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We have winners!
Congratulations to Rhonda Gray who won Office 2007 Ultimate in our members' drawing.
Also...congrats to the 6 people who won in our other drawing and received free 1-yr Ojolie.com subscriptions: Dietmar Schafflik, Marcia Berkey, Loretta Berrier, Janet Daugherty, Sherri Hodge, and Daryl Kline.
Yes, it’s been another tough several months around here when it comes to family health issues. As most of you know, I am the primary caretaker for mom (87) who suffered a stroke last November. She’s doing ok, but still gets confused a lot and isn’t the same person she used to be. A lot of the things I took for granted that she could do…are now things that Greg and I have to handle for her. Mom also had skin cancer removed this summer from her face, as well as now having to depend on a prong cane to get around, because her hips are causing her problems. As anyone who has had their world tossed around with new responsibilities can tell you, it takes time to get good at the processes. Trying to get all this stuff down to a science can be tricky.
And then there are the issues with my brother. He’s only 58, but is literally battling for his life. His blood disease is taking it’s toll on his body and now…besides the blood treatments and chemo for the cancer that has invaded his last kidney…we’ve discovered he has very brittle bones. He’s collapsed twice over the summer and broken bones in both falls. Once it was his nose and several ribs, the next was his hip. That one required major surgery to put him back together again. He’s now pretty much confined to a wheel chair. Seeing him struggle is taking its toll on mom, too.
So it’s been hard to concentrate on computers when it seems like you’re just waiting for the other shoe to drop. And then there’s the guilt because you find yourself feeling sorry for yourself and feel stupid for that because you’re not the one suffering with these issues and there are so many who have much bigger issues to deal with. That’s when you kick yourself in the butt and get back to doing what you feel you need to do in your own life…at least until the next time the phone rings! (Like the other day, when my daughter called in tears to tell me her dog was dying!<sigh> Dog lovers may want to see Odie’s page (http://www.mousetrax.com/pet_odie.html) to read the sad details.)
But I’ve been kicking myself throughout the last few months and if nothing else…I think I have that process down to a science! So let’s get this train back on course, eh?
This issue is the April issue…even though it’s, ahem…a bit late. So those of you who are paid members up until April 2007, will still be members at this point. But if your membership expires in May, you’ll want to renew or you won’t be able to access future member's training and drawings. And I have the next issue piling up so I’ll be working on publishing that issue right away. If you want to renew and PayPal didn’t automatically renew for you, you can go to my personal link and enter your registered renewal fee. Just go here: http://www.mousetrax.com/Rates.html#makepayments and use that PayPal link. Be sure to make a note in the payment that it is your TechTrax Member Renewal and enter the email address you use for TechTrax, so we can be sure to properly update your status. If you’re unsure of your status or your renewal rate, you can check your profile here: http://www.mousetrax.com/TechTrax_Manage_Profile.asp
The above information is only for current members who have paid to access higher level training. If you’re a free subscriber, no need to worry about that, although you can also check your profile, you just don’t need a password. If you’d like to become a member, see this page: http://www.mousetrax.com/TechTrax_Membership.html
We have a great issue for you here and as I said, I have a pile of material ready to format for the next issue, which I’ll start working on publishing as soon as this one is out.
You’ll also find two very cool giveaways this month! One is only for members. I’m giving away Office 2007 Ultimate edition. That’s the whole enchilada! You'll get Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook with Business Contact Manager, Accounting Express, Publisher, Access, InfoPath, Groove, OneNote, Enterprise Contact Management, Electronic Forms, and Information Rights Management. This version retails for $679. It's the full version, not an upgrade, so no need to upgrade your current version or already have a qualifying version on your system. Oh, and we're even tossing in a new Office 2007 T-shirt for good measure! So, if you're a member, head over to the member's login and hit the April page. At the bottom you'll find a button to click that'll enter your name in the drawing, to be held September 4th, 2007. If you've already logged in for this session, just click here: April drawing. Good luck!
Our second drawing is for a one-year subscription to a very beautiful, fairly new greeting card web site. See our article about Ojolie cards. They have graciously given us several memberships to give away to our readers. So whether you're a member or free subscriber, check out the article and click the link to enter your name in the drawing. Also on September 4th, 2007, we'll spin the wheel and locate six winners who will get a free year to send out these beautiful and fun greeting cards.
I also have more goodies that I'll be giving away in the next issue...particularly, licenses for Microsoft's newest web development software Expression Web, as well as some other freebies!
And I've started the series on database connectivity. In this series, I'll show you how to reproduce code so you, too, can learn to create cool data-driven applications in Word, like the ones I've created here: MouseTrax Solutions. Over the years I've learned a lot about these types of processes and now I'll be giving away my experience and tricks to members so you can learn these skills in easy-to-understand video lessons.
Enjoy this issue. Lots of great stuff in here! And we'll be back very soon with another issue. So there's a lot to learn...get busy!


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