Macworld home office companion

391 Pages·1996·74.2 MB·English

by  Vian, Kathi

When you run a home office, you do it all. Now there's one convenient place to turn for all the guidance you need.
Your One-Stop Resource
for Home Office Support
c e
•
.____..om
a n t o n
Find and Set Up the Best Home Office Space
Discover Smart Strategies for
Hardware and Software Purchases
Build Time-Saving Systems for
Contact Tracking, Presentations,
Financial Operations, and
Budgeting
Exploit Your Mac to
Keep,. Organized
Kathi Vian
Howard Bornstein
IDG
BOOKS
WORLDWIDE
MACWORLD HOME OFFICE COMPANION
MAC WORLD
HOME OFFICE COMPANION
by Kathi Vian and Howard Bornstein
IDG BOOKS WORLD\VIDE, INC.
AN INTERNATIONAL DATA GROUP COMPANY
IDG
BOOKS
Foster Ciry, CA • Chicago, IL • Indianapolis, IN • Braintree, MA • Southlake, TX
WORLDWIDE
Macworld Home Office Companion
Published by
lOG Books Worldwide, Inc.
An International Data Group Company
919 E. Hillsdale Blvd.
Foster City, CA 94404
e
Text,art,and software compilations copyright 1996 by Kathleen Vian and Howard Bornstein.
All rights reserved.No part ofthis book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any
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ISBN: 1-S6884-792-0
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For Ken Burke and Chris Schacker
Who helped ztS keep our bome office busy fin·y ears
PREFACE
This book is about your home office-and how rouse your Macintosh to get
the most out of it.
If you own your own business, this book will help you set up your Mac to
manage your days as well as your accounts, and to promote your products as
well as your well-being.
If you work at home while working for someone else, it will help you
acquire the skills to get ahead, from betrer data management to better con
tact management.
lf you're just starting to think about working on your own, it will explain
all the steps from getting set up to getting connected to gerting down to work
in your home office.
About the book
Each chapter has something for everyone. Chapters begin with an overview
of concepts you need to know-from the mysteries of the System folder to
rhe principles of information management to strategies for presenting your
ideas in text, graphics, or even video.
Then come the home office solutions. No home office is rhe same, and
no single solution will work for everyone. Bur you might decide you're a little
like Andy Fine, who spends a lor of his day on the phone, networking, bring
ing people together-and looking after a four-year-old. Maybe you manage
events, like Ellen Gant or conduct research on behalf of others like Susie Hu.
Or you might be more like rhe Oelacruzes, a husband and wife team who
run a deadline-oriented service business with the help of two part-time assis
tants. Or maybe you're like Sam Post with his mail order business.
VII
viii MACWORLD HOME OFFICE COMPANfON
The solutions show you how each of these people has set up his or her
space, hardware, soft\>vare, and system. They show how they've solved their
unique communication problems and rhe strategies they've developed for
organizing their work, marketing their products and services, presenring
information, and managing their money. Andy, Ellen, Suzie, and the rest are
fictional characters. We made them up ro make our points. They may nor be
exactly like rhe real private investigator or the real wedding consultant you
know, but they should give you an idea of rhe kinds of choices you have to
make-and how to make them.
After rhe solutions, we give you rhe nuts and bolts. If you're just getting
starred, follow rbe steps under "Jump Start." Often the hardest step is figur
ing our where the starring line is. We've tried to do that for you-and ro
coach you to get off to a quick start.
lf you've been on your own for a while, you may have reached a plateau.
You think you could use your Mac more effectively. You know there are tools
out there that could help you do what you do better if you just had the rime
to sort through rhem. You wanr to grow. You want your business ro grow.
Look at the section in each chapter called "Upsizing." There you'll find rips
on how ro expand everything from your Mac's memory ro your client list.
You'll find our how ro gain new skills in everything from online research to
online sales.
Then go for a little extra power with our "Power Plays." In each chapter,
we try ro show you special tricks, rools, or strategies. These are hands-on pro
jeers, with step-by-step instructions for getting them right.
And just to keep you at the curring edge, we tell you what we think is
"On the Horizon"-and sometimes not too far away.
How this book is organized
We've organized everything into four parts.
In Part One we start out with four chapters on the basics of setting up
your own office:
CHAPTER ONE Your Home Office Space gives you tips on how to choose
the best spaces in your home for work, as well as sample Aoorplans, legal
requirements, and options for expansion. Power Play: How to use your Mac
software ro draw Aoorplans of your own office space and rry our different
office designs.
CHAPTER TWO The Tools ofYour Trade is a guide to rhe basic equipment
you'll need to make your office work for you. We tell you what to look for in
