On Monday, I put this question out to my Twitter followers. Mostly out of curiosity, and partly to help me in creating a brand new resource for Mommasterminds members.

I asked, “What contact method do you prefer to use when contacting customer service?” 

photo credit:
Jacob Bøtter

Personally, I like non-contact methods. So if given the choice, I’ll almost always choose an FAQ, then a forum, then a help desk, then live chat, email and finally the phone. In that order.

It’s not that I don’t like to talk to people. Over the years I’ve gotten much better at that. But customer service on the phone - ugh, you know how that goes. If it’s not voice mail, you get an re-routed and very often take up way too much of my time. Besides, it’s kinda hard to talk with kids screaming in the background.

With the other methods, I can at least help myself or get help,

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Leslie Truex, a member of MomMasterminds, was having trouble getting a project started. She finally decided it’s time to just do it. But how? Part of the reason it was difficult to get the project off the ground was because of limited time. That’s when she came up with this creative solution. I love it!

photo credit: zombiefactory

What she did was open up a telephone line. Invited people whom she knows can and are qualified to help her. They are asked to call in and leave a recording of their answer to a question she put out. Voila! Instant quality content. Nice touch Leslie.

So what do you do if you want to do that? Well, if you have an Audio Acrobat account, you can do that really easily. You can also do this a little low tech using regular voice mail. For example, I have a GrandCentral account that will take the voicemail and let me

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One of my most favorite section in any magazine is the Q&A. Flipping through this month’s PC Magazine, I was rather shocked and dissapointed at the answer Neil J. Rubenking - the software expert at PCMag.

Let’s see what ruffled my feathers. A reader asked them what’s the truth to the rumors about using numbers in email addresses to help reduce spam.

The answer given (in a nutshell), was to simply be more careful with your email address. That I have no trouble whatsoever with. Because that’s pretty much the best you can do.

But what is in the long explanation to get to this very quick and simple answer is what I want to bring up.

“When you buy something at a small, lesser-known online store, there’s a decent chance they will sell your address to spammers.” and, “Sign up for a newsletter? Your address could certainly get sold.”

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Just in time for Mother’s day, a coupon for PLR content from AllPrivateLabelContent. 20% off on 4 of their latest bundles.

• Household Product Comparison Reviews
• Tech Gadget Reviews
• Scrapbooking Articles
• Craft Articles

Expiry Date: May 13, 2008

Coupon Code: 2087A 

Get them before they’re gone.

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Almost everyday, I do something with WordPress, particular with themes. That’s because I like to mess around with it, experiment and really dive into all it has to offer. For most of us, we upload this to a web host, create a dummy account or dummy folder and work from it there.

I do that a fair bit but sometimes, you just don’t want to FTP in and out. Who knows, sometimes your Internet connection may be down or you just want to unplug while you get things done for a while.

But how do you unplug when your work is online? 

Hmm….

Why, run a web server on your own computer of course!

I love, love, love using Uniform Server for my own development because compared to other methods, it is super easy and always works - at least for me. Never failed. I have been getting my hands dirty with PHP sites since 2002 and working

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