Big Pimpin'

My back still hurts. Speaking of money...

I got skillz, yo. None of them include pretending I'm young and hip, though, so I'll just stop there.

I've been posting to Craigslist, and I've found two clients so far, and a potential third. I've bought a domain name, and I've been thinking, but not acting, on forming a company and making a website. But it occurred to me this morning that I have a webpage of sorts. Perhaps it would be wise, odd though this may seem, to put it to a practical purpose. It's so crazy, it just might work!

AUDIO TRANSCRIPTION, $1/MINUTE

I type 80 wpm (you didn't think I've been two-finger typing all of these unnecessarily verbose posts, did you?) and I have transcription pedals. If you have audio that you need converted to text, I'm your man. So far I've transcribed seminars given by a vocal coach and phone and in-person interviews by a Ph.D. candidate. Both were pleased with my work. I'm fast, I'm accurate, and I give you my word that I will never promise a deadline that I can't meet.

FILEMAKER DATABASE DESIGN

I'm self-taught, and certified by no one in particular, but I can make Filemaker get up and dance. I created a scheduling application that is now the chief means by which my office schedules and disperses information about events in our building. It has multiple calendar views (color-coded and customized for a Monday-Sunday week) and automatically emails staff when an event is created or changed. It contains an address book, and it's used to keep track of a wide variety of event information from parking and police to contract status.

I've also written customized payroll applications that meet the highly specific needs of two different departments. One uses a barcode scanner to clock employees in and out, checks for employees that are working too many hours per week, and stores employee photos for printing identification badges. The other allows for a very complicated and specific system based on the type of work done, holiday or weekend hour multipliers, and journeyman or master status of employee.

Other databases I've created have been used to track telephone contacts with prospects, to track inventory, to play roulette and blackjack, to cheat at an online word game, and to store recipes. The recipe database calculates calories per serving based on information imported from USDA data files available online.

So do you have any use for either of those services? Email me with the link at top right, and let's talk about it.

Oh yeah, and if you've got any free advice about starting a small business, forming a company in the State of Texas and which type is best for my situation, I'd love to hear it.

Thank you. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging program.