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LauraS · Guest

Here's a question that may (or may not) be of interest... Do any of you travel and work when you're away? And if so, what happens, for example, if you're away and a client you worked for 2 weeks ago says they lost the audio and can you re-send it, but you're not going home for another fortnight?

Does anyone here have like an "online" office? I'm just reading about these things now - where instead of storing everything on your computer you store it in cyberspace so you can access it from anywhere with an internet connection. And it's not just storage, it can be a whole office system. So if you work with someone who needs to access the same stuff like invoicing or emails, but they're not actually in your workspace...

Does anyone know about this? I'm only just working out what plugs in where, but judging from what I've read on here there's a lot of folks who really know their stuff. (Sits back and prepares to be impressed/feel foolish/hope that she's not completely ignored...)

Cheers
Laura

Jeffrey Kafer · Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 11:26 am Post subject:

I do this with my email. All of my mail goes through Gmail. I don't even use an email client anymore. All web-based and accessible anywhere. So if I've ever sent a file to a client and they lose it, I can dig it up and re-send.
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bobsouer · Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 11:49 am Post subject:

Laura,

Like Jeff, I use Gmail as my sending email server, so any time I send audio via email (actually pretty rare) I have a copy in my Gmail account I can access from any place with Internet service.

Most of the audio I record and send is posted to my web server and then I email a link to the client to a private download page with links to access the files. Since I have 300 Gig of server space, I don't delete audio for months, so it's nearly always there and I can just re-send the link.

And failing those options I use a free Internet service ( http://logmein.com ), so that I can log in to my home system from the road and re-upload the audio to my server or to theirs, where ever it needs to go. Again, available anywhere there is Internet service.

I hope these are helpful ideas.
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LauraS · Guest

That's extremely helpful Bob and Jeff. I have a Gmail account but til now have been afraid to use it for anything except emergencies because I worry that I would run out of space, especially if I have to send/store largish files (which I do a fair bit), and also that I risk appearing less corporate by not having an email address that is basically me@mycompany.com. When I was just voicing it didn't matter because clients understand you're a solo freelancer, but now and then I do production work and I like to give the impression that I'm a proper company rather than a one-man band. But then maybe I'm over-complicating.

The remote log-in thing also worries me slightly because power-cuts are not unheard of around here and if I'm away and one happens then I'm stuck.

And what if I ever get an assistant (and then THEY can spend the hours invoicing, chasing payment, dealing with emails etc - wouldn't that be bliss!) Does anyone know, is it possible/workable to set it all up online without having to remember constantly to upload/download/email stuff... Or should I just chill and go with the Gmail?

Cheers
Laura

davidmonteath · Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 2:35 pm Post subject:

Hi Laura

If you use a Mac you can always use .Mac which is great for online storage. All .mac emails can be available from any computer. as standard you get 1 Gb of storage space which is upgradeable to 10gb I think, personally I keep all my vital invoices and important records, as well as back-ups for things like my accounts package.

Plus you get 5 mac.com email addresses and a useful facility to set up alias addresses for those annoying sites that demand an address that you might not want to get spam from.

David
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Jeffrey Kafer · Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 2:50 pm Post subject:

jrodriguez315 · Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 3:16 pm Post subject:

I send and receive all my Joe@voiceoverthespian.com emails from Gmail. You set up the email account through your web host I believe then route it to your gmail account. Then do what Kafer said.
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Bruce · Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 4:36 pm Post subject:

All of my audio editing files and production music and sfx files are on an external hard drive so I take it along in case I'm going to record on the road.

Gmail is up to 6GB of storage now for free, so it's not a bad place to store your recent projects....so long as attachments are less than 20MB per email.

B
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Jowillie · Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 6:29 pm Post subject:

Jeff,

Quote:

One of my email addresses is Jeff@JeffreyKafer.com and I manage that through gmail. You can set it up to check mail from any account and it will send through that account as well. So mail sent to JeffreyKafer.com will be replied to as JeffreyKafer.com even though I'm using the gmail interface.

How you do dat.....please. Thank you.
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Wild Willie Edwards
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Lizden · Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 8:44 pm Post subject:

Willie:

- in Gmail, go to "Settings"
- then "Accounts"
- under "Send Mail As": add the address you want to send from (willie@jowille.com... or whatever!)...Gmail will send an email to that addres to "verify it"
- then choose:
When I receive a message sent to one of my addresses:
- Reply from the same address the message was sent to.
OR
- Always reply from my default address (whichever you want the gmail or the @jowilie address)

Hope that helps!

Liz
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LauraS · Guest

That's very helpful everyone, thanks, I'm going to give it a try. (Mac sounds good but I'm a dyed in the wool PC girl I'm afraid, Mr M)

Cheers
Laura

Jowillie · Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 5:18 am Post subject:

Thanks, Liz. You're the best.
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