John Dilbeck Musings

A couple of weeks ago, I installed NeoOffice.

Now, to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t replacing Microsoft Office. I quit using Microsoft products over ten years ago and didn’t upgrade after Word version 5 for the Mac, several years before.

I’ve been using Microsoft products seemingly forever. I started with Word version 1.0 on the Mac and I used Microsoft Office on both Mac and PC for quite some time, since Windows 1.0 and Microsoft Office 1.0.

I even wrote a book using Word 5 for Mac that included table of contents and an index, so I feel like I know the product, even if I haven’t used any of the most recent versions.

For most of the last ten years, ClarisWorks and AppleWorks have offered everything I needed, and since I own my own business, I’m not tied to any corporate dictates about the software I have to use.

The only problems I faced were people who sent me documents in .doc format, which I could not read and didn’t feel much of a need to read. If they sent the files as Rich Text Format (.rtf) files, then I could import most of them into AppleWorks - at least well enough to read.

I was perfectly content until last month, but then my needs changed.

I have plans to write a variety of reports and short ebooks over the coming months. I spend a lot of time researching various things and I’m going to write about them and make the reports and ebooks available - some free and some paid.

In the past, I would have written in PageMaker and produced the PDF files by printing to the included Acrobat distiller.

With my new iMac, I can no longer use PageMaker, so I had to look at different solutions.

As you may already know, it is easy to print to PDF from just about all Mac OS X applications, but I discovered something that was very surprising.

It seems that the applications I had available could create active hyperlinks in the docments, but those hyperlinks would not be active when I printed the documents to a PDF file.

I tried AppleWorks, and, while the PDF showed the correct words styled with underlines and blue text, the links were not active; I could not click on the text and go to the URL in my designated browser.

I downloaded Nisus Express with the same results.

I tried Voodoo Pad with the same results.

While researching the problem, I found on a forum (don’t remember which one) that Word would create PDF files with active hyperlinks. That wasn’t an option for me.

So, if Word would do the job, I wondered if there was an alternative that would do what I wanted. I’d been following OpenOffice for awhile, and I was willing to install X11 and OpenOffice if it would do the job.

While researching this, I ran across a project I’d never heard of: NeoOffice.

NeoOffice takes the OpenOffice code and turns it into a Mac OS X application, complete with easy installation, and the Mac look and feel.

Best of all, it wasn’t related to Microsoft and it was free.

The trouble was, however, that it was a 145 MB download, and on my slow dial-up connection, that just wasn’t feasible.

I mentioned this on the NeoOffice forum and several people offered to burn a CD and send it to me. I accepted an offer from one very generous person and a few days later, when the CD arrived, I was able to install and start using NeoOffice in less than an hour.

The NeoOffice team used to ship CDs, but discontinued doing so due to lack of demand.

Linboo.com had been shipping the NeoOffice CD, but when I tried their site, it was offline. I didn’t know if it would come back or not.

Since then, it has, and LinBoo ships a variety of Unix and Linux CDs, including NeoOffice 2.1 and OpenOffice. If I’d waited a day or so, I could have ordered directly from them.

I am perfectly happy with NeoOffice 2.1. It does exactly what I want to do.

At first, I was really disappointed. I tested a short report with multiple hyperlinks, and, when I printed it to PDF, I got the same results I’d been getting with all the other applications I tried. The resulting PDF had what looked like links (underlined and blue), but they were not active.

So, apparently, the fault lies with the Print to PDF feature of Mac OS X. I would say that not creating active hyperlinks is a rather major shortcoming of the programming. I’m surprised that Apple hasn’t fixed this problem.

However, when I went looking through the NeoOffice menus, I noticed “Export to PDF.” That sounded promising.

Instead of printing to PDF, I chose to export to PDF and that made all the difference.

The resulting PDF file has real, active hyperlinks.

Why is this so important?

If I were writing a short report of 10 pages or less, I would have to edit the document and print to PDF. Then, I’d have to load my full version of Acrobat (version 4), add hyperlinks to the PDF in the appropriate places, and then re-save the PDF report.

For a one-off version of a short report, this is not much of a problem. However, the longer the report or ebook, the more the links and the more trouble to rewrite and update all the links. I don’t even want to get started if I have to go through such a complicated process.

I intend to update these reports and ebooks as it becomes necessary, and I don’t intend to go throught this process over and over. I should be able to modify the report and produce an updated PDF with all the links in place, directly from my word processor.