a Mac and irs peripheral equipment, and include guidelines for calculating
PREFACE ix
your system requirements, finding a source, setting it up, and expanding
your system once it's up and running. Power Play: how to use a Mac spread
sheet program to help you decide whether to buy or lease new equipment.
CHAPTER THREE The Right Applications surveys the types of software
products you'll need to run your home office, with rips on how to make the
best choices, get updates, and fix bugs, as well as tips for expanding your
skills with templates, plug-ins, classes, and user groups. Power Play: How to
set up project worksets to get you working faster- with all the tools and doc
uments you need at hand.
CHAPTER FOUR System Smarrs is a guided rour of the System folder,
with everything you need to know about managing extensions, control panels,
and fonts, as well as backup strategies, security, and utilities for rap system
efficiency. Power Play: How to use a copy utility to schedule quick, auramatic
backups of files you can't afford ra lose.
In Parr Two we help you get connected to the world beyond your office
with two chapters on telephony and networking:
CHAPTER FIVE Tangle-Free Telephony untangles the sometimes confus
ing world of phone-based communication "vith a close look at telephone
answering options, fax choices, data transmission requirements, and even
video conferencing options. We help you figure out how many phone lines you
need and how to use them-and aJI the services that will make those lines
more vaJuable to your business. Power Play: How to turn a Mac into an aura
marie phone answering service with mailboxes that your customers can navi
gate through to find information about your products or services.
CHAPTER SIX \'V'eighing In on the Web gets you Internet savvy in just a
few pages and then walks you through the steps from gerring your modem to
getting your e-mail. It also highlights some of rhe many plug-ins that expand
the possibilities for work on the Web- including URL managers, audio and
video options, and ways to plug applets and animations inro your Web
pages. Power Play: How ra set up your own page and launch it on the World
Wide Web.
In Parr Three we get down to business with four chapters on basic busi
ness tasks:
CHAPTER SEVEN Management by Mac is all about organization-from
your phone book and calendar to complex databases of products and cus
tomers. We zoom in on personal information managers, with tips for choos
ing one that's right for you. And we provide guidelines for setting up your
contact file, calendar, and alarms ro remind you of things you can't afford to
forger. Power Play: How to use a phone book CD and a PIM to build a cus
tom database of potential customers anywhere in the country.
X MACWORLD HOME OFFICE COMPANION
CHAPTER EIGHT The Marketing Plan maps the marketing landscape,
including direct marketing, word of mouth, public relations, advertising, and
using distributors. It gives you the basics of setting up your marketing plan as
well as tips creating a strong corporate ID and making your market grow.
Power PLay: How to create and use effective press releases for free publiciry.
CHAPTER NINE The New Information Game is a tutorial in using Mac
tools to present yourself and your information in the most effective ways. It
helps you choose media and tools, and explores the ways in which you can use
srylesheets, templates, digitizers, clip art, stock media, special effects, and
audio and video to enhance your presentation. Power PLay: How to build your
corporate sryle into your tools for a convenient, consistent corporate identiry.
CHAPTER TEN Fast-Track Finances introduces the basic legal, profession
al, and practical requirements for your business bookkeeping, and then out
lines how to set up your Mac-based books, create budgets, and use spread
sheers to analyze your financial health. Power PLay: How to create a business
plan to guide your own business decisions and attract investors or to just get
a business loan.
Part Four closes the book with two chapters about how to handle prob
lems with your Macintosh when you don't have a corporate technical sup
port group to back you up:
CHAPTER ELEVEN Troubleshooting gives simple, succinct instructions
on what to do when disks don't show up on your desktop, when your com
purer crashes, when applications can't be found, when you ca.n't empry the
trash, when your Mac is slow as molasses, when your printer doesn't work,
and when your Mac isn't communicating with the world at large.
CHAPTER TWELVE File Recovery rakes a close-up look at what can go
wrong with files-and the tools you can use to recover from those problems.
It also gives you step-by-step instructions for using those tools for some of
the most common file recovery problems.
Finally, Resources shows you where to find all the products and services
we mention throughout the book.
Conventions used in this book
If you're the sort of person who likes to scan a page for quick information,
here are some cues to look for:
The Internet is a business hot spot these days, so we use this icon to high
light all the places throughour the book where we talk about the Internet and
how it firs into your business plans. We also use it to mark all the Web and