telecommute

Legacy.com is looking fro people to screen online condolence messages through their at home computer. These telecommuting/work at home positions will start at $10 per hour.

In a nutshell, Legacy.com hosts online Guest Books for newspapers where friends and family members can leave messages to express their sympathy or other personal messages. The Reader will be responsible for screening these messages prior to them being posted online to ensure that the message is appropriate and does not contain any offensive information.

The positions are part-time – 20 hours a week. All shifts are generally available, but evening shifts are usually needed the most. Shifts are typically 4 or 5 hours.

To be considered for the telecommuting position, your computer must have Windows 2000 or XP and be running high-speed internet. You cannot be using Microsoft Vista or a Mac.

The Reader should possess strong reading and decision making skills. The Reader should be self-motivated and have a 4 year degree or equivalent.

Currently, the telecommuting positions are only be offered to residents of Illinois, Indiana, or Wisconsin.

I wrote about Indeed.com, the mega job search website, yesterday. Well, they added a new search criteria that is sure to be very popular.

Now, you can search by estimated salary. That’s right, by salary that Indeed.com estimated for the search terms in addition to by job title, company name, keywords, and location all in one spot. And you still get results from all the major job boards, company career web pages, newspapers, and associations.

For example, to locate all Office Manager positions estimated to earn an annual salary of at least $40,000 per year, just key in Office Manager $40,000. Indeed.com will do the rest.

Per Indeed.com, they estimate salaries by using a proprietary methodology. Since many job postings don’t contain salary information, the proprietary methodology that Indeed.com uses is based on an analysis of similar job listings that include salaries.

This estimated salary feature is still in Beta, so they are requesting your feedback.

Have you heard about the job search site called Indeed.com? It was ranked one of the Top Ten websites of 2007 by Time Magazine.

Indeed.com is a job search engine. But not your ordinary job search engine. Indeed searches multiple major job boards, newspapers, associations, and company career web pages to report on your search terms and criteria.

You can search by job title, keyword, or company name as well as the optional city, state, or zip code. It compiles all results from many different sources such as Career Builder, Pro Blogger, Monster, Yahoo, Dice, newspapers, and company websites.

A nice feature of the site is that you can save your search criteria (keyword, job title, company name) and you can have the results delivered to you through an RSS feed or email.

It’s great! If you are looking for a job, try Indeed.com. You may just find what you are looking for!

So you just landed your first home-based position that you have been dreaming of, but now reality sets in and you are wondering how you are going to make this transition from an office job to a work at home job. Working from home isn’t for everyone. You need self-discipline, a high level of motivation, ambition, organization, and great time management skills to name just a few traits. Loving what you do helps too.

Now, there is a misconception out there that working at home in your PJs is all fun and games. I am here to say that it is not. It’s work – real work. If you don’t do the work – you don’t get paid. Simple as that! It’s like any other job – except that you do it out of your home office versus the company’s office. However, a few tips can help you stay on track while working at home.

Mini Goals

Are you one of those telecommuters that are prone to being distracted? Do personal phone calls, tv, kids, pets easily pull you away from your work? If so, having mini goals can help. For example, you can say to yourself, or better yet write down, that you won’t go down to the kitchen to get that second cup of coffee until you have written 2 articles, transcribed 30 minutes of audio, coded 25 medical records, logged 2 hours of customer service time, or written 5 blog posts.. Whatever your job is, make these mini goals before taking a break.

Take breaks/Eat Lunch

On the flip side, there are some telecommuters (like me) who tend to work too much. For some of us who love what we do, pulling ourselves AWAY from our work is actually tough. This is actually a common telecommuting habit. Some of us need to be forced to take a break. A tip here is to make it a point to have lunch, BUT eat it away from your desk. Try to do this at least 3 times a week instead of eating in front of the computer everyday.

Set and Stick to a Schedule

For both types of telecommuters, sticking to a schedule is key. Get up the same time every day and “arrive” at the office at the same day each day. Try to maintain the same lunch hour and “leave” the office around the same time everyday.

So, if you find yourself struggling at your telecommuting job either by being distracted or by working too much, try some of these tips. Either way, they could help.

If so, you may be interested to know there is now a virtual equivalent of those yellow “sticky” notes to add to your addiction. The manufacturer of this ever popular office staple, 3M, now has a virtual version of the post-it notes to use on your PC’s desktop. And best of all, it is free!

The virtual post-it note freeware is aptly named Post-it Software Notes Lite. It mimics the famous classic sticky pad notes. You can link an alarm to a note, change font size and color, but you stuck with the classic yellow color of the notes. You can even add pictures to the notes and print the notes as well.

The small program sits in your system tray. To pull up a new sticky note, just hover you mouse over the icon and use your mouse to peel off the new sticky note. It even mimics the actual sound of peeling a real post-it note.

Keep in mind this is a very basic software program. There are other programs out there that offer more extensive functionality and features but come with a price tag or monthly subscription fee. However, if you are just looking for a free basic “virtual” version of the classic post-it notes, then this free tool may be for you.

To download this freeware program, head on over to Cnet.com and search for Post-it Software Notes Lite. As of the date of this writing, there has been 1,703,538 downloads.

