Save time with the Windows Quick Launch ToolBar

You are probably already using the Windows Quick Launch Toolbar. It’s very useful and probably looks something like this (I’m on Windows XP but similar in Vista – if you are running Windows 7 search on Google for “Quick Launch Windows 7″ to see how to install):

It’s already there when Windows XP/Vista is installed however you might not know how to add new programs to it. I have a wide monitor which allows me to have a BIG Quick Launch Bar and it saves a lot of time:

This short video shows you how I add a couple of things to my Quick Launch Toolbar… firstly a program and secondly a shortcut. I use it a lot, for programs and even in some cases for documents I use regularly. It’s also a handy way to get back to your Desktop when you have lots of Windows open… just click on this Show Desktop Icon:

(XP)  or  (Vista)

Note: this video was done to show how to add Breeze’s iConference program and the associated Internet Explorer ‘Enter Room’ URL to the Quick Launch Toolbar, however the technique applies to any program or document you want to add.

Any questions? Just drop me an Email to richard [at] interimcareersolutions.com.

How fast is your broadband?

I’ve had big problems with my broadband speed. We live in a village – Skelton-on-Ure – about two and a half miles from our nearest BT exchange, Boroughbridge. Hardly ‘in the sticks.’ We have 2 BT lines into our property, one to the house and one to the home office. Both lines have broadband and the office one gets up to 2Mbps on a good day, however the house line struggles to get 512Kbps – a quarter of the speed and about as slow as broadband can get.

So, broadband speed is clearly not just down to how far you are away from the exchange. I checked with BT and it’s apparently also down to the quality of the BT line… we have one good one and one bad one. And not a lot we can do as there are few spare lines in the village.

If you have a broadband speed problem I have found a very good free tool to see what speeds – both download and upload – you are getting. I’ve put the broadband speed checker on our new HarrogateLocal.com website: www.harrogatelocal.com/pages/broadband-speed-checker.html.

Click here or the above image

Did you know? Video

The current economic downturn is the catalyst for many professionals in the corporate world to have a career break, add new skills to their portfolio or even retrain for something new. The pace of change in the corporate world is accelerating and it’s bringing with it huge dissatisfaction and stress for so many people.
If you are looking for a way to get more work, set up additional income streams or change careers you need to position yourself.

Are you ready for the future?

If you are an interim manager, management consultant, in a job or have your own business you can’t afford to be left behind. ‘Did you know?’ is one of those cool viral videos doing the rounds at the moment. If you are not sure just how huge an impact technology is having on your job and career prospects this is 4 minutes of essential viewing:

Just how do you jump on this money making machine called the Internet? If you are like me and in the over 50 bracket it can seem daunting… where do you start and who do you trust? It’s not difficult once you know what to do however it’s not simply a matter of setting up a Facebook or Twitter account, sitting back and watching the money roll in. And it’s also very easy to do the wrong things.

Interim Career Solutions can help steer you through the Internet marketing hype and get you up to speed quickly. You can learn how to better promote yourself and your business on the Internet (or even turn your hobby into a profitable Internet business) and start seeing results within a few hours. Did you know if you would like any advice you can give Richard Wall a call or drop him an Email?   

Our Residual Magic Newsletter has moved

One of our key aims is to help interim managers, management consultants – indeed anyone in between assignments, in between jobs, or wanting a career change – promote themselves on the Internet and set up additional income streams.

Richard Wall’s Residual Magic newsletter has useful tips and links to help you. From August 2009 we have moved the newsletter from our Wall to Wall Potential Ltd. company website walltowall.biz to this interim career solutions site. We hope you find it helpful.

Here are the contents of the August 2009 issue:

  o Welcome

  o Quotes of the month

  o Are you making the most of the Internet?

  o Oprius Contact Management Software – free 30 day trial

  o Video of the month – Five Rights by Brian Tracy

  o Guest article – The Lamest Success Secret Ever… by Mike Dillard

  o Technical nuggets

  o Book of the month: Residual Magic by Richard Wall

If you are looking for more work – either as an interim manager, management consultant or someone looking for another job - the 5 page ‘Are you making the most of the Internet’ PDF document will show you how Breeze can help you promote yourself or an existing business or start something completely new on the Net.

You should find a nugget or two this month – even if it is just you are experiencing slow broadband / ADSL connection speeds the free broadband speed checker tool will help… or if you are looking for a contact management, autoresponder system there’s an excellent free trial, or if you are just anxiously looking for a way to make money on the Internet and don’t know where to start there’s a link to my updated Residual Magic eBook. If you are actively looking for another income stream there’s an excellent 2 minute video from Brian Tracy about what to look for.

Millions of people are struggling with the economic downturn. For you and me these are very exciting times if we are prepared to learn new skills and jump aboard the Internet bandwagon… it’s only just begun and there is opportunity everywhere.

Click here to see the August 2009 issue of the Residual Magic newsletter and don’t hesitate to phone or Email me if you need any advice.

