X-Persona: Return-Path: Message-ID: List-Unsubscribe: Date: XXX 2000 08:14:39 -0000 From: Freelance@onelist.com Reply-To: Freelance@onelist.com To: Freelance@onelist.com Subject: [Freelance] Digest Number 2 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 8bit ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAXIMIZE YOUR CARD, MINIMIZE YOUR RATE! Get a NextCard Visa, in 30 seconds! Get rates as low as 0.0% Intro or 9.9% Fixed APR and no hidden fees. Apply NOW! http://XXX ------------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your subscription; view the archives, bookmarks, or calendar; access the shared files: http://www.onelist.com/group/Freelance Freelance website: http://www.comteck.com/~tanuki/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ There are 11 messages in this issue. Topics in today's digest: 1. Re: office chairs From: XXX 2. Re: Re: office chairs/website From: XXX 3. Re: Re: office chairs From: XXX 4. Re: LMP alternative? From: XXX 5. Re: Re: office chairs From: XXX 6. Re: office chairs (Balans) From: XXX 7. lost manuscript (long) From: XXX 8. Re: office chairs (etc.) From: XXX 9. Re: Interesting Sun-Times Article From: XXX 10. Looking for freelancers for article From: XXX 11. Re: Looking for freelancers for article From: XXX _______________________________________________________________________________ Message: 1 Date: Thu 2000 16:27:02 EST From: XXX Subject: Re: office chairs In a message dated XXX/00 4:16:10 PM Eastern Standard Time, Freelance@onelist.com writes: << > I have one of the "ergonomic chairs" for my computer... knee-rest...no back...no arms. I don't know how anyone uses a computer for any length of time with another kind of chair. < A Balans chair is what I had, too, >> Is a Balans chair a knee contraption too? I had one, but I found that the pressure on my knees was uncomfortable. Was I doing something wrong? (It seems to me kneeling would be much better for one's back than sitting.) AW _______________________________________________________________________________ Message: 2 Date: Thu 2000 16:27:57 EST From: XXX Subject: Re: Re: office chairs/website I'm glad to hear that the kneeling chair works for so many of you. I tried it and found it terribly distressing and painful so it's not for everyone. I use the Obusforme upright support pillow for my chair. While it is firmly built, you inflate it to get the current curvature for your spine. As long as I keep the back of my chair tilted back, pat my feet strongly to keep circulation going and take a 15 minute break every hour, it works pretty good. For those of you who have not looked at my and my partner's website (put together over 2 1/2 years sitting as described), I'd like to bring to our attention that it's not just for history professionals. It's good for research into countries, maps, statistics, timelines, primary sources, women's studies, popular culture, social history, medieval/renassance history for fantasy writers, art, and biography/oral history. There are no graphics so it loads fast. None of the URLs in it came from search engines but were recommended by history and other professionals. Each URL points to many more URLs. MS _______________________________________________________________________________ Message: 3 Date: Thu 2000 15:45:56 -0600 From: XXX Subject: Re: Re: office chairs > A Balans chair is what I had, too, > > Do they even sell inexpensive ones these days, or will I have to start > hitting the yard sales? I'll have to start looking in earnest soon. I may > even have to *gasp* drive to Raleigh. Ideas, anyone? > Well, I saw one for sale for $10 at my local Salvation Army Resale Shop. I tried it, but it made my knees hurt so I didn't buy it. J ______________________________________________________________________________ Message: 4 Date: Fri 2000 06:14:25 -0500 From: XXX Subject: Re: LMP alternative? <> You can sit in the library and copy out the information. That's what I've always done. Of course, I realize that might not be any more pleasant a prospect than copying the pages, but then again, sometimes it makes a nice break from sitting at your desk. Any excuse to get out of the house.... I was in a Barnes & Noble the other day, and inquired about the cost of the LMP. I fled when I found out it was over $200, but after reading some of these messages, I'm rethinking that. I was thinking of the $200 in the context of the usual price range for a book, and even for a reference book, that's a lot of money. But I wasn't thinking of $200 in the context of what I get