The challenge of DSL -vs- Cable -vs- satellite Internet access is primarily in the residential and telecommuter markets. Within the past few years, Internet access via a cable modem has become available in many residential areas. When configured properly and under optimal conditions, cable has the capacity to transmit data twice the speed of DSL, and in some locations, even faster. Satellite allows you to escape the confines of the cable/wire but at much lower speeds and much higher price. Satellite may not work at all in the rain.
 

Cable Broadband Internet
Cable Internet access has drastically improved over the years and has become a very reliable means of surfing the internet. One of the main benefits of a cable broadband connection is that fiber optics can handle a very large amount of bandwidth which translates into very fast access potential, perhaps double DSL speed. Also performance of cable internet does not depend on distance from the provider's network exchange or offices like it does with DSL. Cable Internet is perfect for streaming audio/video, videoconferencing, online gaming, application programs, telephone calling and other high-bandwidth services.
 
There can be some limitations for residential Cable services however. Cable internet is not a dedicated service to your home and in most cases, is provided thru a shared network by your cable TV provider. When too many users in a neighborhood try to share the same cable, performance speeds can be reduced 50% or more as users compete for available bandwidth. Also there may be a slight security risks which can make users more vulnerable to data interception, unauthorized monitoring or hacking from an extreme hacker in the neighborhood since it is a shared line*.

When buying Cable Internet, check the upload and download speed. Many cable companies will throttle back the upload speed by as much as 75%. Also, If you purchase Cable internet at a certain speed, make sure your Cable Modem will operate at that speed. Otherwise, you may be paying for speed that you cannot use.
 
DSL (ADSL) Broadband Internet
DSL (AKA Digital Subscriber Line or ADSL- Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line), is a digital internet connection that uses your existing copper telephone wiring to deliver high-speed data services to homes and businesses (2-wire). DSL provides a dedicated line to each internet user and is an \"always on\" high-speed connection. DSL not only provides high-speed access to the Internet, but it can also do streaming audio/video, videoconferencing, online gaming, application programs, telephone calling and other high-bandwidth services (same as cable modem). DSL generally connects to your PC via a DSL modem and it does not interfere with your telephone service.
 
There can be some limitations for DSL services as well... The maximum speed of DSL is determined by the distance between the customer's location and the Central Office (CO). Unlike cable internet which is not hindered by distance, DSL speeds tend to be slower the further away from the central office you are. It is extremely rare, but DSL can be hacked where the wire leaves the house and at the main connection boxes * Also, like Cable, DSL carriers tend to throttle the upload speed by as much as 75%.

Satellite Internet
Sustained download speeds typically have a maximum of 500k (roughly 1/6 of DSL and 1/10th of cable modem potential). The biggest pit fall of satellite connections is that they often have \"lag-time\" when requesting information to and from the satellite. As a result, normal browsing may seem sluggish,  but large file downloads are generally much improved over traditional Dialup connections. Often the upload transmissions on satellite connections run over a traditional dial-up modem at 56k baud or less. Satellite is not fast enough for most streaming audio/video, videoconferencing, online gaming, application programs, telephone calling and other high-bandwidth services.

Satellite connections require the installation of a dish and satellite transceiver at the user's location. The dish then sends and receives data with an orbiting satellite, the distance of the transmission and weather can negatively affect performance (forget satellite internet in the rain).

Satellite internet does really shine in two areas:
1.    Rural areas beyond the reach of the cable/wire
2.    In a motorhome, airplane or such vehicle where satellite can provide internet access any place, anytime when you have line-of-site to the satellite (even whilst on the move). (except when it rains).

Being a point to point technology, satellite connections are less exposed than cable access.

Dedicated T1 Internet Service
T1s are large pipes used to transport digital voice and data signals from a business location to the internet or dedicated destination. This service can handle a great deal of bandwidth, both voice and data, and has 24 fixed channels to send information over. Unlike Cable, DSL, and Satellite, T1 bandwidth is guaranteed to remain constant.

Businesses can now lease a full T1 that will provide 1.54 MB of connectivity with the flexibility to assign the available channels to voice or data. This is guaranteed throughput that can support up to 50 users comfortably, with each user having their own bandwidth so as not to slow down other users.

From a pricing standpoint the T1 used to be a great deal more expensive than DSL. Now, companies like Nuvox and Spirit are offering 4 telephone lines and a T1 for about $425.00 per month. With the guaranteed bandwidth and associated features, the service is well worth the price.

 * Please note: In all cases, whether you choose DSL, Cable, T1, or Satellite internet, it would be wise to use some type of a firewall protection

The Kindle Fire, Amazon's hot rod e-reader, had an astounding 54 percent of the Android tablet market just four months after its release. No one else was even close, according to a report by comScore, a digital market research firm.

A ConsumerAffairs analysis of about 940,000 consumer comments on Facebook, Twitter and other social media finds a similarly meteoric rise in net sentiment, with a positive rating of 72 percent last month.

Read More - Click Here!

What does the Kindle Fire do?

• Free cloud storage for all your Amazon content
• Vibrant color touchscreen with extra-wide viewing angle - same as an iPad
• Fast, powerful dual-core processor
• Favorite children's books, graphic novels, and magazines in rich color
• Amazon Prime Members enjoy unlimited, instant streaming on thousands of popular movies and TV shows. Learn More
• Amazon Prime Members choose from over a hundred thousand books to borrow for free. Learn More

(Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc's stellar quarterly results are helping convince skeptics on Wall Street that a bout of intense spending is beginning to pay off for an Internet retailer trying to transform itself into a technology company.

Shares in Amazon leapt 15 percent on Friday after it reported first-quarter earnings and margins well above investors' most bullish expectations, tacking on some $10 billion in market value and marking its biggest single-day gain since October of 2009.

CEO Jeff Bezos has tried to convince investors to stick with the company for the long term as it flirted with losses in recent quarters. He is trying to transform Amazon from an online version of a big-box retailer like Wal-Mart into a provider of technology services.

Read More - Click Here!

By request, I've searched and researched the question as to whether to leave the computers on or turn them off when not in use. I searched my personal archives, the internet, and interrogated fellow computer repair people, and engineer, and even stumbled upon a thesis from MIT. A strong case can be made for either side of the issue so please read on and decide for yourself. But don't worry, I won't leave you hanging. I will also let you know what I do with my computers.

Arguments for turning the computers off:
Old school logic would have you turn off your computer when not in use. Computers used to consume $10.00 of electricity each month. That alone would move me to click the off switch. In addition, the bearings on cooling fans and hard drives were not so good and would wear out in about a years worth of continuous running. Let's see – 8 hours of work and 16 hours of running idle - Old school says "Turn It Off!"

Home computers were used differently back then too. Dad did the check-book and played pong or pac-man. Mom played a little solitaire and that was it. The computer was used an hour or so during the evening, then turned off until the next time.

Electrical Theory: The electrical theory is that during operation a piece of equipment is subjected to more surges in power than the initial surge whilst turning on and off is worth, which means over time more damage is done with the power on. Also, electrical parts wear out due to constant heat. It's more of a high mileage theory, with the analogy, "Light bulbs are rated for so many hours of use, and once they're used, the bulb will blow".

Conspiracy Theory: Electrical power companies have conspired to convince people to leave their equipment on to increase profitability. (Believe it or not, most of the folks I asked the suggested turning off the computer when not in use, came up with this reason first, and, frankly, it made me question everything else they said).

Arguments for leaving the computers on:
Power and Torque: At the instant that an electrical device is turned on or off to a power source, there is an electrical burst of energy comparable to a mechanical "jerk\" The rate of change is instantaneous and infinite. This electrical "jerk", surge, or spike, for an instantaneous moment, brings voltages much much much higher than the 5 or 12 volts normally used to power the devices inside your computer.

Notable as well, motors such as the electrical motors in the hard drives, floppy drives, CD/DVD, and fans take a big shock called torque when it goes from running at 7200 rpms to a dead stop. This is repeated when the switch is turned on and these devices go from 0 rpm to 7200 rpm.

All of this means that at the moment the machine is turned on, an incredible amount of current is necessary to get things moving, and the mechanical torque and electrical surge is at it's highest, usually instantaneously higher than the tolerances of the equipment. This is the point where equipment usually fails, as it is the greatest amount of instantaneous load that can be put on the equipment.

Case and point, \"A light bulb never blows when it's already on, it only blows when it is turned on.\" Same is usually true with a computer.

I personally keep my computers on 24/7 for several reasons:
1.    I don't believe in conspiracy theories.
2.    Computers draw much less electricity than in yesteryear. A typical DuelPro 2 gigs of ram, 320 gig drive, CD/DVD will cost about $30.00 a year to leave on ($2.50 a month – 8 cents a day).
3.    The toque / spike thing came from an engineer that I trust. It's real and is not impacted or improved by a surge protector or battery backup.
4.    Surge protectors or Battery Backups (UPS), particularly those that run the computer off of the battery, nearly eliminates spikes and surges whilst running your computer. (However, they do nothing to improve spike and torque issues whilst turning the computer on and off.)
5.    Microsoft Updates can occur at 3:00am and be complete by the time you wake up and start using your computer at 6:00am (some of these take an hour or more to complete)
6.    Anti-Virus Updates and scans can occur during the night rather than when you are trying to boot your computer to quickly see your checking account balance.

OK!  I spilled the beans! I recommend leaving the computer on 24/7, as well as modems, routers, and firewalls.

However, I do turn off printers, monitors, audio equipment, cameras, and most other peripherals connected to the computer. Why?
1.    Many of these devices such as monitors use more electricity than the computer (savings)
2.    Most peripheral devices turn on and off instantly – no wait.
3.    Most peripheral are tougher than computers and can take the abuse
4.    Most peripheral are no subject to Microsoft Updates and Anti-Virus Updates
5.    Most peripheral are very inexpensive to replace VS a computer

Takeaway: Google caters well to consumers, but it falls short of meeting the business needs of larger organizations. Here are the biggest areas of concern.

Without a doubt, Google is playing a larger and larger role in business IT. But as many have found out, doing business with Google requires certain expectations to be set up front. This is not to say that doing business with it is awful, or that other companies do not have many of these issues as well, of course. Still, there are some good reasons to be wary about doing business with Google.
 
1: Customer support is not its forte
 
The biggest reason to think twice about doing business with Google is that its organization is simply not designed to provide support for customers. Google has recently opened some phone numbers for customers to reach them, but by and large they prefer support to be email only (if they provide it at all). This is a perfectly fine approach for a free or ad-supported product. But if you are hoping to run a business built on Google’s offerings, you’ll want to check out the support options first.
 
2: Leadership has questionable views on privacy
 
Eric Schmidt (executive chair of Google’s board) recently joked about whether your Android contact list and most recent calls should be used to customize advertising. Whether Google is heading in that direction or not, no one wants to think that Google takes these matters lightly. Time and time again, Google’s executives (particularly Mr. Schmidt) have made it clear that they will get as much data generated by your online activities as legally and technically possible. Is that necessarily bad? No. But their attitude seems to be that if you want any kind of online privacy, you need to go through extreme measures.
 
3: It makes its living by leveraging information about you
 
Most users never stop for a moment to ask themselves how Google can do so much for no cost to them. Of course, the answer is advertising, and that is nothing new. But what makes Google’s advertisements so valuable is not just their wide reach but the selective targeting. You see, Google has taken the same engineering that produced its excellent search engine and applied the effort toward linking ads to people, based in no small part upon the data harvested as a result of your daily interactions with them.
 
Of course, seeing ads on Google Search based on previous searches is not a shock. But it’s a bit creepy (and occasionally embarrassing) when you go to a site and look at products there, and then ads from that site follow you around to every site you visit for months. If you want to know what other users do with their computers, just look at what ads Google displays for them.
 
In addition to the inherent privacy concerns (”What if a hacker gets a hold of this?” and “What if other sites figure out how to use this?”), there are legal concerns. As the government continues to subpoena Google’s data, it is quite possible that data concerning you will end up in a government database, and who knows where it will go from there.
 
4: It’s too willing to yank products and APIs
 
Google is famous for rolling out new products on a regular basis. Unfortunately, it is also famous for pulling the plug on them. Sure, other companies do the same thing. But Google’s threshold for failure feels a lot lower. Even more frustrating is when it does this with APIs. It has become clear that Google opens APIs to study usage in the wild, but once it has learned what it wanted to, Google shuts down the APIs. This may work great for Google, but it is a nightmare scenario for companies that depend upon its products and services.
 
5: Quality is sometimes lacking
 
Overall, the quality of Google products is high. But there are some exceptions, and those exceptions (especially Android’s issues) are quite visible and damaging. Google’s “perpetual beta” was cute when it was Gmail or Orkut. When the same mentality is applied to your phone’s OS or your business email, it is an entirely different story. Google seems to currently view its target audience as consumers or small businesses for whom its applications are not mission critical.
 
6: It has minimal contact with real-world users
 
Google takes an extremely data-driven approach to deciding how to do things. For example, its usability changes are driven by massive amounts of data. It will roll out a change to a “small” group of users (which could be millions of people), observe how usage patterns change, and then make decisions from there. Google is lucky to have one of the largest user bases in the world for its applications, so it can take this approach and have tons of data.
 
Google doesn’t like user feedback, in large part because it is hard to quantify. The problem is that it believes the data, not users. While this isn’t terribly surprising (IT professionals have plenty of horror stories about how they did what users wanted, and it was a mess), it can be very frustrating to work with Google or to hope for a particular feature or change to be made. There just isn’t a way for the voice of the customer to be heard.
 
7: There are no SLAs
 
Google doesn’t do SLAs because, for the most part, Google doesn’t have any contracts to use its services. Now, that said, Google’s track record with uptime has been pretty good; better than most, honestly. If you look at its history over the last few years, an SLA is more a security blanket for you than anything else, and it would not change how it runs its business one bit anyway.
 
8: It has a consumer focus for features
 
One of the big reasons why Google has done so well is that its solutions cater well to consumers, and by extension, small businesses. At the same time, large companies have needs as well, and Google just does not meet them. For example, where is the federated Active Directory authentication for Google Apps for Business or the central management of Android phones? Those are the kinds of things that businesses need but consumers and small businesses do not. And until Google expands its focus a bit, these needs will not be met.
 
9: You are not important to Google
 
If you are part of a business, the traditional customer-vendor relationship is familiar, comfortable, and normal to you. But this is not in Google’s DNA. Google’s main currency is actually your clickstream data. Why does it give away Google Analytics? So it can collect clickstream data? Gmail? Search? Same thing. Its APIs? More data to feed the machine. Google’s true business is to run a commodities market where it is both the market itself and the sole producer of the commodity. In Google’s eyes, it is seller’s market. You have no other choices, and there are plenty of other people happy to buy that same commodity. Where other vendors would work hard to keep you happy, Google does not even bother to tell you to take a hike.
 
10: Google does not cater to business expectations
 
Google is really good at getting individuals and small businesses the products they need for free or nearly free. But it struggles when doing business with enterprises because the expectations are different. Google succeeds with the smaller companies because they understand that you get what you pay for. They don’t feel that a service that is free, or nearly so, is worth complaining about.
 
An enterprise, though, is often willing to pay more money to get certain things, like no ads, preferential treatment, a dedicated account executive, and SLAs. These are not bad things. But again, Google just is not set up to do business like this (with the exception of Google Apps for Business). Because it has such minimal interaction with you as client, it isn’t going to understand your needs, let alone try to cater to them. If what it delivers is fine with you, that’s great. But if you want the handholding, customization, support, etc., that a traditional vendor will sell you for an upcharge, Google isn’t going to be providing it.

By now, most site owners realize the importance and value of SEO in the development and growth of their site. A properly optimized site is going to rank better in the search engines, see more targéted traffic being directed over, have a higher conversion rate and much more. However, SEO is incredibly long term and nothing can rush time. It takes time for a site to build a good trust factor with the search engines and until that happens, most of your off-site SEO efforts are going to produce minimal results.

If you recently launched your site and are already looking into SEO, here are 5 things you should focus your time and energy on.

Learn the Basics of SEO for Yourself

There is no shortage of blogs, whitepapers, articles, reports, e-books, webinars, videos and more that can teach you the basics of SEO. It is imperative that you as the site owner arm yourself with as much SEO knowledge as possible during the first year of your site's life. The more you know about SEO, the less likely you are to be conned by a black hat SEO company and the less likely you are to make black hat SEO decisions by accident. A good place to start is with the Bing and Google Webmaster Guidelines. Consider those two sources as your SEO line in the sand; what they say goes. Look for other reputable blogs and sites that can help you learn more about SEO and how others in your industry are using it to their advantage.

By taking the time to teach yourself the basics of SEO (you could take an SEO course or spend time with a consultant as well), you'll be better prepared to take your SEO to the next level after your site has aged a little and earned the trust of the search engines.

Start a Blog

Start blogging right away. Start with at least one blog post a week and see if you can work up to one a day within the first year of your blog's life. That may seem like a huge ordeal now, but you'd be surprised at how easy it gets to write a 350-500 word blog post with practice. You'll learn how to better formulate your thoughts, present a single idea and flush it out entirely with time. If you aren't confident in your writing ability or are struggling to come up with topics, turn to your employees and co-workers for help. The worst thing you could do is launch a blog and then not routinely update it with fresh content.

It takes a long time to hone your writing skills, find and develop your niche, build your reputation and attract loyal readers to your blog, so don't expect to see major results fast. However, just like your site, as your blog ages it earns more trust from the search engines. Individual blog posts can start to rank for targeted keywords, increasing your online brand presence.
 

