Category Archives: Working Online

When Windows Explorer Freezes and Your Heart Drops Into Your Shoes

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You ever have one of those moments where your computer just… stops?
Not slows down.
Not hesitates.
I mean stops — freezes, ignores you, and stares back like,
“Yeah, I’m done for today.”

Well, that was me this morning.

One second I’m minding my business, clicking around like a normal human.
The next second Windows Explorer decides to take a nap without warning.
Everything froze.
My stomach flipped.
And I thought, “Oh no. Not today. Not when I just started blogging again.”

I swear the universe has a sense of humor.

The Panic Moment

I clicked.
Nothing.
I clicked again.
Still nothing.
My heart was pounding, my stomach was doing gymnastics, and I was two seconds away from bargaining with the tech gods.

And then — because apparently I do learn things — I remembered the trick:

Ctrl + Alt + Delete ? Restart

Not a forced shutdown.
Not yanking the cord out of the wall.
Just a clean, proper reboot.

And guess what?
It worked.
Everything came back like nothing ever happened, while I was still sitting there trying to calm my nerves. I went straight to AI, explained what happened, and asked why. The explanation helped… but the part that really made me laugh was when it told me that Windows Explorer likes to be a drama queen.

What I Learned (So You Don’t Have to Panic Like I Did)

Turns out Windows Explorer can freeze for all kinds of silly reasons:

  • A folder with too many pictures
  • A thumbnail preview getting stuck
  • A background task having a tantrum
  • A shell extension misbehaving
  • Or Windows just deciding it needs a moment

It doesn’t mean your computer is dying.
It doesn’t mean you broke anything.
It just means Explorer had a mood swing.

The Fix That Saved My Morning

If this ever happens to you:

  1. Press Ctrl + Alt + Delete
  2. Choose Restart and yes there is a button in the bottom right corner
  3. Let Windows reboot cleanly

That’s it.
No drama.
No unplugging.
No screaming into the void (unless it makes you feel better).

The Takeaway

If your computer freaks out, don’t freak out with it.
Take a breath, restart it the safe way, and let it reset itself.

And honestly?
I think the universe was just giving me my next blog topic.
Because the things I’ve learned — and survived — over the years?
Honestly, with everything I’ve been through, I should probably write a book. But for now, I’ll stick to blogging — one adventure at a time.



I’m Back — And So Is the Heart of This Blog

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Hey friends,

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Life has a way of pulling us into new seasons, new challenges, and new lessons — and somewhere in the middle of all that, this little corner of the internet waited patiently for me to return.

Today, I’m stepping back in with fresh energy, a refreshed header, and a renewed purpose.

Over the past months, I’ve been growing, learning, and doing the inner work that makes the outer work meaningful. And now I’m ready to bring that growth back here — to share, to teach, to encourage, and to walk alongside you again.

This blog has always been about connection, community, and becoming the best version of ourselves. That hasn’t changed. If anything, it’s stronger now.

So here’s what you can expect moving forward:

  • More heart. More real stories, real lessons, and real conversations.
  • More guidance. Tips, tools, and encouragement to help you grow, learn, and thrive.
  • More consistency. I’m showing up — and I’m excited to do it.
  • More community. Because we’re better when we grow together.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for coming back. And thank you for letting me come back, too.

Let’s make this next chapter our best one yet.

With gratitude,
Nancy

Starting 2019 Organized

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Well I don’t know about you but I get asked over and over how do you keep up with all the sites you are a member of – well my answer each time is TECP (TE Command Post)  AND this is how I’m starting 2019 organized.

It was time consuming at first but would not have been if I had just joined and added the sites when I first started joining TE’s (traffic exchange)  BUT like most I was focused on getting referrals and earning commissions – boy I had that backwards .

Here is my story and how I’m Starting 2019 Organized – I joined TECP and upgraded so that I could add all my TEs that I am a member of.  You just login and click on traffic exchanges and add your info there – your referral id and login info to the site

Why is this important?  After you have all this info saved at TECP then your life just got easier and more organized.  You can login there and click on TE credits AND it takes just a few minutes and it will show you all the TE’s and how many credits you need to assign OR where you need to surf

This is the same for your banner and text impressions – believe me you will be so glad that you took the time to add your info and really appreciate the time that it saves you.

The feature that I enjoy the MOST is TE Commission tab – that page tells me where I have commissions – how much and the payout of the site  BUT what I love about this it’s like opening up a day of shopping for me as I use my commissions to buy start pages, login pages, and other advertising and that is fun, fun, fun.

Now another feature that is one of the most asked things members ask me – how do I keep all my referral links so organized – well it’s so easy with TECP.  You just click on Referral Links and there is all your sites with YOUR referral link and in alpha order – now how is that for being organized.

