Poisoned By An Apple (the products and the fruit).

This picture makes me want to be like Snow White. She looks so damn happy as if the only thing she has to do in this world is bake a flippin' pie. Welcome to 2011 sister - that shit won't cut it!

But as the story goes (sorry for spoiler alert from 1937 folks), Snow White was tricked and poisoned by an Apple. And I think that's exactly what Steve Jobs is doing to us.

I'm a big fan of Apple and have been for a while. I have a MacBook, a few iPods, and within the last year branched into the iPad and iPhone world, and I can't say I'm impressed. In the least. Steve Jobs along with many others are selling the idea that the more technology you have, the easier it is to manage. While that may very well be true for some, it sure as hell isn't for me. Continue reading for my unorganized chaos and dilemma.

Tonight as I was laying in bed working on my iPad with my iPhone lying next to me I started to realize that I am the most unorganized woman in the world. Please see examples below and if you truly have advice or know of decent services to help, PLEASE, FTLOG, help a sister out. Or else Steve Jobs is in for it...

- Bookmarks, Read it Later, and the like...
As a freelance writer, an idea maker and an overall good friend helping other friends in business keep up to date, I tend to run across a lot of websites I need to bookmark. I come across ideas/articles to read or share from Twitter, magazine excerpts, email chains, word of mouth - really anything.

What is the best way to keep track of ALL of these places you want to revisit? I use Delicious on my computer (which luckily keeps track on all computers once you log in to the website), and because there is some stupid fee for the app (when the SITE IS FREE), I refuse to use the app. By the end of the week I end up with 20-30 "favorites" on my twitter account (x2), a slew of links on Read it Later, new updated bookmarks on Delicious and handwritten notes everywhere... how can I streamline and simplify this process? (Note, I must be able to categorize the bookmarks for ease of use later.)

I guess a better way to ask this is, how do you organize all your ideas? Sometimes they are hand written or notes in my phone, and other times they are things ripped out of magazines or online articles.


- Files on multiple computers...
Because of the new setup at my townhouse, I now use my laptop more than my brand new Mac Desktop (annoying in and of itself, I know). My files on my laptop are not the same as the ones on my desktop upstairs so I end up not knowing which files are the most updated, or I end up with duplicate files. Sometimes I will email myself the updated file with a note in the subject line to remind myself to download onto my other computer (which is my main computer and the only one I backup), or put them on a flash drive in hopes of remembering to update the other computer. I've heard pros and cons of MobileMe, but what does everyone recommend? In a perfect world, whatever I update on my laptop should automatically update on my desktop and vice versa. I'd love the two to mimic one another. One of the magazines I write for wants us to use DropBox and I've heard good things about it, but how exactly does it work, and does it work for any of you?

- Apples & Oranges...
One would think having multiple apple products would make life easier, right? Well you'd be wrong. Take a simple example like my Twitter app nightmare. On my iPhone I adore the app, Echofon - it's easy to use and exactly what I need. On my laptop, Tweetdeck is the best to use because I tweet from over 4 accounts. But when you head into my iPad world, neither Echofon nor Tweetdeck is worth a C.R.A.P. so I use the web. I have 3 apple products (laptop, iPhone and iPad), 1 Social Media Network (Twitter), and 2 very different apps and am still looking for a third. While this might sound trivial to some, Twitter is a very important part of my day, my idea sharing and my networking. To have to learn/customize 3 different ways to use it is simply not time effective.

I also have notes on my phone, my iPad and even old ones from my Blackberry. Do they all sync up? How do I keep them all together?

The evil witch that got Snow White to eat the poisonous apple is doing the same thing with the Apple products and the apps. Why must it be so difficult?!

- Websites, hosting, platforms galore...
When I first got into blogging/writing, I started this site, A$$ on the blogspot network. It was easy to use, I quickly built a following and am able to write about all kinds of random stuff. Luckily, it's a free blogging service, so web hosting is free.

As I started writing more, I realized I needed an online portfolio, so jaymelamm.com was created. This site was created by an amazing friend of mine and she currently handles all the edits. As it stands, the site is only updated when new articles of mine are published (we are a few months behind). I believe the web hosting is on yahoo! as that's what was recommended to me at the time. As a freelance writer looking for more clients and exposure, should I be doing more with this site? What components need to be added or explained better?

Over the last 2 years, as my creativity in writing grew along with my love of sports, I launched The Blonde Side, which is a Word Press site hosted through GoDaddy. I have since branched off from The Blonde Side brand and launched The Blonde Ranger, and will soon be launching 3 more parts to The Blonde family of sports sites (including The Blonde in Heat, The Blonde Horn and The Blonde Eagle). Currently all sites have different Word Press logins, and different themes (but we are working on those).

Our Charity Chicks Houston site will be relaunched this month on Word Press, but hosted somewhere different due to the way we were previously set up.

So as it stands now, I have 8 websites to track analytics, update content, market to target audiences, etc. and they are all set up so different. Is my email signature supposed to have 25 lines and corresponding links? How can I simplify this? Even from the aspect of a business card - I do all of the above, but they are all branded so uniquely because a charity site is not nearly going to be the same as a sports site on the Texas Rangers. And it isn't at all cost effective or even feasible to carry 3 or 6 different business cards.

With all of those sites, when someone approaches me for writing samples, what on earth do I send them? I know it's based on the client and whether they are looking for print or online writing samples, but that's all a mess, is it not?

It's really overwhelming how you build your brand and figure out your own voice piece by piece then find yourself doing double or even triple the work because like life, all things change..

Help? Advice?

.jl.