New book coming soon! Subscriber only discount!

My new book, Optometric Office Design Process and Pitfalls, will save you thousands of dollars and help you avoid the exasperating problems and runaway costs that other practitioners experience when they build a new office.

We’re in the final stages of setting up the web page for the book and it will be available as an instant downloadable e-book on or before February 15. We’ll be offering a subscriber-only discount for a limited time, so watch your in-box for the announcement.

You also get a valuable F*R*E*E* bonus – Barbara’s Best 25 Floor Plans – with the book if you order by the deadline.

Fed Up With Spam? This can help!

Are you as frustrated as I am with Spam? This week I got an apologetic message from a client who was thoroughly embarrased by a spammer who stole his e-mail address. This creep sent everyone in this doc's e-mail address book a solicitation for porn, complete with a smutty photo! And somehow it was sent from the doctor's e-mail server so his address was in the "From" field. How horrible!

Luckily I hadn't checked my e-mail account that morning, so when I did I recognized the spam and trashed it. In the last few weeks not just one, but TWO of my e-mail addresses have been hi-jacked by spammers. One of them was a new address I had just set up! I hadn't even used it yet and in just 3 days I received 185 spams!

I thought using a contact form on my website would be a safe way for people to send me an e-mail without exposing my e-mail address to spam-bots that crawl around websites harvesting addresses. Boy, was I wrong!

I called my webmaster because I thought there might be some security breech on his servers. He explained to me that some spammers now have automated programs that will take your domain name and try dozens of name and initial combinations derived from the domain name when your real name appears in it. Sometimes they stumble on an address that works!

So, what can you do about spam? My webmaster recommended this book to me and it delivers good value at very reasonable $9.95. We've added the recommended security measures to my contact form and I now have a strategy for setting up hard-to-guess and "disposable" e-mail addresses.

Bargain Alert: Leather Side Chairs $106.99

Spotted during my last Costco run: Beautiful dark brown leather-upholstered side chairs perfect for use at dispensing tables for $106.99 (Item #809625). If you want new dispensing chairs at an incredible price, this is it. Now be forewarned – these chairs are residential grade, not commercial grade, so you can't expect them to last as long as a commercial grade chair.

However if the style and color works with your decor and you want a low-cost way to spruce up your dispensary, these chairs are a great value. If your local Costco doesn't have them you can order similar chairs online at the Costco website. The online styles shown as of today's date range in price from $219. to $369. – still a bargain for well-made chairs.