ANOTHER benefit of having this is filling in downline builders at the TE’s that I belong too and if you are NOT filling them in you are missing referrals as they work

So here is your chance – starting 2019 organized – what are you waiting for – you will be so glad that you did AND if you need help – Skype me will be glad to help.

Abbreviations and Acronyms

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In the world of texting and people wanting to communicate faster the world of abbreviations and acronyms have appeared.  Well I don’t know about you but I remember when I first seen these – I was clueless – so thought this would make an interesting post – so here goes.

Most of you already have seen LOL (laughing out loud) at one time or the other but here are some that you might have seen, might want to use and impress people that you know them

AFK Away from Keyboard ASAP As Soon as Possible
AKA Also known as ASL Age / Sex / Location?
BTW By the Way B3 Blah, Blah, Blah
B/C Because B4YKI Before You Know it
C&P Copy and Paste BRB Be right Back
CU See you CTN Cannot talk now
DIY Do it Yourself CUS See You Soon
FAQ Frequently asked Questions GR8 Great
FWIW For what it’s Worth IDC I Don’t Care
FYI / JFYI (Just) For your Information IDK I Don’t Know
IDK I don’t know ILU / ILY I Love You
IMHO In my Humble Opinion J/K Just Kidding
IMO In my Opinion JTLYK Just to Let You Know
IOW In other Words L8R Later
N/A Not Available / Applicable MYOB Mind Your Own Business
NOYB None of your Business NAZ Name, Address, ZIP
NRN No Reply Necessary NC No Comment
OMG Oh my God NM Never Mind / Nothing Much
POV Point of View NP No Problem
ROTFL Rolling on the Floor Laughing NVM Never Mind
TBA To be Announced OIC Oh, I See
TBC To be Continued / To be Confirmed OTL Out to Lunch
TGIF Thanks God, its Friday SLAP Sounds like a Plan
THX TNX Thanks SO Significant Other
TYVM Thank You Very Much TMI Too Much Information
TTYL Talk to you Later W8 Wait
WFM Works for Me WB Welcome Back
WTH What the Hell / What the Heck WYWH Wish You Were Here
YMMD You made my Day XOXOXOX Hugs, Kisses, …

Now this is a small sample of the ones that I have run across or use – there are many, many more out there and believe me your kids know them.  So hope that this helps when you run into some of these Abbreviations and Acronyms  in some of the Skype rooms.

Please leave comments with some that you use or have heard that is not on the list – I would love to learn more.

Basics of Your Online Business

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It’s really been strange over the years listening to people wanting to earn online but yet they are looking for the BIG RED EASY BUTTON and that does now exist.  Having run an offline business for more than 25 years and online business for more than 10 years – I want to explain what I feel is the Basics of Your Online Business.

It’s sad listening to people complain about not making any money but yet when you ask them some questions and find out that they are not really treating what they are doing like a business.  So I’m going to run through some of the basics that I think anyone reading this and wanting  to earn online needs to hear.

Think about it – in the offline world if you wanted to earn money and have your own business – what would you do first – you would need a NAME, building, budget for the utilities, budget for advertising, inventory, customers, etc. – you get the idea

Now keep this in mind with your online business and the NAME – that is your domain name of your business.  How do YOU want people to find YOU  you could buy the domain of yourname.com and become a blogger.  If you want to invest in a script and have a traffic exchange, mailer, safelist, etc. then you need to still get your domain name.

You bought domain and now what – well you need to get your site out on the internet and this is no different than paying for a building for your offline business – see I relate the online this way – you need HOSTING – your online building

Now that you have your building you have to have a budget for the utilities and in my “zaney” mind – to me that was the autoresponder, tracker, etc.  As you are growing your business you need a way to talk to your members (customers) and you need to a way to track what is working for you – otherwise you are just throwing money out the door.

Talking about budget for advertising, I don’t know if you have ever dealt with offline advertisers but ads are prime real estate with the prices they charge,  This is where graphics come in for your site and where you are going to advertise.

AND if you think that having your own business is rolling in money – think again and thus the reason for this article.  If you are serious about having your own business, then you need to have money to invest in YOUR business.

Without these things you are going to be one of the people wondering WHY I’m not earning.  Remember this is just my way of looking at things but if you want to earn online these are things that you need to think about.

ONE more thing as I’m see that I’m getting long winded – you have your business open for business – don’t just open the doors and expect people to flood in without getting the word out AND don’t leave the doors open and never be around.

OK ONE more thing – people want to see the owner, they want to get to know you and see that you are serious about your business.  So take the time to update the default pages that came with your script – otherwise your members are just going to think this is same ole same ole.

CUSTOMER SUPPORT is not something you ignore – this is how you build that relationship with your members.  Bottom line, you are going to have to learn to wear many hats and some can handle it but if you think you can’t then maybe you should just become a shopper (affiliate) and yes offline people do earn money for just being a shoppers.

