies are turning to more flexible schedules, allowing employees to work from home, and outsourcing some of the daily routine tasks. One huge retailer that I used to work for is actually making great strides in becoming “green”. That didn’t stop me from laughing 15 years ago when they announced to the staff that they were “going paperless”. For this company, which meant instead of using 10 reams of paper for daily reports, we only had to use 7 reams – per store. At the time, they had about 3,000 stores – you do the math. I do have to say, they keep plugging away and trying to lower their carbon footprint in different ways daily.

How will becoming more flexible with scheduling or outsourcing some of your administrative needs lower your carbon footprint? It’s worth thinking about.

Pat Zappavigna is the owner of Instant Office Assistant, an administrative support services company. You can contact Pat at pazappa@verizon.net or through the website www.InstantOfficeAssistant.com.

Pat Zappavigna receives VAccolade Business Entrepreneurial Award

Local Virtual Assistant Receives Entrepreneurial Recognition

Manahawkin, NJ – Pat Zappavigna, owner of Instant Office Assistant announced today that they are the recipient of the VAccolade Business Entrepreneurial award.

The VAccolade award not only recognizes participation at the Virtual Assistant Networking Association (www.VAnetworking.com), but also recognizes the professionalism with which Zappavigna presents herself on the web, thereby giving them more credibility amongst other Virtual Assistants.

"Virtual Assistants (VAs) are business owners who work from their own office providing professional support, services and skills to their clients via phone, fax and internet based technology. Partnering with a VA reduces stress, protects cash flow, eliminates administrative hassles, and enables business people to find the success they originally set out to achieve. A VA is your right hand person helping you to succeed in your business. The irony is you may never meet your VA as odds are they live nowhere near you!" (definition from www.VAnetworking.com).

Zappavigna's company specializes in bookkeeping and MS Office products and is a home-based administrative professional providing various online services to her clients. She started her Virtual Assistant career to assist small business owners and solo entrepreneurs to build their business, while performing the tasks she loves and building her own business. It wasn't until she happened upon the VA Networking site, that she realized this was a very viable business solution. "With today's high cost of hiring employees, including extra office space, higher benefit costs, and increased personnel turnover, many companies are finding outsourcing of these duties saves them time and money. It's a win-win situation when business owners partner with a VA. It allows the business owner time to concentrate on their core business issues, while the VA handles the often tedious, time-consuming items that need to get done. We also provide creative office solutions to help grow the business," says owner Pat Zappavigna.

In a recent survey from VAnetworking, the United States has the largest number of VAs, followed by Canada, Australia and Europe. Clients only pay for time spent on their projects. There's no need to pay for taxes, benefits, equipment, etc. VAs are hired on an hourly or a monthly retainer basis.

For more information about Instant Office Assistant visit www.instantofficeassistant.com.

About Instant Office Assistant

Launched in 2008, Instant Office Assistant specializes in bookkeeping and MS Office products such as Excel, Word, Outlook, Publisher and Access. These services are especially needed by small businesses that either have limited office space or have more tasks than their current in-house staff can handle. Visit the website at www.InstantOfficeAssistant.com

About VAnetworking

Visit the website at www.vanetworking.com.

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Guide to Using Check Disk in Vista

Anytime somebody has hard drive errors, I always recommend that they run chkdsk… what geek wouldn't? When howtogeek.com realized that there's no guide to using check disk, he decided to write one. I thought it was worth sharing, since no small business or entrepreneur can afford to have computer problems stop them. Here's his tutorial in full.

The chkdsk or "Check Disk" utility is used in Windows to scan through your entire hard drive and find problems… it's a lot like doing inventory… it's boring, but it has to be done sometimes. I recommend that you run through a check disk every month or two.

Using CheckDisk the GUI Way
Open up Computer and then right-click on the drive you want to check, and choose Properties.













Then select the Tools tab, and click the "Check Now" button.











A little dialog will pop up to allow you to choose the options you want for the disk check. You should check both options if you want to really check the disk properly, but if you just want to do a quick check you could select only the first one.













The only problem with that is that Windows can't check a drive that's being used, such as the system drive, but Windows will let you schedule a disk check for the next reboot.











