Increase Your Personal Productivity With A NetBook

It’s no secret to friends and co-workers that I’m a gadget freak.  I find that technology helps me stay organized and keeps me  in-touch with what’s happening around me.  You can use technology to work more effectively.

A couple of gadgets that I feel are well worth the money are the iPod Touch (or the iPhone) and the netbook.

First the netbook.

Typical netbooks will have a screen around 10″ in size and are very portable – in fact, it makes the traditional laptop look and feel like a desktop!  I purchased a couple of netbooks over the last two years and use both to the max.

I most recently purchased two different HP netbooks:

Both are great netbooks, the differences between the two:

The 110-1030C comes with Windows XP, has 1gb memory whereas the 2140 comes with Windows Vista Operating System and has 2gb memory.  You could upgrade the 1030C for about $50.00 and add an additional 1gb memory.  Running Windows XP 1gb should be enough, but it’s always nice to have more.

Other than that and some technical specs, they are almost identical.  The displays are very clean, and bright and I’ve been able to get anywhere from 6-8 hours of use out of the battery depending on how I use it. 

The one drawback with netbooks in general is that they do not come with a CD/DVD drive.  So you need an external one, here is the one that I purchased:

I am really happy with the Sony DVD – it is slim and can fit into the same sleeve that I purchased for the netbooks.

I opted for a slightly more expensive, slim drive – why would you want to lug around a HUGE CD/DVD?  The slim drive is also USB powered so feeds off of the netbook (this is where you may draw more power if running on battery alone).

Although netbooks are only intended for surfing the web and light applications, I’ve really maxed both netbooks out and run full versions of Microsoft Office Professional on them in addition to several other CPU intensive software packages in addition to an older version of JASC Paint Shop Pro (now owned by Corel and re-packaged as a Corel product).

Running graphics intensive applications does suck power and pushes the netbook to its maximum potential but to now I’ve not run into any significant issues.

The 160gb drive is ample, but I have also purchased a new external hard drive plus I have an older external hard drive from an old laptop that I took apart to make a digital picture frame (here is part 2 of the same post – digital picture frame).

Whatever you decide to purchase, ultimately you want something that helps you become more productive.  I truly find that I can get caught up on personal work with my netbook – I can take it anywhere and combined with internet access I am truly mobile.

Designing A Training Program

Designing a well thought out training program either for supervisors in your team (such as team leads or coordinators) or for your team members can be a challenging task.

Training programs come in all shapes and sizes, there are companies out there that do sell pre-developed “white label” training programs that allow you to take from a base of solid content and customize it to your organizations needs.

As well many large organizations may already have well developed training departments that can help alleviate the challenges associated with the manager in developing their own content.

Regardless of the method you choose, putting together something that will teach and entertain is not easy.

When I develop any type of training for my team, I opt for lots of pictures and explanations so that my agents fully understand the product any limitations (such as support related inquries) along with all the benefits of the product.  I will ensure that they know which of our merchants sell the product, and the denominations it is available in plus any special terms and conditions associated with the product.

Most training that I’ve put together is only a few sheets and is generally sent via e-mail to the team and stored in a central repository or knowledge base that everyone has access to.  Depending on the type of training, we may also include it in our customer service manual.

When you are going to develop your own training material, you need to ask yourself some very basic questions:

• What is the goal of the training?
• At what level does the training need to be delivered?
• Will the training be delivered in a classroom setting, or through an informal e-mail to the team?
• Are images and detailed explanations required?
• What type of formatting?
• What should be included in the content?

These are only a few questions to consider – they all will play a role in the final product.

Regardless of the type of training you are going to provide, you need to ensure that it will fulfill an existing need – in most cases the needs come as you find issues with current processes.  Another method to identify training needs is by using a GAP ANALYSIS.

What is a Gap Analysis?

Just as it sounds – what the gaps in your existing processes?  For example, lets look at a Human Resource documentation GAP ANALYSIS.

You’ve been told that in order for your Human Resources employee files to be considered complete, each employee file requires certain information:

• Social Insurance Number
• Emergency contact information
• Hire letter
• Employee evaluations and review copies
• Company documentation such as confidentiality agreements

Of course there could be much more.

You’ve now got a baseline of what must be in the files.  Working with your HR department you review a certain number of files and find that you are deficient in certain items.  You’ve now identified the GAP and have just gone through a gap analysis.

The next step is to close that gap.  How will you do it?  If you know that you don’t have a hire letter for everyone, or evaluations then you need to methodically go through and ensure that the missing information is completed and put into that employees file.

I am over simplyfying the process – but essentially that is what it is.

You take the same view when developing training materials for your organization or department.

What does the process currently say you have to do.  For each of the steps in that process, do you need training?  If so, do you have some form of training — remember it doesn’t need to be fancy, even a single paragraph or sheet of paper could be the extent of the training needed.  If you don’t have the training, determine what is required and then from there you would begin the development of your training program.

I realize that this post just touches on the topic of developing a training program.  Over the next while I will go into more detail into this topic.

Moving

We are in the process of moving to a new host, that offers some better options for us and the network of sites that we run.

Interested in a great host (we’ve use them in the past) that has some fantastic plans?  Simply visit my Online Internet Business | Internet Marketing related blog and look at the SPONSORS and click on the HostGator advertisement button.

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