Build Your Social Network

If you are just getting onboard the social media marketing train, you're in for a surprise! Social media marketing takes a lot more time than most companies realize, and it needs a solid strategy to run on. Don't walk into social media blind and hope you'll figure it out before something goes wrong. Take the first year of your site's life to really develop your social profiles and connect with your target audience. What kind of content are they looking for from you? When is the best time to engage them? Which sites do they spend most of their time on? If you want your social media marketing efforts to be effective, you need to understand the behavior of your target audience so you can better reach them.

Focus on On-Site Optimization

The first year of your site's life should really be spent focusing on the site itself. Don't worry too much about developing a full blown link building strategy just yet; it's more important to make sure your site is in the best shape it can be! Work on creating great webpage content, developing an internal linking structure that helps keep your visitor engaged, tweaking your landing pages to improve their conversion rate and so forth. Your website is going to be the hub of the rest of your Internet marketing. It doesn't matter how great everything is off-site if your website doesn't measure up. At the end of the day, it is your website that is going to convince visitors to act. Does it matter how many show up or how they got there if you website fails to convert?

Develop an Editorial Calendar

Content pretty much fuels all of your SEO and social media marketing. Without great content, you don't give your target audience a real reason to check out your site, profile or blog. In addition to all the content you have to create for your sites, you also need to start looking into 3rd party sites where you can publish guest content. Take the first year of your site's life to build relationships with industry bloggers and other site owners that allow guest articles to be published on their site. Identify which popular industry blogs cater to your target audience and start laying the groundwork to get one of your articles published there. If you can create an editorial calendar for you to follow, you'll be able to get a jumpstart on your content marketing.

The choice a business owner makes in operating systems is integral, as their costs vary as enormously as their capabilities. An operating system is the behind-the-scenes warrior of your computer -- it's the host of the computer that sets the standards for all application programs and handles the details of the operation of the hardware. Here are the pros and cons of the top five operating systems.

http://www.bmighty.com/hardware_software/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=214...

Blogging can be a great way to draw new customers to your business website. But if your blog hasn't been updated in months or all your posts are thinly disguised sales pitches, your blog marketing plan could backfire.

A great business blog doesn't sell. Instead, it shows customers why they should do business with you and not your competitors.

The key to a successful business blog is variety -- so mix it up with different types of posts. If every post is "Seven Ways to Use Our Product," it's going to get old fast.

Here are 50 types of blog posts that can draw new visitors and help build customer relationships.

1. Customer success story. When you receive a great testimonial from a customer, ask for permission to turn it into a post. Use the post to solicit more customer stories.
    
2. Mention a popular post. If you notice a post by a popular blogger in your niche getting a lot of attention, add your viewpoint and link to the original post. Be sure to let that A-list blogger know about your comment and link.
    
3. Disagree with a popular opinion. Get traffic by stirring up controversy and taking a contrary position.
    
4. Riff on the news. How are current events affecting your customers? Run a Google Alert on certain keywords related to your business or industry to find relevant news items to discuss.
    
5. Compile a link roundup. If you notice several interesting opinions on a topic, you can pull them together into a single post of the best ideas.
    
6. Play off the familiar. Mention a celebrity or a pop culture touchstone and your readers will instantly relate.
    
7. Answer the questions everyone is asking. An FAQ post shows you're responsive and saves customers time.
    
8. Pose your own question. What would you like to know about your customers? Just ask, and let your readers create the content.
    
9. Talk about trends. You convey authority when you tell how things are evolving in your industry.
    
10. Discuss future plans. Give readers a sneak peek at what you'll do in the coming year to start generating interest.
     
11. Review a book. If you've read a book you think customers might like, give it a write-up.
     
12. Review a product or service. This shouldn't be one of your own products or services or a direct competitor's offering, but rather a related item your customers might want to learn about.
     
13. Comparison test. Provide even more value by comparing two or more related products or services.
     
14. Post a video. Create variety with a video post. You can give a sneak preview of a new product or show a promotional event.
     
15. Make a podcast. Record a quick interview with an expert, or just give a few of your own useful tips.
     
16. Create an infographic. Fact-filled, graphic posts get shared a lot on social networks. This infographic got more than 10,000 retweets.
     
17. Report on a conference. Quote inspiring speakers or tell readers about the latest trends and ideas from the conference that you'll be implementing.
     
18. Go behind the scenes. Give readers a photo or video tour of your plant, customer service desk or the backroom of your store.
     
19. Explain how you do it. Do you have a special way you make your product, handle returns or welcome new customers? Describe your process.
     
20. Staff profiles. Give a human face to your company by introducing new or seasoned employees.
     
21. Show your charity work. If your business gives back to the community, post a video or photo essay of that park your staff cleaned up.
     
22. Gush about your idols. Talk about the blogs you read regularly or the thought leaders who inspire you. Be sure to alert those bloggers and business gurus so they'll spread the word.
     
23. Have a debate. Invite someone who disagrees with your views to do a "Point/Counterpoint" post.
     
24. Talk about your blunders. Everyone loves to read about business failures. End your post by telling how you're fixing the problem.
     
25. Create a regular feature. Do a "customer of the week" spotlight or create a monthly collection of the best online articles that match your customers' interests.
     
26. Write a series. If you'd like to teach customers something complicated, break the topic into several parts. Series are an effective way to turn casual readers into subscribers.
     
27. Make a prediction. Everybody wants to know what may happen in the future, so share your opinion.
     
28. Conduct market research. Are you wondering which product name would attract more customers? Hold a virtual focus group on a blog post.
     
29. Create a contest. Offer a prize for the most interesting customer suggestion or use of your product.
     
30. Take a reader poll. SurveyMonkey makes this easy. Or you can simply set up a poll on your business Facebook page and draw readers to "like" your page.
     
31. Share poll or contest results. Don't leave readers hanging; do a follow-up post to announce the results.
     
32. Create an award. Giving a "best of" honor is guaranteed to get attention. Readers will want to check out who won, and all the finalists will likely share the news in social media.
     
33. Share your customer feedback. If you use customer comment cards or do customer surveys, turn some highlights into a post.
     
34. Reveal industry secrets or expose lies. When you promise to tell people what others won't, it's sure to be a hit.
     
35. Tell the story of your origins. Everybody loves to read about other people's dreams and challenges, so write about why and how you started your business.
     
36. Share a highlight. What were the big milestones in your company's history? Tell about an important moment and how it changed your business.
     
37. Keyword posts. Check your Google Analytics to see which keyword searches bring customers to your site. Then do posts on those topics.
     
38. Read your competitors. If you're out of ideas, see what topics are drawing a crowd on your competitors' blogs and give your own take on those subjects. You can even link to your competitor's post. Readers will think that's cool.
     
39. Display a sense of humor. Everyone loves business owners who can laugh at themselves when something goes wrong at the office. Consider giving a "how-to" post a funny spin.
     
40. Show your passion. What aspect of your business gets you excited? What customer experience was especially gratifying? Tell those personal stories.
     
41. Share your vision. If you're different from competitors because of your philosophy, talk about it.
     
42. Informational, how-to. Is there more than one way to use your product or service? Describe one of the less common uses in a how-to post.
     
43. Tips and tricks. Don't have time for a step-by-step how-to post? Give readers a few random suggestions for how to get more out of your product.
     
44. Celebrity Q&A. An interview post can be quick and easy if you simply email questions to an expert of interest to your customers. If you have some dream interview subjects, go ahead and ask if they'll participate. You'll probably be surprised how many say yes.
     
45. Be inspiring. Sometimes, customers would just like to feel good. Write about something you found inspiring in the course of your day or how you keep a positive work culture.
     
46. Resource list. You could spotlight your vendors, companies you partner with, or a list of good books related to your business.
     
47. How you got the idea for your product. This is an opportunity to credit team members and tell an interesting story about product development.
     
48. A day in the life. Give customers an hour-by-hour account of a typical day at your company.
     
49. Offer something special. Announce a party that gives your best customers a first look at a new product or create a giveaway just for blog subscribers.
     
50. Round up the best of your blog. If you think some of your best stuff is buried in the archive, repost your 10 favorite posts from the past year.

WebSites are about making money! They are not beauty contests and they’re not about flaunting technology

80% of web pages are only seen by friends and family and never shows up on a search engine

In order to be effective your WebSite must be Found, Read, and it must Motivate your viewer to Take Action

This requires a good Plan, Design, Implementation, Promotion, and Maintenance

Good Reporting is Essential!!!

AWStats is the best way we found to analyze webpage success. You can learn about how many folks visited your website, how long they stayed, what they looked at, and if they came back again. Best part it’s Free and comes with every website we host.

Our retail clients can see how many web surfers are serious about visiting their store by the number that view a map to their location or driving directions. Manufacturers and Job Shops can tell by how many look at their capabilities page, and how long they stayed. Of course, contacts page and email forms from the website itself are dead give-a-ways. Backlinks, Frontlinks, Spiders, and keywords are reported in detail as well.

AWStats is short for Advanced Web Statistics. AWStats is powerful log analyzer which creates advanced web, ftp, mail and streaming server statistics reports based on the rich data contained in server logs. Data is graphically presented in easy to read web pages.

AWStats is free software distributed under the GNU General Public License. The license chart illustrates what you can and cannot do.

Please take some time to look at the sample report below - this picture tells the full story:

Shine A Light On Problems and they Go Away

What would it mean to your business to solve just one problem a month, and not have that problem resurface again, ever? What would it mean if you could retain intellect and “know-how” of key individuals when they leave the company? The Action System can do this and more, and best of all, the Action System is free!

The Action System is a tool that does just that. It allows a business to shine a light on problem in a large way, assign responsibility, track the solution/s, and records the process for future reference. And it’s amazing how many problems simply “go away” simply by shining a light on them.

Action System is a simple tool used for single-level company-wide problem solving. It enables network attached users to enter problems or Action Items into a database that provides wide visibility to the problem. An Action Manager can assign responsibility and “Solution ETA Date” for the Action Item, and the item can be tracked until it is resolved.

Action System not only serves as a valuable problem solving tool, but it also becomes the company “knowledge base” that captures the business intellect so that old problems do not resurface. An if they do, the solution can be easily found even if the original solution provider is not currently available.

Action System has three user tools in the main menu, Items Entry, Items View, and six filter lists, Active, Unassigned, Pending, InActive, ListAll, and Complete. The program uses a Web Browser and can be accessed from company IntraNet site.

The main screen consists of two windows, a menu window to the left and Activity screen to the right. Selection from the menu will display in the Activity screen. The menu screen will remain active at all times to allow rapid movement through the program.

Addition reporting is possible by using standard Microsoft or Open Office.org desktop tools. For further information, please contact Active-Technologies, LLC.

Maintaining Balance Between Transparency and Security

Since President Obama was sworn in and Whitehouse.gov has switched to a new interface, there has been an endless amount of chatter about the state of the White House's technology. Some discuss the shortcomings, while others defend it as just fine.

Tradition and Transition

A controversial Washington Post article discusses the state of the technology situation in the White House as the Bush Administration moved out and the Obama Administration moved in. The article takes the angle of the Obama crew being forced to step back into the \"dark ages\" and use \"old software\" and Microsoft instead of Mac, disconnected phone lines, etc. Obama's team were using Gmail addresses because their new white house addresses had yet to be set up. An Obama spokesman said it was like \"going from an Xbox to an Atari.\"

Perhaps that's just how it is. \"The White House itself is an institution that transitions regardless of who the president is,\" says David Almacy, Internet Director under the Bush Administration. \"The White House is not starting from scratch. Processes are already in place.\"

\"Bureaucracy is nonpartisan,\" he says. \"Moving 3,000 people out and 3,000 people in is a Herculean task.\" That is worth considering when it comes to the phone lines, email addresses, etc. Although one might think they would have had plenty of time to get this worked out by the time the new President was ready to take office.

As far as the technology itself, a lot of people around the Internet are taking the stance of \"welcome to the real world\". According to a Fox News article, \"the White House has everything a modern corporate office would — Windows XP, BlackBerrys, Outlook e-mail, plenty of laptops and lots of flatscreen monitors and TVs.\" Owen Thomas at Valleywag had an interesting take:

Guess what? Outside the Manhattan media bubble and Silicon Valley's startup cube farms, this is how most Americans work. Want a Macintosh? Sorry, IT hasn't approved it. Oh, you need to use Facebook to interact with customers? Sorry, that site's blocked — and management suspects that \"social media\" is a buzzword which means \"getting paid to waste time chatting with friends.\" Want to use some new blogging service? Fill out this three-page questionnaire about the site's security practices, please.

This is not a story about digital pioneers getting cast back into the Stone Age; it's about a privileged elite learning how the rest of the country has to work. Those \"six-year-old versions of Microsoft software\"? That must mean Windows XP. If you haven't noticed, most people still prefer XP over Microsoft's clunky, buggy, annoying new Vista. Here's a suggestion for the Obamans: Stop whining about the tools taxpayers have paid for, and get to work learning how to cope with what your employer gives you, just like the rest of us.

But still, you have to think the people behind a Presidential campaign that was practically built on using technology and highlighting tech policies might have some kind of grasp on the reality of the situation. The real issue is where technology and security clash with each other, and speaking of Herculean tasks, how about staying transparent and completely secure at the same time?

Security

The national security agency added special security software to Obama's blackberry so that he could continue to use it. \"This means Obama can continue emailing routine and personal messages that will become part of the public record,\" says Stacey Higginbotham at GigaOm. \"However, some of the more 'fun' functions of a smartphone, such as IM and those requiring GPS functionality, won’t be available for his use. So far no data channels appear to be secure enough for Top Secret emails.\"

You've probably read about how the Obama administration cannot use Facebook, instant messenger clients, and outside email accounts. How will this kind of stuff affect the transparency that the Obama administration is trying to maintain?

Transparency and New Media

If you were expecting to be updated from the new staff via Twitter, you might want to read this story. A fake White House Twitter account has been posting presidential updates, but beware that it is not coming from the real source.

Everybody knows by now that YouTube videos are one way Obama intends to remain transparent. He and his staff frequently communicate with the people through them. Some questions have been raised about why YouTube is getting preferential treatment, however.

The Privacy Policy at WhiteHouse.gov depicts very strict rules about using persistent cookies on government sites, YouTube is apparently exempt from this because they want to be able to embed YouTube videos on the site. Some are wondering why they don't just use their own video service. \"The U.S. should be able to stream videos through its own service at this point without making YouTube its default online video service,\" says Frederic Lardinois at Read Write Web.

It's only been a few days since the inauguration though. There are certainly kinks to be worked out. Interestingly, the new administration has unblocked Google from crawling info on the White House site. Previously there were a lot of pages being blocked that were available to the public anyway.

Open Source and Changing Tradition

The new administration may not have been thrilled about the state of the White House's technology, and there may be certain aspects of it that just can't be sacrificed, but that doesn't mean that change isn't an option. Already Obama has shown an interest in open source. Sun Chairman Scott Mcnealy says that the President has asked him to author a white paper on potential benefits to the government of open source solutions.

\"The government ought to mandate open-source products based on open-source reference implementations to improve security, get higher-quality software, lower costs, higher reliability--all the benefits that come with open software,\" says McNealy as quoted by BBC News.

He also says that the CIO should have \"veto power, the right to eliminate any hardware, software or networking product that touches the federal network...He or she would have real power, real oversight and employ real consequences for folk that don't realign with the architecture. It's what every business does that the government doesn't.\"

From the sounds of it, change is definitely in the air, which should come as no surprise to anyone who has witnessed a single iota of what the President's campaign has been about. However, that doesn't mean that change doesn't come with restrictions, and compromises are going to have to be made. Transparency and new media efforts will not be able to work without the security needed to protect the country.

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Affiliate marketing without a doubt is one of the best ways to make money online. Its fairly easy to get started and in most cases you dont even have to spend any money to get started. And almost anyone with a little dedication and hard work can make money as an affiliate marketer. If you are a beginners, affiliate marketing may seem complicated and though to master. That is why I have created this post. This 10 steps process will guide you through the process of getting started in affiliate marketing and making money as an affiliate marketer.

Pick a product to promote
Go to ClickBank or Commission Junction or any other affiliate marketing network and pick a product to promote. Pick a product that is hot and selling well. Although, that would mean you will have a lot of competition, at the same time it means it will be much easier for you to make sales as a beginner.

Get to know the product you want to promote
I personally think its best to buy the product you want to promote. Doing so, will give you access to the product which helps you learn all about it. And if you decide to promote the product, you will have a much better chance of convincing people to buy the product since you can outline the benefits of the product much better than anyone how hasn’t had access to the product.

Write a sales letter
Now that you have become familiar with the product, use what you have learned to write your sales letter. The easiest way to write a killer sales latter is to simply use bullet points and point out the problems people have in your specific niche and tell them how this product will solve their problem. It really is as simple as that.

Create a free internet radio show
Go to BlogTalkRadio and register for a free account. BlogTalkRadio is basically a tool which allows anyone to create an internet radio show. No, you are not doing it to become a radio host! You are doing this simply because such contents are indexed by Google within hours. Your radio show doesn’t have to be anything sophisticated. You can simply read out your sales latter. Make sure you use your main keywords through out the show. Don’t forget to ad your affiliate link at the end of your show, so your audience will know where to go.

Your recording will also be use as a free offer to attract potential buyers. Simply upload the mp3 of your radio show to your web host.

