Welcome to the SoHo Cafe!

This page is for those of us who work from a Small Office or Home Office (SoHo). We know how hard it is to run a home-based business and try to run our lives too! We hope this page will offer some small support and relief to you as you churn through the daily grind.

We want to know what you would like to see here, what topics you would like covered, or anything else that comes to mind. If we can help to make your life a little easier, we'll do it.

Suggest a Topic

Networking

Networking is one of the most cost effective forms of marketing and the most reliable for gathering loyal "word-of-mouth" referrals for your business. There are a number of networking groups in Nova Scotia and the chances of finding a good fit for you and your business are excellent.

Networking Groups in Halifax

Serving Seniors Alliance (SSA)

Centre for Women in Business (CWB)

Business Networking International (BNI)

Halifax Chamber of Commerce (HCC)

Halifax Women's Networking (HWN)

Businsess Breakfast Club (BBC)

If your group is not on our list, please click here to send us the group name and website address.

Technology

WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN PRINTERS

Printer Type
Three technologies dominate personal printers: inkjet, laser, and LED (light-emitting diode). Using replaceable cartridges, personal inkjet printers cost the least, print slowly, and often produce impressive color output. Laser and LED printers are more like photocopiers producing crisp, fast printouts.

Output Type
Want to print lots of monochrome pages? Buy a laser or LED printer for its speed and low cost of consumables. Need affordable color? Get an inkjet printer. Photo-quality inkjets generally produce the best homemade color photos, but be forewarned: They usually print slower than your average inkjets (which are slow to begin with). Don't buy an inkjet just to save money, though; the price up front will be lower than that of a laser, but the cost of an inkjet's color cartridges and coated paper add up quickly.

Maximum Resolution
Personal laser printers produce 600 dots per inch (dpi)--sufficient resolution to create crisp, monochrome output. Inkjet printers typically claim output resolutions of 1,200dpi or 2,400dpi, but the sharpness isn't comparable to that of lasers. Generally, you should ignore inkjet dpi claims and compare actual printouts when possible.
Installed memory
Personal printers typically need little memory. Inkjets require a tiny amount--just enough to hold the row of dots being printed and maybe a little more. Laser and LED printers are page printers, which means that they must render an entire page in memory before printing.

Maximum Speed
Measured in pages per minute (ppm), this specification is always exaggerated. Laser printers generally print text pages only slightly slower than the manufacturers' claims. But the claims for inkjets are typically at low-quality settings using very simple text pages--in other words, a speed you'll never see in real life.

Operating System Support
This is a bigger issue than you might imagine. A few printers lack Mac support entirely, and a number of manufacturers take their time before offering drivers that are fully compatible with the latest version of Windows. Companies that shy away from producing new drivers in a timely fashion may arbitrarily shorten the useful life of your printer.

Excerpt from CNET Reviews
www.cnet.com

Yes, You Can!

This is where you will find motivational and inspirational advice - quotations, articles, and "I Made It!" stories. Read on and feel free to send us your story.

Handling Houseguests in Your Home Office

Set some basic rules for your guests and yourself, and your visitors will enjoy their visit,
while you still get your work done.

Ahhh, you have a successful business that has its office in your home. You worked hard to make your business successful and you need to keep that way. So, what do you do when family and friends would like to come and visit, perhaps for a few hours or a few days! You ask yourself, how can I enjoy having houseguests and keep my business running in a productive way without alienating my visitors? Owning a home based business means having to worry about something that other hosts/hostesses do not, and that is having house guests in your office. I offer these few guidelines to make the visit go smoothly and keep everyone happy.

You have to evaluate if it can work. If you are squeezed for space, do you want guests, or is having them more a “duty” than a “pleasure”. If you have three children under 5 years of age and operate a family daycare center in you home, can you enjoy houseguests, and can they enjoy themselves? If you use your spare bedroom to give private music lessons with students during the day time and evenings, do you really want to try squeezing guests into such a schedule? If your office is a separate room in your house will you have to stay there with the door closed while you are working? Can guests play music and watch the television while you are working?

You are not a rotten friend or relative if you don't open your home office to guests. Under any of these circumstances, your guests and you will be happier if you provide them with a room in a nearby hotel. Thoughtful and caring friends and relatives will understand. No considerate guest wants to be a burden or a disruption. They should know that you have to work to earn a living.

Enjoying houseguests is a matter of timing. Look at your calendar. What work is scheduled for the time period involved? If you're too busy to spend time with your friends or family, it will be hard to enjoy their visit and keep your business up and running at the same time. For example, if you're in the gift basket business, having guests during the holiday seasons could be a setup for disaster. If you're a tax preparer, Easter houseguests may be totally unworkable. I own a catering business with the office in my home and the kitchen in a local business park. I am in my office booking and coordinating events a lot of the time, or in the kitchen helping with food prep, or out meeting with clients, or onsite at a job -sometimes late into the night. In the catering business we work on weekends but much depends on the time of year. The more you can clear your calendar, the greater the chances of enjoying your guests.

You have to establish some ground rules. Walk mentally through the anticipated visit, and imagine every possible scenario, from your mother wandering into a client meeting in her swimsuit to your nephew practicing his electric guitar in the living room while you're on the phone. Will there be certain areas of the house that will need to be off-limits? Are there telephone lines you won't want anyone using? Will sleeping guests keep you from getting to your computer? Will there be times of the week that you will not be available? Are there times the car will not be available? What limitations will you need to set up to make sure your business can continue to function adequately? Spell out all expectations clearly in advance, letting your guests know you have a home office.
Try not to let yourself get overwhelmed about receiving houseguests (or not). Most people realized that running a business from home is very much the norm these days. Once you have a chat with them, prior to their visit, everything should be fine. You may even find out that they were more of a help than a hindrance.

By: Susie McDonell, Catering Unlimited

"Every time you meet a situation, though you think at the time it is an impossibility and you go through the tortures of the damned, once you have met it and lived through it, you find that forever after you are freer than you were before.
Eleanor Roosevelt

"Education is not about filling the pail, but lighting the fire."
Anonymous

Entrepreneur's Prayer
by Skye Thomas

Angels Mine,

I feel myself moving very slow, dragging my feet. I'm nervous that success will overwhelm me and my children. Would you please come wrap your wings around us? Guide us, protect us, bless us, and love us. Make me feel safe so that I will speed up the pace. I'm letting fear rob me of my motivation. What if I really don't know what I'm doing? What if I make a fool of myself? What if I never make a dime? What if I fail?

Please make your presence known. I don't want to guess or play at metaphors. Speak to me openly and with a clarity that cannot be denied. When I'm lost, don't carry me, just point the way. When I have to make important decisions, speak up and tell me your opinion. When I'm doing the right thing, smile on me.

Hold me to my highest good. Show me signs that I'm quite capable of accomplishing this task within the amount of time given. I don't ask for you to make it easy for me or to do it all for me. Rather, just shine a light on my own cleverness and adventuresome spirit. Be my cheerleader, not my enabler. Don't let me play small. Don't save me, just show me the vision again when I am ready to give up and quit. Dangle that carrot in front of me, but don't just hand it to me.

Help to remind me when I'm juggling too many things, that it is my bliss to do this work. Remind me of all the reasons why I love it so much. Don't ever let me take it for granted nor forget what lead me to accept this challenge. I am me and this is what I do.

Thank you

Phone: (902) 830-9336
Email: learn@windowwalk.com
2375 Roosevelt Dr. Halifax, NS. B3L 3H8