Richard Wall – Interim Career Solutions. North Yorkshire, UK.

How to do a MS Word Mail Merge to Email

If you want to promote yourself online – either as an Interim Manager, Management Consultant or maybe as someone in between jobs and wanting to add another income stream while you are waiting – one of the golden rules is you need to build an Email list. That means getting autoresponder and list management software like aweber, getresponse.com or the excellent new Oprius system (free Oprius 30 day trial here). It means getting people to opt-in i.e. give permission for you to send them information.

However in many cases that can be over the top – what if you just want to send out a personalized Email to your friends, family or contacts without them having to ‘opt-in’ to a list?Maybe you want to tell all your contacts you have changed Email address and you want to put ‘Dear Fred, Dear Sue…’ to make it personal? Or maybe you want to send out personalized party invitations. Or maybe you are wanting to send your CV to a number of Interim Management Agencies or Recruitment Consultants.

Well, if you use Microsoft Office (or at least Microsoft Word) you can do a Word Mail Merge, linking up to your names and Email addresses in Microsoft Excel and outputting individual personal Emails to Microsoft Outlook. This short video by Richard Wall shows you step by step what to do:

Interim Career Solutions will be producing many more Technical Nugget short videos like this to help you be more productive with your computer… stay tuned!

Do you want more work as an interim manager or management consultant?

If you are an interim manager or management consultant you have probably experienced ‘feast or famine.’ You’re either turning away work or you’re not busy enough and waiting for the phone to ring. And when you’re working flat out you don’t have the time to market yourself and line up your next assignment.

So you need more work – where do you look?

If you are an interim manager you can try interim management agencies – just do a Google search and you’ll find there’s lots of them out there. Don’t rely on an agency though – most good interim managers are good because they have a reputation and most of their work comes from referrals i.e. people they know. Almost all of my interim assignments and the temporary accountancy jobs came from my ‘warm market’.

What else can you do? Well the really exciting news is you can now promote yourself 24/7 on the Internet. As a first step it is essential you register on business and social networking sites such as Ecademy, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter (if you click on those links it’ll take you to my profiles… do connect with me!)

Even more exciting is you don’t have to restrict yourself to getting more interim manager and management consultancy work… the Internet now gives you the ability to get multiple income streams, which can be completely unrelated to your day job. You can ‘monetize your hobby’ – maybe you are passionate about steam trains, fly fishing or art collecting. Well you can now turn that passion into an Internet business, if – and it’s a big if – you know what you’re doing and you can clear a way through all the get rich quick hype.

It could even lead you to do what I’ve done and change your career… I’ve recently hung up my Chartered Accountant hat and am now full time on the Internet. It’s a lot more fun than being a bean counter, I don’t have the commuting or the office politics and I can earn far more than I could in the rat race.

Don’t be worried about the economic downturn or recession. Those of us who jump aboard this New Economy – who learn the right skills and find the right vehicle – will make a fortune.

Where do you start? Well, although I’ve been marketing on the Internet for a number of years I’ve had to throw a lot of my experience out of the window because I recently got hold of the ‘Breeze Academy’ online course. Things have moved on so much that many of the so-called Internet marketing gurus are now ‘old hat’ and many of the other ones don’t teach this stuff. Breeze is not just about training and also give you the tools you need for your online business all wrapped up in a three year package. Before recommending Breeze I decided to set up a brand new project with a brand new domain name their claim that I would start seeing results on Google within hours was valid. It’s very affordable and works out at less than a dollar a day (or for those of us in the UK that’s less than 60p per day.) Check out the Internet page of our website for more information.

If you need advice don’t hesitate to drop me an Email (richard [at] interimcareersolutions.com) or phone me (+44 1423 325090). And finally, don’t forget to download my free Residual Magic eBook (link on the right) which will help get your multiple income streams flowing. Good luck!

I have been using a free program called Shortkeys for a few years now. If you do a lot of computer work you will find this so useful. To explain what it does, here is the description from their website:

ShortKeys is a macro utility allowing you to setup replacement text or paragraphs for any given number of user defined keystrokes. ShortKeys monitors the keyboard activity on a global nature and anytime a user defined keystroke combination is typed in, it will be replaced with the replacement text.

An example: how many times do you type your email address out? All I do now is type rrrr and as if by magic richard [at] walltowall.biz is typed in. [By the way ever wonder why people put on websites [at] in an Email address? It’s to stop automated robots harvesting Email addresses from your website… useful tip!]

That’s just a small example… I use ShortKeys a lot in Emails – many of which are ‘standardised’ – I only need to personalise by ‘topping and tailing’ with the recipient’s name and maybe a few other details. When I want to pull in the standard part I just type a few keystrokes and ShortKeys does the rest. It saves a lot of time and is a lot quicker than copying and pasting from somewhere else. Here’s a screenshot:

Not only does ShortKeys make things quicker but it also guarantees consistency – many times in the past I have mistyped an Email address, url etc. Not now.

Download the free lite version here:  www.shortkeys.com.