Hope this opens some eyes and you – ONLY YOU – have to decide do you really want an online business.  Remember online businesses are open 365 days a year – 24/7

 

Prioritize With Income Producing Activities

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This is a subject that I hear so many talk about all the time – Prioritize.  First I would like to give you the definition of Prioritize to list or rate (projects, goals, etc.) in order of priority.  Now you are wondering How To Prioritize – well let me tell you a story that opened my eye the other day.

During a webinar the other day, there was ONE thing that was so important and a real eye opener for me – yea even me – as we all can get distracted and loose our focus and then wonder why the money is not coming in like it use to.

When this happens to you, the things that you need to do is go back and see what you are doing and the Prioritize it starting with Income Producing Activities.  Ouch, I know that hurt, huh?  It did for me as I was watching what I was doing and got in the rut of just clicking, doing promos, and keeping Zaney Clicks out there.  Now don’t get me wrong that is very important BUT is is not where most of my income was coming from.

Bet that one shocked you also as most think that because you own a Traffic Exchange that you are rolling in money.  Most of the time the money you bring in goes right back out for the operating costs but that could be another whole blog post.

If you ask other, each will have a different list of Income Producing Activities.  So how do you get this list – it’s simple – go back to your payment processor and click on payments received and then put those sites on YOUR Prioritize List.  I think after you do this you will be surprised just like I was and will then realize what YOU need to do.

Now for me this was a real eye-opener and I have been working very hard this week to get back on focus – thus the reason for this over-due blog post.  Now your Income Producing Activity could be as simple as clicking your PTC sites like Your PTC Biz  like a friend of mine – that is the first thing he does everyday before reading any emails, chat messages or going to Facebook.

So like I said everyone has their own Income Producing Activities – now take a look at what you have been doing and find out if the non-money making things have distracted you.

 

Before you click – READ THIS

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With all the spoof emails, phishing emails, and more and more people trying to get your info on to their list – thought I would write before you click – Read this

Today I got in my yahoo email and thought I show you what to do if you get an email like this and what I do when I get these.

paypalemailThere are a few things that I want to point out in this email and the first is the Paypal logo – this can be easily copied and put in emails.

The 2nd thing is the Dear – most of the time people will use customer and Paypal knows your name and if it is not your name then it’s not from Paypal.

judgingcatNEVER CLICK THE LINK in an email like this – the first thing you should do is go to your Paypal account and see if any of the info is true.  You can look it up by the transaction ID, the dollar amount, the date of the transaction and after seeing that this is a fake email – then this is what I do to help Paypal, credit card companies, banks emails catch these people.

In yahoo you can click on more at the top of your emails and click on view header and copy all that info and then click on forward and copy that into in the email and send it to spoof@paypal.com.  With this header info, this give their fraud department something to use to help track down where this came from.

Now in gmail, in an email getting the header info is little more tricky I think.  When you are in the email to the right of the replay/forward the more button you are looking for is there – a drop down menu.  From that drop down menu you can just click on report phishing or you can get the full header by clicking on showing original.

Hope that this info helps you to be a little more careful before you click – read this and remember that this is the time of the year that more and more of this will pop up in your emails.

Clean up Your Gmail Folders on Auto

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Years ago, I wrote a blog post on how to organize your gmail with filters and I googled and found the blog post and if you have not learned how to do this – you can read about it here  How would you like to organize your emails in your gmail account?

WWRN_Email_091013Well today I want to show you how to clean up your gmails on Auto and if you are like me that have a folder created for each mailer that you are a member of.  Well it can be a bit overwhelming and a never ending job keeping them cleaned out.

First before you create this new filter login to each site and see if the emails can be read on site and yes this will be time consuming but you are sure going to thank me in the long run.  I have found that not all sites will give you a choice to read on site and stop the emails and if they don’t this is what you can do.

Go to your gmail and click on one of the emails like you are going to create a filter and this is actually what you are doing – a new filter for the same file.  Once you know that you can click on the site and get your credits – set up your filter like in the above blog post just click the delete this time.

After you have all that clicked then you can save this filter and what it does is keeps that folder clean and sends it to trash on auto – pretty cool huh.  The only thing that I have seen is that my trash really feels up and I do have to empty it more often but at least I don’t have hundreds of folders full of emails.

Let me know how this works for as I’m loving this because going in a folder and deleting over 8,9 or 10,000 out of the folder takes forever it seems.  You are not only spending the time to clean them out – then you have empty the trash which is also time consuming.

How to Stay Organized With Your Traffic Exchanges

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computercatHere is another one of those questions that I get asked over and over – most that know me also know that I belong to many traffic exchanges (TEs) and I’m going to let the secret out on how to stay organized with your traffic exchanges.

