A Very Merry Christmas

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

Here we are again. Christmas Day and 7 more days to 2012.

I've spent Christmas Eve doing final bits of shopping (yup, a man's Christmas Eve!) and cooking. I've done two carol services this week and Christmas Day is a full working singing day, so I had my Christmas Dinner on Christmas Eve. Very civilised - and cooked for me, too!

Computer tuition kept going up to Thursday - I've had a couple of appreciative presents from clients, which was very gratifying.

Family time now, which involves some travelling with a bootful of presents. (That's a 'trunkful' for my US readers!)

Hope you all have a peaceful Christmas - don't forget there are 12 days to spread peace, goodwill and humbugs around. When I come back home I must sort out my December charity.....

Labels

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

Shouldn't you be blogging? ...someone reminded me yesterday!
Well yes, I should. And a month has flown by since the last post.

The Last Post would have been played on 11/11/11, I suppose.

And this picture reminds me of my last trip to London, although this pic isn't in London, as you'll see if you point to it.

Hereford Cathedral Choir was invited again to sing at the Royal Military Chapel for their Advent service - and very fine it all was.

The last time I went to London was exactly a year before, for the same event! I really must get out more - it's ages since I explored London.




But then I haven't "got out much" because the work has been flowing steadily, which of course is a good thing. It's my living, after all.

And late November/December is the Season of Address Labels for computer tutors! My clients start talking about all the Christmas cards they're going to send...and it gives me an opening to suggest that they could put their computer and printer to good use: make an address database and then merge it with labels on a 'Word' document. This ensures at least two more lessons - one to show them how to set up a spreadsheet and another to create the merge.

Most of my clients have Word 2007 - if they have Word at all. But you can do a mail merge with the Microsoft Works suite too, and that's free. I've recently helped a client to do this successfully with Word 2000, whose user interface looks really ancient now!

Still no camera. Longing to show you all the car!

I'll save Christmas greetings for nearer the season - it will make sure I blog again before too long!


Colin

One link leads to another

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

After a lean couple of months things are really picking up in November. This week is going to be a busy one with 11 lessons and an "exploratory" session as well. So while I have the chance I'd better sort out this month's charity.

This arose through one of my clients. It's always the best way, I think. The lady's daughter sent her an email, telling her mother to "look at the pictures and read the article". The lady didn't understand how she could see any pictures or read an article, until I explained that her daughter had pasted an Internet link into the email.

I always make a Big Thing about clicking on anything in an email - there are so many scams out there - and I always teach my clients to think about whether they know and trust the sender. Having been so cautioned, and having completed the vetting process on her daughter, the lady opened a webpage from the link:

The Children's Trust

Her daughter is a consultant who refers children to this trust. So there it was staring me in the face, and I immediately said to my client "Well, that solves my charity donation for November". The Children's Trust is based at Tadworth in Surrey, which is very near where I was brought up, so it all ties in very neatly!

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A further mention for the charity Shelter who were campaigning again in Hereford High Town last week. I was bounced up to by Laura. I assured her that I had already made her charity mine, as it were, in October. I gave her my business card so she could find my website and from there perhaps this blog.

So if you're reading this, Laura: Hello! Keep up the good work.

Colin

Three Years of Business!

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

Some time ago I heard someone say that if you had started up a business, you'd be doing well if you broke even after three years. Well, at the end of each of my three years as "My Computer Tutor" I've made a profit.

Of course, the comment about breaking even after three years is a general one applied across all types of business, and the home computer tuition business is something of an exception to the general rule. In effect, it's a "cottage industry". You run it from home, so you have no separate business premises to buy or rent, heat, light etc. etc.

Then the equipment is minimal:

• I already had a desktop computer and a printer, but I bought a bog-standard laptop so I could empathise with my clients experiencing Microsoft's OS Vista.  "Sympathise" would be a better word, wouldn't it!
• I intended to provide manuals for any returning clients so I purchased a laminator, 90gsm A4 paper, laminating pouches and hardback presentation files.
• You need to keep records of everything so I ordered wallet files, NCR duplicating notebooks, receipt books and sheets of labels.
• Above all, I needed to advertise, so I sought out parish magazines and local community magazines, both of which are comparatively cheap to advertise in - cheaper than newspapers. And I had 3000 A5 leaflets printed.

And that was it for the first few months.

Since then, I've backed off from the local magazines and concentrated on the local freebie newspaper, which gets around the county. So that I too can get around the county I've invested in a car. I made a mistake about one form of advertising (see last month's post!) but I've given myself a lot of healthy exercise in delivering 20 000 leaflets through doors.

Here is a graphic showing the fruits of my labours over three years:

Red marks the starts of my business years in November, and green marks the calendar years.

The dark red line is the general linear trend over three years. The hummocky blue line is the average over each four months, which gives a truer picture of the ups and downs. Click on the chart and it will open in a new window.

The amounts are the values of the lessons I have given, which is the bulk of the income. I have made a bit out of website and spreadsheet design:

• 2008 - 2009.........£  400
• 2009 - 2010.........£  635
• 2010 - 2011.........£1335

Most of this is website design....and the ensuing update work, which partly explains the upward trend. The other part of the explanation is that I've grown in confidence with websites and am now charging more!

I've kept my lesson rates the same over three years! How many of you have done that? You can find mine on my website. Instead of increasing the rates, I'm phasing out my discounts! Originally I gave very generous discounts after 4 lessons - I thought that this would encourage business and I made a point of telling prospective clients when they phoned. But no longer!

The average values of sessions (1hr, 1.5 hrs and 2hr) has been:

• 2008-9...............£31.72
• 2009-10.............£32.83
• 2010-11.............£33.77

This trend is partly because of success in pushing more 1.5 hour sessions (not many people want 2hr sessions, but I have done 3hr sessions!) and partly because of my phasing out of the discounts since April this year.

Well there we are. It's now November 4th (just turned!) and at sunset I will have completed my third business year. I have broken the £15 000 turnover target I set myself and my expenditure has been nearly £5000.

