waiting period

       It's been more than a week since I first started sending my applications to job postings in odesk and during that time, I've had 4 or 5 applications declined, and 2 interviews which turned out to be scams. I'm still awaiting results on the others. I began wondering if it usually takes this long to land a job so I visited the community forums in odesk. And what I've read so far from the discussion threads were sort of discouraging. Some contractors have been applying for weeks and even months and haven't landed their first gig yet. I started having doubts myself  if  I will ever get that first job but the stubborn part of me just refuse to believe that all my hard work, persistence, perseverance, determination, motivation, desire, and belief will amount to nothing. Who was it who said that "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction"? Or is "Kapag may itinanim, may aanihin" more apt?

       Then yesterday evening, I participated in a live Q&A with a virtual assistant which was organized by Jomar Hilario. The guest was a Mr. Marvin Macatol, who was a va, among other things, and a student of Jomar. Marvin talked about his experiences as a VA, his previous jobs before that, how he started as a va, his first interview, his first gig, etc. and we learned that it took him 4 months after the Virtual Assistant Seminar before he got his first job. So! All hope is not lost after all.

       It was an enjoyable session. I had fun participating in the chats with the other participants, and with Marvin talking in the background hehe. And Jomar promised that he will have another session next month, every month in fact if  he's not busy.

       So in the meantime, I will continue to study one application/program everyday which is what I've been doing after sending my applications. I'm preparing to take another free test in odesk to add to my skills in my profile. It's really very important for a virtual assistant to have a varied set of skills because a  prospective client is always looking for someone who can help with a variety of tasks. And also, in this way, a virtual assistant will not be limited to data entry jobs.

        Fellow VAs, the only way to go is forward.

What is Dropbox?

Hi! So now I'm ready to start work on my assignment and  I chose Dropbox for my first application since I'm already using it. I visited the site, watched the video, and studied the features to refresh my memory.

From the seminar, I learned that one quality that a va must possess is organizational skills.

Organization is key to success, satisfaction, and productivity. And one great tool for a va to develop his/her organizational skills is to learn and use Dropbox.

So what is Dropbox?

Dropbox is likened to a magic pocket where you can put all your stuff and have access to them whenever and wherever you are.

In the computer world, it is a software that provides online backup service using what they call cloud computing technology (software and data are stored on servers on the Internet and can be accessed through a web browser).

Dropbox functions as an online storage service that focuses on synchronization and sharing. It enables users to store and share files and folders with others across the Internet and across many computers and even mobile devices. Users can drop any file into a designated folder in one computer and Dropbox will instantly and automatically sync it to any other of the user's computers and devices. Sounds great, right?

Dropbox also keeps a history of every change you make so that you can undo any mistakes and even undelete files. Files deleted from the Dropbox folder may be recovered from any of the synced computers. Better and better.
And if you're like Dropbox's founder Drew Houston who kept forgetting his USB drive which led to the creation of  Dropbox, not to worry 'coz Dropbox has solved that problem for you.

The next thing on my to-do list is to create a presentation on how to download, install, and use Dropbox. I'm gonna consult my bestfriend Google for that. Stay tuned!