If you have joined many TEs like I have, you have tried spreadsheets, bookmarks and Speed Dial just to name a few I tried to stay organized.  Well did you know there is a site (tool I call it) out there that will show you how many unassigned credits you have at your sites, how many assigned credits you have without logging into all the sites you are a member of.

Now before I let the secret out of the bag let me tell you what else this ONE site/tool does for me.  It also tells me how many banner impressions I have assigned and unassigned.  Yea, it will tell you how many text impressions assigned and unassigned.  Pretty cool, huh?  No more chasing around to the sites to find out – now couldn’t you benefit from a site/tool like this.

fatcatmoneyWell I haven’t told you the best part yet – do you know how much you have earned in commissions on all the TEs you are a member of without chasing around again to see – well  for years I sure didn’t but now I know and I know it by signing into this ONE site/tool.  This site/tool also tells me the payout amounts for each site I have added and yea you can even login from this site/tool (once you have it set up) and do what you need to do. (assign credits, banner impressions, text impressions and even put in a payout request if that is required)

Wouldn’t a site/tool like this be a dream come true and save you soooooooo much time – you can see where you need to surf, where you need assign credits, where you need to request your commissions or know where you NEED to surf all from ONE site/tool.  Ok this site/tool is call TE Command Post.

Shocked you huh?  I know, it did me years ago when I first joined and I know like you – I never took the time to really look the site over as I was too busy chasing around trying to keep up with all the TEs that I was a member of.  One of my BIGGEST MISTAKES!

Now I know most of you surfers know about Commando Surf and the benefits of TECP for that reason but NOW you know the rest of the story.  Believe me it is worth taking the time to sign in and add the TEs referral id and your login info.  Just simply login and click on Traffic Exchanges – you can either start on page one OR just type in the TE that you want to add.  Do you have to join them all – the answer is know – just add the one that you are already a member of – that is the best starting point.

tecp banner

One more tip as there are lot of TEs listed and to narrow the ones down on the pages – on the first page look for this Only show traffic exchanges where I don’t have my referral ID entered.  There is a checkbox by it – you should check that and then the sites that you have entered will not keep showing – AGAIN another awesome benefit of this site/tool.

Ok now you know How to Stay Organized With Your Traffic Exchanges – look forward to seeing you in my downline and if you have any questions just message me.

Are You A Doer?

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doer3So many people ask me all the time how can I do so much in a day, week, etc. and it’s because of a class that I took years ago and the ONE thing that I learned from that class is this quote  “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.”
Benjamin Franklin

With that in mind, are you a doer?
You might thing you are as for years, I thought I was too and then I realized that I kept putting off things, started making a list of things to do, and as I have gotten older even started thinking I’ll do it tomorrow and then CRS the next day because my brain forgot where it stored all that info – thus why the to do list lol.

When I first started working online, I had to train myself to “just do it” and not put things off otherwise they are not going to get done.  It’s so easy to stop what you are doing and maybe yak on a chat platform or while you are surfing – join a new site and get sidetracked.

Now are you a doer?  When you get a chat notice, do you stop what you are doing and answer it or do you stay focused on what you were doing.
Do you join a new site, click the verification email and never set it up or even forget that you join this new site.  This is just a few examples of things I hear and have dealt with.

horseblinders2Well, this is just my opinion sometimes I feel that I have to put on blinders (you know the kind that they put on horses so that they stay focused – well some days you just have to put YOUR blinders on and stay focused.  This is how I get done what I get done – when I have something that I want or needs to get done then I grab my blinders and just get yer done.

So think about that the next time that your chat notification light goes off – stay focused and be a doer – finish doing what you were doing and then mark it off your list of things to do before answering your message.

The next time that you sign up for a new site – finish the job – read the terms, get your downline builder filled in (ohhhhhh don’t whine – just do it – the day that you get 10 – 15 referrals in a row – you will thank me and yes  that does happen) then get your ads set up, your banners set up, your text set up, your profile set up, click the buttons on the site – you will be amazed at what you can learn if your just be a doer and READ about the site that you just join offers.

When you go to a new store or gift shop – you look around, check out all the things that they offer before making a decision to buy something, use that store or gift shop, or tell anyone else about what you found – these sites that you join should be no different.

Another thing that I have also learned that has help me be a doer is a daily schedule – no I’m not saying at 9AM  – I do this and at 10AM I do that – I’m saying a daily list of things that YOU need to do run your business and this will vary with each person.

Yea I know what you are thinking but I’m not a site owner so this don’t apply to me – you are wrong – if you are thinking this way then you need to go backtrack and think about “your why”

why2Well looks like I need to stop this post as I gave you enough to ponder here – I do think that after you think about it you will know the answer to this blog post …are you a doer