Is this good, bad or indifferent for what we do? Get back to me and let me know.......................


Colin

Final warning

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

I talked about this last year and I posted these same pictures too, so this is the last time I'm going to mention advertising by business cards in Sainsbury's. To be fair, it's not just Sainsbury's because there is a similar display of these business cards in my local Tesco.

And to be absolutely fair all round, I'm not blaming anyone for my experience because, as I said last year, it seems like a good idea...

I paid ADC £600 for two years' advertising in Sainsbury's.

My business cards were displayed on a board, with 20 other sets of cards, which is by the checkouts, near the café and the toilets. A great position, you would think.

And yet, over these two years I have had only three enquiries directly attributable to this advertising, one of which developed into a course of 12 lessons which earned me £360.

So I lost on the deal.

The ADC salesman assured me that I'd get 3-4 enquiries a week. This time last year I collected other cards from the stand and followed up some phone numbers and email addresses to ask the other businesses how successful this advertising had been for them. Some had paid much more than £600! And I couldn't find anyone who'd had any leads from it.

ADC is a subsidiary of WRT Group. If you are approached by them, be polite but I'd advise you to say 'No'.

They keep your cards stocked up - in fact they stuff so many cards in it's very hard to get one out! They are selling what sounds like a good idea but it didn't work for me and I have yet to meet someone for whom it did work.

There are other companies offering this form of advertising. I was phoned up last summer by one whose idea was to put my business information and logo on beer mats in the local golf clubs. Two years ago I would have thought it a good idea. Now I know better.

Colin

One thousand!

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

I have just taught my 1000th session since starting this business on 5th November 2008.

Some of my clients have had only one session, some of them have had more than 40. The raw average is a little over 5 sessions per client. As I've recently started keeping a record of the number of male clients, I can tell you that there is no significant difference between the ladies and the gentlemen; the gents average at 5 sessions.

I'm coming up to the end of my third business year. It looks as though the turnover will clear £15000.

I'm quite happy to come clean with my figures, in fact I'm proud of them. I have no idea how this compares with other one-to-one home computer tutors. Do let me know how things are going for you................

Colin

Holiday snaps

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

Just an apology that I haven't been able to include any pictures recently. I was advised many months ago by a seasoned blogger friend that you really should break up your wodges of text with a picture or two.

And I really do intend to include pictures - but the simple fact is that I'm waiting for my camera to come back from the repairers. I took myself on a holiday at the very end of August - just 5 days on the West Welsh coast. It wasn't a brilliant August, was it? But one day was warm enough for me to go on the beach. (I've just worked out that it was 1st September!) And I slipped on a rock and dropped my camera.

I inspected it closely and it continued to take photos for the next couple of weeks. But one day I turned it on, it made a painful whistling noise and reported a "lens error". My friendly local camera shop reckons that a grain of sand is in there and has worked its way into an uncompromising position. So the camera is being professionally dismantled and cleaned as I write

At least I can show you a picture of the beach where it happened! This is Clarach Bay near Aberystwyth.

Actually, the beach is behind you (as you look at this) and I should have stayed there. I clambered over the rocks to get to this little cove to eat my lunch. Never climb over rocks in flip-flops!

Here's a nice sunset. Good night!

Colin

October Charity

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

Yes, I got caught again in Hereford High Town and her name's Michelle. She flattered me outrageously - said I stood out miles away as the most handsome man she'd seen all her life blah-dy blah-dy blag...and she was trying to get people to sign up for Shelter.


So, gentle reader, what could I do? At my age, you've gotta take any flattery you can get! Michelle was far too young to remember the TV play "Cathy, Come Home", but I told her a bit about it and how it had first brought homelessness and the organization "Shelter" to my attention.
Here's the Wikipedia reference for "Cathy, come home". I always thought that Shelter sprang directly from the reaction to this TV play in 1966, but it was already established. However, it thrust the organization into the conscience of the British public - 12 million of them watched it!


I was brought up in well-heeled Surrey. My parents' house wasn't quite "stockbroker belt" but we never went short of a two-week summer holiday and life was generally plentiful. "Cathy Come Home" made a big impact on my sister and I - certainly my sister anyway, because she persuaded me to come with her around the neighbourhood collecting door-to-door for Shelter.


I remember knocking at one door of a house in a leafier lane than mine and a boy of my own age answering. He and I were still at school - the same boys' grammar school - but he was in the Arts Sixth and I was in the Science Sixth, so of course he didn't recognise me! (I know, my school was hardly out of the P'tang yang kipperbang era!) He curtly told me that he hadn't heard of the charity and they didn't give at the door anyway.


I remember his name to this day. He's probably a merchant banker now. He certainly was then....




Colin

September Charity

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

A quick post to say that I'm determined to make my charity donation for the month of September in the month of September. So often I let it drift and then have to do a frantic catch-up.

So, as promised last month, this month's donation goes to the NSPCC

The reason is that I was approached on my doorstep last month by the RSPCA, and this reminded me that there's a Royal society for animals but only a National society for children.

Next month is already spoken for. Yes, I've been "chugged" again in town - "charmingly chugged", I should say! Story to follow....

Colin

Ladies and Gents

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

Each September I always feel as though I'm making a new start - a left-over from school-teaching days - and as the end of my 3rd business year approaches I'm very much in "review" and facts-and-figures mode.

I've met a few people recently who, for one reason or another, asked me what I do for a living. And when I say "I teach people how to use their home computers" I often get this response:

You must be very good with old ladies...

...often followed by a chuckle. I go on to say that I do have quite a lot of men clients too.

But I hadn't calculated what the proportion of men to women has been so far, so this weekend I totted it all up. I keep records of my clients and all the sessions they've had on an Access database. I'm quite proud of this, as I've managed to cross-reference it and can make structured queries on it.

So I got Access to count all the clients whose title was "Mr", and out of the 186 clients I've had to date 69 of them are male. That's 37%.

