Someone recently posted about this little piece of software on a forum I belong to. It came just after a time when I’d wasted a considerable amount of time trying to find the RGB colours for a particular shade of blue that I needed to match for a client (no, the client wasn’t charged for my mucking about searching for it).
Pixie by Nattyware is a colour picker and it is so very simple to use. You just save the file to your system. Run it and when you point to a colour anywhere on your page it will give you the colour codes in a pop up box. Too easy!
Posted in Nifty Finds.
Tagged with colour picker, hex, nattyware, pixie, rgb.
By sue
– 18/02/2010
Just because something is on the internet it’s free for everyone isn’t it?
No it most certainly is not! Content on websites, photographs, audio and video resources all may be protected by copyright. Sure, some stuff is free but it’s usually made very clear that it is indeed free for you to use. Go ahead and knock yourself out with that material but beware of anything not labelled as free to use.
If you plan to use an article someone else has written you should either ask them first or at the very least, give credit and provide a link to the original. Do not pass it off as your own.
Photographs, audio and video can have different levels of credit – eg free to use with credit given; pay to use with credit given; do not copy; free or pay to use with other limitations and conditions. It is really worth reading any copyright information very carefully to ensure you aren’t breaching copyright in any way.
Then there is also the copyright breach known commonly as plagiarism. This is when someone copies a chunk of your website content and whacks it up on their own site claiming it as their own.
This has happened to me and I can tell you that it’s a very unpleasant feeling to discover it. Besides the fact that it’s highly unprofessional and a breach of copyright, it’s just downright rude! In most cases, an email pointing out the breach and request to immediately remove the content, yields results. However sometimes you do need to take it further in which case there is some great information here – The Association For the Protection of Internet Copyright
I now regularly use Copyscape to check my if any content on my website has been copied. Take this tool and use it well, it’s worth it!
Posted in Author's thoughts.
Tagged with copyright, plagiarism.
By sue
– 10/02/2010
I recently received this line in a short email from a client:
Thanks for doing this so speedily – it’s great to have you around!
One of the things I love about being a Virtual Assistant and working from my own home office is that I don’t have to work standard office hours. I do advertise my hours as standard but if I choose to I can work outside these hours. Even if I don’t do client work outside hours, I can get my own admin up to date and free up time during the day for client work.
This often suits me as I find I work very productively early in the mornings. The benefit to the client is that work often gets done more quickly than they expected.
Oh and one of the challenging aspects of working from home are the two girls:
They are sweet but not terribly helpful 
Posted in Benefits, Clients.
Tagged with flexible hours, home office, virtual assistant.
By sue
– 11/01/2010
Well a new year has begun. I hope you all had a lovely festive season but now it’s back to work! Well almost… I’m taking next week off to visit some family and “get away from it all”. Email will be monitored and queries responded to albeit with a slightly longer turnaround than usual.
I have scheduled a planning day for later in the month, I don’t make new year resolutions either in business or personally but I do some planning on how I’d like the year to pan out and reassess my longer term goals.
Some time for reflection and reassessment is very therapeutic and it’s wonderful to look back at the end of the goal period and see what I have achieved.
Have you set aside some time for planning?
Posted in Author's thoughts.
Tagged with goals, new year, planning.
By sue
– 06/01/2010
I will be taking a break over the Christmas/New Year period and spending some time with family. I don’t think anyone would argue that that is a great thing to do
Officially, the office will be closed from 21 December 2009 to 4 January 2010. We will, however, be checking email on occasion so if you have a specific request, please do contact us and I will endeavour to assist.
Enjoy a safe and happy holiday everyone!
PS. I have decided that I will close the “News” page on this site and use this blog as our News page instead. Makes more sense I think 
Posted in Clients, Holidays.
Tagged with Clients, closed, contact us, holidays; office hours.
By sue
– 12/12/2009
I’m very proud to announce that I have recently qualified for the new worldwide Virtual Assistant Certification from VAcertified.com.
VAcertified.com is the new standard for Virtual Assistant Certification which clients worldwide can use to benchmark the services they are looking for in a Virtual Assistant (VA). The first internationally recognized VA certification, VAcertified.com offers a carefully calibrated and unbiased assessment of a VA’s skills, education, professional experience and industry contributions to gain business owners’ confidence in the skills of certified VAs.
To qualify for the certification, I was evaluated by 13 industry leaders and specialists from the four corners of the world on a broad spectrum of personal and professional traits pertaining to my expertise and professional ethic.
For business owners and managers who may have considered outsourcing support tasks to a VA in the past but could not justify the understandable risk of hiring an unknown, VA certification provides an assurance that the VA in question has the skills and experience needed.
In applying for and receiving this certification, I went through a process of reflection on why I became a VA, what my business and my clients mean to me and an assessment of where the business is heading. I’ve come up with some interesting ideas and shall reveal more as they evolve so stay tuned for that!
I’d like to take a moment to thank my lovely clients for providing testimonials and being willing to be contacted by the industry panel. Your support is deeply appreciated.
To learn more about becoming a certified Virtual Assistant or to discover the benefits of hiring a certified Virtual Assistant, visit http://www.VAcertified.com
About VAcertified
VAcertified.com is the go-to resource for Virtual Assistants who want credible, unbiased and international recognition for their skills, education, professional experience and industry contributions. Devoted to creating and growing a certification program that embraces diversity, VAcertified.com strives to enhance and evolve professional relationships between VA and client. Follow ( @ ) VAcertified on Twitter for up to date information about this worldwide certification for Virtual Assistants.
For more information contact:
Tawnya Sutherland
Founder, VAcertified.com
Toll Free: 866-943-6665 (Canada)
info ( @ ) vacertified dot com
Follow ( @ ) VAcertified on Twitter
Posted in Qualifications and such.
Tagged with certification, industry standard, VAcertified.
By sue
– 30/11/2009