You should keep in mind that running through a full check disk takes quite a while, sometimes hours depending on how big the drive is and how many files you have.

Pat Zappavigna is the owner of Instant Office Assistant, an administrative support services company. You can contact Pat at pazappa@verizon.net or through the website. Instant Office Assistant

E-mail Courtesy

A friend who is a computer expert received the following directly from a system administrator for a corporate system. It is an excellent message that ABSOLUTELY applies to ALL of us who send e-mails. Please read the short letter below, even if you're sure you already follow proper procedures.

Do you really know how to forward e-mails? 50% of us do; 50% DO NOT.

Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail? Do you hate it? Every time you forward an e-mail there is information left over from the people who got the message before you, namely their e-mail addresses and names. As the messages get forwarded along, the list of addresses builds, and builds, and builds, and all it takes is for some poor sap to get a virus, and his or her computer can send that virus to every E-mail address that has come across his computer. Or, someone can take all of those addresses and sell them or send junk mail to them in the hopes that you will go to the site and he will make five cents for each hit. That's right, all of that inconvenience over a nickel! How do you stop it? Well, there are several easy steps.
Try the following if you haven't done it before:

(1) When you forward an e-mail, DELETE all of the other addresses that appear in the body of the message (at the top). That's right, DELETE them. Highlight them and delete them, backspace them, cut them, whatever it is you know how to do. It only takes a second. You MUST click the "Forward" button first and then you will have full editing capabilities against the body and headers of the message. If you don't click on "Forward" first, you won't be able to edit the message at all.

(2) Whenever you send an e-mail to more than one person, do NOT use the To: or Cc: fields for adding e-mail addresses. Always use the BCC:(blind carbon copy) field for listing the e-mail addresses. This is the way the people you send to will only see their own e-mail address. If you don't see your BCC: option click on where it says To: and your address list will appear. Highlight the address and choose BCC: and that's it, it's that easy. When you send to BCC: your message will automatically say "Undisclosed Recipients in the "TO:" field of the people who receive it.

(3) Remove any "FW :" in the subject line. You can re-name the subject if you wish or even fix spelling.

(4) ALWAYS hit your Forward button from the actual e-mail you are reading .. Ever get those e-mails that you have to open 10 pages to read the one page with the information on it? By Forwarding from the actual page you wish someone to view, you stop them from having to open many e-mails just to see what you sent.

(5) Have you ever gotten an email that is a petition? It states a position and asks you to add your name and address and to forward it to 10 or 15 people or your entire address book. The email can be forwarded on and on and can collect thousands of names and email addresses. A FACT: The completed petition is actually worth a couple of bucks to a professional spammer because of the wealth of valid names and email addresses contained therein. DO NOT put your email address on any petition. If you want to support the petition, send it as your own personal letter to the intended recipient. Your position may carry more weight as a personal letter than a laundry list of names and email address on a petition. (And don't believe the ones that say that the email is being traced, it just ain't so!)

Some of the other emails to delete and not forward are:

1. The one that says something like, "Send this email to 10 people and you'll see something great run across your screen." Or sometimes they'll just tease you by saying 'something really cute will happen.' IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN!!!!! (We are still seeing some of the same emails that we waited on 10 years ago!)

2. I don't let the bad luck ones scare me either, they get trashed.

3. Before you forward an 'Amber Alert' , or a 'Virus Alert', or some of the other emails floating around nowadays, check them out before you forward them. Most of them are junk mail that's been circling the net for YEARS! Just about everything you receive in an email that is in question can be checked out a Snopes. Just go to www.snopes.com < http://www.snopes.com/> . or www.truthorfiction.com < http://www.truthorfiction.com/> It's really easy to find out if it's real or not. If it's not, please don't pass it on.

So please, in the future, let's stop the junk mail and the viruses. Sorry this post is so long, but I thought all the information was important. As a virtual assistant, I live by e-mail. I always think that I'm utilizing it correctly, but it never hurts to view a reminder now and then.

Pat Zappavigna is the owner of Instant Office Assistant, an administrative support services company. You can contact Pat at pazappa@verizon.net or through the website. www.instantofficeassistant.com