This isn't necessarily a good picture of the split, so I then asked how many of the lessons I'd given had been to male clients. This called for some serious revision of my SQL, which I hadn't used for 4 years! But I got the answer - 337 out of 972 sessions to date, which is 35%

So 37% of my clients are male and they had 35% of the sessions.

I'm not quite sure what to do with that information, other than produce it when someone assumes that I spend my time teaching old ladies! Age is something that I don't record, although clients often tell me anyway. Many times I've had phonecalls that start "I'm umpty-seven you know, am I too old?" But I'd say that the average age of my male clients is lower than the average age of the females.

More fascinating figures will follow - I'm quite prepared to publish my turnover, for example. Why not? I'm proud of this business!

How's yours?

Colin

Requests

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

Would you believe it? I've actually had a request for a posting! Just goes to show that you never know who's out there. I'm taking it as a timely reminder to update this blog....

August's Charity

This also was a surprise request. I've got used to gangs of "chuggers" in town but this one walked up my garden path and knocked on the door. Full marks for initiative, Christie. I foot-slog along streets too, doing the leaflets, so I have some sympathy for people who make that effort. She was canvassing for the RSPCA and seemed genuinely surprised that I knew what it stood for.

So I told her how it is with me and the business and a charity every month and because I've always liked other animals as well as most humans I said that the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals would be my August charity.

I now remember someone pointing out that in Britain we have a Royal society for protecting animals but only a National society for protecting children....Perhaps the NSPCC should be my next charity.

We've also been described as a "nation of pet-lovers" (as well as "a nation of shopkeepers") and you can indeed see plenty of pictures of cuddly bunnies, cute cats and sorrowful dogs on the RSPCA website. But the RSPCA do support wild animals and farm animals too, and as I always try to include a picture in these posts, here are some swans.

Mute Swans - someone has to speak for them!

These were photographed at Worcester and this sort of group is not uncommon on the River Severn at Worcester. There are often 100+ swans on the stretch of river between the bridge and the cathedral.

As for the computer tutoring work in August - it's better than April/May! I'm reconciled to the fact that Easter is a bit of a thin time, but August is much better than I expected - what with it being the traditional "going away" holiday season. But I'm holding back with the leaflet deliveries nonetheless. With a well-timed blitz in early September I could have a storming finish to Business Year 3.

Colin

Microsoft in the head

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

I really hope this is the last rant I have against Microsoft for many weeks to come. It probably won't be - but there's hope!

Yes, it's email again. I have lost all love for Windows Mail over the last few weeks. I explained one reason in my last post - the severe limit on the "autocomplete" facility. Well, another failing has manifest itself; this time it's a great example of Microsoft's left hand not being totally aware of Microsoft's right hand.

If you are a Windows user - and I'm told that 93% of the computer-using world are - then you will be aware of the numerous 'updates' that Microsoft issue over the Internet. These updates are rarely described - you're just told that they are 'important'. But one of the latest updates is to Internet Explorer - Microsoft's web browser. Internet Explorer has now reached version 9 and this one promises you a much faster and safer 'browsing experience'...or was it 'environment'? So a wodge of updates comes in and then a window appears announcing the brave new world of Internet Explorer 9 and please click on Install.

So you install it...and then think 'so what?'. Is it all that different from Internet Explorer 8? Probably not....but then you open your Windows Mail. And you'll find that if someone has sent you an attachment, you can no longer see the helpful paper-clip symbol at the top of the Reading Pane. This is because Internet Explorer 9.....how can I put this politely?.....let's say IE9 doesn't allow Windows Mail to show the attachment. The Reading Pane is now so wide that its right-hand edge is way off the screen.

I solved this problem for a client today by downloading Windows Live Essentials, making sure we didn't lumber ourselves with the Bing bar or Windows Messenger, in fact making sure we only downloaded and installed Windows Live Mail.

And to be fair, I was impressed that Windows Live Mail automatically imported all the mails and contacts from bad ol' Windows Mail. So that process was easy.

Attachments show up really clearly in Windows Live Mail, even if you have IE9, so I would now recommend Windows Live Mail if you still insist on a Microsoft mail client on Vista or Windows 7 operating systems.

But...don't forget to click on that Inbox before closing!

Colin

Mail menopause

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

Time was when I found email very straightforward. I set up my very first 'Windows' computer in 2000, obeying instructions - because I would have been totally lost without them. And when a message appeared asking me if I wanted Outlook Express to be my email client, I said 'Yes'. The only word I recognised in the message was 'email'...and I wanted it!

I went through the next five years using Outlook Express - and thinking that everyone else used Outlook Express - before I started work on an Internet provider helpdesk. I had to use Outlook for work and only then did I realise that other people were using 'webmail' or "Eudora" or "Thunderbird" or "Pegasus" or.....

So when I started the tutoring business I was ready to face a variety of email systems on my pupils' computers. (It's going to get confusing if I say 'clients', isn't it?)

What I wasn't prepared for was the need to explain the Mind of Microsoft and, still more, apologise on its behalf!

So here we go...

• If you're using Windows XP, you can use Outlook Express or Outlook. These are still the best mail clients that Microsoft have produced, so stick with them.

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• If you are using Windows Vista....oh dear!

  
  

  No seriously, all is not lost - apart from Outlook Express. Microsoft in its wisdom made sure that Outlook Express wouldn't work with Vista. Instead, they brought out Windows Mail.

  
  

  Now I thought Windows Mail was OK...until one of my pupils struggled to use "autocomplete" when creating a new mail. "Autocomplete" is the very useful feature in the To: box of the email. You should be able to start typing a name in your email Address Book - say you type a 'c' - and all the names beginning with 'C' appear in a drop-down. You just click on the one you want and the name and address are automatically entered for you. It saves having to type email addresses.

