Checking job board at the companies is important to finding jobs. If you wait for jobs to be posted on forums you will be seeing the left over jobs that are hard to place. Often the emails you will get will also be for these hard to place jobs. Most of these jobs have not been taken because shoppers felt they were not fairly priced for the time and effort involved. Emails may offer bonuses to try to get the jobs up to a price where shoppers are willing to do them, but there ARE jobs that are fairly priced to start with. These you most frequently will find on the MSP's job board shortly after they are posted.

This means you need to frequently check the job boards of the companies you are signed up with and that can be horrendously time consuming.

Although others will have other methods here is what I am currently doing (and it continues evolving all the time).

I use Firefox as my brower for most things. It is a free download at [firefox.download--gratis.net]

What I like best is the ease of handling bookmarks. I have created several folders of bookmarks for my MSPs. One is companies that have shops in my area on a regular basis. One is companies with whom I have recently signed up and I don’t know whether they do or will have shops in my area. And finally is the two folders of companies I have signed up with that I have never seen or heard of a shop in my area. It is not feasible to check the two hundred or so companies I am signed up with on a daily basis and still have a life

When you open a folder of Firefox bookmarks, at the bottom of the list is the note to “Open all in Tabs” When you do this, all bookmarks in the folder will be opened as tabs on one screen, allowing you to quickly go through all the companies in that folder by simply moving from tab to tab. I find this a very quick way to check all my active companies daily, my new companies every couple of days and not mess with the companies that don’t seem to have shops in my area. If subsequently I see that one of these useless-to-me companies is beginning to have shops, I can readily create a bookmark in my folder of places to check daily.

Sequencing of bookmarks within a folder is easy, simply highlight it and drag it up or down the list (it will just be a line until you drop) and drop. Bookmarks will open in the order they are on the list inside the folder.

Now comes the fun part. All of my bookmarks bypass any screens before the actual sign in screen, so when I am opening up the companies I have no preliminary page turns before I can sign in. When I have entered my login and password, Firefox asks if I want the information to be remembered and I tell it yes. Then when I open my bookmarks, the login and password are there and available for most sites so I can just hit enter.

The machine will not happily open two Sassie sites at once or two Prophet sites, so generally I sequence my bookmarks to have a Sassie followed by a Prophet followed by some other variety of site such as ShopMetrics or a proprietary software site. This means that while I am signing in at the first site I can move to the tab for the second site and start it signing in and perhaps a third site before returning to the first site to check the job board and log out if there is nothing interesting. By now the second site is ready to check the job board and log out if there is nothing. I now can close the tab for the first site, start the sign in for the fourth site and return to the third site to check the job board. I just keep this process going, moving between tabs so that I am actively working rather than sitting idly waiting for the login to occur and the page to load.

I find that Prophet sites most frequently need to have the page refreshed just before hitting the log in, which does take a moment. Otherwise it is likely to return a notice that the login was unsuccessful.

By having the bookmarks in a folder that opens in tabs and working between tabs, I can check my top companies in under 20 minutes each day. Towards the end of the month when new jobs are likely to post, I may check these sites 2-3 times per day.

Flash! There you go again! Your pedastal is getting higher and higher! You are amazing - extraordinary. My 18 year old uses firefox and keeps telling me to use it, but I am stuck in the past. Guess I will have to check it out.

How I check for assignments is I have a table with all of the MS companies, web sites, logins and passwords. I have it organized starting with the ones that have the most jobs in the area - I open the page and just start clicking. I keep the page open in the background and just tab back and forth. It doesn't take long for me to get through the list. I stop when I find enough for that week.

I can't plan too far ahead because my regular job requires frequent travel. So I never schedule anything more than two weeks out unless it is a phone shop. When I am scheduled for a trip, and I will be gone over the weekend - and not working my regular job on weekend - then I might schedule a few shops for the area I am in. I have to be careful though - I can't mix the two jobs - - it would be unethical. Meaning, I have to stay focused on my regular job until my days off, so I don't schedule anything for the evenings I am out of town, just the weekends.

I have one of the Excel sheets with all my companies and links as well. As I said, the process keeps evolving. My son saw my computer with a ton of open windows at the bottom and showed me how to set up the bookmarks in Firefox and open in tabs. I still use the Excel sheet with my desktop to find specific companies but my mass checking is done with the laptop so my bookmarks are there. For a while I kept all my companies in one folder, but it becomes too unwieldy to open when you have a ton of companies there. Thus the set up of some several folders.

I have found that there are only 1-2 companies that don't work well with Firefox--but they don't work well with Internet Explorer either

Great minds think alike, Flash. I also have 3 categories in Bookmarks -Not Worked, Worked (Active,) and Iffy. Iffy are the one where I've seen little or nothing in my county. More and more companies are moving into the Iffy. Then I have a folder for forums and pages of tips.

Jude--you're making it a little too complex. I only bookmark the login page. And you can do the same thing in IE, except they're Favorites.

Are the links clickable on Excel?

Roboform keeps all my passwords and ID's, not just here, but for the entire net. They're encrypted and Roboform has a backup folder. Besides that, Firefox saves them, so I'm triply insured.

There are also more sophisticated thumb drives (flash drives, jump drives, many names for the little storage gadget that plugs into a USB port) that can actually run Firefox directly. I keep thinking I should get one of those and set up my bookmarks on it directly so I can go to any machine with a USB port and have my bookmarks and passwords. I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I would like that because the less data stored on my laptop the better in case it decides to grow legs and walk away while I am on a remote job.