Create a one page site
Now, put up a quick one page site using WordPress or whatever blogging platforms you prefer. Create a short article (using your sales latter) and offer your MP3 to visitors as a free download. At the end of the article include your affiliate link where people can buy the product you are promoting. If the MP3 you created and are giving away to visitors for free is good and provide useful information, many of those visitors will be enticed to buy the product you are promoting since they knwo you provide quality stuff.

Promote your site
These days there are online forums related to just about any subject. Find a few good and trusted forums related to the product you are promoting. Place a link in your signature section that directs people to your blog. Make sure you let people know you are giving away a free mp3 download about the subject. Start participating in those forums. Be helpful and build a reputation for yourself as an authority in your niche.

Use social networking sites to promote
You can also use social networking sites to promote your site. Register with as many social networking sites as you can and place a link back to your blog in your profile. Ping and bookmark your profile URLs for a faster indexing.

Now, find a few quality and useful articles about becoming debt free and post their links on your social networking accounts. Do this a few times, then post a link pointing to your own blog. Repeat this process over and over again. This process will get people thinking about becoming debt free, so when you do send them to your blog, they are ready to download your free MP3. Which will get them even more ready to visit your affiliate link and buy the product you are promoting.

Promote your site through blog commenting
You want to promote your blog and build backlinks to it as much as you can. Another good way to build backlinks and get some traffic to your blog is through related blogs. Go find financial related blogs, especially blogs that talk about debt and becoming debt free. Visit as many as you can and leave genuine comments. Include your blogs URL in the URL box.

Build your list
At this points, you probably have made a few sales. Use some of that money to sign up for an autoresponder account. This step can be done depending either in the beginning of this process or after you have made a few sales. If you have the money for it, sign up for an autoresponder before you start giving away your free MP3 and in exchange for the free MP3 download, capture people’s names and emails addresses. This will help you build a list of people who you know are interested in the product you are promoting. So the next time you have a better product you want to promote, all you have to do is send them an email with a link to the product sales page.

Keep building backlinks and driving traffic to your site
From this point on, your job is to build backlinks and drive traffic to your sales page (blog). You can use paid methods like buying ad space, or using Google adwords and other advertising methods, or use free methods like blog commenting, submitting articles to article directories (with a link pointing back to your blog at the end of the article), social networking with people interested in your niche and so on.

This is the basics of making money as an affiliate marketer. Of course, reading this post and knowing it wont make you a dime. Doing the actual work is what will help you make money. Commit yourself, take action and you will succeed. This method can help you and any affiliate marketing beginner to make money online as an affiliate marketer.

When I bought my first computer, I bought two printers at the same time: an Okidata 320 dot matrix printer for fast, everyday printing and the other was a Diablo daisy wheel (remember those?) for correspondence that needed to look nice. The daisy wheel printer was the outgrowth of that same technology that was used in electric typewriters. As with the IBM Selectric and its interchangeable “balls,” you had to switch out the wheel to change to a different font style or size. Today, I wonder if I even need a printer - or do I?

The idea of having a computer without a printer was unthinkable. What good would it be, if you couldn’t transfer what you’d produced on the (12 inch monochrome) screen to paper? It’s not as if most of the people for whom the information was intended had their own computers on which to view it, after all.

Since then, I’ve owned a good many printers - although the number of printers I’ve had isn’t nearly as high as the number of computers. A good printer would usually last through several computer upgrades, and multiple computers in the house could share a single printer. Printing technology has certainly advanced over the years, although perhaps not nearly as dramatically as computer technology in general. In fact, my Okidata and Diablo still work and are sitting in the attack.

My first color printer was an inkjet, and it was thrilling to be able to print out documents and pictures in color - almost as cool as getting our first color television set after growing up watching everything in black and white. But as much as I liked that inkjet, I still lusted after the expensive laser printers with output that resembled the print in a book or magazine. Unfortunately, the laser printers were costly, thousands of dollars, expensive to operate, and unreliable.

And of course, the price tag on the printer itself is only part of the story. One of the problems with printers is the cost of supplies. You have to feed it paper, of course, and that can get expensive. And you also have to provide it ink, toner , ribbon - whatever it uses to transfer the text or graphics onto the paper.

One of the more interesting, but least used printers that I had was a thermal printer. The idea of an “inkless” printer sounds great in theory, but the problem was that you had to use special paper for it, and that costs as much as the combination of ink and regular paper. In addition, the print on that early thermal paper didn’t last long; a couple of years later your document had faded away.

Today inkjets and laser printers are still the most popular types, and both can had for a fraction of what they cost back then. There are also solid ink nprinters and dye-sublimation printers for high quality color photo printing. Keeping your printer in supplies can still be a major pain, and few things are more frustrating than hunting through shelves full of hundreds of different printer cartridges at the office supply store, only to find that the model used by your printer isn’t among them.

One way in which printers have advanced is in printing speed. Early printers were excruciatingly slow, often producing little more than a character per second. When I got my first laser, that could turn out 8 pages per minute, I thought I’d really arrived. Now you can buy a printer for less than $50 that will do over 25 pages per minute. In 2005, IBM made a laser printer (the Infoprint 4100) capable of 330 pages per minute. There was a catch, though: the printer’s base price was half a million dollars. Ouch.

Printers have morphed into multi-function machines, and many of those sold today do much more than print. Both of our current printers are also copiers, scanners and fax machines. The footprint for these amazing little multi-taskers has gotten smaller at the same time the prices have fallen, so you can get a device that does a very good job of providing all these functions in a compact package that only takes up a couple of square feet on your desk.

For the past fifteen years, at least, all my printers have been HPs. There are other companies that make good printers, too, but I’ve always had very good luck with HP so I’ve stuck with them. When Vista was released, there were many complaints about printers that didn’t work with the new OS due to lack of drivers from the manufacturers, but my two HPs, a Deskjet and an OfficeJet, made the operating system transition without a hitch.

I’ve noticed, though, that as time goes by, our printers are used less and less. Whereas once upon a time, we went through a printer cartridge every two to four weeks, now we’ll go six months or more without needing a new one. We just don’t print things to paper nearly as much as we used to. Much of the correspondence that we once printed and mail is now sent as email. Articles, white papers, and book chapters are submitted in digital format over the Internet instead of being packed up and shipped off to the published via the postal service. Photos that were once printed for family members to enjoy can now be shared with them on the web. Even contracts are signed electronically and exchanged without ever being printed.

In fact, more and more people I know are telling me that they don’t even have printers anymore. The paperless office is still far from reality for us, but our business is definitely much less paper-centric than it was just a few years ago. I suspect that trend will continue in the future. But I wonder if the eventual demise of printed documents will have its down side, as well as the obvious cost and convenience advantages. There is, after all, something about the look and feel and smell of paper that isn’t quite duplicated on the monitor screen.

And I admit that for documents that are really important, I don’t quite trust them to digital files only. I still make printed copies that I keep in the safe, just in case all six backup files, stored on different computers in different locations, should somehow be destroyed all at the same time.

What about you? Do you still print things out to read them? Or do you only print out documents that are very important? Do you find yourself using your printer a lot less than you did in the past? Have you gotten rid of your printer altogether and gone completely paperless? Will printers someday be obsolete, perhaps only owned by shops where you can take your docs on a memory card or send them over the Internet to be printed? Do you look forward to that day, or will you continue to keep a printer at home as long as you can find the supplies for it? Is it ecologically irresponsible to print what could be kept in purely digital format?

Google Places has been around for a long time – but have you taken a few minutes to discover what it can do for your business? Many business owners overlook the benefits of using this free business listing tool from Google. So, let’s take a closer look at exactly why you should be using Google Places.

What Is Google Places?

Google Places is Google’s answer to listing your business for exposure on the internet. It’s a huge network of businesses that are referenced in their live data base, and it comes complete with a map pointer, so that people can find directions to your business. But there’s more to adding your listing here than meets the eye.

#1: Instant Page 1 Search Results

If you take some time to properly optimize your Google Places listing, you’ll find yourself ranking on page 1 with ease. When a customer searches your local keyword, Google will recommend your business to them. It’s an efficient way to get exposure online with very little effort. Think of it as the super-yellow pages.

#2: Exposure on Mobile Devices

Clients that search for your keywords on mobile devices will be directed to your local business. And all because you took the time to pop in an optimized Google Places listing. Google Maps and Street View will do the rest!

#3: Traffic To Your Website

You can publish your URL in your Google Places listing. This means that people will see you on page 1, and click through to your website. That’s potentially thousands of people visiting your business website because you’re on Places.

#4: Citations and Reviews

Clients can leave feedback on your business, on Google Places – the more you get, the higher your business will rank. Don’t forget to ask your clients to leave their reviews, and you’ll enjoy consistent business from this free advertising spot.

#5: Add Photos For Additional Exposure

Because your Google Places listing is more like a mini business profile online, you can upload photos there, which advertise your company. Listings that contain vibrant photos get more clicks, and more business!

#6: Advertising Boost

When you use Google’s PPC ads, you’ll be able to link it with your Google Places account. That way when your advert shows up in the sponsored section on Google, it will also contain a link to a map, showing where your business is located. This helps your ad to stand out, which means more clicks.

#7: The Most Powerful Directory in The World

It should go without saying that Google Places is the most powerful business directory in the world, but it’s also the most advanced. Anyone who uses Google to search for a local business could find yours. And the service is free.

If you’re not on Google Places yet – where have you been? Spend some time building up the perfect profile, add images, SEO and make sure that there’s an accurate location on the map. It’s for everyone, and it’s a must-have service for small businesses!

Jeff Bertolucci, PC World, ran printers until they said it was time to change the cartridge--and found that some left more than 40 percent of their ink unused.

You’ve probably had this experience: Your printer tells you it’s time to change the cartridge, but you dismiss the message and keep printing. Days or weeks later, you’re still using the same cartridge and thinking to yourself that rumors of its death were greatly exaggerated. Or perhaps your printer simply shuts down when it decides you’ve gone deep enough into its ink well, refusing to operate until you replace the cartridge, though you suspect there’s plenty of ink left

PC World decided to do some real lab testing on this issue; and the results confirm what you may have suspected: Many manufacturer-branded (OEM) and third-party (aftermarket) vendor cartridges leave a startling amount of ink unused when they read empty. In fact, some inkjet printers force users to replace black ink cartridges when the cartridge is nearly half full, PC World has found. Check out our video that accompanies this story.

Overview

We tested using multifunction printers from four major manufacturers: Canon, Epson, Hewlett-Packard, and Kodak. (For the top-rated models, see our chart of top-rated multifunction printers.) PC World Test Center results show that models from Canon, Epson, and Kodak reported ink cartridges as being empty when in some cases the tanks had 40 percent of their black ink remaining

The quantity of unused ink ranged from about 8 percent in an Epson-brand cartridge to a whopping 45 percent in an aftermarket cartridge for a Canon printer. After posting low-ink warnings, those printers wouldn’t let us resume printing until we inserted a new cartridge

Our test printers typically left more unused ink--in some cases significantly more--when using third-party or aftermarket print cartridges than when using the printer manufacturer’s own cartridges

When using ink their own manufacturer’s cartridges, the printers displayed several low-ink warning messages before finally shutting down due to low ink. Our HP printer, the Photosmart C5280, was the only one that continued to print even after displaying several low-ink messages, and those messages appeared only when we used an HP print cartridge. When we paired the C5280 with an aftermarket cartridge from LD Products, the printer provided no low-ink warning at all

It’s important to note that our results show the performance of a clutch of single printers, each paired with just one cartridge. Since OEMs and their aftermarket competitors sell dozens of ink cartridges for a wide variety of printer models, you should consider our results as a kind of snapshot of the way each particular unit deals with Remaining ink

Why So Much Leftover Ink?

There are valid reasons for not draining an ink cartridge completely, printing experts say. "Many inks, if they run dry, can cause significant damage to the printer," says Brian Hilton, a senior staff engineer at the Rochester Institute of Technology who holds 29 inkjet patents. "You always want to leave a buffer in the tank so that the printer never runs dry. There should always be a factor of safety included.\"

Other observers point out that the quantity of leftover ink is often only a few milliliters. "Printers have generally become more efficient over the years," says Andy Lippman, a printing analyst with Lyra Research. "In the past, you might have seen 40 milliliters of ink in the black cartridge. Today you’re going to get the same amount of pages out of 7 or 8 milliliters."

Other people, however--both journalists and independent researchers--have reported very different experiences with ink cartridges. Judging from these findings, printer owners are probably throwing away a lot of usable ink. And that’s a problem, when you consider how expensive the precious fluid is. An average black-ink cartridge contains 8 milliliters of ink and costs about $10 which translates into a cost of $1.25 per milliliter (or more horrifyingly, $1250 per Liter).

Liquid Gold?

If you bought a gallon of the stuff over the life of your printer, you’d have paid about $4731 for a liquid that one aftermarket vendor told us was “cheap" to make. For some perspective, gasoline costs about $3 per gallon (at the moment), while a gallon of Beluga caviar (imagined as a liquid) costs about $18,000--surprisingly, only about four times as expensive as good old printer ink.

"I personally think that consumers are getting ripped off," says Steve Pociask, president of the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit educational and research institute in Washington, D.C. Pociask recently coauthored a 50-page study on the ink jet printer and cartridge market. "In some cases, we found that [the price of] the printer could be 1/8 of the total cost of printing," says Pociask. "Over the life of the printer--and by that I mean three years--you can easily spend $800 for the printer and ink."

How Tested

We researched both online and brick-and-mortar tech outlets to find printers that are being used now by high numbers of consumers. We didn’t test color inks because that would have introduced too many variables that might skew the results. For instance, some printers use separate cartridges for each ink, while others use single, tricolor cartridges. A standardized test might not drain the colors evenly, which might give one printer an unfair advantage. <i>Jeff Bertolucci, PC World

We ran printers until they said it was time to change the cartridge--and found that some left more than 40 percent of their ink unused.

You’ve probably had this experience: Your printer tells you it’s time to change the cartridge, but you dismiss the message and keep printing. Days or weeks later, you’re still using the same cartridge and thinking to yourself that rumors of its death were greatly exaggerated.

When you power on your computer, the motherboard's basic input/output system (BIOS) first detects the computer's internal hardware configuration and then performs the power-on self-test (POST). The POST executes several diagnostic tests that check the basic functionality of the power supply, motherboard, CPU, I/O Bus Controller, RAM, keyboard, and video components. If the computer passes the POST, it will usually return a single short beep or two short beeps, depending on the BIOS manufacturer. If the POST detects any problems, it will halt the boot process and return an error message either visually on the screen and/or audibly through a series of beeps.

Unfortunately, there is no official standard for beep codes. Depending on the BIOS manufacturer, a keyboard controller failure could be three, four, five, or six beeps. While this document lists common BIOS manufacturer beep codes, you should always consult your motherboard's documentation, the manufacturer's Web site, and the BIOS manufacturer's Web site for a definitive beep code list for your particular BIOS. The information contained in the following lists was gathered from various BIOS manufacturers' Web sites.

The only thing worse than losing data is discovering that your backups don't work in the first place. Here are four tips that will help you ensure that your backups are indeed in working order.

1. Test regularly. This is the bottom line. Can you recover the data? Never mind that the backup program "verified" the backup. If you don't actually restore data, you'll never be certain your backup is working. How often you should test depends in part on the nature of your operation. The general recommendation is to run your test protocol once a quarter.

2. Test realistically. You can't wipe the server just to do a complete test restore, but there's a lot you can do to make sure the entire recovery process works. A backup test protocol should be designed to make sure all aspects of your recovery operation works with minimal disruption to your regular operations. Often you can automate large parts of the test, but don't skimp on something just because it has to be done manually.

Remember: You need to test the entire backup chain. It's not enough to know that the tape is readable. Can you read it on the system it will be restored on? This is particularly important when performing a restore over a network, SAN or whatever, because a mis-configured network component can keep a restore from working just as much (although perhaps not as permanently) as a corrupted tape.

Don't forget that your people and the documentation are part of the backup chain as well. Backup tests are an opportunity to train your staff in backup and recovery procedures as well as to find holes in your documentation.

A worthwhile procedure is to select a tape or a volume at random, find it, and then try to back up from the data on it. (Note the part about finding the tape; a misfiled tape is as unavailable as an unreadable one.)

3. Test all your backups regularly. Backup is more than what goes into the vault. It includes all the tiers of your backup system, including the incremental backups, any disk-based backups, recovery disks and anything else you need to get up and running again. All these things need to be tested to make sure they're working properly – and that they're working together.

4. Test compliance-related recovery regularly. Technically, record recovery for compliance isn't a part of backup. But it's an increasingly important function fulfilled by backup systems. Test to make sure you can recover files, logs, chains of emails and anything else your company is likely to need for compliance.

None of this has to be traumatic. In fact, if it is traumatic, then you've already discovered you've got problems. If you work out a procedure at the appropriate level of completeness for your enterprise and then do it regularly, it shouldn't take an excessive amount of time or effort. Besides, if nothing else, you'll sleep better at night.

BloatWare is the term often used to criticize software companies whose programs grow with each new version, taking up more disk space and/or requiring more memory and other system resources to run. No one can dispute that the operating systems and applications of today are much larger and more complex than those written twenty years ago. But it's also true that today's programs do a lot more, and in most cases do it better, than your grandfather’s programs.

