Edit.com gets stamp of approval

I've put it on my site - Edit.com has my official stamp of approval :)

This week, I had a chance to have a chat with the president of the company and got a demo account set up so I could really try out Edit.com's service myself. I have to tell you, I was impressed! It was fast and very easy to use. Basically the way it works, someone (like me) would place the special edit.com tags around areas of your site that you wanted to edit (like a calendar or a what's new section) and then, you would be able to log into your own site and make changes to just those areas. It has the regular editing tools like you would see in Microsoft Word so you can make things bold or italicized. And it also reads the existing font "styles" for your site - so if your site has all paragraph headers looking a certain way, you can apply that style too.

It has fairly basic ability to create new pages with a template too.

If you plan to do a lot of complex edits, or work on many pages of your site, then I'd still suggest going with something like Macromedia Contribute. But if all you want to do is give yourself or an administrative person the ability to make text edits on certain pages, Edit.com is a great tool! I have to admit I was a little startled at its speed, elegance and simplicity - kudos to the guys who created this service!

And - at only $180/year for unlimited use - and roughly $75-150 one time if you need my help in setting up your site with those special tags - it could save you hundreds on maintenance costs over time.

As always, let me know if you have any questions.

The long, slow death of my laptop

My cursed Dell laptop died its final death today.

It has been a long time coming - since the moment it arrived over 4 years ago. I bought it, and three months later, the hard drive failed. Dell's answer was sending a new blank one for ME to reinstall everything on to. A couple months later, that hard drive died. Dell did the same thing (so much for "Gold service" eh?). Then, when the parts/labor (?) aspect of the service plan expired, the mother board fried.

I finally got them to take it back and replace that. But I never trusted it again - I have not kept a bit of data on it other than programs to open the data since. I store what is important on my desktop in the office, and access it via the wireless network.

The Lithium Ion battery died at about 3 years of age - so I could only use it with the AC adapter. Just 2 months ago, I stupidly replaced the battery for $150 or so, to try to keep the whole set up running. It was worth it because I managed to finish writing Shades of Success with it.

Last night, I was just buried with virtual memory errors and system freezes, reminiscent of the first hard drive death. By morning it was dead... no booting up, even with systems CDs and a whole host of other efforts (I've got some experience with applying CPR to computers at this point).

Besides a momentary need to wallow in my loss, I'm telling you readers this because not having a laptop will significantly impact my ability to write. You see, after spending 5-9 hours a day in the office, sitting upright and typing, I get terribly tired of that position - and usually spend a few hours each day horizontal or at least, partially so, with the laptop. This allows me to see Ron, Oscar the Cat and the rest of my apartment. It lets me go outside on the deck in the summer. It is the time when I write my newsletters, articles and blog posts.

So bear with me. I am going to have to juggle some finances and figure out how to get a new laptop this summer. I am sure that when I do, you'll probably see a flurry of new writing :)

Amazon Honor System

Last month, I had lunch with a business friend and subscriber to Increase Your Reach. During our enjoyable little get together, she mentioned how much information she takes away from IYR each month and that it was too bad I had not found a way to monetize it - in other words, make any kind of profit from the time investment. Although I am certain I will seek my fortune elsewhere and keep this blog and newsletter free, it did get me thinking about what forms of micro payments were possible on the web these days.

It was during that investigation that I came across the Amazon Honor System. It's not new -- I just never saw the button on the bottom of the Amazon web site before! Of course, Pay Pal is also an option for gathering micro payments for online content. But I really liked Amazon because 1) it was simple to set up 2) piggy backed on the existing Amazon customer base and 3) provided a mechanism for digital downloads as well as micro payments.

That said, there were definite points to consider. The fact that it is riding on Amazon.com means that your visitors, if they have ever visited Amazon prior, will be greeted on your site with a message that includes thier name - which might freak them out! Another issue is that they are anonymous to you - good for the donor, possibly a negative to the content provider. I like that - I think that people should be allowed to donate anonymously if they want to.

The Amazon Honor System will work if you want to sell digital content, images, or audio files - and there are not any sign up fees, only $0.30 plus 2.9% of the total transaction amount. The person making a payment is not charged and payments can be as small as a $1.00 per transaction.

Just for the heck of it, I created a graphic and voluntary donation button for the blog. Knowing just one person thought my efforts were valuable enough to donate to, I had to, I'm sure you understand.

Operators are standing by. LOL.

Accept credit cards by phone!

I have written before about how invaluable it has been to have merchant account and the ability to accept credit cards for my business. That point struck home last month when I set up the digital product downloads for my site and was able to effortlessly do it with the existing merchant account. I have a virtual account - meaning, I put the information into a secure web site and 2-3 days later, my regular checking account gets the funds. This has allowed me to offer discounts for pre-payment (GREAT cash flow booster) and take projects that would not have been possible without a credit card (client doesn't have the funds in cash and wants to invest in their business). It also has allowed me to take "rush" jobs without waiting for a check to arrive.

Well, there is another type of credit card processing service available which lets you accept credit cards by touch tone phone - don't even need a computer! I haven't personally tried it out but I thought I'd share what I found in case it is the right option for you. It sounds really simple - dial a number, enter your pin, enter the credit card and transaction info. The prices and fees are comparable to the other merchant accounts I've looked at. And you aren't locked into a contract with hidden fees, from what I can tell.

If anyone uses this, and has good or bad experiences to share, let me know - it sounds like a pretty cool option for credit card processing for micro businesses!