Now, with the NeoOffice export to PDF command, I can do this exactly how I want. Perhaps I’m getting lazier as I get older, or maybe I’m finally learning about this “work smarter, not harder” concept.

I tried a variety of different links of varying complexity and all of them worked as desired when I exported the document to PDF.

I’ve tried exporting word processing docs (Writer) and spreadsheets (Calc) and the resulting PDFs were exactly what I wanted.

Now, I am not a corporate power user and have no need for probably 99% of what NeoOffice provides, but now I have the perfect application for creating reports, ebooks, and even books with tables of contents and indexes.

A side benefit - that some of my friends may appreciate more than I will - is that I can open .doc files directly and they don’t have to send the files to me in .rtf format. I still serve on a nonprofit committee that makes small seed grants and matching grants for fundraisers to small grassroots nonprofits in western North Carolina, and the standard format for sharing information by nonprofits is Microsoft Word.

If you have a broadband connection, you can downlowad NeoOffice for free, or you can get a CD from LinBoo.com.

If you don’t use a Mac, you may want to look at OpenOffice.org or purchase a CD with OpenOffice from LinBoo.

I’ve had no problem with NeoOffice and I spent half-a-day putting the various modules through their paces. The only thing that feels weird is that NeoOffice opens all the modules in one integrated whole and that feels more like AppleWorks than Microsoft Office. As long as your computer has enough RAM, it shouldn’t be a problem. Right now, I have Radio Userland, TextWrangler, Safari, Preview, and NeoOffice all running in a Mac with 512 MB of RAM.

I’m happy with NeoOffice, and I recommend it to you if you want to dump Microsoft Office.

Will it do everything you need or want?

I don’t know. You’ll have to test this for yourself, but the cost is right. There is very little work or risk involved in trying it for yourself.

Act on your dream!

JD

Chris Metcalf has a nice article, How-To: Dirt Cheap Wall-Sized Whiteboards, where he tells us how to create a large whiteboard for pennies on the dollar and a few hours of work.

Want to track that big project, brainstorm your latest idea, flowchart that important process, or just play? Look into this one.

The more I participate at Squidoo.com by building lenses and adding those lenses to groups, the more I see pages on Squidoo referenced in my traffic stats on various sites I have.

What?

I mean that Squidoo is sending an ever-increasing stream of traffic to my sites, blogs, and forums.

Thinking about that, I took a little time this morning to create a new Get A Free Marketing Site lens on Squidoo.

Then, I found several related groups and submitted my new lens to them.

This morning, my lens is ranked at over 180,000. I’m guessing it will jump to about 30,000 or less in the next 24 hours. Then, who knows where it will end up.

To make it a bit more interesting, I added a Plexo module where you can vote for your favorite marketing book on the lens, and I added an RSS feed for marketing articles from 21st Century Articles, my article directory specializing in business, communications, technology, and self-improvement articles.

If you don’t see your favorite marketing book on the list, please feel free to add it.

I have been getting tens of thousands of page views to my Get A Free Marketing Site suite of marketing tools at LinkScout, and I know it has been worth the time and effort - and money - I’ve invested in it.

Therefore, I feel confident in recommending it to you, too.

Act on your dream!

JD

PS. I also recommend that you start building as many Squidoo lenses as you need to promote your business, talk about your hobby, or write about anything in which you are interested. It’s free, and you may well get paid by Squidoo. I earn a small check from them every month, and that’s a lot better than buying advertising, in my opinion.

If you have a blog on just about any topic, you should create a related lens at Squidoo, and don’t forget to use the RSS module to syndicate your blog feed.

It brings me more visitors, and I’m sure it will work for you, too.

I just created a new Site Build It Webmasters group on Squidoo.com.

If you are a Site Build It! webmaster, you are invited to create a new lens about your SBI site and how you use Site Build It to create your online business.

If you create a lens using the above link, you will be submitted for membership to the Site Build It Webmasters group on Squidoo.com.

As long as your new lens is about SBI and/or your SBI website, I’ll be happy to admit you to the group.

(Site Build It! websites, only, please.)

This is a great way to get one-way links to your site and the pages within it.

Squidoo lenses are powerful ways to build one page websites that link outward to other resources. You can even make money while you promote your site.

Do you have a CafePress store related to your SBI website? Add a CafePress module to your lens and sell your wares.

Do you sell products from Amazon.com on your SBI site? Add the top sellers to your Squidoo lens, too.

Feel free to put your 5 Pillar affiliate links on your lens(es).

Let’s all help each other succeed.

Act On Your Dream!

JD

I’ve seen lots of websites and blogs about home business, and I just have to say that most of them do not impress me.