Question is, are we buying faster computers just to handle half-baked Bloated software? It's easy to wax nostalgic about MS-DOS, an OS that required only a few megabytes of disk space (version 6.x needed about 3.5 MB) and could run on 512K (that's kilobytes, not megabytes) of memory. Programs were written in assembly language and only occupied a few “k” of space. On the other hand, the DOS environment and its apps certainly didn't have the bells and whistles you get with Vista or other graphical operating systems.

Still, there has been considerable "Bloat" since the advent of Windows. Windows 95 required only 8 MB of memory and took up less than 50 MB on your hard drive (we're starting with Windows 95 because Windows 3.x was not really an operating system in itself, but a graphical shell that was installed on top of MS-DOS). By the time we get to Windows XP, you need 128MB of RAM and one and a half gigs of disk space to barely run it (512MB of ram to run good).

Many complained that Vista took a Bloated leap in the wrong direction. Previously, memory requirements had more or less doubled with each new Windows OS: 8 MB for Windows 95, 24MB for Windows 98, 32MB for Windows Me, 64MB for Windows 2000, and 128MB for XP. Thus you might expect Vista to require 256MB of RAM, but to run properly, you really need a minimum of 1GB (4 gigs to run well), and hard disk requirements increased tenfold, to about 15GB.

These numbers sound pretty bad, when you look at them in a vacuum. But you also have to consider the advances in computer hardware over that time, and the falling prices of that hardware. In 1995, when I bought a computer to run Windows 95, a low priced system cost almost $2000. Today you can buy a computer that runs Vista for $500.

If you look at individual components, the difference is even more striking. I remember later upgrading my system by spending over $300 for a "huge" 8MB RAM chip (8MB was the amount of memory needed to run Windows 95). Today you can buy a 2 GB memory module (the amount of memory needed to run Vista) for under $40.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=3410&name=2048MB-PC6400-DDR2-RAM

Then there's hard disk space. I can still recall the thrill of buying an enormous 1 GB hard disk for my Windows 95 computer, for around $350. Back then, I couldn't imagine how I would ever fill up all that space (of course, I had thought the same thing back in the 80s when I got my IBM PC with its gargantuan 10MB hard disk, too). Last weekend, Tom and I took a stroll through the local Fry's and came away with an external 1TB hard drive (that's 1024 times the size of my 1GB drive) - for $199. You can get an internal 1TB drive (more comparable to my 1GB drive) for under $150.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3346290&CatId=2459

These days, what with 12 megapixel digital photos and high resolution videos and recorded TV programs, I no longer suffer from the delusion that we won't quickly fill up the space.

If you do the math, then, you'll see that the price per MB of memory has fallen from $37.50 in the mid 1990s to less than 3 cents, and the price per GB of hard disk space has fallen from $350 to under 15 cents. Even if you factor in inflation, that's quite a price difference. So, given the amounts of memory and disk space that are available to us at such low prices, does it really matter if operating systems and applications are subject to Bloat?

Some folks say yes. Others say software Bloat is inevitable. Most of us have heard of Moore's Law, which said that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits doubled every year, and was later extrapolated by others to mean that computer processing power doubles every year (or later, every 18 months). Parkinson's Law states that "resource requirements expand to consume the resources available." And that doesn't just apply to software developers; we're all guilty. Ever move into a new, bigger home that seems enormously spacious compared to your old one, only to find that a few years later, you've outgrown your house again?

Just because Bloat is the natural order of things, though, doesn't necessarily mean it's a good thing. Most of us packrats wish, from time to time, that we could get rid of all that junk and start over with a more minimalist approach. And not all packrat behavior is created equal, either. If you're using up your extra space by hoarding non-perishable food and medical supplies or housing collections of valuables that are increasing in value over time, that's different from keeping old, useless magazines or boxes of paid bills dating back to the 1970s (as I found in my mom's house when we started cleaning it out after her death).

Likewise, software Bloat can be caused by different things: less efficient (but easier to use) development tools (for example, writing code in Visual C++ vs. writing it in lean, mean - but more difficult - assembly language), just plain sloppy coding by less skilled programmers, or "featuritis," the addition of more and more features to the software in an effort to please all of the people, all of the time. Older versions of Windows didn't have built in music players and burners, built in firewalls and MalWare protections, built in graphics manipulation programs, and so forth. You had to install applications to do all that. As users demand that more and more functionality come with the operating system, it's bound to increase its size and resource requirements.

Bill Gates, in a recent speech in Asia, said that the "Internet service revolution" that will lead to machines will lots of low-cost storage and server capacity will allow developers to "write software in even more ambitious ways, eliminating the last constraints we have."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/biztech/08/12/microsoft.anniversary.ap/inde...

Presumably that means programs will be even bigger (and, we hope, correspondingly better) in the future.

Of course, there's another definition of BloatWare, which refers not to the size of the OS or any individual program, but rather to the amount of extra software that computer vendors install on their systems. When you boot up a brand new computer, you usually find yourself with a bunch of "bonus" software that you neither want nor need - often limited time trial versions of popular programs such as Norton, Quickbooks, Office, photo and music programs and software from national ISPs. You've probably had the frustrating experience of spending hours getting rid of all those unwanted programs that use up hard disk space and may slow down the performance of your computer. Sometimes, even when you feel you have deleted them, they come back six months later and ask you to install, update, or pay for it, not to mention the resources it takes whilst hiding in your system. (That’s why we format drives on new system).

Some hardware vendors are catching on that this does not make their customers happy. In 2007, Dell started offering the option, when you buy online, to check a box that would block the installation of what many in the industry not-so-affectionately call "CrapWare." However, this only applied to certain models of Dell computers. Early this year, Sony came out with their "Fresh Start" program that would let customers buy some models without the TrialWare and "free" software. They caused quite a controversy at first by charging $50 for the privilege, but in March 2008 announced that Fresh Start would be a free option.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/22/AR2008032201042.html

studies have proven that brainstorming doesn’t really work, in terms of producing the largest quantity of feasible ideas, when compared to solo idea generation that is later shared with colleagues. So writes Jonah Lehrer in the article “Groupthink,” which appears in the January 30, 2012 issue of The New Yorker (note: requires a subscription or paid access to read online). He cites historical research conducted at Yale University and the University of California, Berkeley, which come to this conclusion...

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The success of a business does not rely on how big and influential it is, how good the product is, or how well connected and established it is. Forget about all those factors – the success relies on the people that work behind the project. The people who innovate, decide the strategy, market the product and create the business are the ones who are truly putting the business in motion.

Furthermore, business people and entrepreneurs get the knowledge and skills they use in their businesses from what they have learned in business schools, yet there are essential things that are not taught in school that can be key.

1) Being Grounded

It is very hard – almost impossible to teach people to be nice since most of the time, nice people are born/raised that way. For instance, try to observe around you and analyze who you think would qualify as a nice person. Try to see what  they do for others that you don’t do.  Think about the people you hire and want in your business especially when carrying out the business social networking. Would you hire someone who does not use signals when changing lanes? A person who does not hold a door open for you? Becoming nice is not actually taught in business school, it is just how the person handles him or herself without being taught. And believe me, this can make a great difference when closing deals, getting hired, running a successful business etc.

2) Getting Your Personal Finances In Order

“You will never get rich by working for someone else,” this is a common line we hear all the time. The  value of money has been taught to us since we were children, and is something that they don’t teach you in school. In other words, business schools focus on professional skills rather that on the personal finance skills such as learning how to organize personal finances and structuring budgets.

3) Knowing When To Leave

There are times when we want to leave our respective jobs, no matter how long we have stayed there.  But when is it time to REALLY leave?  If you have observed any of the following, consider this as an alarm:

• You don’t know what else to do
• The job is not fun anymore
• You have been passed over the promotion several times
• You really don’t care anymore
• You are working with the same boring people at the same boring company/environment

If you have experienced at least 3 of this, then it’s the right time for you to leave ASAP.

4) Finding a Mentor

Every successful person has at least one mentor that has influenced their success.  Many have achieved their dreams and plans looking up to their mentors.

5) Generating Revenue for your Company

This is one thing that business schools do not teach you. “The real purpose of the organization is to generate revenue.” How do you do that? As hard as it may seem, all you need is efficiency when trying to increase your productivity, effectiveness, sensitivity and profitability as a responsible employee/person.

6) Moving at least every two to three years within the Organization

Individuals who have been in their same job description for at least 10-15 years are the ones who have been reduced in force in the last 10 years.  Actually, you can grab  competitive edge in any organization even if it means taking a lateral position or a demotion by moving every two to three years.

7) Learning and Applying Business and Social Etiquette

Today, there are tons of people who lack politeness consideration, and thoughtfulness. This doesn’t just affect the workplace but our society in general. A lot of people tend to forget that, in everything you do, there is always an extra set of eyes watching you.  Senior executives are actually observing behaviors at business meetings and social events, looking at how you treat your peers and employees, how you communicate through writing and speaking, and how you absorb feedback about yourself.  It is important for you to have strong knowledge on business and social etiquette.

Unfortunately, courses in business and social etiquette are not offered in a business school. Nevertheless, these are just a few of the things that are not emphasized in schools that each person must know and apply in order to succeed in their future or even present career.

Moreover, investing in yourself is something you must do to succeed, not only for work but also in life. Self investment is not only limited to educating yourself through seminars and courses, however it also refers to going after opportunities in your current job and venture which will challenge you.

Before you begin creating your CAT 5 patch cable, it's important to point out that the method outlined here is only one method. It is by no means the only or best method. Also, make sure you have all the necessary tools and materials before you begin. You will need a length of CAT cable, several RJ-45 connectors, and a crimp tool.

1. Most crimp tools have two blades: one designed to cut completely through a cable and the other designed to strip the cable jacket/insulation. Using the latter blade, strip the cable jacket/insulation back about an inch, so all the wires inside are exposed. Be careful not to cut the inside wires when stripping the cable’s insulation.
    
2. With the jacket/insulation removed, you'll find eight wires and a string inside the CAT 5 cable. Cut the string off, and untwist the wires back to within one-eighth inch of the jacket.
    
3. Fan the wires out from left to right in the order they are to be crimped. The crimping order depends on the type of cable you are making. For this guide, we will be wiring the cable to CAT 5 EIA 568B specifications. This is the configuration for a standard CAT 5 patch cable (See Table 1 and Figure A).
    

The Federal Trade Commision (FTC), which has taken a few companies to task for rewarding consumers for hyping their products, says the practice of paying a consumer to write a positive review isn't illegal, but not disclosing it is.

Last March a company selling a popular series of guitar-lesson DVDs agreed to pay $250,000 to settle FTC charges that it deceptively advertised its products through online affiliate marketers who falsely posed as ordinary consumers or independent reviewers.

The FTC said the complaint against Nashville, Tennessee-based Legacy Learning Systems Inc. and its owner, Lester Gabriel Smith, is part of an effort to make sure that advertising to American consumers is truthful and not deceptive, whether the advertisements appear in traditional or newer forms of media

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This sometimes happens if Windows names the drive letter to something that was already in use by another device. See if you can locate the drive and change its drive letter, and this is how we do it:

1. Right click My Computer and select Manage.
2. In the right pane of the Computer Management console, go down to Storage and expand it if necessary, then click Disk Management.
3. It may take a few minutes to populate the right pane. When the disk information appears, your USB drive should show up in this list.
4. To change the drive letter, right click the drive in the list and select Change Drive Letters and Paths...
5. The currently assigned letter will be displayed in the dialog box. Click the Change button.
6. From the drop down list, pick a drive letter that is not being used by any other device and click OK. You'll get a Confirm dialog box; click Yes.

'Some of us as we grow older suffer from limited vision. Some folks suffer from glaucoma and/or the beginnings of macular degeneration. Where can we find information to \"tuneup\" our computers to improve visibility?

Things like screen contrasts, Cursor color, size, and shape, and software that is very simple and easy to see the commands. But many are repeatedly frustrated by screen changes in Google (cannot find the buttons) and popups that are not easily removed (cannot find the buttons). What To Do???

Microsoft XP and Vista includes a number of \"accessibility options\" that allows you adjust the scrollbar and window border size, icons, size and color of the cursor and contrast. There is an Accessibility Wizard that can guide you through the steps. Just go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > Accessibility and click Accessibility Wizard. You can find out more about how to use the wizard here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/accessibility/default.mspx

If you need more assistance, there are many third party programs designed to assist those with limited vision. These include screen enlargers, screen readers and more. The Assistive Technology Catalog helps you search for those products:
http://www.microsoft.com/enable/at/default.aspx

Finally, here's a tutorial for how to make Vista and XP computers easier to see:
http://www.microsoft.com/enable/guides/vision.aspx#step1

Last week, because of “Circumstances”, we asked a customer to pay an invoice with either “Cash” or “Certified Check”. What showed up in the mail box was a “Money Order”. Money Order, well that might be Kool, let’s take it to the bank. Bank said, “ya, we’ll take this money order win an 11 day hold. What??? Why??? Isn’t a Money Order just like Cash or Certified Check???

The bank suggested taking it to WalMart saying “They cash anything”! But guess what, not this Money Order! WalMart said “take it to your Bank”. When I explained that I had already been to the bank, they said “Take it to Publix (a grocery store). And Publix said take it to WalMart.

So I took it back to the folks that orgionally issued the money order. Surely, they should take it.  Mind you, I would not ordinarrily take this kind of time to run to all of these places to cash a check, but my curiosity got the best of me and I just had to let it play. The place that issued the Money Order was a Gas Station / Convenience Store across from my customer’s office. I simply marched up to the counter and asked if they had issued the Money Order. They looked it up and said “Yes, It’s one of ours”. I thought, Finally, I’ll get this thing cashed. No so, “We only issue Money Orders, you’ll have to take it to the Post Office to get it cashed.” When I arrived at the Post Office, well, you guessed it, they wouldn’t take it either. They only take US Postal Service Money Orders.

I felt like I had run this trap line to the end; much further than I should have. So I went back to my customer, told them my experience, and gave them back the Money Order. The went back to the Gas Station where they got it and asked for their money back, and paid me in Cash, but not before telling me that the Gas Station said “their Money Orders are taken everywhere, same as Cash”, and that they don’t understand why I am giving “Them” so much hassle.  Sounds like they didn’t believe me or something.

I did this as a learning experience. Sometimes you have to do more than “know technically” what you are doing and why. Sometime you have to “feel the pain” to really understand. Man, I was feeling it!

So this is what I learned:

Cash is always best. It’s yours, no doubts, and everybody in the 50 states (and most of the world) will take it.

Certified Check: A certified check is a form of check for where the bank verifies that sufficient funds exist in the account to cover the check, and so certifies, at the time the check is written. Those funds are then set aside in the bank's internal account until the check is cashed or returned by the payee. Thus, a certified check cannot "bounce", and, in this manner, it the same as cash in liquidity (unless the bank fails).

Money Order: A money order is purchased for the amount desired. In this way it is “similar to a certified check”. Similar, but with “important differences”. Money orders were originally issued by the U.S. Postal Service as an alternative to sending cash through the mail for those who did not have checking accounts. Today, they are offered by many more vendors than just the US Postal Service as a means to pay bills and send money internationally where there were not reliable banking or postal systems.

However, just because a particular business can issue a money order does not necessarily mean that they will cash them. Due to the increased public awareness of fraudulent Money Orders, counterfeiters are using these to dupe their victims. By obtaining their "mark's" postal zip code, they will draft bogus money orders based on whichever franchises will most likely be in their victim's home area as the familiarity of the store's name offers a sense of security.

 
Furthermore, money orders are subject to erasing the name and writing in somebody else's name. Money order fraud is specifically not reimbursed by Western Union, and Convenience Store Vendors,  and the victim is required to go through local police to attempt to recover lost funds. In response, the perpetrator who cashed the money order can simply claim "identity theft" to the investigating officer. Money orders for this purpose can be obtained from places like rent drop boxes and convenience stores.

Acceptance of money orders depends on the issuing vendor. US Postal Service, no question, my bank will take it. Western Union, American Express, perhaps a two day hold. But money orders issued by a small-town bank in Georgia or Sheboygan Wisconsin, for example, my bank “will take it with an 11 day hold”.

So for me it’s Cash, Certified Check, and no money orders please!

Amazon Web Services (AWS), as the trailblazing provider of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), has changed the dialog about computing infrastructure. Today, instead of simply assuming that you’ll be buying and operating your own servers, storage and networking, AWS is always an option to consider, and for many new businesses, it’s simply the default choice.

I’m a huge fan of cloud computing in general and AWS in particular. But I’ve long had an instinct that the economics of the choice between self-hosted and cloud provider had more texture to it than the patently attractive sounding “10 cents an hour,” particularly as a function of demand distribution. As a case in point, Zynga has made it known that for economic reasons, they now use their own infrastructure for baseline loads and use Amazon for peaks and variable loads surrounding new game introductions.

An analysis of the load profiles

To tease out a more nuanced view of the economics, I’ve built a detailed Excel model that analyzes the relative costs and sensitivities of AWS versus self-hosted in the context of different load profiles. By “load profiles,” I mean the distribution of demand over the day/month as well as relative needs for bandwidth versus compute resources. The load profile is the key factor influencing the economic choice because it determines what resources are required and how heavily these resources are utilized.

The model provides a simple way to analyze various load profiles and allows one to skew the load between bandwidth-heavy, compute-heavy or any combination. In addition, the model presents the cost of operating 100 percent on AWS, 100 percent self-hosted as well as all hybrid mixes in between.