  
  

  Microsoft in its obtuseness made sure that the Windows Mail autocomplete only works for the last 29 contacts that you've written to. So if you have 50 contacts in the address book they won't all show up in Windows Mail "autocomplete".

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  Another niggle...

  
  
  

  Good ol' Outlook Express has a nice big button on the toolbar labelled "Addresses". It says what it is! You know where it is!

  
  

  
  

  Outlook calls the address book 'Contacts', but it's easy to find in the bottom left corner:

  
  
  
  

  Windows Mail has a silly little icon, which, if you find it and point to it, produces a tooltip label 'Contacts'. So you've got to know where it is before you can find it...!

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• If you're using Windows 7....

  ...you can't use Outlook Express or Windows Mail. You have the privilege of using Windows Live Mail. As far as I know, autocomplete works in Windows Live Mail.

  But... Microsoft - in their cussedness or forgetfulness or just indecent haste to get the thing on the market - failed to ensure that Windows Live Mail opens each time in the Inbox! So if you were last looking at the Sent Items folder or your Junk folder, and you then close Windows Live Mail, the next time you open Windows Live Mail it will open in the Sent Items, or the Junk, or whatever you last used!

  So I spend a lot of time training my pupils to get into the habit of clicking on Inbox before they close WLM.

  But why, O Microsoft, should they have to?

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I think in the future I shall steer new pupils towards Mozilla Thunderbird. I've had a little play with it and imported my Outlook Express Address Book into it to test "autocomplete"....and it works!

I imagine any Mac user reading this would be laughing her head off.

Colin

PS Anyone for Lotus Notes?

Charity catch-up

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

Well, "Hello, World!" as every computer programming textbook forces you to say. It's been a long absence, but rest assured that I have been nagging myself all these weeks to update the My Computer Tutor blog.

Let's say it again: what's the point of a blog if you don't keep on blogging?

First, I must catch up with my charities. It's now the end of June and I still need to do May's charity. I met my brother-in-law in May and his treatment from the Royal Marsden is now every 4 months rather than every 6 weeks, so that's cause for celebration and I'm making The Royal Marsden Cancer Campaign my May charity. They were my birthday charity last year - but I probably will repeat "my charities" as circumstances arise.

Two sad pieces of news:

• A lady who had three lessons with me earlier this year was postponing any more until after she'd had heart surgery. I heard a couple of weeks back that she didn't survive the operation.






• A lady whom I helped two years ago to produce labels and invitations for her 70th birthday party has recently developed motor neurone disease. 'Developed' isn't really the right word....

Diana is now being cared for in our local hospice. It's frightening to think how quickly MND can strike, and The Motor Neurone Disease Association is my June charity.

Now...how about this?

I have my July charity all sorted! I was bounced up to last week by Rose...you know, one of those bouncy young people who ambush you in town by smiling at you and waving at you and....well, just bouncing around!

The newspapers refer to them as "Chuggers" - charity muggers - but that's a bit unkind. After all, you can always ignore them...even if they start dancing like the young man in the picture. But I didn't ignore Rose. Her piercings couldn't be ignored for one thing, and for another these people always seem to catch me on the way to the bank!

But I had my patter ready too. So I quickly promised Rose that her Amnesty International would be my July charity and she'd get a mention on the blog - and to make up for all my tardiness in posting blogs and donations - and because I can't think of any reason to put it off - I won't wait for Friday but I'll do it NOW!

Colin

The Web's Wonders

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

It's half-term, which means that I have the week off from singing and don't have to keep looking at my watch as 5 o'clock approaches. It also gives me the opportunity to do the family visits, so I went way down South to see my mother, sister and brother-in-law.

I've given up trying to persuade mother to get a computer, but I can usually rely on my sister and her husband to buttonhole me about their website. This time, they were worried that they had slipped down the Google rankings, and could I do something about it.

Now I'm not an expert on Search Engine Optimization or SEO, but some people run businesses totally devoted to it, and you can buy some very fat books on the subject too. It's a game between all the websites out there and the search engines like Google and Yahoo! The search engine computers "crawl" the websites, inspecting and assessing them and awarding points. What do points mean?

The more the "web-crawlers", "spiders" or "bots" like your website, the higher up the search-engine rankings it will appear in response to the keywords entered by the surfing user, like you or me. (Do we still say "surfing" or am I old-fashioned?)

But what do the bots like? The answer to that question is constantly changing, because the bots want to keep the web-designers guessing. It reminds me of biology and evolution studies I did some years ago, when someone came up with "The Red Queen's Hypothesis". This is taken from "Alice Through The Looking-Glass" in which Alice meets The Red Queen, who tells her that "you have to run as fast as you can to stay in the same place". There is a continual "arms race" among organisms so that an equilibrium is maintained. Well, it's the same with websites - they have to be constantly 'tweaked' to keep up with the inspection of the search engines.

• Each of your web pages should have a title. The title is what appears on the 'tab' at the top of the webpage. This title should be relevant to the content of that page. I know that sounds obvious...but you'd be amazed how many times you can find a webpage with the title 'Untitled' because it started life as a Notepad and the designer didn't bother to give it a meaningful name.


• You used to be able to stuff 'keywords' into a list in the metadata of the HTML markup, but this was seriously abused and the bots now don't like it. It's much better to include 'keywords' - the words that you think will be searched for - as part of the content of the page. Incorporate them into the sentences you are writing.


• The bots like well-designed webpages. Good design has been a matter of much debate over the years but some guidelines are now established by the World-Wide Web Consortium, commonly known as W3C. The main principle is that of separation of content and styling. You should have the bare HTML content or 'markup' in the body of the script, and its styling kept entirely separate in a 'stylesheet'. There are numerous books written about this - make sure you find a book that goes into HTML and CSS (Cascading StyleSheets)

You may have noticed the Recommended Links over there on the right. If you're thinking of trying web-design, I really do recommend HTML Dog. I've no idea what the dog has to do with it, but the site has some excellent no-nonsense advice and examples. And WebPagesThatSuck is just what it says - a collection of the worst websites known to Man - but the editor does pass some very helpful comments about why the sites are so bad and so you learn what to avoid!

