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A Handy Box to Do Loads of Stuff!

by Kittycat

Dropbox: very useful to drop stuff in it and share with your friends

Dropbox: very useful to drop stuff in it and share with your friends

I started using Dropbox a few years ago. Back then I was mainly using it to access different kind of data via other computers.

But nowadays more and more people have a Dropbox-account and this made it possible to do a whole lot more useful things with it! 😀

Now I do scientific work there, that had to be accomplished in collaboration with other people.

Our group took turns in writing and we didn’t have to send the newest version every time via email, because everybody had permanent access to it, yay!

Also, I started to exchange photos with Dropbox.
But that was when I began to wonder: how do they handle data privacy… I did some research on the internet and found some slightly concerning reports…

Well, I don’t really mind, if the people working for Dropbox or some hackers see my data. It’s of no interest to them and I have nothing to hide.

But IF someone is using Dropbox and DOES mind, it might be useful to encrypt the data. Then it will be safe enough!

Anyway… I looove this handy box! thx for inventing. ;D

Comments for A handy box to do loads of stuff!

Sep 27, 2012 The dropbox is very versatile – and it’s awesome that it’s completely free!
by: FrancisWhen you upload anything to the internet, there will always be problems with the privacy. Simply by sharing files online, you virtually guarantee that a third party will be able to look at it.

It’s like stuff written on Facebook, or even emails on Gmail (ever wondered why the ads are so closely related to the content of your emails…?)

Still, if the Dropbox terms of conditions are dangerous, I’ll be sure to notify my visitors before recommending this tool. So, thanks for pointing this out. 🙂

I’ll ask my virtual assistant to do some research about this…
Sep 27, 2012 Dropbox has taken every necessary step to ensure the data safe and secure
by: Virtual AssistantHello everyone,

I did some basic research for data privacy and security issues over Dropbox’s official website. In fact after reading the post I was also a bit concerned because most of us share our personal photos and other confidential data via Dropbox.

After reading their privacy and security overview page, I can say that they have taken every possible measure to ensure the data 100% safe and secure.

They are using the AES-256 standard for file encryption. This is the same standard that most of the banks use to secure their customer’s data. Apart from that they use Amazon S3 method for data storage, which is also a proven method to secure personal data.

When it comes to data transfer, Dropbox also uses a top class secure channel using 256-bit SSL encryption.

Click here to read more about Dropbox security measures

So after reading their privacy statement I have no doubt that the data shared via Dropbox is 100% safe and secure, but on the other hand it is also a fact that nothing is safe and secure over the internet. Obviously if you share your data with a person via Dropbox, he or she can easily share your private data and pictures with any third person.

Hope this helps,
Sep 27, 2012 much safer
by: KittycatDear Virtual Assistant,

you seem to be always working, it’s incredible! ;P

Thanks a lot for the research, now I feel much safer in using dropbox! =)

kind regards,

Kathy
Jul 14, 2014 cool not cool
by: JomvieI didn’t know that Dropbox has that cool security measures. They wanted to serve their client at their most.

Unfortunately, the only problem with Dropbox is when shared files are worked on at the same time, it will create a duplicate “conflict” file and that will literally create conflict and will painstakingly manually compare the other file to that conflict file to check for new changes.

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My First Jing Experience

by Kittycat

My family and some of my friends were using a social network with poorly adjusted security options.

To show them how to improve their security I did a one-minute-video on Jing to show them the necessary clicks within the network.

Especially as my mom has some difficulties with computers and their settings, it was much easer for her to SEE what I was doing than to follow some complicated written explanation!

And for me it was kinda funny to send them this short Video, where they could hear my voice. 😉

Comments for My first Jing experience

Sep 27, 2012 Jing an awesome tool to teach others
by: FrancisHey Kittycat,

Thanks for chipping in to the discussion. I also love Jing and I am using it every day. It’s so effective to teach others how to do something using visual and audible information.

I can’t say how often I have been asked from non-computer savvy relatives of mine to do something, I am sure you know that feeling.

Right? 🙂

I could even imagine using those videos as a creative gift for someone. You teach them something and they hear your voice. It’s very personal, you know.
Sep 27, 2012 personal
by: KittycatThat’s so true, I especially love the personal aspect of it!! =)
Sep 27, 2012 Great use of JING
by: Virtual AssistantIt’s a proven fact that video instructions work far better than written instructions. It saves a lot of time for both parties.

