Seven Deadly Sins of Home Office Security

Seven Deadly Sins of Home Office Security. Well, a deadly sin is a pretty big deal but this article from ComputerWorld has some good tips that are always important to remember. Physical security seems particularly important to me. You hear so often about breaches happening because someone's laptop gets stolen out of a car or a home office, and suddenly your employer has to mail out a million "Sorry about your data go to free credit report dot com and keep an eye on who's stealing your identity" letters.

Don't make them do that. Lock up your dang laptop, okay?

I Suffer from This Condition

Once again, The Onion proves its mettle as the finest news source in the U-S-of-A by nailing my problem. Maybe you have this problem too?

Scheduling Secrets

Honestly, I can't remember if I've said this before, but scheduling empty time in your day is absolutely essential to having time to get stuff done. Even if you just mentally block it out, it's important to have time where you do nothing but go through what you need to do and do it.

Stella is on-site this week, and the whole point of these trips is to meet meet meet meet. And it's fun. I love seeing people, love getting to know them. But I also need to get work done, and so it's hard to balance. But it's okay, because I'll get caught up next week.

But it would be nice to have a little time to kick out the jams this week, too. Ah, well, that's what nights in a hotel are for, right?

Print Less

I know what you're thinking: Give me a break, Stella. I already spend 23 hours a day in my house in last year's slippers, and I haven't filled up my gas tank in two months. Yes, you're already doing a lot to save the environment just by virtue of being a shut-in, but you can conserve resources even more by doing one simple thing:

turn off your printer.

It helps you conserve in a few exciting ways:

• You're using less electricity because it's not hanging out plugged in and vaguely on waiting for you to send a job to it.
• You will have to think before you print, and make a conscious decision to roll over to it, turn it on, and wait for it to warm up. I find that my response to that is, "meh," and I generally just cope with looking at stuff on my screen.
• I have to think that not being constantly stirred up makes the ink last a little longer.

So save some trees, ink, and juice, and turn that printer off.

It's Baaaaack

Yes, that's right. The Telecommuter Tax Fairness Act is back. Yes, the economy is in the crapper, yes we're all lucky to have jobs, but this is important. You should call your congress person and your senator and ask them to help get this thing out of committee or wherever the heck it is right now.

See here's the deal: you may be okay with regard to your tax situation, or you may not. How could you know? It varies state by state, and that's uncool. Stella is lucky, because the Land of Enchantment is (in the sage words of the nice accountant I asked about this whole mess) not aggressive about pursuing income tax revenue. But you may not be so lucky.

So tax fairness is important to all the shut-ins. Look into it.

Adjusting to Summer

Stella has been a lousy poster, and she's deeply sorry, but it's been a hectic couple of few weeks. School here in the 'Burque ends in May, and with it comes a flurry of activity that any parent of children recognizes. Now we're settling into a new routine that involves a thirteen year old girl hanging around the house while I work.

It's distracting.

It's not like she's demanding peanut butter sandwiches all day or anything. She's working on some writing projects of her own, sleeping until eleven every day, going over to her auntie's house to swim, and generally entertaining herself.

It's just that I'm used to being here by myself. No noises in the house except the dogs warding off daily attacks from the US Postal Service, an occasional door-bell ring, and the like. So I'm adjusting, slowly but surely. More headphone use, more doorlocking, and also being tolerant of more interruption. After all, I can't completely ignore these children -- I do like them and all!

But adjusting to having more people around your quiet home office space is, well, and adjustment.