Sneakers, is there a way to get IE to open bookmarks/favorites in tabs? I never found it, which was what made Firefox so attractive to me.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/2008 08:01PM by Flash.

Sneakers - I don't have my links in Excel - they are in a word table - works great for me. I keep it on my thumb drive so I can carry it with me to remote computers such as in a motel or a library.

Flash - thumb drives are great - if you get one, ask for the one that increases the size of your RAM. They are great. I keep everything on it and back it up at least once a week; my computer crashed once, lost everything; so I try to be prepared in case it happens again. I think mine was $20 from Staples. My 18 year old picked it out and knew about it increasing the RAM.

The increase RAM feature only works with Vista and was a real stop gap measure to try to keep that operating system from working like complete sludge. It is faster to access additional memory from a USB port than from the hard drive and even with all the additional RAM that comes crammed into a "Vista Ready" machine, it is still not enough for the hungry hungry operating system. Normally when there is not enough RAM on the memory cards present, the machine will try to access memory from other areas in a specified sequence of how quick the turn around time is for the signal. If there is not enough, then it will go to the hard drive for storage space to use as RAM.

The problem is that Microsoft has created such a huge and inefficient operating system in VISTA that machines must be designed to handle IT rather than IT being designed to handle the software and hardware needs of users. The use of the memory on a thumb drive is just one more work around the beast to try to keep it working at something that might be an acceptable speed.

I love my little thumb drives. I generally buy the smaller ones because they are dirt cheap--often free after rebate--and certainly hold plenty of information if you aren't trying to carry songs, movies and such on them.

I have an old computer with Windows XP and the thumb drive I have increases the RAM on it. As soon as I plug it in I get a message that tells me my memory has increased. I don't have Vista and right now I don't want it because I have a great old laser printer that would not work with Vista. That is why I won't get a new computer. I just keep upgrading what I already have.

When you look at the different thumb drives it says on the package which ones are made specific for Vista. Mine wasn't.

Nice. I'll check on that. Certainly even with my external drives there is never any such notice when plugging them in.

Flash wrote:
Sneakers, is there a way to get IE to open bookmarks/favorites in tabs? I never found it, which was what made Firefox so attractive to me.
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I use IE only in rare cases when FF can't read a page or for MS Updates. V.7 has tabs, but 6 doesn't. I didn't let 7 into my main machine, and have banned it permanently. I'll download it onto my other machine if a client needs help with it, but so far no one has even noticed the difference or they don't want to learn new features. I have older machines and no thumbs. I still back up my Bookmarks for travel to a CD. And of course my other machine has a cloned HD.

I do have V7.0.5732.11 or some such. When I upgraded to it I was not thrilled and did find a few things but never found tabbed browsing. I usually have both an IE and a FF open because I have both personal and shopping gmail accounts I tend to keep open and you can't have two different accounts open in the same browser.

How about Netscape 7.2? It's smooth and reliable, and similar to FF. D/L it from oldversion.com or I can send you one. (Not illegal; it's free.) It was the last good Netscape.

Can you use a POP3 account from your ISP? I think Google can also be reached that way. Use Netscape Messenger if you don't like IE.

Good notion. Thanks!

Gave you 3 notions, all good!

It is in sharing ideas there is chance for growth for us all. And perhaps I should put it in the quotations thread, but I always liked the notion that "If you are not growing, you are dying."

Glad I can help you grow. Too bad I couldn't tell you to avoid Vista like the plague. Too late Another quote: "If it (XP) ain't broke, don't fix it" They've been updating and fixing security bugs in XP for 7 years. It's pretty stable now. Vista starts the whole process again from Square One, except that you need anew computer too.

Oh no, I haven't fallen for Vista and don't intend to. The issues are too grave. Their licensing requirements for manufacturers to get their equipment and software "certified" for compatibility is expensive and many manufacturers are just not going to do it. Thus the drivers for your old equipment will not be available. And because they will only look at the drivers when paid, there is at least one incident I have heard of where the driver was certified but it still left a large security hole. The manufacturer has subsequently been bought out by someone else who has discontinued the equipment that needed that driver so are no longer interested in paying to have it re-certified to fix the security issue and Microsoft won't fix the issue without payment. Stalemate.

I have my separate CD of XP to be able to install it if/when I need/want to purchase a new machine. I did buy a refurb desktop last spring that had XP on it but it was an inexpensive way of getting the faster "Vista ready" machine that has all the speedy hardware necessary to try to deal with Vista while still having the XP operating system.

Are you going to dual-boot it? That's I got slowly into XP from 98 SE.

No. I would just trash the Vista if it came on a machine. I am really torn because Vista is waaaay too "Big Brother" for me. Microsoft has no right to that much information and control. When I buy their product I should not have to engage in some sort of relinquishing my rights and privacy. There was some of that with XP but Vista . . . And now that Microsoft no longer allows new machines to be sold with XP except under some very narrow licensing agreements, it is possible that my next machine will be a Mac of some flavor or I will be going to Linux. Linux bothers me because I really want to be an end user and not have to mess around with updating kernels and all that good stuff. But Microsoft is bothering me even more with their arrogance.

Dell is still offering XP as an option. My new laptop has it-I wouldn't have it any other way.

You can also get XP if you get a shop to build a computer for you. The private repair shops do that. On Dell, if you say you have a small business, they connect you with the business dept, and you can get XP. I have other options, but you have to write me privately.