(I’m sure others have said that about what I write, too.)

I met Bryant Sandburg on Ryze.com when he offered his brand new blog for review.

We’ve had an exchange of messages and I get a very good feeling about him and what he has to say.

The blog is new, but shows real promise.

His article on Do affiliate programs work? covers the basics and offers some good advice, too.

I’ve just subscribed to his blog and you may want to go take a look, too.

Welcome, Bryant!

All the best,

JD

I have read reports that the majority of Americans dream of owning their own small business and many would like to run that business from the comfort of their homes.

As someone who has been doing this for three decades, I can vouch for the convenience of working at home and I enjoy being my own boss, for better or worse.

Most people who dream of owning their own small business do not have any experience in owning and managing such a business.

If you have a job, you are responsible for just a tiny part of what it takes to run a business and you have coworkers who do the other jobs. When you own your own business, you either take on all these roles, hire employees to do part of it, or contract out parts to professionals and assistants.

When starting a new business, there is more than enough work to go around and you will find your days filled with many, many tasks. Most of them need to be done right now or yesterday.

What you cannot forget is that you have to find customers and provide service that will keep them coming back to you and, hopefully, referring friends and associates to you, too.

At least half, and maybe as much as three-fourths, of your efforts while starting your small business should be devoted to marketing. If they can’t find you, they can’t buy from you, and if they don’t buy from you, your business will never get off the ground.

I think that is one of the primary reasons so many new businesses fail within the first year - they fail to reach their target market.

Without new customers, your business will survive only as long as you can afford to pay the bills through your investments and other financing arrangements. At some point, you have to reach a breakeven point and start earning profits in order to provide your own living and to repay the money you have invested or borrowed to start your new business.

While I can’t tell you how to do all the things you need to do to get started, I have found a resource that gives you examples of how people have marketed a variety of different small businesses.

If you have read my scribblings for any length of time, you know that I believe blogs and websites are your best marketing tools, if they are done right. However, not all blogs and websites are created equal.

I’ve spent years testing different ways of building websites and the one thing that remains constant is that the people who develop their sites with Site Build It! consistently do better than people who build their sites in other ways.

I know from my own work that it can be difficult to build websites and to promote them. I’ve hosted sites on a dozen or more webhosting services and I’ve suffered the bitter disappointments of fixing hacked sites or trying to get sites running when the host did something that caused many sites to stop functioning correctly.

I have yet to have a single problem with my own site hosted by Site Build It.

I have a lot of experience with programming, HTML, and all the other things that are necessary to know before you can build an effective site using traditional hosting.

What I wonder, is this: Are you willing to take your time and efforts away from marketing your new, or existing, small business to learn all that you have to learn to build your website on a free, cheap, or inexpensive Linux or Windows webhosting service?

Do you have the money to pay someone to build your site?

Do you know others who have done this only to decide that websites are a waste of time and money?

Who will you turn to when you reach a snag, and how much will they charge you to help solve each problem?

Would you like to learn a better way to approach this and learn from others who have succeeded in building their own successful websites that build their businesses for them, without having to master all the technical skills or pay so much money to get someone to do it for you?

One of the best things, in my opinion, of building a website using Site Build It, in addition to all the tools and resources SBI provides, is the free access to the members-only forum where people of all levels of experience help each other to find the success we all want in building our businesses. I would pay the $300 per year it costs to have a Site Build It site just to have access to the forum and brainstorming tools that are part of the Site Build It community.

I’ve long said that Site Build It is the perfect way for beginning online marketers to have the best chance of success. You don’t have to waste all your time and money just to build a site that nobody finds and visits.

But, of course, you are free to approach this however you want.

I have sites built using a variety of approaches. Some get a million or more page views per year, some don’t get a thousand. Some I work on full-time, others I barely touch.

I’ve read, and tried, many approaches recommended by people who say they know what they are doing, only to be disappointed most of the time due to the lack of success in following their methods.

The one constant that I’ve found, is that Ken Evoy knows what he’s talking about when it comes to promoting your business online and he has continued to build Site Build It into the premier system for regular folks to build an online presence that works.

Sure, some people fail with Site Build It, but most people who follow the tried-and-proven techniques and methods built into the Site Build It approach have a much better chance of succeeding than they would using any other method. I’ve watched it happen.

I’ve watched people who had no experience at all build a business that provides a nice income in a year or two.

Sure, it still takes work, but I don’t know of anything outside of winning the lottery that doesn’t require work. And building your online presence using Site Build It has much higher odds for success than “investing” in another lottery ticket.