I think JING is the only software which not only provides quality screen recordings, but you can also use their screen capturing tool which comes with many advance features and you can easily share your screen captures to anyone by simply passing a URL.
Sep 27, 2012 Pretty easy to understand
by: FrancisIt’s a very simple software, too! And you can explain even complicated stuff in a short amount of time, and everyone will get it 🙂
Jul 14, 2014 VA’s must-have tool
by: JomvieI had my first experience with Jing using the screenshot button. I was amazed because of its easy and no stress kind of function unlike any other apps on the internet. This is very helpful for my daily tasks and a must-have tool to all virtual assistants.
Feb 20, 2015 A Must Have Tool for Employers: I Haven’t Seen Virtual Assistants Use It Yet
by: FrancisMore specifically, I haven’t seen virtual assistants use the video functions yet. My primary virtual assistant is using screenshots often. And it’s very useful to make a quick annotation to ask a question to me. So I definitively think it’s useful for both employers and virtual assistants.

As an employer, it even makes sense to invest in a paid solution to record videos longer than five minutes. But for starting, five minutes of recordings are great.

Virtual assistants often tend to shy about recording their English in a spoken language and send it to their employer. However, I believe that if a virtual assistant were to use the video function and ask questions that would really improve the communication back to the employer too. What do you think?

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Hiring a Full-Time Virtual Assistant for Link Building and Editing

by Francis
(September 25, 2012)

As a website owner there is one thing you never lack: “ideas“. And there is one thing you never have: “enough time.” Especially link building activities are time consuming.

The best help you can get is a full time employee. If you decide to hire a virtual assistant full-time, it is important that you have prepared a blueprint for the tasks he is about to do beforehand.

This post discusses tasks that a full time virtual assistant for link building and/or editing could do that will fill 8 hours a day, 5 hours a week.

  1. Forum marketing
  2. Social Media Marketing
  3. Twitter Marketing
  4. Creating and curating content
  5. Proofreading and editorial tasks
  6. Blog commenting
  7. Article marketing
  8. Writing and submitting press releases
  9. Following up with Google Alerts and Google Reader
  10. Guest blogging
  11. Guest blogging and writing on our own web properties
  12. Reporting and communication

Here is what I would have my full time VA do, in detail:

Forum marketing

  • The virtual assistant should research 2-3 forums
  • Then he has to create 2-3 extremely well-researched and worded forum posts per day
  • In the signatures from the forum posts, he has to promote the website which will gain traffic using a personal noteFor Example, something like: “If you like what you read from me, please visit and support this site”

Total time: 1 hour a day

Social Media Marketing

social media icons

  • Promoting a website using StumbleUpon, Digg, Diigo and other social media sites
  • Using a proven strategy of social media marketing that do not spam the services is crucial. Especially new pages that do not get much traffic yet should be added to social media regularly

Total time: 1 hour a day

Twitter Marketing

  • Task of contacting people who might be interested in our niche
  • Re-tweeting the most relevant posts for the benefit of our Twitter followers
  • And “buffer” tweeting a set of important web addressesThis all falls under the task of twitter marketing. If done correctly, this should increase overall traffic to the site.

Total time: 1 hour a day

Creating and curating content

  • A virtual assistant from the Philippines should have great English knowledge in order to write content of appropriate quality
  • For example, short blog posts and updates could be outsourced to the same full-time virtual assistant

Total Time: 1/2 hour a day

Proofreading and editorial tasks

email marketing virtual assistant with an email sign in her hands
  • Since I heavily rely on voice transcription to create content, there is a need for someone having great English skills to re-read, edit and proofread those transcripts
  • Ensuring the best quality of writing. This will greatly benefit to promote websites

Total time: 1 hour a day

Blog commenting

  • Although the strategy of mass blog commenting is outdated due to the latest Google algorithm, it is still useful to get into an honest discussion with relevant blog owners by using blog commenting
  • Researching relevant blogs and actively participating regularly on a same set of blogs will result in additional traffic
  • Also, building relationships with those website owners may open the doors for even more business opportunities.

Total time: 1/2 hour a day

young virtual assistant girl writing an articleArticle Marketing

  • Similar to blog commenting, mass distribution of articles to article marketing sites is counter productive and treated as spamming. Still, if an article is completely original, well written and relevant to the website, used at a very slow pace and without spinning articles, it is still a viable strategy
  • Researching writing and fine-tuning the article should be done with the biggest care.

Anticipated goal: 1 article a week – Total time: 1/2 hour a day

Writing and submitting press releases

  • Press releases are a great way to build traffic to newsworthy content. This traffic building tactic only applies for bigger news and important parts of the website. I expect that not more than one press release per month will be necessary.