In a subsequent post, I will share the model and describe how you can use it for scenarios of interest to you. But for this post, I will outline some of the conclusions that I’ve derived from looking at many different scenarios. In most cases, the analysis illustrates why intuition is right (for example, that a highly variable compute load is a slam dunk for AWS). In other cases, certain high-sensitivity factors become evident and drive the economic answer. There are also cases where a hybrid infrastructure is at least worthy of consideration.

To frame an example analysis, here is the daily distribution of a typical Internet application. In the model, traffic distribution is an input from which bandwidth requirements are computed. The distribution over the day reflects the behavior of the user base (in this case, one with a high U.S. business-hour activity peak). Computing load is assumed to follow traffic according to a linear relationship, i.e. higher traffic implies higher compute load.

Note that while labor costs are included in the model, I am leaving them out of this example for simplicity. Because labor is a mostly fixed cost for each alternative, it will tend not to impact the relative comparison of the two alternatives. Rather, it will impact where the actual break-even point lies. If you use the model to examine your own situation, then of course I would recommend including the labor costs on each side.

For this example, to compute costs for Amazon, I have assumed Standard Extra Large instances and ELB load balancer for the Northern California region. The model computes the number of instances required for each hour of the day. Whenever the economics dictate it, the model applies as many AWS Reserved Instances (capacity contracts with lower variable costs) as justified and fills in with on-demand instances as required. Charges for data are computed according to the progressive pricing schedule that Amazon publishes. To compute costs for self-hosting, I assume co-location with the peak number of Std-XL-equivalent servers required, each loaded to no more than 80 percent of capacity. The costs of hardware are amortized over 36 months. Power is assumed to be included with rackspace fees. Bandwidth is assumed to be obtained on a 95th percentile price basis.

Now let’s look at a sensitivity analysis. Notice in the above example, that a bit more than half of the total cost for each alternative is for bandwidth/data transfer charges ($35,144 for self-hosted at $8/Mbps and $36,900 for AWS). This is important because while Amazon pricing is fixed and published, 95th percentile pricing is highly variable and competitive

The chart above shows total costs as a function of co-location bandwidth pricing. AWS costs are independent of this and thus flat. What this chart shows is that self-hosting costs less for any bandwidth pricing under about $9.50 per Mbps/Month. And if you can negotiate a price as low as $4, you’d be saving more than 40 percent to self-host. I’ll leave discussion of the hybrid to another post.

This should provide a bit of a feel for how I’ve been conducting these analyses. Above is a visual summary of how different scenarios tend to shake out. The intuitive conclusion that the more spiky the load, the better the economics of the AWS on-demand solution is confirmed. And similarly, the flatter or less variable the load distribution, the more self-hosting appears to make sense. And if you’ve got a situation that uses a lot of bandwidth, you need to look more closely at potential self-hosted savings that could be feasible with negotiated bandwidth reductions.

Too bad highlighting the text and a right mouse click doesn’t work. But if you work with command line a lot, there is a way, and this is how we do it:

1. Right click on the command window's title bar and click Properties.
2. Click the Options tab.
3. Check the box that says "QuickEdit Mode" on the right side of the dialog box.
4. Now you can left click within the command window and drag a box around the text that you want to select.
5. Right click anywhere in the window or just press Enter to copy the text to the clipboard.
6. Paste it into a Windows document in the usual way.

What if you want to go the other way around, and paste content into a command window? When the text is on the clipboard, just right click anywhere inside the window (as long as you aren't in select mode as described in step 4 above.

A digital malady called “iPad shoulder” joins computer vision syndrome, BlackBerry thumb and E-thrombosis on the list of odd—and often painful—disorders afflicting our increasingly wired society.

In a new study, researchers at Harvard’s School of Public Health report that the millions of Americans who use tablet computers, such as the iPad, risk shoulder and neck injuries because of the way they hold the high-tech devices. In the study, 15 experienced users performed a range of simulated tasks on an iPad 2 and Motorala Xoom while their postures were analyzed with a 3-D motion analysis system.

While using the tablets, the volunteers bent their necks more, compared to using a desktop or laptop device, especially when the tablet was in their lap. That hunched posture strains the neck and shoulders, the researchers say. They advise tablet devotees to change positions every 15 minutes, move their neck around to release tension, and to use a case to prop the iPad at the preferred angle of 30 degrees.

Use these seven simple tips to manage chronic pain.

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'When we talk of convergence between computers and television, we need to be careful to specify what we mean.  In the case of this debate, we specifically mean the convergence of television and computers, both the media and the devices.  To that end the debate will center around two main issues:

The unique thing about television is that television is both a medium and a transmission system.  That is to say that television is used to refer to the screen that you watch, as well as what you see on that screen.  The Internet on the other hand is a system for transmitting bits, and is different from the device which receives those bits, the computer.  For this debate we will consider the content of the Internet to be primarily World Wide Web style content and an extension thereof.  In other words, you will have multimedia pages with dynamic content including audio and video clips.

So, when we say that the media will converge, we mean that current television shows will merge into a hybrid with World Wide Web style content.  Television shows will have other types of media like text merged into them, and World Wide Web pages will begin to be temporal entities that tell a story.  Another way of looking at this is that both your television and your computer will be running a similar super browser which will allow the same content to be viewed on both devices.  Also, to say that the two converge it is not enough to say that you will be able to watch television on your computer-- that merely means that television content is a sub-set of computer content and is already possible today.  For the two to truly converge the content that can be received by both devices should be the same.

When we say that the media will not converge, we mean that television shows and world wide web content will remain distinct media forms, and that you will use your television for watching television shows, and your computer to view and browse web content.  While both media types may have evolved, they will remain different from one another.
 

The second topic for the debate will be that the computers and televisions as devices will merge.  In this case the argument is that sometime in the future there won't be \"televisions\" and \"computers\", but some new device that encapsulates the behavior of both.  This \"viewer\" will come in different sizes and shapes, but will be thought of as one item, just like little TVs and big TVs in people's minds are considered one type of device.  While you may be more inclined to use the \"viewer\" on your desk to browse the web, and the \"viewer\" in the home theater to watch movies, you would be willing to do either task on either device.  In other words, if you were at your desk working on a \"viewer\" and a friend called up telling you to check out a show, you would just switch the \"viewer\" to that show, rather than going into another room to find a \"TV viewer\".

Non-convergence in this case is the argument that, while TVs may take on some computer-like functionality and vice versa, fundamentally the two will be thought of as different devices.  Doing research and browsing the web will be done on a computer, and watching shows and movies will be done on a television.

1. Computers and Televisions will be able to display the same media:
2. People will cease distinguishing between computers and televisions:

Finally, it is important to make one final point on the debate framework.  There are always extreme points in the adoption of technology.  Since there is no technical reason why a television can't have the same functionality as a computer, or vice versa, it is quite likely that both computer powered TVs and computers that can display television will be around in the future.  In fact even today the Gateway 2000 Destination series is a computer powered TV and computers can have TV boards and are able to watch television content.  There will certainly be some small number of people that adopt this technology.  On the other hand there will also be some people that will keep their 1968 television and just add a DTV decoder box.  Neither of these extremes are very interesting.

On account of this, the debate will center around what functionality the majority of televisions and computers will have, and what types of media will be broadcast for a majority of broadcast hours.  The main question we consider is whether televisions and computers will come to be more similar on average as time goes on, or whether they will evolve along mostly independent paths.

The Argument for Convergence

Media Convergence:

In order for the media to converge, two main things need to occur.  First, computers and televisions must be able to be content interchangeable.  That is, computers must be able to view and use television content, and televisions must be able to view and receieve Internet content.  Second, people must be sufficiently interested in being able to view the same content on both device to make implementation of this interoperability commercially viable.  The two are clearly interrelated, since the amount of interest in interoperability people have determines how much they are willing to pay for that functionality.
Before determining whether it is possible to make television and computers interoperable, we need a list of what sorts of content both can, or will be able to receive.  To start, here is a list of some of the content we might see on both the web and digital television in the future:

• Television Content:
  • Television shows
  • Movies
  • Commercials
• World Wide Web Content:
  • Media presentations (scripted presentations of various media objects including text, 3-D graphics, audio and video)
  • Games (non-scripted temporal presenation of various media objects with which the user/viewer can interact)
  • Information blocks (collections of media objects through which the user/viewer can browse)

The Computer

It is easiest to first answer the question of whether a computer will be able to receive television content.  The types of content that are broadcast over television currently, and will continue to be broadcast if the two media do not converge, are audio/video streams.  Since the computer media already includes audio and video streams, it should be able to decode the streams with no extra equipment.  The possible exception to this is the addition of a tuner card to decode the analog signal into the digital stream, but this should be of marginal additional cost considering the cost of purchasing a computer.
So, a computer will be able to receive television content for little extra cost.  Since the cost difference between a machine with this capability and a machine without this capability will be low, even if there is little consumer interest in this, machines will still come with this capability.

The Television

The more difficult question is whether a television will be able to display world wide web content.  It is pretty clear that you can put enough hardware into a television to make it able to display the media that a computer can display.  Essentially you would need to add a reasonable sized hard disk, some memory, and a fairly fast general purpose processor.  How much would this add to the cost of the television?  I will guess at the prices of items six years from now if they are shipping in large quanties.

From 1994 to 1997 1 Gig drives fell from $1000 to $100, 1/10 the cost in three years.  A 10 Gig drive is now $300, so in six years it should be $3.  I am allowing for some parts cost which may not change based on drive capacity and saying $10.

From 1992 to 1998 1 MB of memory fell from $30 to $1, a 30-fold decrease in six years.  A megabyte of RAM should cost 1/30 of $1 in 6 years, or a little more than 3 cents

This one I am guessing on, but fast 3D chips run around $20 today, so I am guessing a reasonably fast processor (as fast as the fastest of todays processors) won't cost more than $20.  If you can get a 486/66 for $20 today this seems reasonable.

• 10 Gig hard drive - $10
• 64 MB Memory - $ 2
• Fast Processor (including 3D processor) - $20

The total additional cost to televisions shipping in quantity to make them fast enough to read computer content would then be about $50.

The question to answer now is whether the average consumer would be willing to pay $50 extra for this functionality.  If so, then broadcasters would be likely to merge the content, and manufacturers to include the extra functionality.

This is a difficult question to answer without actually trying out the system with a test group.  In the past interactive TV trials where more robust media and interactivity is included in the television have been a failure (ie. Time Warner's Orlando test-bed).  The difference now is that the new television screens will have sufficient resolution to display text based materials without being blurry and out of focus.  What specifically might people be interested in doing on these new improved systems?

• Advanced Commercials:  Broadcasters could send six commercial streams during commercial breaks of HDTV shows, and the viewer could determine which one to watch.  A 'X' on the remote could be hit to kill a commercial, or another could be hit to indicate it is somewhat interesting.  Over time the set could build up a preference profile allowing users to see the commercials they most prefer (or least hate).  If hypertext is included with each commercial, people could browse through downloaded information instead of watching more commercials.  The hard disk could also be used to buffer the show so you wouldn't miss anything if you were browsing.  This would be a more interesting model for commercials for viewers, advertisers and broadcasters.
• A Movie Previews Channel: One channel of a station (or sub-stream) could be a movie channel which downloads HTML like content with information on various movies in theaters including reviews, local show times, and trailers.  By clicking on a trailer you could watch the trailer in all of its glory in your home theater.
• A News Channel: Instead of having an anchor cycle through stories continuously, a continually updated news web site could be broadcast on one channel.  It could have local, national and international stories as well as traffic and weather updates.  Given stories can have the full video clip story (live or delayed), as well as background text and photos for those interested in more in depth information.  This could also be received in your car to get traffic reports which could be read to you based on your cars current location.

There are many other possibilities including much enhanced travelogue, home improvement and cooking shows.  Is this worth $50 more in initial investment for the average consumer though?  If the TV is kept for 5 years, the cost is less than $1 per month, which seems like something any consumer would be willing to pay for this increased functionality.

So, if computers will be able to view television content, and people will be willing to pay for television that can display computer content, there is no reason that the two media will not converge.

Device Convergence

With the convergence of media, we expect the emergence of appliances that will be able to display some sort of standardized media format. These devices will most likely vary in size, intended placement (living room, kitchen, bedroom), and functionality, but will have the common capability of being able to interpret the given converged media format.

Since media will most likely converge to some sort of digital stream with packets of information embedded in it, these information appliances will be able to provide a richer environment for viewing and interaction.

This means that the television in the living room will no longer be just a television, but it will be an \"information\" appliance. In addition to being able to display video streams, it will also be able to present other types of information-web pages, on-line stock quotes, interactive city maps, virtual lectures, etc.-that are encapsulated in the media stream.

This type of scenario has several implications:

• For video playback, this means the possibility of introducing different encoding and compression schemes into the stream. This may serve to save resources because the entire uncompressed video signal will no longer have to be broadcast. It can also be used to broadcast content at different resolutions, allowing the viewer to choose depending on the characteristics of the viewing device. So a large, entertainment device in the living room may receive a movie in wide-screen format with Dolby Surround Sound, while a smaller device in the kitchen used to get the morning news may only receive the bare essentials.
• Consider the idea of private vs. public space. With converged media, one can imagine a scenario in which a user is creating or modifying content on a small \"information\" appliance like a PDA while sitting in a meeting (private space). Since the device is using converged media, the user will then be able to instantly upload this work into a public display, like a large video wall in a conference room, for presentation.
• When giving multimedia presentations that contain both digital information and video information, it is not uncommon to use a computer to display the slides and a VCR to play a video tape. Convergence would push for media and devices that would be able to easily accommodate both formats, so that switching hardware during the middle of a talk will no longer be necessary.
• Right now, too many forms of media exist. Consider the genre of audio. There are tapes, CD?s, MiniDiscs, RealAudio, MP3?s, and more. Each format requires it?s own special device and switching from format to format is very difficult. One needs a radio to get content broadcast over the air; a CD player is required to play songs on a CD; a computer is needed to play MP3?s. With media convergence, it is likely that you can take a mix of your favorite songs and be able to play it at home, in the car, and at work, since you are using a common media format that can be read by many devices.
• Audio equipment manufacturers are creating devices that have the capability to play more and more audio formats (some stereos have built in tape decks, radio receivers, MiniDisc players, and CD players). This seems to be analogous to the idea of device convergence and an argument for it.
• For content providers, the switch to convergent media may initially be expensive, as they will have to invest in new equipment. But in the long run, it will open up more possibilities. As of now, television advertisements are usually very elaborate, but the experience is passive. Viewers cannot simply click on them if they want more information or want to purchase the item being mentioned as they can on the Internet. With converged media, it would be possible to integrate both types of advertisement into one, allowing for both elaborate presentations and complex interactions.
• For content providers, media convergence also implies that creative content will only have to be created once, not several times for the varying media formats. This too, will save content providers time and money in the long run.
• The addition of informational bits to the media stream, in combination with these all-in-one devices, will allow content to be more customized to the viewer?s needs and wants. The device may have some sort of filtering agent that only displays advertisements that are of interest to the viewers.

The Argument Against Convergence

• TVs are consumer-level devices, which mean that they have to be cheap (for the average Joe)
• Being able to display the vast number of media types available today on the web (Macromedia, pdf, ps, RealAudio, RealVideo) will be expensive and challenging - you need a general-purpose CPU and stuff like RAM, OS, etc. People will not be willing to pay, especially if they?re not really going to use it. Perhaps Java will save convergence.
• At this point in time, the TV and the WWW are fundamentally different - TV is a broadcast medium, with virtually zero interactivity, while the WWW is a \"pull\" medium, with a high degree of user interactivity required. Things will stay this way - in the short- and medium-term, people are not going to treat the TV and computer interchangeably.
• So, is the media going to merge and drive the convergence? TV programs with interactivity? Ads, maybe. Education, maybe. But entertainment? People fundamentally go to the living room to be entertained - movies don?t lend themselves well to interactivity. Nor does the broadcast model. Even with a back-channel, 19.2Mbits/s is a one->many transmission. You can hack one-to-one transmission, of course, but why?
• Another reason why WWW and TV content will not merge is the proliferation of handheld, portable, wireless devices that let you take the WWW (= information + entertainment) wherever you are. The presence of such \"lite\" devices will drive media development away from integrated content and into \"lite\" content that deliver concentrated doses of information. See Diamond?s new Rio player & Cyrix?s new WebPad - instead of converging into a single super-powerful appliance that is used for everything, people will gravitate towards small, specific solutions
• Personal vs. public - TV is an audience-based thing - many people can watch one movie together. On the other hand, the WWW, and interactivity in general, is personal. One person may have very different responses compared to another, making it difficult for more than one person to surf the web together for extended periods, or participate in an interactive program, unless specifically designed for multiple players.
• The two mediums, broadcast (TV) and WWW, are sufficiently different, not in technical terms, but human ones, that a merger of the content is highly unlikely. Naturally there will be some overlap & intersection, but it will be minor. There will be no fundamental revolution and/or integration of content.

It’s a fact that high-tech consumer products and services of all kinds are making their way into the workplace. They include everything from smart phones, voice-over-IP systems and flash memory sticks to virtual online worlds. And as people grow more accustomed to having their own personal technology at their beck ‘n’ call -- and in fact can't imagine functioning without it -- the line between what they use for work and what they use for recreation is blurring.

1. Instant messaging

People use instant messaging for everything from making sure their kids have a ride home from practice to communicating with co-workers and business partners. In the Yankee study, 40% of respondents said they use consumer IM technology at work. Instant messaging present numerous security challenges. Among other things, malware can enter a corporate network through external IM clients and IM users can send sensitive company data across insecure networks.