Colin

Never a dull moment

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

A thin couple of weeks on the computer tuition business. It's taking some time to pick up again after Easter - only eight lessons last week and a record low of three the week before.

To put that into perspective, I averaged 7.5 lessons per week throughout 2010 - that's a raw average over the 52 weeks despite the fact that I actually teach only 46 complete weeks in a year. I've been maintaining an average of 10 lessons per week this year up to Easter, and that's including a halfterm break that I had.

So it's been a bit sparse lately - but am I downhearted? Of course not! Non-contact time (you can tell I was a teacher!) is an opportunity to get out there and advertise....spread the word....stick leaflets through doors!

I'm letting the local Hereford freebie paper carry my advert now, so when I go a-leafletting I target the further-flung villages. I've mentioned before what I look for in a village or street and since then I've developed a shameless research technique! Rather than cast around "in the field" as it were, driving up and around areas to see if they look likely, I first go to one of those websites where you can search for properties for sale. I put in the name of the village or town and ask it to search for houses for sale between £250,000 and £450,000. From the results I can get a hint of the streets to concentrate on!
You can find the postcode for the street, put this into Google and it will give you a map. Drag the little 'street-level man' onto the street and you can literally see the style of houses before you leave the office!

Shameless? Nosey? Yes! But it does save a lot of driving around. The price bracket represents the sort of householders who take my services.

Houses above half-a-million tend to have larger acreages, longer drives, and the occupants have paid that sort of money for seclusion anyway, so you have to consider whether it's worth walking all that way.

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And to bring back another aspect of leaflets I was bitten by a dog last week! I was blitzing a well-known town in Shropshire. Things had gone well - I'd not been rained on too much, I'd had a good coffee and cake and discovered the best chocolate shop in the country. And on my way back to the car I thought I might as well put leaflets through the doors I passed.

So I was criss-crossing a street - to save having to walk up and down it - and remembered a dog barking as I put a leaflet through a door. I crossed over to do a couple of doors....and when I crossed back I couldn't remember if I'd done no.27 or 29 last. So I thrust a leaflet through the letterbox....and teeth closed on my fingers! Yes, I'd done the house two minutes before. The wretched dog was alerted by the first leaflet and had obviously been waiting in hope. It seemed OK for a minute but then the fingers started bleeding and I had to complete that street left-handed. Who wants a bloody leaflet?

Some people do have the courtesy to put notices on the gate or the door "Beware of the dog". One thoughtful person provided a bag, hung from the door-knocker, and an explanatory note "Please put mail in the bag. Dog will eat it". For my part, I always make sure that my leaflets don't poke out of the letterbox, and I often see notices asking for mail to be pushed right through.

I haven't yet seen it yet, but it will make me laugh if ever I do:

"Beware of the dog" and "Please push all papers right through" on the same door!

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The other notice that used to make me pause is "No Junk Mail". I now ignore this...and am longing for someone to challenge me about it! I'd love the chance to retort that I don't deliver 'mail' and that I make a lot of effort to deliver information in person to your door....etc. etc.

Indeed, I have received one answer-phone message about this last year and I must admit that I enjoyed writing an apologetic letter, enclosing a stamped addressed envelope and requesting that he send the leaflet back to me. Heaps of coals of fire!!!

I'm also waiting for "Can you read?" so that I can come back with "Oh sorry, yes. I'll go slowly - it says My Computer Tutor, one-to-one tuition..."

Colin

Emailing Photos

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

Oh dear! I said in my last post that I'd comment more on photos in emails, but I didn't realise that I'd have to go into this quite so soon. But there's no time like the present and anyway, events have forced me into it.

I sent my brother some of the photos I took of his house last week - on reflection it seems a strange thing to do, sending someone pictures of his own house, reminiscent of "coals to Newcastle". Now I use a mail client - Outlook Express - and yes I'm still using Windows XP because...well, it works and I've got used to it! When I send pictures as attachments to an email, I start from the picture(s) - not from the email - and make use of the Windows re-sizing facility.

I select the pictures and then right-click on one of them for the context menu. Pointing to the 'Send To' option opens a sub-menu, and from there I click on 'Mail Recipient'. (You might find 'Email this file' in the Folder Options panel if you have it open)

Windows then takes over and a little dialog box opens, asking if you want Windows to make the pictures smaller.

Yes, I do!

If you're trying to email pictures which you took on a digital camera, the photos are likely to be in the order of 1-6 MB in size. I wanted to send my brother 11 photographs and they added up to about 40 MB, which for an email attachment is enormous! But taking the Windows re-sizing option reduced each picture to something between 40 and 100 kB, so the total was about 700 - 800 kB. That's still less than one Megabyte!

And off they went - the email spent about 5-6 seconds in the Outbox...and was gone!

I know my brother received them because I eventually managed to read his reply, thanking me for the pictures. I say 'eventually' because I checked my mails this afternoon.....and waited....and waited...and waited as Outlook Express informed me that it was 'Receiving mail...' After 15 minutes I realised that something was causing some trouble, so I stopped Outlook Express and went directly to my mail server. (It's always helpful to be able to use webmail even if, like me, you don't normally like it!) Sure enough, my brother had written me an email - and attached three photos for me to see. They added up to more than 10 MB, and that was what was taking so much time to download.

So I'm writing to him to thank him for the email. But I've had to delete the email from the mail server so that it doesn't block any other mails I might get tomorrow. And of course that means that I haven't managed to download his photos, although I have managed to see the 'thumbnails'.

And perhaps I'd better send him a few tactful instructions as to how to send photos by email.

