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Today I was procrastinating about writing my next article. I went into my secondary email account to clean some things up and see if anything really important had come in.

Because I wasn’t focused on what I should have been doing (or because the universe wanted me to see it, so I could pass this warning along to you), I noticed an advertising email telling me I could make money selling my articles.

I’m always on the lookout for new online (and off line) article sites, so I opened the email.  It had a link to a webpage that gave unrealistic figures for the income you can earn for writing blogs and articles. I quoted REALLY high rates for writing fiction and non-fiction short stories. This pinged the scam alert warning in my brain, but I decided to investigate further.

There was more hype about how you could work as much or as little as you wanted to make the income you chose. AND lucky me, they were having a sale!

Most of their figures were how much you could make per hour. Since no two writers work at the same pace, most projects are measured by words, pages, or complete jobs.

Also, without knowing how well someone writes, making an assumption about income possibilities is impossible.

The normal two week fee was $69. However, right now, and right now only, I could get in for only $2.95. After the two weeks, the cost was ONLY $47 per month.

Later, as I was reading email from my local RWA chapter, I saw that the same company had purchased a Google Adwords ad that showed at the top of the page of my Gmail.

I did some checking online. It seems this company had lots of writers questioning it about a year ago. It also has an affiliate program. That means if you send someone there and they sign up, you get part of the sale.

The Google search results showed an even balance of ads for the sites from the company and the affiliates, and warnings or questions from writers about the company.

Beware of companies that › Continue reading…

Restoring a computer is a process of two steps forward and one step back.

I restored the HP today. I always say that I’m going to document the process and then either don’t or have the file saved on the computer that dies. Of course, I can retrieve the document from the onlive service, but I seem to drive right in. However, something different happens every time. › Continue reading…

What would you do if your computer needed to go in for repairs? Would it totally stall your writing? Do you have a plan for restoring your data or moving your documents to a new machine?

As writers, we are dependent on our computers. Even though I have my Toshiba as a backup, I find that whatever file I need is always on the other machine.

Uploading your working files to Google Documents is a good way to make sure you have access to them no matter what happens to your computer. You can also use Google Documents to share files with your critique partners.

Did you know that when your computer has to go back to the manufacturer, it comes back with the disk drive set to the way it was when you bought it? All your data and settings are gone.

Since I’ve been having these problems, I’ve become paranoid about backing up my data. Everyday this week I’ve done a complete image backup on the HP. However, each day I’ve added more data and even some programs. This meant that I had to create another image. Yesterday, HP sent the machine a message (that’s a “feature” of Vista, being constantly in contact with the mother ship), that I should install SP1 for Vista. I didn’t dare do that upgrade, since I was having problems already. It’s best not to change too many things at once.

I also got a message (or rather the machine did) that they had discovered a problem in the model, and I should contact HP. I’d like to get that problem fixed at the same time. We’ll see if that happens.

I dropped the HP laptop off at the repair shop again today. I don’t know if they will need to send it back to HP or not this time. I have my backup image safe on my external hard drive.

The problem that the microphone input doesn’t work. Recording using the bezel mics or with the input headphone jack generates static and nothing else. The repair folks thought that replacing the mainboard would also fix the microphones. Since the sound problem started long before the mainboard failed, I knew they weren’t related. The audio caused me problems with using Skype for phone calls and doing some audio for my website. However, I ended up using a USB microphone. This made the audio better, so I guess it worked out all right anyway.

Don’t take chances with your work. Back up your data.

Sincerly,

Lynn Jordan