Facebook!

So today I set up my blog feed on my business facebook page. I signed up for facebook for the SOLE purpose of creating a business page and promoting my business, however, I got sucked into the personal use of it- oops :) Anyhow, my business page has been somewhat neglected so now I'm trying to update it. Actually I'll be teaching a social media for business workshop next week and I thought that if I'm going to teach others how to create a business facebook page and how to use it effectively, I should probably try using mine a little more ;) I'm trying to find all the fun and productive things I can do with my facebook business page so I can help others figure it out too. Some people have a hard time understanding how they can use social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) for their businesses and that makes complete sense if they are not familiar with social networking as a whole! Lucky for me, social networking is a part of my generation and add to that the fact that I'm a pretty quick learner and am pretty good at teaching others, I've found a great new service that I can offer my clients and help them get social networking to work for them! I hope I can help people learn even more about social networking from reading my blog! Have a great day!! ~Cortni www.essentialexcellence.com

Quickbooks and my favorite new Blackberry app!

I've spent my entire work day today learning Quickbooks so I could finally organize my business finances. I got a killer deal on Quickbooks Pro from Amazon.com ($30) so I decided I need to actually set it up because I've been delaying it. Well after learning and inputting and re-inputting all day, all my accounts match and are up to date, which is nice. But I've gotten nothing else done today :( But now I know how to use Quickbooks pretty well!! :) One of the things I wanted to do today was write a blog post listing my favorite free Blackberry apps. I just got a new Blackberry Pearl last month and I LOVE it! I just downloaded a new app last week though that I REALLY love! I wanted a weather app on my phone that would tell me what the weather is like outside and what the forecast is without having to open a browser and going to a weather site. After searching, I found Weather Bug and I LOVE it! The best thing about this app is that it displays the current temperature in your city right on the app icon so when it's on your home screen all you have to do is look at your phone to see what temperature it is outside! I'm kind of addicted to thermometers and finding out the weather so this is a nice feature for me. Plus I live in a city where the weather can change dramatically in just one day (case in point it was 80 degrees on Tuesday and snowing yesterday). So a follow up blog post with my other favorite FREE blackberry apps (because I haven't yet paid for a single app) will be coming soon. For now, I hope you enjoy the Weather Bug! :)

Spring is Here!

Today it is in the high 70s and I'm loving it! Usually Spring comes every year and tends to drop it's nicest weather during the week when I've always been stuck in an office. But this is my first Spring working at home and now Spring means I get to enjoy the weather WHILE I work! My office has moved to my back patio and I couldn't be happier! Laptop+wireless internet+sunshine= my job! I LOVE it!! Check out this pic of my Spring office :)

The Neglecting of My Blog...

So I haven't posted anything to this blog in over a month. I'm not sure that I even have any regular readers, which is understandable considering I haven't been posting anything!! The reason I haven't been posting is because I've been contemplating switching over to another blogging platform since I can't have this blog posted directly on my site due to my host server (Microsoft Office Live Small Business). I can currently put my blog in a frame within my site, but it constantly opens a new Blogger window and I can't link directly to a specific post within my site that way. Alas, I will start blogging more and when I do switch to a new hosting site (or when Office Live Small Business allows blogs on their sites) I will transfer old entries over if I need to. I will start to post more interesting content from now on :)