Spring Cleaning Pays Off

The coming of warmer weather and increased daylight often brings a renewed motivation to get rid of all that has accumulated over the winter months (or years).  Garages everywhere are purged of items gathering dust—that old bike that you always thought you’d use again, or the unopened Christmas presents from well-intentioned relatives.   What if I told you there was an easy and safe alternative to hauling loads to the dump or donation center, one in which you would actually make money?  No, I’m not talking about garage sales.  I’m talking about selling your items on eBay.  Now, I know that might sound intimidating to some, it really is quite practical and intuitive. 

For over 10 years now, eBay has continued to grow as one of the most popular auction sites in the world.  Yet, as with many online forums, there are definitely things to be wary of when selling or purchasing a product, making it essential to educate yourself beforehand.   Instructor Jim Orr’s courses in eBay Buying and eBay Selling give you an in-depth glimpse into the world of eBay.  These tutorials take you step-by-step through the process, addressing topics such as: setting up an account, finding the best pricing option, creating an appealing product description, researching sellers, sneaky bidding strategies, safe payment methods, packaging and shipping, and more!  In addition, you will learn what to watch for in seller ratings, as well as scam emails.  After these courses, you’ll realize there is nothing to fear if you know the ropes- that you really CAN get amazing deals on those coveted items. 

So give eBay try and experience for yourself the satisfaction of profiting from your productivity—in more ways than one!

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Gmail: Email with Intuition

For those of you remaining faithful to your non-Gmail email accounts, you probably see no reason to make the switch.  My Hotmail or Yahoo works just fine, thank you very much.  Now, while KnowledgeCity’s course on using Gmail might not send you running to set up an account, it will present some of the many features unique to Gmail you won’t find in other places.

To all you current Gmail users out there- chances are you have only begun to tap into all Gmail has to offer.  For example, Buzz.  Yes- Buzz.  What is it?  Essentially, it’s Google’s version of Twitter, available to you and other Gmail users.

Or another fun feature is “Labs” (described by Gmail as, admittedly, “some crazy experimental stuff”).  Here, users create gadgets for other users to download and try out.  For example, users can download a gadget that automatically translates emails, or one that expands your selection of emoticons.  There’s even a gadget that, when enabled, helps prevent you from sending reckless emails late at night by forcing you to perform semi-complex math problems before hitting “Send.”

Of course, it’s also important to learn the essentials, such as:

• Creating folders
• Labeling emails
• Setting up your vacation responder
• Creating and sharing Google Docs (or even publishing them as a webpage!)
• Reporting Phishing
• G-Chat

And this only scratches the surface!  Learn more at KnowledgeCity.com.

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Achieving Financial Freedom

More often than not, finances are the largest source of stress for both new and expanding businesses.  Keeping track of vendors, customers, invoices, bills, and receipts can quickly and easily become overwhelming.  Unfortunately, when it comes to finances, there is little room for error and a little disorganization can have devastating consequences.  For this reason, Quickbooks, the leading accounting software, is popular among businesses from all industries.  The systematic simplicity of this program relieves a world of stress, organizing all that a business could need when it comes to finances and managing accounts.  KnowledgeCity’s Quickbooks 2010 Introduction course takes you step-by-step through the process of customizing your financial record-keeping to best fit your industry.  This course teaches you to navigate Quickbooks’ multiple organizational databases, generate reports and print necessary bills, invoices, and paychecks.  So eliminate those stacks of paper, files and directory books and consolidate your business’ transactions into one all-inclusive program!  (Also, for you job-seekers out there, mastering Quickbooks is highly marketable to potential employers!)  Learn more at KnowledgeCity.com.

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Mac Mania!

With the release of Apple’s latest iPad, more and more people are being introduced to the Macintosh interface.  Even die-hard PC users have found it hard to resist the siren song of the slim, sleek and portable touch screen with all those intuitive applications.  For anyone looking to purchase a computer for the first time or to make the switch and go Mac, KnowledgeCity’s Introduction to Macintosh course is designed especially for you!  This course provides an engaging overview of the various features and fundamentals of using a Mac.  You’ll learn about programs such as: 

• Safari:  The Internet browser for Macs, featuring the easily accessible Top Sites—a convenient home base showing places you have browsed or bookmarked.  This way, you can see what is on your favorite web pages without having to fully load them.  In addition, any sites with new content will be starred. 
• Spotlight:  A fast way to open programs and the best way to search for documents—just a click away.  (For example, a search for the word “mail” will show: email, a definition for the word “mail,” the system preferences that have something to do with mail, documents featuring the word “mail,” email messages that mention “mail,” etc.) 
• Time Machine: A backup system that automatically stores: hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for all previous months.  This way, almost anything “lost” can be tracked down and restored.

You’ll also learn how to organize and search for documents, set up energy and security options, and to use programs such as iChat, iPhoto and iTunes.  The course concludes with a section on Windows vs Macintosh, highlighting key differences between the two operating systems—something subject to much debate!  Go to KnowledgeCity.com to see what all the fuss is about.

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Calling All Designers!

Take your marketing materials to the next level with AdobeInDesign!  While InDesign might be one of the lesser-known programs of the Adobe suite, it offers some unique features that combine programs like Photoshop and Illustrator to create professional-looking fliers, newsletters, brochures, and more.

Learn how to enliven your documents with drop caps (those large letters that often begin the paragraphs in magazines), and how to create and save your own object styles to frame images.  Here’s a sneak peak at just some of the important lessons covered so you don’t have to learn the hard way…

Essential Reminders for Working with Images:

• Pay to download high resolution graphics or images:  If you want to do any kind of printing with images you get off the Internet, you’ll need to make sure they are high resolution.  Images are measured in DPIs, or dots per inch.  The quality of the image, or the number of dots per inch, is evident when you go to print out that image.  Your computer monitor displays everything at 72 dots per inch, and so most images you get off of the Internet are also 72 DPI.  BUT digital press uses more DPI than that—like 300 DPI.  So if you try to enlarge a 72-DPI image on Photoshop, it will have to randomly come up with 228 dots that will not be consistent with those in your image! 
• Know the image resolution your printer requires:  Once you know this, you can go into the program you’re working with and appropriately size the image.  This will save you time and money.  One of the biggest mistakes people make when working with images in Photoshop is not checking and changing the resolution. 
• Convert colors from RGB (Red, Green Blue) to CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key, or black): Anything going to the press has to be in CMYK
• Understand the difference between digital zoom and optical zoom:  If you have ever tried to buy a digital camera, you probably have seen two different zooms being advertised.  Digital zoom represents the camera’s ability to enlarge the image on the display screen, while optical zoom represents how much the camera can actually zoom in on the image.  With optical zoom, the picture quality remains the same, allowing you to later enlarge or crop the image without losing quality.

Check out KnowledgeCity to learn more design tricks and features to jump-start the creative designer in you!

Butterfly image from:

http://gotprint.net/g/showStaticPage.do?page=preparing_files.html

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