Total time: 15 minutes per day

Following up with Google Alerts and Google Reader

  • Those two tools are great for keeping in touch with the latest news about a niche topic
  • When the link building, the virtual assistant screens Google Alerts and Google Reader streams daily for different topics. Many follow up tasks can arise from that activity alone
  • There is possibility of commenting on an interesting article
  • Sharing it via twitter or Facebook
  • Adding it to a paper.li curated online newspaper or Pinterest

Total time: 1 hour a day

Guest blogging

  • Guest blogging is a better strategy for traffic creation than article marketing. That’s because it is more “real” and not that easy to cheat as a strategy
  • We should aim for one weekly guest blog article. If possible, it should be based on transcription input from me.
  • The research of useful platforms to find guest blogs should be taken care by another virtual assistant

Total time: 1/2 hour a day

Guest blogging and writing on our own web properties

  • When a virtual assistant is working full-time on finding opportunities to build traffic to our website, he should be bound to find some interesting stuff along the way
  • This sub-task consists of jotting down notes of interesting ideas the virtual assistant found over the week.

Distilling this into one value-packed post written in his own words with a length between 300 to 500 words, we should aim for one added blog post per week.

Total time: 1/2 hour a day

Reporting and communication

young guy talking on his phone while sitting in front of computer

  • This may be the most important task for the full-time virtual assistant in general
  • Constant communication to ensure the best quality of work on an ongoing basis is most crucial for the success of this project
  • The full time virtual assistant will be in constant contact with the hiring manager or the employer (me), directly
  • A daily email with exact accountability of what was done during the day as well as questions and discussions should be the minimum expected. (One can use a simple time tracking software to help keep the VA on track.)
  • Because this task is so important, it should be allowed ample time
  • At least every two weeks, a phone call should be scheduled

Total time: 1 hour a day

Miscellaneous Tasks

  • Different other link building activities may be finished as needed on an ongoing basis, for example answering Yahoo Answers and other similar sites
  • Helping with split testing of website content
  • Analyzing each new written content page
  • Taking the time to think about different strategies and giving feedback
  • Helping with the creation of polls and visitor interaction
  • Creation of diary posts containing very personal information about the progress of the work and work atmosphere in general.
  • Skype calls
  • Giving feedback to training
  • And finally taking his time to take a break during the dayAll of these activities can be summed up with a total time of 1/2 hour a day

That’s it!

That’s my basic blueprint of how I would schedule work for a full-time virtual assistant who helps with link building and some editing, too.

If you found this list of tasks useful or want to give feedback about what would you do different if you would hire a full-time employee for link building, please let us know.

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The Dropbox Is Tremendously Useful when Working at Two Workplaces

by Francis
(September 19, 2012)

When I was writing my PHD thesis I was working on two computers, my office computer and my laptop at home. Often I needed to review some of work at home or bring it to the workplace.

To be sure that all the information was up to date all the time as well as to make sure that all my work was backed up into the internet, the Dropbox was of immense value to me.

Not only did I not need to carry my external hard drive with me all the time, it also allowed to relax because I knew that if I would lose some changes, I could always rebuild the original content from the Dropbox back-up.

That’s because the Dropbox automatically saves changes of your files, even older variations of your files are also backed up for 30 days I believe.

The only challenge I had with using the free Dropbox account was that its free capacity was about 2 to 4 gigabytes. I cleverly circumvented this problem by expanding my Dropbox to 18 GB using a very simple outsourcing trick.

Click on this link to learn about how I did it.

So all in all, the Dropbox is not only useful for my communication and common projects with my virtual assistants but also for good old office work.

Comments for The Dropbox is Tremendously Useful When Working at Two Workplaces

Oct 22, 2012 Dropbox
by: Maria B.Dropbox is one thing every virtual assistant must have because it ables you to connect with your clients even when you’re offline. It will also monitor which projects you have completed and submitted back to each of your clients. It really aids you in keeping your projects organized.
Dec 06, 2012 Don’t Use the Dropbox for Sensitive Work Data
by: FrancisIf you work with a lot of data in your actual day job, don’t be tempted into putting that to the Dropbox.

You probably must have signed some sort of secrecy agreement about the work data and you risk breaking that agreement if you use the Dropbox.

So don’t do it.

For classic work data, use the tools that you are allowed to do.

For example an USB stick or printing the stuff out.