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I'm not sure if there is an easy solution to this problem if you use webmail. There are pros and cons for using webmail and for using mail clients, and a definite pro for mail clients is that you can easily re-size photos before you send them. Other popular 'mail clients' are Outlook, Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail, Thunderbird, Eudora and Pegasus. I play with Thunderbird for practice but I haven't tried Eudora or Pegasus. I've recently come to the conclusion that Windows Live Mail is better than Windows Mail - although I can immediately think of serious errors in both of those. But, as I'm learning to say in these posts, that will have to be another story!

Colin

A Week of Bank Holidays

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

It's good to have a break, so I went away on Easter Monday to see my brother in the North of Scotland. Andrew lives in two interesting places - Findhorn, East of Inverness, and Scoraig, which is West of Ullapool. They are about 100 miles apart, and the last 3 miles to Scoraig he has to do on foot!

You can read about the Findhorn Community here.

April Charity

It was my first visit to the Highlands and I was impressed by the grandeur of it all. There were several names that I found I already knew - Dalwhinnie, Ardbeg, Glenlivet, Glenfiddich - yes, I have long had a taste for the Highlands! Which is why a notice in the Findhorn shop caught my eye. It was advertising a Whisky Tasting session in support of John Farrington's fundraising for Child Reach and as yet again I was looking for a charity to support, I made the decision that this would be My Computer Tutor's April Charity.

So there you are...three links to follow if you're interested!

The Bird Spot

Of course the first thing I pack when I go away is a pair of binoculars. I'm not a twitcher or lister - I don't go chasing all over the country after rare vagrants like some do - I just enjoy seeing what's there. I'd always thought that as soon as you cross the border you'll see Hooded Crows. Well, I did see them but I had to go well North of the Border. Perhaps my bird book is out of date...here's a 'hoodie' I photographed at Findhorn:

This is actually a 'crop' of my original picture, taken from about 30 yards away with my digital camera. The pictures it takes come out at about 5-6 MB so there's a lot of definition and I've found that I can take pictures of birds at some distance and then crop them using Microsoft Paint.

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I took this picture of a Great Black-backed Gull at Scoraig - just for fun really, the bird isn't that unusual and certainly not limited to Scotland - but I wanted to use this long-distance technique. This shot was at about 60-70 yards and shows that you can pick up some 'extras'.

I was concentrating on the gull, but when I came to edit it I discovered that I'd also photographed a Wheatear - over to the right.

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I was really thrilled to see this bird while we were eating lunch at a pub overlooking Findhorn Bay. I once saw an Osprey on the River Wye at Hereford and I've seen loads in Florida, often with a fish in their claws, but I'd never before seen an osprey fishing.

And this is what they look like as they try to hover before they dive. The one I saw made two attempts at catching something but he was being pestered by a bunch of gulls at the time so I'm not sure if he had lunch at the same time I did!

I didn't realise that they dived so steeply - the films I've seen give the impression that they make a shallow 'glide and grab'. But there you are...I'm always prepared to learn!

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Photos and Email

Just to make a tutor-y sort of comment in case you think that this blog is drifting off with the birds (Oh yes! I heard my first cuckoo of 2011 at Scoraig last week!)...
Many of my clients want to send photos by email, and still more clients receive photos via email from well-meaning friends and family. This is fraught with difficulty, especially if you're using web-mail. I am doing my best to advise clients not to send pictures "straight off the camera" because, as an email attachment, a digital picture can be enormous. I tell them that as a general rule, anything over 1000kB (1 MB) is going to cause problems.

But it's still holiday time in UK, so I'll save the techy stuff for later.

Colin

Easter

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

This is the third Spring for my business, and I'm coming to the conclusion that April is the most difficult month of the year. I suppose it's a combination of Easter and improving weather. For a start, I get tied up with other commitments in Holy Week - rehearsals and services in the very middle of the day - so that eats into my teaching time. So tomorrow, Maundy Thursday, the morning is completely taken up with singing. Then the middle of Good Friday is also devoted to a service - and anyway a lot of my clients observe Good Friday as a holy day rather than a holiday, so I wouldn't expect them to book lessons.

And with the weather improving, people are more prepared to travel and visit...so my clients either go away or stay home and entertain family. On top of that, the grass is growing, the gardens are burgeoning (I love that word!) and it gets more tempting to venture out there rather than stay indoors at the computer.

I expected Christmas and New Year to be the difficult time of the year, but I've found that people want lessons right the way up to 23rd December and then things pick up again straight after New Year, with January always being a good month.

So April's a bit of a dip in the turnover. But that's the way it goes, and I have to accommodate it. Ah yes...talking of 'dip', here's an interlude:

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This month's bird

Saw a dipper last week - and thought how smart he looked, bobbing up and down in the middle of a stream.

A very dapper dipper!

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Yes, Easter's a little unpredictable with the clients. I've had a few drop out this week - illness, builders(!) and families the main excuses. But they've all re-booked for May, so all is not lost.

And I need a break too, so I'm visiting bonny Scotland for a few days as soon as Easter Day is over and sung. We have three Bank Holidays in the space of eight days, so why fight it? Give yourself a break!

Colin

March Charity

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

I know this post is a bit late, considering March is 15 days ago, but I did actually get March's charity sorted out in March. It's just that I'm late in telling you about it...

A letter came through my door, announcing that a Hereford postman was going to run a marathon for The Haven. This is a charity that supports people who suffer from breast cancer - I say 'people' because not all of them are women.

The postman is Mike Chandler and you can read all about his efforts and the text of the letter that his colleagues posted through doors by clicking on the link. He and his mate Glyn Jones have raised thousands and thousands of pounds in the last few years.

I must put in a word for postmen and women generally. They turn out in all weathers to deliver the mail and I feel so sorry for them when I realise that a major proportion of the weight they have to lug around must be junk mail!

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More on email...

We all suffer from 'junk' emails. Some of my friends say that they receive "hundreds of emails a week...most of it junk"

I do my best to advise my clients about junk email. A lot of it is bona fide advertising from organisations that they have subscribed to: online shopping, for example.