paid for a typical project, and that's a lot more than $200. So, thought of in that way, it *is* an investment, and so much more comfortable and convenient to have it at home. KA _______________________________________________________________________________ Message: 5 Date: Thu 2000 19:04:38 -0800 From: XXX Subject: Re: Re: office chairs D, On your chair, you might get in touch with your local vocational schools and talk to the welding teacher. Your chair might offer a challenge to a welding student, and you'd get off with a reasonable charge. Go on and have your good chair reupholstered. Even leather is not terribly expensive. I'm having a *huge* chair and ottoman, plus a "lady's chair" reupholstered with leather where it touches the body and matching vinyl elsewhere, for a total of $1,200. About what the chairs cost originally 26 years ago, but well worth it for truly comfortable chairs. J _______________________________________________________________________________ Message: 6 Date: Thu 2000 22:16:55 -0500 From: XXX Subject: Re: office chairs (Balans) >>> I have one of the "ergonomic chairs" for my computer <<< >> A Balans chair is what I had, too << > Is a Balans chair a knee contraption too? < Exactly. To see some, check out history expensive minimalist Balans wheelchair Balans Balans concept There is some pressure on the knees. You just have to experiment. I found that my knees were most comfortable when my feet were dragging the floor and my upper shins were in contact with the kneepad. If a Balans chair is still uncomfortable after the adjustment period, take a look at the saddle chair: . I was in the middle of a job that required a transcriber and I had *just* gotten adept at using the foot pedal and chair simultaneously when my chair broke. Cheers, D _______________________________________________________________________________ Message: 7 Date: Thu 2000 23:39:01 EST From: XXX Subject: lost manuscript (long) Remember the chat about the lost manuscripts? I landed an awesome client (and I was very proud of myself). I worked hard for 5 weeks, especially over the weekend before it was due because I ran into some last-minute glitches (I try to pace myself so that usually doesn't happen). I stumbled, exhausted, into Kinko's and copied the whole thing before sending it off. (Good idea, right?) Today four-year-old was off playing with friends. Two-year-old was sleeping soundly. I had just gotten off the phone with my pregnant neighbor telling her I'd share dinner with her and her bunch of kids so she can have a night off. Cup of coffee in hand, I blissfully prepared to enjoy an hour or two of editing. Ahh. The phone rang. "M--, do you think you can send us chapters 6-8 too?" "What?! You don't have the whole manuscript?" "No. Just the first 5 chapters." "What could have happened? I went to Kinko's. . . . Oh no! I think I left part of the original in the copy machine! I'll call them right away." Well Kinko's doesn't make a habit of keeping junk (junk?!) their customers leave behind. So I had to go over a hundred pages of Xeroxed manuscript, fixing everything that was less than clear on the copy and putting marks in margins like a proofreader so the typesetter won't miss anything now that all the marks are in black. I made the quickest spaghetti dinner imaginable, friends came to the rescue with the kids, and finally I just had to go make copies at my church so I could be back home to meet FedEx for the pick up. The church copier died. I gave up, picked up my kids, nixed FedEx, and planned to take the kids with me on a little road trip to deliver chapters 6-8 first thing in the morning. Still gotta have those copies because I'll be communicating with the author on this one. Guess who has to hit the ground running in the morning. It was such a comedy of errors all I could do was laugh. Maybe I'll lose this client that I'm so happy to have (probably not, but maybe). But I'm still laughing because I know I don't have to worry. There are so many publishers out there and everything will be just fine. Ain't editing grand? M _______________________________________________________________________________ Message: 8 Date: Thu 2000 23:22:23 -0500 From: XXX Subject: Re: office chairs (etc.) Grouping all this ergo-stuph. Re: moose, trackballs, touchpads Trackball tends to make my thumb joint ache like blazes after a while. Mouse...bad, bad mouse. Touchpad tres cool. Re: eyestrain After I got a new monitor I had horrendous eyestrain problems, to the point where I couldn't read a damn thing. The eye guy's