I feel this is important to point out because that is something I am learning right now as I am looking for a job.
Jul 14, 2014 Must-have tool
by: JohnDropbox is the most helpful and must-have tool in every outsourcing business. And it’s the only file sharing tool I know apart from Google drive. But, Google drive is only good for real-time sharing not for storage purposes.

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How Your Virtual Assistant Can Help You with Your Website Design?

by Francis
(September 12, 2012)

From my VA's work diary: Setting up a quotation template to one of my webpages

From my VA’s work diary: Setting up a quotation template to one of my webpages

Although the virtual assistant I am working with is not a designer, he helps me with my website design tremendously.

I thought that some useful quotations would look nice on my webpages. After I shared this idea with my virtual assistant, he researched a few dozen high quality quotations and sent me an Excel-sheet with his propositions.

My work as always was very easy.

I simply picked the quotations I like best!

Then as if it wasn’t enough, my virtual assistant proposed quite a few different templates of how the quotations would look their best on my webpages.

After picking my favorite template, all I had to do is sit back and watch as my virtual assistant implemented each quotation to my different webpages.

The Results:

They look rather nice 🙂

Don’t you think?

Be it stock photos or quotation pieces or even Google web elements, once you instruct your virtual assistant how to do it and once you give him access to your content management system, any virtual assistant can help you with your website design.

This again frees up your time as a webmaster to create excellent content or to build relationships with other webmasters.

Without the help of my VA, the creation of quotation images would have been a project that stuck into my head and I never would get around to do it.

Now all it takes is some instructions and a little bit of time and the next thing I see the project is completed.

Would I ever build another website again?

Hell Yes!

Would I ever build another website again without the help of a virtual assistant?

You bet I would not! I wouldn’t even think about it.

But what do I know? 😉

I am sure you have your own opinion about this.

Just click on the comments button below to let us hear it.

Comments for How Your Virtual Assistant Can Help You With Your Website Design?

Sep 13, 2012 My VA even set up a photo gallery for me 🙂
by: FrancisMy virtual assistant is not a designer, and neither am I. Still, with some solid internet research, he managed to create a slick photo gallery for me.
Sep 20, 2012 Nice
by: AnonymousI like the context of your blog, it really is helpful, I should recommend this to my friends Harrice
Jul 08, 2014 Super VA
by: JomvieVirtual Assistants give too many wonders for their employer/s. I think it’s mandatory since the job title itself defines the person holding it. And speaking of VA, I, myself am a VA in training. Although I’ve worked with too many persons on the internet, this time, this is the only job that I felt I am now in a serious online job and that feels good.

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How My Screen Recording Software Helped Me Catch up with Instructing My Virtual Assistant Fast

by Francis
(September 11, 2012)

Yesterday, I came back from a one week vacation. Fortunately, my virtual assistant “kept the fort”.

While I was away, he continued to faithfully work on his assignments and sent me daily email updates.

Obviously, when I came back, I had to take care of a huge load of emails, not only from my virtual assistant but from personal stuff too.

How did I get rid of the task of following up with my virtual assistant – ultra-fast?

Here is what I did to prevent myself from procrastinating and not doing the task, losing lots of time by writing an email, writing an answer to each one of my assistant’s emails or doing a bad job following up my assistant’s updates.

    1. I simply opened my screen recording software before I even touched the first email,
    2. Then as I read what my assistant said

I answered him directly into the video

Fortunately, the screen recording video records both audio and visual information.

When I answered to a question from my virtual assistant, I clicked to the webpage in question or the item tried to solve my challenge or at least give feedback to the best of my ability.

The big advantages of doing it like that

  • I didn’t lose time reading the email first, thinking of my solutions and then answering.
  • Also I did not need to re-read anything twice.

I felt this was a quite time efficient way of following up with instructions.

Who doesn’t know the flood of emails that waits for you after you return from a vacation?

If you struggle with too many emails and want to get everything done, pick one sender and work through all his emails at once using screen recordings.

Since my free screen recording software only records five minutes of video at a time, I simply saved each video after five minutes into the Dropbox I share with my virtual assistant and started the next one.

I got through dozens of emails in half an hour of time and gave instructions that were precise and instructive enough so that my virtual assistant has something to work with while I manage to get completely unpacked and ready for work.

If this helped you or you have another opinion, feel free to add to the discussions in the comments below.

Comments for How My Screen Recording Software Helped Me Catch Up With Instructing My Virtual Assistant Fast

Jul 09, 2014 Keeping up with time
by: JohnAudio-Video recording software is just so amazing that sometimes you won’t be able to keep up if you will not pay attention to it. And yes, it’s just so amazing that it makes communication comfortable and easier to follow.