Obtaining a work at home or telecommute position can be difficult. Competition is fierce for these jobs. Oftentimes, the hiring manager or recruiter gets substantially more resumes for a telecommuting/work at home/remote/virtual position, that he or she gets for a traditional outside of the home job.

So, what can you do to help you stand out from the crowd? Brainbench is there to help. There are about 20 free certifications that you can get including MS Excel 2007, MS PowerPoint, 2007, MS Word 2007, MS Windows Vista Desktop, Java 2 Fundamentals, and many others. A lot of the free certifications are in the IT area. There are about 600 other Certification Tests, including Adobe Photoshop, Adobe PageMaker, Internet Research Techniques and Resources, QuickBooks, Quicken, and many, many more. Most of the fee based certifications come with a $49.95 fee.

Besides the individual skill certifications, Brainbench offers Job Role Certifications. I
saw quite a few that were relevant to the telecommuting world. Positions such as Editor, Financial Analyst, Market Research Analyst, Web Administrator, Web Designer, Legal Secretary, IT Manager, Human Resources Professional, Technical Writer, and the list goes on.

So, if you want to stand out from the crowd, a Brainbench certification, may just help to give you a leg up on your competition.

Has this happened to you one time or the other when working at home on your computer? You’re humming along just fine working away through your company’s system, website, or intranet. Then suddenly you get an error message or the system’s output changes. I know it has happened to me once or twice (ok more than that – but who’s counting, right?).

So, you email your boss and he or she tells you to email him/her a screen shot. Yes, the tech people need that to help figure out the problem. Oh, ok, you think to yourself. How in the heck do I do that? Well, have no fear as I will tell you how here. It’s quite simply really.

To capture your entire computer screen, locate the Print Screen button on your keyboard. It can be in various places depending on your keyboard, but most keyboards have this button in the upper right hand corner of the keyboard.

Hit that Print Screen button.

Next, open up your imaging software. Paint works just fine. You will find the Paint program by going to Start, All Programs, Accessories, Paint.

Open up the Paint program and select Paste - Ctrl + V or choose the Edit, then Paste menu in Paint. This will paste the entire image of the computer screen into the Paint software. You can then use the Paint’s cropping features to alter the image is needed.

Next, just again Paste this image into an email or Word document and you are all set.

Suppose you only want to capture the current window you are working in. You can do this by holding down the ALT button while simultaneously holding down the Print Screen button.

So now you know how to capture a screen shot! Try it out, it’s actually quite neat!

It’s a sad day for the users, writers, and of I am sure the Founder of Brijit.com today. They are closing their doors due to lack of funding.

If you are not familiar with Brijit.com, they are/were a company that provided Abstracts of articles from authoritative sources such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Salon, ESPN The Magazine, and many others. The abstracts were about 100 words which would summarize and provide a brief commentary on the article at hand. One benefit of this is that it would give the reader the overview of the article and help them decide if they wanted to read the full article.

Writers would get $5 for each 100 word abstract that they wrote. For someone that loved to read articles and write these short abstracts, it is a nice work at home writing gig. All abstracts published through May 15th will be paid to the writers.

According to Jeremy Brosowsky Founder & editor-in-chief, Brijit, he is still working to find a way to be able to relaunch the service. Sure hope they do as I am sure this was quite a disappointment to the loyal readers and the writers who enjoyed writing these abstracts as well as the income it provided.

You can keep up with Jeremy and Brijit at their WordPress blog named Brijit.

Lingo24.com is looking for more translators as well as editors and proofreaders. According to their website, one of the main services they provide is foreign translation services. They are looking for all languages and all combinations. They only employ professional, full-time translators that work translating only one language.

Translators need to have at least 5 years experience, work exclusively in their native language, provide at least 3 references, and have an internationally recognized translator’s qualification. Translators also need to be professional, efficient, and can use their translator for interactions and email.

Lingo 24 is a UK company with a London team. The company has full time employees in 5 countries. All of Lingo24 employees work from home – performing translating from the comfort of their homes.
They frequently translate between English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish, but translate between a dozen other languages as well.

Lingo24 is a Member of the Association of Translation Companies

Jott, currently a free tool and in Beta stage, converts your voice into emails or text messages. Jott also converts your messages into lists, appointments, and reminders. How cool is that?

Jott’s been discussed all over the web now, from The Wall Street Journal to CNN to The New York Times. And its starting to make it’s way through the blogging circles. From what I read, it’s getting a lot of thumbs up.

Okay, so how does it work? Simple. You just simply call (866) JOTT-123l and leave whatever message you need a reminder for (i.e. Email report to John, email baby’s photos to Grandma, make chocolate cake for birthday party) and Jott will transcribe and deliver that message to your email. Ah the beauty of voice recognition technology!

Jott can have many uses, but many of its’ fans use it for reminders. They call the toll free number from their cell phone when they are away from the computer to remind them to do certain things.

Other really cool features is that it sync with the Google calendar to help create appointments. The newest thing is that they have Jott for the BlackBerry. Oh boy, I bet the CrackBerry Addicts sure love that!

If you are a Jotter, let me know the ways in which you have found it to be helpful!