In fact, if you were to purchase a lottery ticket every day for the next year, the odds are high that you would see little or no return for your efforts.

If you were to invest less than that amount in purchasing a Site Build It account and following the SBI approach to building your online business, I am almost positive that you would see a much better return. Even if your site earned no money during the first year, you would have developed new skills and knowledge that will serve you well as you continue to promote and build your small business.

But, if you follow the plan provided with your Site Build It account, I feel highly optimistic that you will be doing even better than that. A year from now, you may have a site that is bringing in new customers and more revenue.

Still, it’s up to you to decide how you want to build your business, and the success or failure of marketing the business depends greatly upon your knowledge of marketing, providing good service to your customers, and successfully getting the word out about what you have to offer and why you can do it better than anyone else.

Even if you have no intention of buying Site Build It, let me urge you to find YOUR small business and see how others have approached marketing the same type of business using Site Build It.

If nothing else, you will see how it can be done successfully and you may learn new ways to market your business that you never thought of.

On the other hand, perhaps you will find that you are on the right track with your approach and don’t need to make any substantial changes in your plan.

It costs nothing to find YOUR small business and see other approaches for marketing it to an ever-more-fragmented world.

It has been a lot of work running my businesses over the last three decades, but it has been one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever done.

If you truly want to break free and chart your own destiny, choose wisely how you will use your time, energy, and money. Make your plan and stick with it. The odds are against your success, especially if it is the first time you have started a business, but with each effort, you will learn things that will make your next effort more likely to succeed.

At the very least, give yourself the best chance to find success. Use the best tools available and don’t waste your time and efforts on things that just don’t work.

You deserve the best.

Act on your dream.

Over the years, drawing from a wide range of sources, I’ve learned some of the art of building a website that actually earns a profit instead of dying with no traffic.

It hasn’t been easy to find the information and separate the worthwhile from the worthless. Sometimes they’re hard to tell apart before you put them to the test and see for yourself what the results are.

One thing I’ve learned is to listen to Ken Evoy. As time goes by, I listen less to others and more to him.

Why? Because I’m earning money following his advice and often losing money following the advice of others. Plus, I just like reading what he writes. I like his style and the fact that he is devoted to not only building his own company, but also to helping as many others as he can to build their own successful online businesses.

You’ve heard me rave about Make Your Site Sell! and Site Build It!. I’m a very happy customer after buying both of these products and others he offers. When I find something that works, I want to learn as much about it as I can so I can put it to work for me as much as possible.

Ken has just released a new ebook — Make Your Content PREsell! If it had been available, and if I’d know what I do now, I’d have jumped at the chance to purchase this book.

In a little over 130 pages, Ken condenses what he’s learned about designing and building a website that earns money.

It doesn’t have nearly the amount of content as Make Your Site Sell!, but it sells for one-third the price. It isn’t an in-depth guide like MYSS, but more like a “here’s how you do it” kind of friend-leading-a-friend guide for someone who wants to get started or for someone who has tried and not succeeded.

It will help you get started on the right foot rather than floundering or wasting time and money going down the wrong path.

Ken reiterates that it’s quality content that attracts free visitors through the search engines and that content presells by establishing your credibility as a person who knows what you write about. It’s that credibility that presells your visitors and helps convert them into happy customers — over time.

I just finished reading the book. It has excellent insight into what it takes to make a profitable website. He gives numerous, easy to understand examples that make the whole process clearer.

This is NOT a get-rich-quick book.

Ken explains the concepts and tasks that are necessary to build a site, and these things take time and effort. This ebook will shortcut the time it takes to reach profitability, if you read it, learn from it, and put it to work.

The best news? It’s only $10 USD. Not $100. Not $30. Only $10.

Buy it for yourself and tell your friends and family about this great deal.

If you want to build an online business and you’re not willing to spend $10 to learn from someone who has already learned the hard way, you might as well reconsider your dedication to online marketing, and do something else.

As with all his products, it comes with a money-back guarantee if you don’t like it. Where’s the risk?

While it’s too late to change some of my big sites, what I learned in this book will definitely shape my approach to building new sites.

This book teaches the concepts and approaches to marketing and communicating, not the technical things like HTML, FTP, CSS, and the like. There are other books that cover those things, or you could use Site Build It! to create your site and not have to worry about them.

I personally recommend Make Your Content PREsell!.

The May 1, 2004 edition of my Home Business Tips newsletter has been posted.

Congratulations to my SFI sales team for growing their businesses in April!