Office Cafe

Switching Mom and Dad to Mac

This was a banner week! Mom and Dad decided to replace their WindowsXP machine with an iMac. Yes, they are grandparents and yes, they decided that they could learn a new operating system. Their needs are normal: e-mail, web browsing, and looking at pictures of their (nearly grown) grandchildren.

The setup was easy (except for Bellsouth’s e-mail). The e-mail setup would have been a little easier if we had the correct passwords. (The ones they had written down were not correct). After a little help from AT&T (which now owns the Bellsouth assets), we were able to get them to check their e-mail.

Sending e-mail, however is a bit of a trick with AT&T/Bellsouth accounts. After scouring the web for a few minutes and working out when to put the full e-mail address instead of just the username portion (the part before the @ symbol), we finally got mail outgoing. Once you know where to put what, Mac OS X’s Mail 3 Application works just great, even with AT&T/Bellsouth.

I got e-mails from both Mom and Dad, so I know everything is working. My mom thinks she may have deleted a bunch of her mail, but I assured her that they were simply in the trash, and could be gotten back if she moved them back to her inbox before the week was out (Mail defaults to emptying messages from the trash after a week).

The best part of switching them to Mac, was … drumroll please … I can now help them over iChat! I can request to take over their screen, move the mouse and help them do whatever they wanted to accomplish, all the while maintaining an audio chat while I help them.

Well, actually, that’s not the best part of switching them to Mac. The best part is that I don’t have to worry about them getting viruses, keyloggers, shopping “helpers”, spyware, and other malware that is often found on Windows machines. I know, they are not non-existent, but my experience (and those of my teenagers on their own MacBooks) has been that viruses are MUCH harder to get.

The part they seem to like best is video chatting. It is so easy with iChat. With our oldest going to college away from home next year, they are looking forward to “seeing” her, even when she is in school.

I rest easier knowing that helping them accomplish anything on the Mac is only a mouse-click away. Not that I mind helping them in person, it’s just that sometimes a small matter can be cleared up in just a few minutes over iChat. And we can get caught up with the latest happenings, all at the same time!

Congratulations Mom and Dad!

Tags: Mac, Think

The Third Place

Over at Coffee Shop Journal, Marla talks about one of my favorite topics. I love to be in the Coffee Shop, just bumping into the people. If you frequent one or two shops with any regularity, you will get to know the people around you. Sometimes you don’t get a chance to know their names, but even so, you nod or smile to acknowledge that they exist. Even that can be a comfort to some lonely soul.

Her blog post is a fun read. She names a few regular characters and a few that just pass through. Take a minute and read it.

And oh, The Third Place? Well there is already a lot on the topic, but if home is the First Place, work is the Second Place, the Third Place is where you hang out: church, the coffee shop, the mall, the park, the bookstore, etc. See Marla’s blog. She describes it in several posts.

Tags: Think, Third Place

Alone But Not Lonely

Today I spent a little time at Starbucks. I had been doing errands and one errand took me to the same plaza as one of the oldest Starbucks in the county. I stopped in to sit and think for a while. I was alone, but thanks to friends who were already there, I was not lonely. Our conversations were brief, but just long enough to connect and get caught up.

It is good to sit and think. An idea popped into my head and fortunately for me, the iPhone works great in this situation. I wanted a quick answer to a technical question, and within a few minutes I was reading a post from someone who had already gone down the road I was about to go down myself.

It is a good time to think about business and family, too. Goals and new ideas can be brought to mind by just looking around the room. This time someone thoughtfully left today’s newspaper on the small round coffee table next to me. I don’t know what new ideas may come from the headlines I scanned or the article that I read. Sometimes that doesn’t come for a couple of days. But just the act of being there usually makes the stop about more than just the coffee.

I do not discount the value of just relaxing. But today I needed mental stimulus. And I found it. I remembered a small project that I had in mind. I needed a part for the next step. And I realized that I had one more stop on the errand trail today.

Tags: Errands, Think

Office Cafe at Starbucks Cafe

This was a beautiful sunny South Florida day. This afternoon, Marla and I spent some time downtown at CityPlace. We sat outside the Starbucks below the Harriet Himmel Theater, which is home to our church’s CityPlace Campus. People were leisurely walking back and forth, shopping, sipping on coffee, eating ice cream and watching the fountain dance to the music.

Today is Sunday, so I didn’t bring any work. But that doesn’t mean that my mind doesn’t wander to business once in a while. Today I thought about the new web server that I installed this week. In fact, OfficeCafe is running on that very server. It was a fun project. More on that another day.

Back to Starbucks. I can usually relax in this situation, and today was no different. But I am reminded that sometimes when I sit in such a place, I look around and think about the buildings around me, the businesses nearby and what improvements, if any, I would make. These thoughts lead me to think about my own businesses and what improvements that I could make today that would lead to a better business tomorrow. It is a good mental exercise. And to think, all I wanted was a cup of coffee! Could that cup of coffee really pay for itself? Even at these prices, it just might!

The thing is, it’s not always about the coffee. Sometimes, it’s about the place where you drink the coffee. We’re going to be talking about ways to mix the fun of the cafe with the productivity that can come from just being there. Won’t you join the conversation?

 

Tags: Enjoy, Relax, Think