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I’ve just had a liberating moment – well, more than a moment, quite a few minutes really. But I feel like I’ve just freed up some of my time and will most likely fill it with something else.

What am I talking about?  My Google Reader. It had become too full with over 1,000 posts I haven’t even read or skimmed through.  It became overwhelming and I decided to cull the list of blogs I was subscribed to.  I got rid of all those which haven’t updated for months – although that didn’t cull the 1000+ new posts I haven’t yet read. And then I went through those that I was really no longer interested in but had subscribed to quite some time ago. That included forums I might not participate in much these days.  I even found there were some dead forums or blogs – no longer active.

Whew!  Feel better now.

And then I added a few new subscriptions, mainly to photography blogs since I have a keen interest in that topic these days.

Now I can get on with my work today feeling a little less cluttered on my Internet desktop.

Tags: About Blogging // 3 Comments »

My husband and I have recently shifted to the country from suburban life.  It’s still a suburb of Melbourne but an outer suburb amongst the hills and bushland. It’s beautiful and we look forward to many years here as we head towards retirement and grand-parenthood.

While I do run a virtual online business of my own, I find it’s still important to maintain contact with local business operators. There are just some things that need to be done on a local basis.  And it’s a great way to get to know the locals and let them know I exist too.

I woke up in the morning realising I hadn’t yet seen a local newspaper so when I went to the post office on my daily trek to the shopping area I noticed some shops had the local paper stuck under their doors. On enquiry I found out where I could get a copy and brought it home to check through the classifieds. (I find it strange thinking about the local paper on the very day it’s become available)

A short time later I had 3 appointments set for the day for a home handyman to do some carpentry, for someone else to come and cut up fallen branches and clear the area at the back of our property and for yet another to regularly mow our very large lawns.

It’s important to support the local business community whenever possible.

Tags: Business Operations, Self-employed, Work From Home // 4 Comments »

I noticed in my spam filter two messages that are supposed to be from the Australian Tax Office telling me about a Tax Refund. I don’t believe for a moment that they would contact me that way – I still get mail direct from them or via my Accountant, however just to alert you to some other things about this email.

• It is not personally addressed.
• Any correspondence from the tax office would include my tax account number details.
• Email is not secure so why would they anyway?
• Why does it list AUD? I didn’t think the Australian Tax Office dealt in other currency with Australian tax payers?
• Why would I need to submit a tax refund form?  Didn’t they just say they’d done a calculation?
• If I hold my mouse over the hyperlink I can see straight away it’s not the ATO website address but some other scammer’s address. I hope they get shut down quickly.  It started with http://pool-96 for those interested in knowing.

When are these idiots going to spend their time on something worthwhile that helps people rather than trying to rip them off?

Dear Australian Taxation Office customer,

After the last annual calculation of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of AUD $250.50.

Please submit the tax refund form and allow us 3-5 business days in order to process it.

A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons. For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.

To access the form for your tax refund, please Click Here.

NOTE!
For security reasons, we will record your ip-address and date.

Thank you,
Australian Taxation Office Online Department.

Tags: Warnings // 2 Comments »

I forgot to check the amount of webspace available for a multi-user blog before upgrading it and the thing has crashed.  I had to backtrack to find out what I did when a similar incident happened earlier in the year.  And then I remembered.  I had to get it restored to a former backed up version by my IT guy and then add webspace and then upgrade the thing.  Forgot, forgot, forgot!

So hoping he can fix it for me soon so I can increase the space and then re-run the upgrade.  Doh!

Tags: About Blogging, Wordpress // 2 Comments »