I do tell them that when they first sign-up for anything, they should watch out for those little check-boxes that offer to "keep you informed" by email or ask you whether you're willing to receive garbage from "third-party organisations". (They don't say 'garbage' of course....but it will be!)

You do have to watch these checkboxes. Sometimes they are already 'ticked'...and you have to read carefully to see whether a ticked box means Yes or No.

I also point out that a bona fide advertiser should provide the opportunity to 'unsubscribe' from all their emails. You have to scroll right down to the bottom of the email - and the unsubscribe link is usually very small - but it should be there.

Colin

Rogue Mail

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

I've had a few new clients recently to whom I've promised notes on using email. I did this quite confidently because I have 25+ pages already prepared, and it's just a matter of printing out copies, laminating them and putting them into a presentation folder.

Or so I thought...

These new clients have recently bought computers - Windows computers with the Windows 7 operating system. Now, if you're in the computer tuition business, you'll know that you meet all kinds of computer systems as well as all kinds of people. And it's the variety of systems that cause far more trouble than the variety of people!

Microsoft had two 'mail client' programs in the Good Old Days - Outlook and Outlook Express. Fine! They worked on Windows 98 (RIP) and they worked on Windows XP, which I still use on my desktop PC. Then Microsoft brought out Windows Vista with much trumpeting. They also brought out Office 2007 which causes all kinds of problems of its own. Further to their policy of "If it ain't broke...fiddle with it" Microsoft made sure that Outlook Express wouldn't work with Vista and brought out 'Windows Mail' instead. Actually, Windows Mail is very similar to Outlook Express, so the changeover was pretty smooth, but Vista was a disaster and Microsoft hurriedly put a few things right (like a Shut Down button, for example!) and called the whole thing 'Windows 7'.

Hey! Guess what? Windows Mail won't work on Windows 7! Microsoft brought out a thing called "Windows Live Mail" instead.

So let's pause for breath and review what we have out there: There's Windows Mail and Windows Live Mail, which are mail clients, and there's Microsoft's webmail service which used to be called Hotmail but now they prefer you to call it Live Mail - not to be confused with Windows Live Mail, of course.

Now I've done my best to keep up with all these. I've prepared exhaustive illustrated (screenshots) notes on Outlook 2003, Outlook Express, Outlook 2007, Hotmail, Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail and Live Mail (not to be confused with Windows Live Mail) Well, of course not. I mean - how could anyone get confused?

But now...Microsoft have updated Windows Live Mail. That's the mail client Windows Live Mail, not Live Mail like Hotmail....clear? Yes, they've updated it so that instead of the relatively friendly menus it used to have, it's now got that Ribbon-thing that they introduced with Office 2007

Which means that I have to get down to work yet again on a Microsoft mail system. The most time-consuming thing is taking and editing the screenshots. And I can see that I'll need even more pictures to demonstrate to users that you can get rid of that default 'Calendar' and you can get your Contacts if you make some effort on the 'View tab'. That's all before we start actually looking at the Inbox and how to send a mail etc. etc.

But the most embarrassing thing that I have to explain - on Microsoft's behalf - is that my new clients have to get in the habit of clicking on 'Inbox' before they close Windows Live Mail. This is the only way to make sure that when you open Windows Live Mail again, you go to the Inbox. As it is, Windows Live Mail returns to whatever folder you were last using.

Starting at the mail Inbox seems such a basic design requirement - and Microsoft just plain forgot!

Colin

February Charity

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

I know it's March now, but nothing "presented itself" as a charity last month. I keep a Big Book of Excuses, so here's one I've turned up at random:

February's a short month, so I didn't have enough time to think of a charity.

But that doesn't mean to say that I miss February out. I remember last summer I got seriously behind with charities and made three donations in the one month to catch up! So today the sun was shining in Hereford, one client had postponed a lesson and suddenly I had the afternoon free to drift into town. The place was staked out by young people wearing Concern Universal bibs and sure enough one of them sidled over to me in that engaging way they cultivate as part of the training. Lucy had run a half marathon yesterday for Concern Universal, which shows real dedication. And she bounced around telling me about Malawi and Brazil and community self-help etc. etc....you can read more in the link above. I never let them get to the standing order bit - so I launched into my tale of my monthly quest for a charity and how I'd failed to find one for February....but hers was going to be it!

And so it shall be. I gave her my business card and said that I would be writing this blog, so - if you're reading it Lucy - HELLO!

I'd gone no more than 50 yards across Hereford High Town and another young lady blocked my path. (I know, it's always happening to me!) So I explained to her that I'd already promised to donate, and she said I could do that at the office round the corner. So the UK branch of Concern Universal is in Hereford! And now I know where, I realise that I walk past it most days!!

So I gave Dani my business card too, and if she's reading this blog....HELLO!

Colin

Of Mice and...'Human Interface Devices'

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

I meet so many laptops in my travels. Well, of course, the modern laptop is ten times faster, larger in memory and more powerful than the lumpy PC I first had back at the turn of the century.

Ten times? At least......!

And I suspect fewer and fewer are actually carried around on the train now. More and more are "the home computer" - you don't need a dedicated desk or table and they're easy to stow away in a drawer.

But...oh dear, the touch-pad. I'm sure that most of the frustration experienced by my clients, those new to computers, is caused by the touch-pad.

It is so "touchy"!

If you're beginning to find your way around a laptop, you are understandably cautious, tentative...dare I say nervous? So I find that my beginners are tickling the touch-pad to move the pointer - effectively tapping on it. And if you're not sure where the pointer is at the time...and you're gently tickling/tapping the touchy touch-pad...ANYTHING can happen!

A tap on the pad can be interpreted as a left click and this causes all kinds of unintended interruptions. So on Tuesday I sold a mouse to a client. I've been carrying a mouse around with me in my bag for many months now, and it's been very useful to plug it in and give the client the opportunity to try it. This time, the lady was so pleased with it I said she could keep it. I'd bought it from a very well-known PC emporium when it was just under £10 and she was happy to re-imburse me for it.

