pdwyer

/Patricia Dwyer

About Patricia Dwyer

My experience with both computers and management makes me uniquely qualified to help you manage your digital life. We’ll start with a free one-hour phone consultation so that I can understand your systems and your needs, and then we’ll agree on a plan to address those needs. At the completion of our plan, you’ll be well on the way to understanding and managing your digital life.

Internet Safety: How to Connect with the World and Still Feel Safe

 

Most of us do a lot of reading on social media. We read news on Twitter, we follow celebrities and politicians (want ideas on who to follow? Here’s a list of some of the most-followed on Twitter), we see trends and updates from friends in our Facebook newsfeeds.

We can be passive readers, or we can be actively engaging by liking, commenting, and sharing. It’s more fun to engage, and it helps us to build our […]

By |July 19th, 2017|Social Networking|Comments Off on Internet Safety: How to Connect with the World and Still Feel Safe

Social Media Engagement – What does it mean for Your Business?

Are you not getting the level of social media engagement that you’d like to see?
You’ve gone through the trouble of create a Facebook business page (if not, read this: How to Create a Facebook Business Page). You’re trying to post to it regularly, but to what end?

Perhaps you’ve been told to post twice/day to increase social media engagement. That’s a hard standard to keep up. Is it really necessary? Should you be focusing on more […]

By |July 12th, 2017|Social Networking|Comments Off on Social Media Engagement – What does it mean for Your Business?

Who Else Hates Grocery Shopping and Longs for a Personal Shopper?

My husband likes a certain kind of bread that not all grocery stores carry. My son likes a certain kind of cookie. Some things consumed a lot in our house are better bought in bulk. (For us, peanut butter, maple syrup, and loose tea.)

If you have a Costco near you, and you don’t mind grocery shopping in a warehouse, you can schedule your trips to buy bulk goods. For more specialty items, you can shop […]

By |June 1st, 2017|Technology|2 Comments

“OK Google Home. How Can You Make My Work and My Life Easier?”

Using your voice to give commands to a computer once seemed like science fiction. Remember Hal from the Space Odyssey?
We’ve been able to talk to our phones for a while now, using Siri or Google Assistant.
Since Windows 10 and Cortana, we can talk to our PCs as well. And with MacOS Sierra adding Siri support, we can now talk to all of our Apple devices.

But why be tethered to a device? Now there’s the Amazon […]

By |May 3rd, 2017|Technology|3 Comments

Here’s an Easy and Efficient Way to Manage Projects and Daily Tasks

Are you a visual thinker? Are you someone who likes to keep your calendar in front of you and your daily tasks on post-its around your desk?
Digital task managers are much more efficient than paper for daily tasks.

You can have your to-do list with you on your mobile device and check off your tasks throughout the day.
You can assign tasks to others.
You can create calendar reminders.
You can prioritize daily tasks.

Many organizations […]

By |April 12th, 2017|Project Management, Task Management|Comments Off on Here’s an Easy and Efficient Way to Manage Projects and Daily Tasks

Who Else Wants Digital Photo Organization to be Easy and Automatic?

Most of us have a lot of digital photographs – so many that we are not taking the time to look through them and organize them. The problem is that when you want to go back and find photos, you might find yourself in a time-consuming and frustrating search.
Many people don’t have the time or the inclination to do a lot of photo organization.
I strongly believe that automating tasks as much as possible is the way […]

By |April 3rd, 2017|Photo Management|Comments Off on Who Else Wants Digital Photo Organization to be Easy and Automatic?

How use Valentine’s Day Ecards to Spread the Love and Do Good

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Doh! Did you forget to buy cards and send them?
It’s too late to send cards now, so it may be time to look into Valentine’s Day ecards.
Ecards have waned in popularity, but they’re still an efficient, eco-friendly way to let that special someone know that you’re thinking of him/her/them. And many ecard services now allow you to email, text, or Facebook message a greeting.

Here are some of the more popular services:

Hallmark – $5/month
JibJab […]

By |February 14th, 2017|Cloud Services|Comments Off on How use Valentine’s Day Ecards to Spread the Love and Do Good

How to Save Time and Work More Productively Using an Outlook Add-In

There are some great cloud-based productivity tools out there. You can use them through your web browser, as desktop applications, and on your mobile devices.

Productivity tools are best utilized by integrating with your email and calendar. I write about that here: How to Integrate Email with Task Management. If Outlook is your primary platform for email and calendar, and you have an active Office 365 subscription, you have another option as well.
Many of these productivity […]

By |February 7th, 2017|MS-Office|Comments Off on How to Save Time and Work More Productively Using an Outlook Add-In

Which Digital Note-Taking Tool is Both Easy to Use and Efficient?

Do you still carry a notebook around?
I know that I do. Writing your notes can slow the process down so that your mind has time to absorb the information.

But typing notes on a laptop or a tablet is more efficient. And even when I hand-write notes, I copy them into a digital note taking tool later, or take a picture and add to the tool. A digital note-taking tool is great for organizing your […]

By |January 27th, 2017|Evernote|Comments Off on Which Digital Note-Taking Tool is Both Easy to Use and Efficient?

How to Keep Your Internet Accounts Safe from Harmful Hacking

Internet accounts are subject to hacking, putting your personal information at risk. I recommend using a password manager, as I write about here: How to Manage Your Passwords.
But sometimes passwords alone are not enough to prevent hacking.
There have been several high-profile breaches where personal information, including passwords, has been stolen. Yahoo, for example, and Google. So even if you use strong passwords and change them regularly, there are times when hackers could compromise your […]

By |January 16th, 2017|Password Management|Comments Off on How to Keep Your Internet Accounts Safe from Harmful Hacking