advice was to "stop looking at the computer" (gee). As it turned out, the solution was pretty simple: severely dialing down the contrast and brightness from the default settings. A miraculous cure. (I wear sunglasses when I work a lot on library machines, 'cause they always gripe when I play with their settings.) Re: laptops I borrow my sister's laptop once in a while; it has this nasty raspberry-looking thing in the middle of the keyboard (yes there's a term for it, but I don't feel like looking it up). It was not meant for use by humans. She bought a regular trackball, plugged it into the laptop, and uses it instead. Much better. Re: chairs As ever, still occupying the floor here. I did acquire a beach chair at K-Mart about a week ago, and thus have given up my strange and lounging ways. Sort of. VW _______________________________________________________________________________ Message: 9 Date: Thu 2000 22:35:39 -0500 From: XXX Subject: Re: Interesting Sun-Times Article At 09:42 PM XXX/2000, M-- noted this article: >http://www.suntimes.com/output/applegate/col21.html And here's a quote from it: "When you need a free-lancer, you usually needed them yesterday," said Leslie Berliant, general manager of Etalent Agency, which places designers and artists in many dot-com companies. "Places . . . in dot-com companies"? Huh. Actually, I've been thinking about this very topic a lot recently. I've been keeping an eye on the scores of ads for dot-com editorial jobs that have been going up at The Copy Editor of late. The majority specify "freelance positions." They are 1) all in-house, 2) set out the working hours (in fact, one of them was pretty blunt: "working regular shifts"), and 3) have no set limitations on the duration, meaning they aren't temporary (one states right out that the "freelancer" will work 32-hours a week). They do not offer any benefits. Here's the problem: these aren't freelance jobs. The IRS guidelines as to what constitutes an employee aren't _that_ vague. No one taking these jobs is working from his/her own office on a regular basis, nor is he/she in control of the working hours or able to pursue other freelance work. So these are part-time hourly employees, _not_ freelancers. They clearly fail the independent contractor/employee tests. As far as I can tell, these dot-com employers seem to be regarding benefits (or lack thereof) as the primary distinguishing factor. It's not. Anyway, here's my prediction. Should this segment of the industry continue to grow in this fashion, eventually the IRS is bound to notice the discrepancy as well. On that day, we as a group will finally get our very own classification code. And we will become a shiny new employment class for auditing purposes. Very exciting. ^_^ VW Oh. For the curious, I'm referring to a number of publications available on the IRS site, including these: * Publication 15a, Employer's Supplemental Tax Guide; 2. Employee or Independent Contractor? * Publication 80, Circular SS; 1. Who Are Employees? * Form SS-8, Determination of Employee Work Status for Purposes of Federal Employment Taxes and Income Tax Withholding _______________________________________________________________________________ Message: 10 Date: Fri 2000 01:42:49 EST From: XXX Subject: Looking for freelancers for article Hi, I'm a freelance writer, working on an article for XXX (http://www..com), and I'd like to speak with freelancers who have compiled their own mailing lists. I'm trying to find out how you compiled your list and what, if anything, you learned in the process. What resources would you recommend to other freelancers who want to compile lists of their own? I'm primarily talking "snail mail" lists as e-mail lists are highly suspect. Feel free to contact me privately at XXX. My deadline for the article is early next week, so if you'd like to participate, send me your replies soonest! Regards, EM _______________________________________________________________________________ Message: 11 Date: Fri 2000 01:45:30 -0500 From: XXX Subject: Re: Looking for freelancers for article At 01:42 AM XXX/2000, E wrote: >[...] I'm primarily talking "snail mail" lists as e-mail lists are >highly suspect. Suspect? I'm not certain how you're using the term "mailing list" here. Perhaps you'd best clarify. This particular forum would be an example of a mailing list (ML) as commonly understood on the Internet. D'you mean something more along the direct marketing line? VW _______________________________________________________________________________ ***sampleEOF652ab***