One way to combat threats is to phase out consumer IM services and use an internal IM server. In late 2005, Global Crossing did just that when it deployed Microsoft Corp.'s Live Communications Server (LCS). Then in August 2006 it blocked employees from directly using external IM services from providers such as AOL, MSN and Yahoo. Now, all internal IM exchanges are encrypted, and external IM exchanges are protected, as they're funneled through the LCS server and Microsoft's public IM cloud.

Adopting an internal IM server also gave Global Crossing's security team more control. "Through the public IM cloud, we're able to make certain choices as to how restrictive or open we are. We can block file transfers, limit the information leaving our network or restrict URLs coming in," which was a common method for propagating worms, Miller says. "That takes away a huge component of malicious activity."

You can also take a harder line. DeKalb's security policy, for instance, bans IM use altogether. "It's mainly chat-type traffic, not personal health information, but it's still a concern," Finney says. As backup to the restrictive policy, she blocks most sites where IM clients can be downloaded, although she can't block MSN, AOL or Yahoo because many physicians use those sites for e-mail accounts. Her team also uses a network inventory tool that can detect IM clients on employee PCs. If one is found, the employee is reminded of DeKalb's no-IM policy and notified that the IM client will be removed. Finney is also considering various methods of blocking outbound IM traffic, but for now, she also uses a data loss prevention tool from Vericept Corp. to monitor IM traffic and alert the security team about any serious breaches. To do that, Finney's team needs to shut down most of its Internet ports, which forces IM traffic to scroll to Port 80 for monitoring.

DeKalb is looking into the idea of implementing the IM add-on of IBM's Lotus Notes or even an internal freeware IM service like Jabber for business users who want to communicate across campus. "Nothing is 100%," Finney says. "IM is always a huge concern from a security as well as a productivity perspective."

2. Web mail

Of the respondents to the Yankee Group survey, 50% said they use consumer e-mail applications for business purposes. The problem with consumer e-mail services such as those from Google, Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo is that the users themselves don't realize how insecure their e-mail exchanges are because messages are transported over the Web and stored on the ISP's server as well as the e-mail provider's server. Without that awareness, many use no discretion about sending sensitive information such as Social Security numbers, passwords, confidential business data or trade secrets.

One approach to tightening security around Web mail is to use a tool that monitors e-mail content using keyword filters and other detection techniques and the either generates alerts regarding potential breaches or simply blocks the e-mail from being sent. For instance, WebEx Communications is considering expanding its use of a data loss prevention tool from Reconnex Inc. to include e-mail monitoring, according to Michael Machado, director of IT infrastructure.

For its part, DeKalb addresses this problem with Vericept's tool, which captures a screenshot of every Web-based e-mail that employees send, including file attachments, and scans these for company-defined sensitive data, such as Social Security numbers. Alerts are sent to Finney's team so that they can follow up with users to educate them on the dangers of sending sensitive data over the Web.

3. Portable storage devices

One of an IT manager's biggest fears, according to Holbrook, is the steady proliferation in types of portable storage, ranging from Apple iPhones and iPods to flash memory devices. "People can use these to download any number of corporate secrets or sensitive information and move it off-site, which is not where IT wants that information to be," he says.

"In the past three weeks alone, I've heard six different conversations about the risks of flash drives and portable storage devices," says Mark Rhodes-Ousley, an information security architect and author of Network Security: The Complete Reference (McGraw-Hill Osborne Media, 2003).

While it would be easy enough to lock down the USB ports on employee PCs, many security managers say this is not a recommended approach. "If people want to subvert the process, they're going to find a way to get around any barriers you put in place," Miller says. "And where do you draw the line? If you restrict USB ports and [cell] phones coming into the office that may have data storage ports, then you have to look at restricting infrared ports on devices and CD burners, and the list goes on and on."

It's better, he says, to handle the matter by educating people on how to treat the storage of sensitive information. "Most of the incidents that occur are unintentional [rather than] malicious, so that's where education comes in, as to proper handling and why it's important," Miller says.

Machado says he isn't a fan of blocking USB ports at WebEx, mainly because such a strategy would quickly devolve into users asking IT for exceptions to the rule and IT having to manage those exceptions. "Everyone has an exception that they think is important, which takes up more of IT's time than is necessary," he says.

What would be optimal, he adds, is to have a tool that sends an to people who are trying to copy files to USB drives or other unencrypted storage media, advising them that they're going against corporate policy. "Then they know they're empowered to make the decision but that it's going to be tracked and monitored," he says.

On the other hand, DeKalb's Finney says she is interested in blocking technologies and is looking into the Vericept tool's ability to either block certain types of data from being transferred to an external storage device or alert her when someone tries to plug anything into a PC that's not native to that computer. Ideally, she'd like a tool that would also remind employees that corporate policy forbids sensitive data to be stored on external devices.

Meanwhile, Michigan's Grand Valley State University and other colleges and universities where professors and students have lost flash drives with sensitive data are looking into standardizing on password- and encryption-protected USB drives to protect them in the future.

4. PDAs and smart phones

More and more employees are showing up at work with some form of smart phone or personal digital assistant, be it a BlackBerry, a Treo or an iPhone. But when they try to synch up their device's calendar or e-mail application with their own PC, it can cause problems ranging from application glitches to the blue screen of death. "Those types of problems are not uncommon -- it's the mundane things like that that can drive IT nuts," Holbrook says. "It's not how they want to be spending their time."

Moreover, should the employee quit or be fired, he can walk out the door with any information he wants, as long as the PDA or smart phone belongs to him.

Like some other companies, WebEx minimizes those possibilities by standardizing on a single brand and model of PDA and letting employees know the IT organization will only support that one device. WebEx does the same thing with laptops, which Machado notes, represent an even greater threat than PDAs because they can hold even more data. Any unapproved devices are not allowed on the WebEx network.

5. Camera phones

A hospital worker stands at a nursing station, casually chatting with the nurses. No one notices she's got a small device in her hand, on which, from time to time, she's pressing a small button. A scene from the latest spy thriller? No, a security test conducted by DeKalb's Finney.

"One of the tests I did was to go to take my cell phone to the nursing station and start clicking off photos, unbeknownst to them," she says. "I wanted to download the photos, enhance the images and see what I got -- patient information displayed on computer screens or on papers lying on the desk."

As it turns out, she didn't obtain any personally identifiable information, but she did glean the computer name (not the IP address) from the top of the photographed computer screen.

"That kind of information can add up to clues that can be compiled or combined with other information someone could get from other sources in the facility to build a plan of attack," she says.

As a follow-up, Finney added information regarding this potential security breach to DeKalb's employee orientation and security awareness programs, so people are at least aware of how risky it is to expose sensitive data for others to see -- and possibly photograph.

6. Skype and other consumer VoIP services

Another fast-growing consumer technology is Skype, a downloadable software-based service that allows users to make free Internet phone calls. In fact, 20% of the respondents to the Yankee Group study said they use Skype for business purposes.

In a business setting, the threat presented by Skype and similar services is the same as that of any consumer software downloaded to a corporate PC, Holbrook says. "Enterprise applications are highly scalable and highly secure, while consumer applications are less scalable and less secure," he says. "So anytime you download Skype or anything else, you're introducing a security risk that IT is uncomfortable with." For instance, the software can interact with every other application on the PC or network, potentially affecting the performance of every application.

Skype itself has issued at least four bulletins announcing security holes that users can patch when they download the latest version of the software. But because IT often has no idea how many users have installed Skype, let alone who has done it, there's no way for them to police these efforts.

The most secure option, and one that research firm Gartner Inc. recommends, is to block Skype traffic altogether. If a business chooses not to do that, it should actively engage in version control of Skype clients using configuration management tools and ensure that it is distributed only to authorized users, Gartner says.

7. Downloadable widgets

According to Yankee Group, consumers are using devices such as the Q and the Nokia E62 to download widgets that give them quick access to Web applications. These widgets can be easily moved to PCs, which, according to Holbrook, represent another entry point into the technology ecosystem that IT struggles to control.

The risk here is that these tiny programs use processing power on the PC and the network. And beyond that, any software that gets downloaded without being vetted represents a potential threat. "It's not more likely to be infected with a virus, but you're downloading something you might not have a lot of trust in," Holbrook says.

WebEx mitigates this risk using a threefold approach. It educates users on the risks of software downloads; it uses Reconnex to monitor what's installed on user PCs; and it disables some of the users' default access rights, restricting their download capabilities.

8. Virtual worlds

Business users are beginning to experiment with virtual worlds such as Second Life, and as they do, IT needs to become more aware of the accompanying security concerns. It would be short-sighted, Holbrook says, to simply block the use of these virtual worlds. "It's an application that people are just now figuring out how it can be useful in a business setting," he says.

At the same time, using Second Life involves downloading a large amount of executable code and putting it inside the corporate firewall, Gartner points out in a recent report. In addition, there's really no way to know the actual identities of the avatars who populate the virtual world.

One option that Gartner suggests is enabling employees to access their virtual worlds over the company's public wireless network or encourage them to do it from home. A third option is for companies to evaluate tools to create their own virtual environments that would be hosted internally within the enterprise firewall

Do you spend a lot of time on your Windows XP researching on the Internet? If so, chances are that you probably spend time copying text from interesting WebSites and pasting Word for later reference. That's four separate keyboard strokes—[Ctrl]C to copy and [Ctrl]V to paste—each time you want to save snippets of text. Wouldn't it be nice if you could reduce each operation to a single keystroke?

If you have a Microsoft keyboard that provides a special set of buttons across the top, you can use the IntelliType software to reassign any of the special buttons to perform the copy and paste operations, and this is how we do it:

1. Download and install the most current version of the IntelliType software for your keyboard at the Microsoft Hardware site. (Keep in mind that this step is optional because the IntelliType software you have installed will allow you to reassign the special buttons.)

2. Access the Control Panel and double-click the Keyboard icon to display the Keyboard Properties dialog box.

3. Select the Key Settings tab, choose a key in the list, and click the Edit button to launch the Reassign A Key wizard.

4. Select the Choose From A List Of Commands option button in the Custom section and click Next.

5. In the Select A Command From The List scrolling list box, select the Copy command, and click Finish.

6. Repeat steps 3 through 5 and assign another key to the Paste command.

7. When you return to the Keyboard Properties dialog box, click OK.

Now, anytime that you want to perform a copy or paste operation, all you have to do is press the buttons that you reassigned.

Are you tired of searching the Internet for icons to use for your shortcuts? You can use Windows XP's Paint program to create your own icons, and this is how we do it:

1. Launch Paint from the All Programs | Accessories menu.
2.  
3. Pull down the Image menu and select the Attributes command.
4.  
5. In the Attributes dialog box, type 32 in both the Width and Height boxes and click OK.
6.  
7. To make the image easier to work with, click the Magnifier tool and select the level 8 magnification setting.
8.  
9. Press [Ctrl]G to add gridlines.
10.  
11. Use the tools and colors to create your icon.
12.  
13. Press [Ctrl]S and save the file with an ICO extension.

You can now assign your custom icon to any shortcut you wish.

Note: This tip applies to both Windows XP Home and Windows XP Professional.

Whether you already dumped your cable company or are entertaining the notion of doing so later this year, you’re a part of a constituency that is increasingly finding the notion of life without cable to be an attractive reality. Deliotte, an accountancy firm that follows business trends in media, released the results of their sixth State of the Media Democracy earlier this week and it doesn’t forecast sunnier skies for cable companies in 2012. According to the press release:

    A number of Americans have already cut, or are exploring cutting their pay TV connection entirely. Deloitte’s survey found that 9 percent of people have already cut the cord and 11 percent are considering doing so because they can watch almost all of their favorite shows online. An additional 15 percent of respondents said that they will most likely watch movies, television programs, and videos from online digital sources (via download or streamed over the Internet) in the near future.

Read More - Click Here!

Data Cables are the lifeline of your business. Most take them for granted because they just sit there and work day after day. After all, they are the fastest and most reliable means for moving data, surpassing WiFI by 1000%. But to get to that point; to earn the right to take your cable for granted, the cable has to be run correctly. This requires good planning and execution, and this is how we do it:

#1. Plan for the future:

With a certainty you know where devices are placed right now. But what about three to five years in the future? Cable is cheap, getting someone to run cable is not. So while the cable installation folks are there, have them make double runs to each location and to logical points on each wall. You may have one computer and printer per office now, but later you may have four people and four other devices. Do it right in the beginning. A little extra expense now is much better than tons of money latter.

Today, 100mb Cat 5 rules the cable world, but tomorrow you may want 1gb cable. Run 1gb Cat 6a cable now so that you don’t have to replace it later.

#2. Use same cable types for voice and data:

 Today your phone system might run fine on inexpensive Cat 3 cable. But the trend now is for VoIP phones that run Cat 5 or better cables. That is because a VoIP phone is really a computer and requires the same amount of bandwidth. Besides, the real cost is in the labor. So use the same cable type for both computers and phones.

#3. Use cable management

 I hear you. Punch Panels, ladder rack, and rack-based cable management adds cost. But it pays dividends when it comes to reliability and versatility. Fact is, point-to-point hand-made cable connections are 75% more likely to fail, and finding the failure on a point-to-point cable system if very difficult. Punch panels using commercial patch cables if very reliable and allow you to easily document your cable system. You not only minimize the chance for failure, but you also make it easy to find and fix if it does fail. At the minimum, use a Punch Panel!

Versatility is another plus for cable management. Moving a system to a new device is a simple matter of moving cables. Unplug from one port and move it to another. Cable management really makes “cents”.

#4. Never run Data cables parallel with electric wire

It is tempting sometimes. Computers require electricity and electrical wires usually go right where you want to put a data cable. But electric cables put out 60 cycle electromagnetic interference that can wreak havoc with a data signal. Rule of thumb, stay at least one foot away from 110 volt electric wire, two or more feel from 220v or 440v wire, and don’t follow a parallel path. If you must cross over an electric wire with data cable, do so at a right angle. And if you must run in parallel down a wall, push a little extra cable in the wall. That will cause the data cable to run in an “s curve” fashion, minimizing that chance of a parallel run, thus minimizing interference.

#5. Stay away from Noisy Electrical Devices and Lighting

Fluorescent, sodium vapor, metal halide lights and motors can emit a tremendous amount of electrical  magnetic interference. We measure a 3 foot aurora of electromagnetic interference around a typical fluorescent light, with spikes exceeding 15 volts within the aurora. Since data cable signal is usually measured in milivolts, placing data cable within the aurora will not only disrupt data signals, but it could also harm to computer equipment. Stay at least three feet away for fluorescent lighting and motors. Five would be even better. If you must cross a fluorescent light (do so at your own risk), do so at a right angle, and with as much clearance as possible.

#6. Stay within cable distance limitations:

It’s simple. Cat 5 maximum cable length with 100mb Ethernet and no electromagnetic interference is 320 feet. If you must exceed 320 feet, use a booster or repeater.

Use Cat 6a cable for 1gb bandwidth up to 320 feet. Anything else is a respite for disaster!

#7. Follow ALL laws, codes, and ordinances

 Chances are you won’t get caught, but there are far worse things than “getting caught”. Failure to adhere to local codes can create dangerous safety issues for people. Example: PVC-jacketed cabling is prohibited in air handling spaces. When PVC burns, it creates a toxic gas that can be harmful to your people and firefighters should there be a fire. I wouldn’t want that on my conscience!

 If you are caught, you risk fines and the likely hood of having to rip out and replace your cabling. Bottom line, make certain that your cable contractor is aware of, and follow ALL codes and ordinances.

 #8. Test and certify the cabling infrastructure:

 Once the cabling is installed, you should test every cable using appropriate tools to make sure that it will be suitable for its intended use. This includes verifying length and cable specifications matched to needs. If you need 1 gb transmission speeds, verify that the cable’s properties will support 1gb.

 #9. Follow Cabling Standards

There is a cabling standard named EAI/TIA-568-A and B. It dictates the method by which data cables are terminated. Not following the standard can diminish the results and effect bandwidth throughput and reliability. In addition, if somebody else has to come back later to work on the data cables, it will be much easier and quicker is the cables are to spec and standard. Much less costly too.

 #10. Not running a cable when you need one

 New installations: Run two cables together, for every 10 feel of wall. Adding cable later is very expensive as most of the cost is in simply getting the cable person out there.

You can use a switch and create additional cable drops, but that injects more equipment and additional cables into the system, resulting in increased points of failure. When this is done, it usually does not get documented, making is exponentially difficult to troubleshoot problem. Then there is the “swinger” where the cable works “most of the time” but Murphy’s law has the cable fail at the worst possible time, then working again when the cable tech comes to fix the problem. Run cable, not switches.

The same rules apply whether you are funning calbe in a manufacturing plant, office building, or home office. If you do this right in the beginning, you can count on many many years of trouble-free cable service.

Here is the paradox: If we truly live in the electronic age and everything has become digitized, why, oh why, are we spending so much time printing? Printing is the bane of our existence, always rearing its ugly head when we least expect it. We spend good money for applications that reliably stores all of our data for online presentation, yet end-users spend hours printing screen dumps and filling file cabinets with paper. Isn’t that nuts?

Most of what’s printed out is thrown right into the trash can. A quick search on the internet reveals that numerous organizations and educational institutions report a sustained increase in paper usage highlighting the point that electronic systems aren’t decreasing the amount of printing by users, its increasing it. And as it increases, the more importance is placed on the printing infrastructure and the more money spent on printers, toner, paper, and chasing down myriads of printing issues.

