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I have been using a notebook journal for the last year for affirmations and goal setting. I also use Louise Hay Power Thought Affirmation Cards  that I tape to my bathroom mirror. When I am brushing my teeth in the morning I usually glance at the cards which give me a positive lift before heading off to work.

However, most of my day requires sitting in front of a computer so I started searching for motivation/goal setting software that would help me set my goals and remind me while I was working on the computer.

The first software program I tried is called Single-Step™ motivational software. It is available as a download from their website and has a simple interface. The goal setting process involves entering information about yourself and your goals. You also have the ability to add pictures to help in the visualization process. I followed the setup wizard and entered all the necessary information. This process took about 15 minutes and was somewhat painless.

Once all the information is entered you must perform daily “exercises” to help you reach your goals. Single-Step™ keeps score of the exercises and requires you to set an ending date for achieving your goal. The exercises involve typing your goal everyday, logging your progress toward that goal, viewing images that relate to your goal as well as watching the narrative you created in the setup wizard. Each time you do this you rack up points that are recorded in the software.

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If you send text messages from your phone then you know how frustrating it can be to type a long message with the tiny keyboards built into most cell phones.

I stumbled upon this site, OhDontForget.com ,which is a free service that lets you send a text message to anyone with a cell phone and schedule the time it will send the message.  The interface is very simple and easy to use.

I recently used OhDontForget.com to create a happy birthday message to my partner several months before his birthday. The site will automatically send the message on the exact day of his birthday keeping me out of trouble.

Several month ago I found out my Dell laptop computer battery was recalled. Anyway, I checked the serial number on the battery and went to their website to request a replacement. Several weeks later the new battery arrived with a self-addressed return box to send the defective battery back. So, I put the old one in the box and dropped it off in the mail per their instructions. Easy, no problem.. or so I thought.

Yesterday, checking my mail I noticed a letter from Dell that looked like a bill. Lo and behold, it was a bill from Dell for the replacement battery: $69.95 and  payable net 10!! . So here I was, told I had a potentially lethal battery , forced to replace the battery and then informed via this letter I would have to pay for the replacement. 

Needless to say, I got pissed and immediately called Dell customer service. This involved 4 failed attempts and finally a very long wait (20 minutes) before someone answered the phone.

The guy that answered the phone was polite and when I explained the situation he said to disregard the bill as it was not really a bill.(It said Invoice in bold black letters and payable net 10-It was a bill). He put me on hold for 10 minutes and finally returned with a reference number for the call. I politely hung up and realized this situation cost me 30 minutes of my time and increased blood pressure.

Hopefully, this is over with but I have my doubts…. Deep breaths, slow breathing, clear mind. 

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I thought I would share some freeware programs that I have used for years.

Over time your computer gets filled with remnants of programs that you uninstalled and I found CCleaner to be a pretty thorough program for removing old registry entries and junk from your computer. I have used it for years with no problems.

For spyware removal , I would recommend Ad Aware or the free beta of Microsoft defender (which I currently use). Microsoft Defender works in the background to keep your computer free of spyware and when it detects a problem you get a message and it automatically removes the offending spyware.

If you need a free virus software program, I would recommend AVG anti-virus free version which does a great job of detecting viruses and best of all it is free. It does not bog your computer down like other bloated anti-virus programs.

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