So I came home mouse-less, but determined to have one with me at all times - a travelling mouse. I have now placed an order with another well-known company (named after a South American river) for three mice. Suffice to say that this company is a lot cheaper than the one up the road....and free P&P too.

You can pay ridiculous prices for mices but I give my clients these recommendations:

• Get a mouse that's big enough to fit your hand. Small might be beautiful but it's not always comfortable!


• Get a mouse with a "tail". A wireless mouse is cause for one more frustration, apart from the extra expense - the battery always runs out when you're in the middle of something really important!


• Make sure that it has a scroll-wheel. Scrolling is fiddly on a touch-pad and demands two hands - unless you're very dextrous (or sinister!!).


• Make sure that it has a right button, a left button, the aforementioned scroll-wheel....and nothing else! You can get all kinds of extra things to squeeze and push, but it's all unnecessary clutter unless you're a manic gamer.

Price for a simple mouse?

Up the road now: ~£15
Online: £6-7

Colin

HMRC

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

Forgot to mention that January ended with a frantic dash against the clock to get my tax return in. I was quite happy to watch October 31st come and go - the deadline for your return "on paper" - because, I told myself, I'm a computer guy and quite capable of doing my return online, for which the date is 31st January. And of course I told myself I had plenty of time....

But then Christmas comes upon us and then New Year....and suddenly you realise that you've only got the month of January to get all those figures together. Actually, I did tot things up a bit at a time over the New Year. I keep accounts on an Excel spreadsheet and itemise expenses throughout the year as "Advertising", "Travel", "Office" etc. etc. so it was quite easy to add these up. But the HMRC form is so long, and few of their categories match up with mine, so I spend a disproportionate amount of time wondering where to put my totals.

My friendly accountant solved the problem for me at the eleventh hour! She advised me that it's best - for a small business - to lump all your expenses together. The HMRC people have a good idea what your reasonable expenses would be, so as long as you have a breakdown of the expenses on your own records (just in case you get investigated!) it's quite OK to stick it all down as one lump. So I did.

The scary thing about an online submission is that "The Answer" - how much you owe them - is instantaneous! There's no settling back in your chair, swigging the last of the cocoa before flopping exhausted into bed. There's no period of time in which you can prepare yourself for the bill to arrive a few days later. You click on Send or Submit or whatever...and there's the bill:

YOU OWE US £££

It's amazing how much we still need to pay to cover the cost of the Napoleonic Wars! I think that was the original reason for the Income Tax, introduced as "a temporary measure". Hey ho!

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Birds Stop Press!

On my way back from work today I noticed a small group of birds eating berries. Thought they were starlings at first glance, then fieldfares...but not big enough for that...then noticed crests...and realised that these were waxwings.

They were only just round the corner from my home, so came back with the binos to have a better look. Very pleased to see them - my first.

Colin

January

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

January has been and gone - just like that! And what a busy month it's been. One of the best months I've had, with 42 teaching sessions, some updating work on a client's website and now a new website design commission to keep me busy through February

And it's February now - the clock is ticking, since I promised to have the website at least "blocked out" by 1st March. This is going to be another website for a group of musicians who want it to include samples of their music. That's going to be a new technique for me to learn.

Up until now, my work on website design has been sporadic, so each time I have to do some web-work I need a lot of revision. But over Christmas I met two people - both artists - who each expressed an interest in having a website, so if I chased them up over the next couple of months I could keep myself busy with web design to the extent that all the HTML and CSS stuff might sink in and stick more permanently. When I say keep myself busy I mean fill up my evenings and weekends, of course!

January is the Month of Marmalade, and after two attempts to get the stuff to set I now have 7 jars of it. Not nearly enough to last me the year, so I managed to get the last net of Seville oranges from my local supermarket - you know, the orange one! - and am currently chopping up the peel ready for yet another boil-up.

Incidentally, a currently popular topic for my clients is 'How To Print Labels'...for marmalade! Main problem is identifying the correct size of label; there is a vast selection of 'Avery' and other types of labels. I now carry a pack of A4 7x2 for addresses and 7x3 for jam-pots!

Charity for the Month

I waited and waited for a charity to suggest itself for January, and, right at the very end of the month, one did. One of my colleagues, Tim, has MS and so the Multiple Sclerosis Trust is my charity for January.

Colin

Start the Year

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

Happy New Year!

I've made a fairly good start despite the first week of the year beginning with a Bank Holiday. Scotland started with TWO bank holidays!

Many of my clients are "of riper years" and my first of 2011 told me that Bank Holidays didn't mean anything to her, so could she have a lesson on Monday 3rd?
And so she did!

I already had several bookings for January, made back in December, so I was looking forward to a busy week. But it's the season of coughs 'n' sneezes and - sure enough - a couple of clients cancelled this week. Or rather, postponed until over their colds. On the positive side though, the phone has been ringing and I've taken 5-6 new bookings already, so January holds some promise for the computer tuition business.

I've adjusted my local paper advert slightly to offer gift vouchers over Christmas and the New Year...and had one taker! Gift vouchers are available all round the year of course, and I think in future I shall push them a little in my advertising. Take that as a New Year's Resolution if you like!

How's yours going? Business or resolutions, I mean........

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Guest Bloggers

Please be a guest blogger if you like! It would be good to have a few of you posting some experiences here. Bear in mind that I'm running a blog for computer tutors where we can compare notes and perhaps help each other out. Let me know if this appeals!

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The Birds...

I'm doing my best to help the birds through this winter. There seem to be a lot of blue tits in my garden - I think they must be the family that hatched and fledged somewhere near by last summer. I have a visiting blackcap (male) too.


Blackcaps are warblers and should be summer visitors, but about 20 years ago someone noticed that they were 'overwintering' in UK. They are a bit more robust than other insect-eating warblers and perhaps more adaptable in their food.

Long-tailed tits forage through the trees sometimes and today a grey wagtail visited too. I expect he was disappointed to find the pond frozen!