To compound the problem, the cost of printers continues to go down whilst the quality of lower end printers continues to rise. So it’s becoming increasingly easier for staff to justify purchasing personal printers. Yet whilst printers are cheap, the toner, developer, and other consumables has climbed to the point where it can be cheaper to buy a whole printer than a toner cartridge (it is the hidden cost of consumables along with increased volume that drives the high price of printing).

Everyone can create a reason for why they “need” a printer of their very own. How? Most, managers play the confidentiality card. They can’t be expected to print performance reviews and other confidential documents on the departmental printer. Okay, fine. I can accept that. Plunk a printer down in their office. But then staff wine that they need printers for the mobile laptop carts. Reason – they can’t walk down the hall to the unit’s main printer. That would negate the benefit of having the mobile cart in the first place. Then the billing department reports that they require individual printers to print each customer’s account screen. Reason – it’s easier to read the printouts than the screen.

See where this is going? It’s a runaway train headed down a steep cliff. It appears we’ve spoiled our users into expecting technology coddling. Think of someone at home frantically looking for the TV remote instead of walking over and turning the channel (I’m not saying I’ve never done it.) I’ve got to have it now and I shouldn’t have to move to get it.

So what is wrong with so many printers scattered around the workplace? It complicates the printing infrastructure and can severely reverse the benefits of the paperless solutions you paid for. More Toner, paper, trash, plus the time spent printing, reading, then disposing of the paper. And talk about your security issues. Now your private information is subject to trash diggers and dumpster divers (unless you opt for the expense of a shredder and the time spent using it).

However, if you lead they will follow if they know why and how. Death by printing can be avoided by communicating the objectives, a little training, and a little monitoring of printing activities. The benefits will soon fill the bottom line instead of your trash cans.

When a computer or network slows down, most will list the root cause as old or slow equipment. Some even opt to replace it with new equipment. However, What has been overlooked is that many of these problems occur because of fragmented hard disks on servers, laptops, and desktops.

What is disk fragmentation? In simple terms, fragmentation occurs during normal system use when users create, delete, and resize computer files on their hard disks. The continual creation and deletion of files causes file segments, originally created in contiguous or continuous blocks, to be scattered, or fragment into many pieces all over the hard drive, separated by other data blocks. The more fragmented the pieces become, the longer it takes for the computer or server to find and read the files, and overall system performance degrades.

A common analogy for fragmentation is to imagine a customer file that has been split among 20 filing cabinets. Wouldn't it be easier and faster to find the information if it were place in one contiguous file area?.

Excessive disk fragmentation can create substantial performance degradation on both servers and workstations. Some companies, unaware of the true source of the problem, may resolve such a performance issue with more expensive acquisitions of higher performance hardware. However, it is just a matter of time before fragmentation impacts the new machines as this solution only temporarily masks the real problem. Therefore, a company can address performance slowdowns without hardware purchases by utilizing a defragmentation policy rather than relying exclusively on more costly hardware upgrades.

ROI

An estimate of the savings associated with customers instituting a defragmantation policy was based on a one-year installation. Each customer was asked about individual installations of hardware and software. Research found that defragmented servers could effective serve 12% more users than unfragmented servers, and the defragmented servers experienced 10% higher uptime than non-defragmented servers. The estimated savings came to $195.20 per user per year with an ROI (Return On Investment) of 165%.

Bottom line – Let’s developed a defragmentation policy.

More and more people I know are using portables as their primary or only computers. Some of them are buying the big "desktop replacements" behemoth laptops with 17 or 18 inch screens, a boatload of RAM, big (for a laptop) hard drives and expensive amenities such as Blu-ray players. Several 18 inchers were released last year just before Christmas:

However, it seems that maybe there's a natural limit when it comes to the size people will buy when it comes to a computer that they're going to carry around with them. None of the major vendors has gone up to 19 inches yet. HP and Sony each offer one laptop model in the 18 inch size, whereas the largest on Dell's web site is 17 inches. Note that Dell did, however, release a massive 20 inch laptop a few years back, which came with its own built-in handle.

Although the Dell M2010 was impressive looking, at over 18 lbs. it was just too hefty for most people to lug around. You won't find it for sale on the Dell site today, and although I did get a chance to see it \"in person\" at a Consumer Electronics Show (CES), I never knew anyone who actually bought one. Maybe it was the weight - or maybe it was the $3500 base price. Or maybe it was a combination of the two. We also heard that the battery life was understandably shabby - around two hours at best. There comes a point, after all, when bigger is no longer better; it's simply bigger.

A desktop replacement makes sense if a laptop is going to be your only computer, but it seems quite a few folks are getting by these days with a lot less. The hottest selling segment of the PC market is still in netbooks - tiny machines with skimpy specs that sell at low prices. And for someone whose only need for a computer is to check email, surf the web and create a word processing document now and then, a netbook may very well suffice.

On the other hand, for about the same price ($350-400) you pay for a netbook that has 1 GB of RAM, a 120-160 GB hard drive and a 1.6 GHz Atom processor, you can get a desktop computer with 4 GB of RAM, a 320 GB hard drive and a 2.3 GHz AMD processor (specifically, I compared an Acer Aspire One 751h and an HP p6100z; both were advertised for $349.99).

I know which one I'd buy if it were going to be my only computer - but then, I want a full-fledged computer. A recent study showed that many people who buy netbooks are dissatisfied with their purchases afterward - and that the biggest reason is that they were expecting the performance and functionality of a normal computer.

http://www.osnews.com/story/21711/Study_Says_People_Dissatisfied_with_Netbooks

Whereas a desktop system will probably always give you more bang for the buck, it's not easy to pack up a tower (or even a mini tower) and monitor and take it on the road when you travel, although it's not impossible, either. My son recently took his Core i7 desktop with him to a chess tournament in St. Louis, but he was driving. It gets more complicated if you have to fly. This week he's in Spain for another tournament, and he has his laptop with him instead.

Just how important is portability, anyway? One could make the argument that it's actually less important to take a portable computer with you everywhere today than it was a few years ago, because so many of us have smart phones with data plans, which can perform many of the functions of a computer and fit in a pocket. If all you need to do is read email and surf the web, you can do that with a Windows Mobile phone like my Samsung Omnia, an iPhone, a Palm Pre, or one of several other high end phones running sophisticated smart phone operating systems.

In fact, my dream device is a handheld computer/cell phone the size of the Omnia/iPhone, with complete USB functionality (i.e. the ability to plug in a USB hub and attach a keyboard and mouse, even a USB hard drive) and a video out port to output to a regular monitor. And if someone would market small (12 inch or so) flat panel monitors with stands that fold down so you could easily slip them into carrying cases and take them with you, you wouldn't need a laptop/netbook for traveling at all.

Of course, most of us wouldn't want to have a phone as our only computer. But since we wouldn't need to buy a laptop or netbook, we could spend that money on a real (desktop) computer with much more powerful specs instead. If this scenario came to pass, I think desktop sales would start going up again, and the market share of portable computers (other than smart phones) would decline.

Tempe, Ariz.-based AV Concepts orchestrated Tupac's performance using Musion Systems Ltd.'s Musion Eyeliner setup that was able to project an animated version of Tupac (created by visual production house Digital Domain) onto a screen that appeared invisible to the audience.

Read More - Click Here!

Recently, a savvy Web entrepreneur made nearly $35,000 from of a $15 domain. Seems like a great story, unless you'e the one spending a small fortune to buy back a domain that used to be yours. This is just one of many frightening tales of domain expiration. People spend years building an audience or a customer base for their site, only to lose it all because they failed to renew the WebSite domain name.

The saddest part of these stories is that all of the heartache and expense could have been easily avoided. Most domain registrars offer a free auto renew service. This prevents your domain from expiring by automatically renewing it just before the expiration date by using a credit card your registrar keeps on file. It's so simple, safe and effective, it’s a wonder that not everyone uses it.

Of course, there are still those rare occasions when the credit card you have on file with your registrar expires between the time of purchase and your auto renew date. Fortunately, Active Technologies & Designhostseo.com have another solution for those who don't want to take any risks with their domain. We monitor domain registration dates and notify you 30 days in advance so you never have to worry about loosing your domain AND you don't have to worry about credit card and personal information floating around the internet.

Why Content Management System (CMS)? - Why Drupal? For one thing, even folks with simple websites want the ability to modify, add, change web site content without paying through the nose for it, or learning a programming language.

Homeowner Associations - non-profits want all the bells and whistles that the big boys have with little or no budget to pay for it. In addition, they may want several people to be able to modify, add, change content such as newsletters, budgets, minutes, with no programming experience. In addition, they may desire protected areas for homeowners and other areas for board members.

Large Companies may want to bypass their IT department to get something done fast with little or no budget. Content modify, add, change may come from a world-wide network of folks and in different languages. The site may include areas for the general public, secure areas for customers, distributors. The site may include moderated forums, knowledgebase, technical support, rss news feeds, and sales articles, troubleshooting routines, and a repository of secure documents, catalogs, shopping carts, data acquisition, and program distribution.

Fact is, anyone from any category may want their website to do just about anything. And as needs change, why be strapped down to an obsolete system?

Why Not A Proprietary Solution? Why shouldn't you use “Amazing Web Company's proprietary CMS?” Look at how shiny it is! They talk coding geek! They must know what they're doing, right? Good programmers don’t necessarily make good businessman as Proprietary CMS vendors life expectancy is only about two to three years.

There are literally thousands of content management systems out there. It seems like every web development firm has their own beautifully branded version. Each blatantly promises to make it easy for you, the client, to update your own web site, even if you are as hopeless as my Chihuahua on a computer. As you know, the devil is in the details. Problem is, most CMS companies never last long enough to deliver on their promise.

Our Criteria - We knew we wanted an open source CMS that would be actively supported, flexible, and robust. It needed to be able to support our SEO (Search Engine Optimization (Google ranking) work, and also there had to be enough people working on it so that we knew it wouldn't be obsolete next year.

There are plenty of articles comparing CMS's, so I'm not going to go here. Suffice to say that after carefully reviewing the top systems, we chose Drupal for its combination of flexibility, scalability, world-wide support community, speed and maturity. Most importantly, though, we wanted something that would satisfy our customers.

Why Drupal? - But don't take our word for it. Drupal is one of the most popular content management systems on the Internet and is much more robust than it's competitors. According to estimates, there are an excess of 50,000 sites using Drupal. These include Amnesty International, MTV UK, Sony MusicBox, The Onion, Spread Firefox, and several political sites such as Vote Hillary and Draft Obama (you may or may not like their politics, but their websites are “state of the art”) IBM, NASA and Yahoo all use Drupal for their intranets (see "Why Yahoo! chose Drupal for an internal site"). NATO and the World Bank also use Drupal.

Drupal is a completely open source platform built on the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP (the engine that powers the internet and Android SpartPhones) and has a clean, focused core code base. It's really an application framework, which makes it easy to add modules for features without touching the core programming code, leaving the site safe for quick updates when needed.

Unlike many other CMS programs, Drupal code is compliant with XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) instead of using HTML tables to theme pages. It also supports a broad range of SEO techniques, making it easy for us to optimize sites for search engines. In addition, it works well in a shared hosting environment (the least expensive, most common web hosting packages).

Most importantly, Drupal has a large, friendly, worldwide community of developers who work on it, write modules to make it able to do more, and are there for support. The community is robust, VERY active and lead by some really smart people, which means that there are many sources for Drupal-related services if the need arises in the future.

We Choose Drupal! - So there, I've said it: we love Drupal. We've been working with it for a couple of years, and it's been a dream.

Nothing is more valuable than having good customers with recurring business, especially in these times of economic distress. Therefore, always do our best to correct any problems in the client relationship. However, some business is just bad, and some customers hurt your company rather than enhancing your bottom line. The following are eight scenarios where you might consider firing your customer:

#1: They insist that you do something that's unethical or illegal. Sure, you both might be able to get away with it, but if you compromise your integrity, your customer will never trust you. You customer will soon figure out that If cheat for them, why wouldn't you cheat against them? More importantly, you would degrade yourself in your own eyes. INTEGRETY IS EVERYTHING! Have some self-respect and bid the customer adieu.

#2: They ALWAYS pay late. You can never allow late payments to become the status quo; customers will only get later with their payments. Naturally, you should take steps to improve your customer's payment habits first, but if they refuse to reform, say au revoir.

#3: They repeatedly angle for a reduced fee. Your rate is clearly stated in your contract, which they signed, yet on every project they ask you for a reduction for one of a number of fabricated reasons. They all translate to one real message: The client doesn't think you're worth what you charge. If you can't convince the client of your value, and you have other clients who clearly get the picture, it's hasta la vista (however, if a lot of your customers have the same issue with you, it may be time to take a hard look at the service you provide, and the manner in which you provide it).

#4: They try to get you to work for free. Perhaps they bought this machine from you but did not pay you to set it up or train them on how to use it. Instead, they call 20 times a day with setup questions that they expect you to answer for free. Worse yet, they bought the machine from another company! If the client can't comprehend those points, then arrivederci.

#5: Their organization is structured to prevent success. Policies, procedures, and the channels of communication are either poorly designed or abused to the point where your failure is guaranteed. It's your duty to point out these flaws and help your client try to correct them. If they just don't get that there's a problem here, auf Wiedersehen.

#6: The personalities involved are incompatible. I'm a likable guy — just ask my wife (oh, forget I said that). Really, though, I try to get along with everyone. But it's just hard to work with some people especially when the customer is abusive, constantly uses foul language, or is fixated on sexually explicit jokes and stories. When the only reason why you would ever subject yourself to the tortures of being in their acquaintance is the money, you either need to get a lot of money or say sayonara.

#7: They demean or insult you. In any relationship, insults are the first step in a plan (conscious or not) to lower your status. INSULTS SHOULD NEVER BE REPAID IN KIND! Rather than establishing respect, you have simply reduced yourself to their low level! This is a bad way to start a client relationship, where mutual respect should be earned and given. If the mutual respect thing just doesn't happen, it may be time to retreat from the battle and find a new customer.

#8: They require that you do things the wrong way. In any long-term engagement, there will inevitably be some disagreements over technical approaches. Sometimes you just have to do what the customer wants, even if you vehemently disagree. But that should not become an everyday thing, or you'll just hate your work. Perhaps you and your client are not a good fit. Dosvidanya.

How do you pull the plug on a customer? If your work consists of a series of small projects, you may be able to complete your current task and then politely say “no, thanks” to whatever else they offer. Or you could change your terms on future projects to be so lucrative for yourself that even if they don't get your not-so-subtle message, you won't mind. Just price yourself out of the game.

You could us the straight forward approach and tell you customer the reasons why you no longer want to work with them. It can be tricky because you don't want to burn more bridges than strictly necessary. Keep emotions out of it, and stick to the facts. It's more useful than concealing your complaint because it might help the client to improve, and it might help you, too. By putting your reasons into a dispassionate explanation, you might reveal some shortcomings of your own that contributed to the problem. Or best of all, it might help you both to fix whatever you considered beyond hope. However, in most cases, this approach ends badly!

Last thought: If you are the only source of technical support or materials... NEVER NEVER NEVER leave your customer in the lurch (other than non-payment)!

An employee (not one of our customers) was moved to a less prestigious position but received the same pay. Both jobs were performed in an air-conditioned office in an eight hour day that began at 7:00am. . However, the new job offered little upward potential and prestige. The employee was simply moved to a position with a greater need in the billing department.

The instructions were simple, print the invoices, stuff the invoices in a window envelope, run the envelope through the envelope sealer, then run the envelope through the stamp machine.

Sounds simple enough to me. Easy job; no headaches. In fact, this person did the same job two years ago. What could go wrong?

Well, I’ll tell you. Rather than placing the stamped envelopes in the mail basket, the employee crammed them into a cubby above the desk where they sat for five weeks. AR balances were rising whilst receipts took a dive.

Mean time, the IT guy had to add phone lines in the area, opened the cubby and invoices began spilling out onto the floor. As the IT guy feverishly re-stuffed the invoices back into the cubby, the CFO (Chief Financial Officer) noticed the ruckus down the hallway and perused by to see what the excitement was all about. You should have seen his face when he realized that over 1.7 million in invoices where “here instead of there”! Ready to be mailed instead of ready to be paid! Good thing you didn’t hear what he said!

When asked why, the employee responded “You never told me to mail them”.

Should this employee “get off on a technically”?

In my book, employees should exert themselves mind and body as agreed for the companies benefit during working hours. And if you have a question or see a gap in the process, it is the employee’s duty to ask!

Three Reasons to Do Business Face-To-Face
Recently, I delivered a keynote presentation about business growth, "Fence Posts to Trees," to the top forty emerging leaders of a U.K.-based pharmaceutical company. I ate with one of their five senior VPs during the meal that preceded.He lives in Scotland, commutes to London weekly, and travels to other countries. We talked about his travel schedule a bit and I asked, "How much do you employ technology to conduct virtual meetings?" To my surprise he answered, "More than I like. When we're doing business in other countries, it's difficult to virtually communicate some things." As we talked more, here's what I heard him saying. Think of them as three reasons to do business face-to-face.
A face-to-face meeting:

Powers business
Let's face it-there are a lot of companies out there that you can do business with. What separates the companies you choose from the companies you don't select is about the business transaction, but it's more than that. There is the human connection.

There are some aspects of the human connection that don't communicate well even if you use video. The myopic view of the camera misses gestures, body language, some vocal intonations, and the je ne sais quoi of human interaction. It takes the total package of the human experience to transform a business transaction into a business experience. Such experiences break the ice in a different direction that captures our interest and imagination. It's the most important "why" of closing a deal.

Builds trust
As my senior VP friend talked about communicating corporate core values internationally and how they take expression in the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals, I realized he was talking about trust. Getting in front of a manufacturing partner meant he could insure that the high standards by which his company produces viable health solutions is more likely to happen. By meeting face-to-face, he could validate the necessary protocols and procedures were followed, therefore building trust in the relationship.

Exchanges idea more effectively
Doing business in the global village means there are certain cultural assumptions we all make based on our background. Those assumptions don't translate without explicit statements.

On site, my friend could not only impart knowledge, but receive ideas from the new partner. These ideas are more effectively exchanged person-to-person; looking someone in the eye, listening carefully for vocal nuances, and experiencing the total communication process. By meeting face-to-face, he was in a better position to give and receive information that improved the business relationship.

While technology certainly empowers us to do business in markets and manners previously unavailable, the desire for human interaction still exists deep within us.
To Conceive a Work Positive lifestyle and greatly improve your productivity and profitability, be sure to meet face-to-face whenever possible.

Teachers, especially, are being haunted by social media postings.

In today's world of social media, job applicants have been cautioned about what they put on Facebook, since employers often search applicants' names online. Embarrassing photographs and postings might prevent you from getting the job you want.

But can what's on Facebook also get you fired? Janet Decker, a University of Cincinnati assistant professor in UC's Educational Leadership Program, says it can, especially if you are a teacher.

Though she does not cite specific numbers, Decker says that a “large number” of educators have been fired for Internet activity. She says that some teachers have been dismissed for behavior such as posting a picture of themselves holding a glass of wine.

Read More - Click Here!

The answer is not as clear as it used to be. Those Fax Servers are pretty expensive to own and operate. Fax Services can reduce the hassle for a fat fee. And hey, it’s 2007 and we have email. How much longer will we need fax anyway?

In 2006, the fax server market sputtered at 0.4% to $280 million whilst the fax service market ballooned 26.4% to $570 million (two market research reports by Davidson Consulting). So lots of folks are using Fax. Fax upgrade and consolidation of existing fax equipment may be another consideration. Do you spread them out all over the company (decentralize) or have one big fax server (centralize)?.Perhaps it is prudent to have two fax systems (redundancy) in case one fax system goes down. What are the hidden costs? But if you use a fax service you don’t need all that equipment and people to keep it running.

Before deciding it is paramount that you understand what you fax (send and receive) why you use fax, and how you presently fax information! Once you have the answers to those questions, a quick briefing on the different fax systems will help you decide what is best for your company.

Many use production fax application to automate the unattended sending of hundreds of purchase orders overnight, potentially saving a bundle in labor and mailing costs while getting the purchase orders out to buyers quickly. Invoices faxing is a popular automation trick as well. Production fax accounted for 33.7% of all fax server installations in 2006 and accounted for $86 million in fax services. You can handle this type of application from either a fax server or a fax service, although many managers will feel more comfortable with an in-house solution because of a belief that it is insecure to ever have that type of data on an outside server. Nonetheless, many enterprises decide to go with a fax service to handle all their faxing needs, including production faxing.

Inhouse fax server or Outsourced fax service, using an automated fax system can enabling you to better manage your fax activity. Example: users can send files directly from their desktops, without having to walk to a fax machine, saving you money in time and labor costs. Moreover, it means that every file your people fax can be automatically archived, a key requirement of many compliance regulations like HIPPA (Health Information Portability and Accountability Act) and Sarbanes-Oxley. Finally, every fax is automatically received in email, which means that faxes are not sitting as paper in fax machine out-trays and they, too, can be automatically archived for future reference.

Fax Servers Are…

A fax server is comprised of server software that runs on a server and client software that runs on desktops. The fax server market is expected to grow at an 8.2% compound annual growth rate to $400 million in 2010. The client software is what end users see and use. Typically, this client software is installed from a central point on the network. There is no need to install a separate client on every desktop. There is conventional client software and then there is web fax software. Client software allows users to send faxes and to receive them, as well as manage their personal activity. Client software either allows users to send from personal applications in the same manner as printing, or it allows users to use their email interface to fax their documents. Typically, users can integrate their client software with any Microsoft application (e.g., Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access) and often many other applications as well. Senders can attach multiple, mixed file attachments to a fax and they are converted to image files. Receiving faxes is as simple as opening an email. Web fax client software is simply a web site that users access. Therefore there are no installation hassles involved. Workers simply go the web site every time they want to send or retrieve a fax. Often a web fax client will not have every single feature that a desktop client has, but web clients are catching up. And web clients are compatible with every type of desktop.

Fax server software handles the management and maintenance of a company’s entire fax operation. Server software typically is compatible with leading server operating systems and enterprise email systems. The server software may be integrated with Microsoft Exchange email, IBM notes or any SMTP email programs. As well, fax server programs that support production faxing often support integration with SAP, Oracle and other enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management solutions. This is an area where the purchaser should be interested in the close relationships that some vendors have with key ERP players. Example: Esker has been a SAP partner for years. During installation, many fax servers support adding users directly and automatically from an email system or from other computerized logs of employees. This can save a great deal of time compared with individually adding each user manually.

Fax server software also handles the routing of inbound messages from the fax server, where the message is actually received, to the individual end user desktops that are operated by the intended recipients of the messages. Fax servers support this inbound routing capability through a number of mechanisms that work in various ways. First, there is direct-inward-dialing (DID), which works like a PBX with direct phone lines. The DID capability receives a wide range of numbers to a single phone trunk and it checks the last four digits against a routing table to determine where the phone call should be routed. This is the best form of inbound routing because it means the fax sender merely has to dial a phone number and the fax is automatically inbound routed. DID, however, may not be available for some older PBXs and it may be somewhat expensive relative to purchasing the DID phone numbers. DID (and ISDN, a similar routing technique used abroad) was used in 78% of all fax servers employing inbound routing in 2006. Other methods that may be used range from manual routing, where a human being routes each fax as it arrives (used 5% of the time), to optical character recognition (OCR; used 2.5% of the time), where the name of the intended recipient is machine-read off the fax cover sheet, to dual-tone-multifrequency (DTMF), which is where the fax sender must dial an extension number (used 11% of the time), to line routing, where a fax server has multiple fax lines and calls to each line are routed separately (used 7% of the time).

Each of these other methods has the possibility of flaws: manual routing has human error, OCR has machine mis-readings of recipient names, DTMF has the extra requirement on the sender of punching in the extension number at the right time, and line routing is limited to only as many intended recipients as you have fax lines. So, DID is a clear winner, but again it is not always available with certain older phone systems.

What To Consider When Purchasing A Fax Server

1. Does the server software integrate well with ERP programs from suppliers like SAP and Oracle?
2.  
3. Is the server software compatible with your email?
4. Is the server software compatible with your operating systems?
5.  
6. Does it supports mixed-mode Internet and conventional faxing?
7.  
8. Does the fax server provide rock-solid reliability?
9.  
10. Does the server software support the inbound routing technique that you want to use?
11.  
12. If your inbound routing choice is for DID, does the fax server support a DID fax boards?
13.  
14. Do the management capabilities allow you to easily determine whether a fax transmission has been successfully completed and does it provide reports that show the status of each fax transmission?
15.  
16. Is it easy to add users from your email system or other computerized log of employees?
17. Does the fax server support Internet faxing?
18.  
19. Is the client software easy to use?
20.  
21. Is there adequately featured web fax software?
22.  
23. Can sent faxes be automatically archived?
24.  
25. Can you send multiple, mixed file attachments?
26.  
27. Is receiving faxes simple and are there ways to automatically archive the files?

Internet Faxing

There are also conventional fax servers and IP fax servers. Conventional fax servers hook up to analog phone lines and use PSNT (public switched telephone network) to send and receive all fax calls. IP fax servers use the Internet to send all faxes and can receive all faxes via a gateway. Internet fax servers accounted for $44 million out of the $280 million total market for fax servers in 2006. They are forecast to gain primacy over conventional fax servers in 2009 and to grow at a 50.7% compound annual growth rate to $245 million in 2010.

In general, there are no major capability differences in a conventional and IP fax server. However, there is a difference in how they send a fax. A conventional fax server sends the fax over a conventional phone line, which involves a process called handshaking where the sending fax sends signals to the receiving machine to figure out how fast the transmission will take place, what compression method will be used, what error protection protocol will be used, etc. Then the call proceeds and when it ends, a confirmation (or an error report) is faxed back to the sending machine.

Internet fax transmissions goe over the Internet which creates a different environment from the PSTN. The Internet takes a call and puts pieces of each call into packets and sends them over different routes to the destination (a store-and-forward method of communication). With a fax call, this may mean sending a fax like an email so there is no handshake and the fax call does not receive a confirmation at the end of the session. Or else the fax call is sent in realtime (or almost real time) and a spoofing technique is used to fool the receiving fax machine that the call arrives in real time. This spoofing technique is key as a conventional fax call will fail at certain points during the handshake if a delay of just several milliseconds occurs. The receiving fax system must be fooled if a packet arrives out of order and is delayed. This delay factor has caused some concern among buyers that they won’t receive the same kind of performance from IP fax servers as from conventional fax servers.

The huge advantage of Internet fax servers are that they may be used without fax boards. This is accomplished with software-only Internet fax servers that use the microprocessors in Internet gateways and routers that corporations already have installed. Sales of these board-less systems amounted to more than three times the sales of Internet fax server sales that included fax boards. A second advantage to using FoIP (fax over IP) systems is that a company may eliminate any costs relating to using the public switched telephone network, including line charges and PBX ports. This is especially important to companies that have eliminated all their PSTN infrastructure relative to installing VoIP services. In the end, as time passes and vendors’ products pass the reliability tests, the fears about Internet fax servers will go away. Cantata Technology, the dominant fax board supplier, has brought out the Brooktrout SR140, a real-time fax-over-IP capability and many fax server vendors, including Esker, have supported the SR140 for over a year. As enterprises install the Esker version of the Internet fax server and see its reliable performance, sales will pick up steam. With so many enterprises moving to Internet voice, it is only a matter of time before the majority of fax server sales are for Internet fax servers. In the meantime, there is always the possibility of having a fax server support mixed conventional and Internet faxing.

Fax Boards

Fax boards are required with every conventional fax server. Fax boards handle the compression of images and they send and receive faxes. The great majority of fax board sales are for intelligent fax boards which have microprocessors on the boards that handle the very fastest of calculations that may cause fax transmissions to fail.

The first matter that a buyer must consider is what type of fax board to buy. Intelligent fax boards drive the highest completion percentages, but cost the most. These boards typically cost between $400 and $800 per port. So, for a 4-port fax server, a buyer can expect to pay as much as $3,200. For a 24-port server, a buyer is looking at an investment of about $14,000, for the fax boards alone. Buyers who are ready to take on the risks of using non-intelligent fax modems — including a lower percentage of fax calls that are completed and slower fax calls (due to slower handshaking, lack of bit stuffing, less efficient handshaking protocols) which translates directly to higher telephone bills — can acquire Class 1 and Class 2 fax modems that cost as little as $100 to $300 per port.

Most buyers decide to go with intelligent fax boards (in systems where fax devices are used, fax boards outsell fax modems by a ten to one margin), which gives an indication of how important a robust handshaking and call-completion capability is — and they end spending more than just the cost of the fax boards. Many intelligent fax board users also get an express exchange service, so if any of their fax boards fail, they can get a replacement within 24 hours. This adds about 15% to the cost of the fax boards.

A second option that fax board buyers have available is the capability to expand the number of ports just with a software key. This way, buyers do not need to go to a reseller to buy additional fax boards just to add a few ports. For instance, perhaps you want a 12-port fax board, and then when you begin to fax, you realize that you would like to have 16 ports. Generally speaking, the board that supports 12 ports can actually support up 24 ports. So, by getting a key from the manufacturer, buyers can expand the number of ports on their fax boards without going back to the reseller and buying a new board. This also costs more money, but less money than buying a new board and getting rid of the old one.

Fax Server Hidden Costs

Hidden costs are not just a matter of fax boards. A whole slew of hidden costs are involved with fax servers. These include costs for the following:

1. Servers — on which the fax boards and fax software reside; depending on whether you dedicate a server to the fax function, this can cost well over $1,000 or can cost just hundreds if a server is shared. On top of the server hardware, the software (operating system) and the cost of securing this hardware in case of mission-critical faxing (clustering, stocking of a spare fax board, etc.) must be considered.
2.  
3. PBX ports — to integrate fax server ports with PBX ports. These can cost hundreds of dollars apiece.
4.  
5. Pre-installation consulting time — planning for large installations. Figure that this can cost about $300 per hour and involve up to a couple of days.
6.  
7. Installation and configuration time — this is the time it takes to install the software on the server and the clients, the time to configure the software for each client,
8. and the time to integrate the software with an enterprise application, and test the results.
9.  
10. Per-administrator initial training time — the time to train network administrators to use and manage the fax server and then to train end users.
11.  
12. Initial training time — the time it takes to train each end user at the average labor cost for end users and the cost for the trainer.
13.  
14. DID one-time phone line installation charges — the setup of DID-enabled phone lines wherein, for example, there would be one phone line with 20 different phone numbers for 20 different users. Charges can be from about $0.50 per phone number to a $1.00 or more.
15.  
16. Monthly phone line fee — the flat monthly fee charged by telephone companies for a single line or single T1 channel. These fees can range from about $10 to $30 per month.
17.  
18. Monthly fees for DID numbers — also charged monthly by local telephone companies, the fees range from about $0.10 per month to about $0.30 per month per DID number.
19.  
20. In-house support time — these are costs for administrator work for end-user help, patches, upgrades and system crashes.
21.  
22. Vendor support and maintenance contracts — these contracts typically cost 15% of the initial cost of the fax server software per year.
23.  
24. Cost of the up-front investment — these are the loan interest payments or the ‘opportunity cost’ of using cash to acquire fax server functionality instead of using it for some other purpose. Buyers should figure the cost at about 8% of total up-front purchase costs.
25.  
26. Space rental — this is the cost to rent the space occupied by fax server equipment.

Fax Services

Internet fax services offer all the same capabilities as fax servers — without the hidden costs and without any requirement for fax boards. Enterprise Internet fax services are expected to grow by 26.8% compound annual growth rate to $440 million in 2010. Individual Internet fax services are expected to grow at 24.4% compound annual growth rate to $670 million in 2010. With these services, businesses get the ability to send and receive faxes, the capability to manage their fax activity and, at least with Esker service, the ability to integrate fax with their enterprise applications. Esker also offers the ability to send documents via postal mail.

With a service, buyers have low up-front investment and gain the option of flexible costs depending on how much traffic volume they have. No software need be installed, since all operations take place off web interface. The one difference with services is that they offer virtually unlimited capacity, so if an enterprise has one mammoth fax job, it can be easily handled. Conversely, if the enterprise were using a fax server, it would be constrained by the number of fax lines it had installed. It does not make sense to acquire more fax boards to handle just an occasional fax job, but if a company uses an Internet fax service, the capacity is there to handle every job. Another important aspect of fax services is the pay-as-you-go pricing model. The per-fax cost does not vary with the volume, as is the case with a fax server, because of the fixed cost of the fax infrastructure.

Does the service provide your company with all the functionality your business needs and does it provide rock-solid reliability? Does it integrate well with any enterprise or desktop as that you use? Is it possible to automatically archive each sent and received fax? Is the pricing easy to understand and is it acceptable in terms of its total cost? If you find acceptable answers to these questions, then perhaps a fax service will suit your business.

What To Consider When Choosing A Fax Service

1. Does it integrate well with desktop and enterprise applications that you use?
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3. Does it provide management capabilities to allow your company to easily add and change users?
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5. Is the pricing easy to understand?
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7. Is the fax service easy to use?
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9. Does it provide all the functionality you need?
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11. Does it provide rock-solid reliability?
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13. Does it eliminate the need for in-house support?
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15. Is it possible to automatically archive each sent and received fax?
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17. Can you generate reports to determine the final status of all fax transmissions?
18. Are there no hidden costs?

So Fax Server or Fax Service? If your customers and vendors expect faxes I guess you have to play the fax game. But with email and pdf…why?.

If you find it difficult to align your IT staff’s efforts with business goals, or see that IT staff don’t understand the philosophy by which you run your business, interject these questions in your next conversation with them. You don’t need to talk technology in this exchange, but communicate clearly the goals, objectives and targets you have in mind for your business and why you need the IT team’s cooperation to get there.

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With only a few tweaks, running your business could be easier, more enjoyable, and less stressful. And who could't use a little of that right now?

I think Michael Gerber, author of The E-Myth, put it best: \"If you spend too much time working in your business, you won't have enough time to work on your business. That is, if all you have done is create a job for yourself, tha'ts a mistake. It is far better, and smarter, to figure out how to free yourself up to be 'more entrepreneur', 'less worker'.\" This is how we do it:

1. Plan your day at the end of the previous day: That way you can rest easy that night and hit the ground running the next day.  Begin by looking at what is coming up and then prioritize it. Make a list and try to follow it. That way, instead of events controlling you, you control them. You don’t want to spend your days putting out fires.

If you have a day planner, use it. If you use Outlook or a Blackberry instead, be sure to take advantage of their built-in organizational tools.

2. Get and learn the right software: There are so many time-saving productivity software tools out there that it is a mistake not to use and take advantage of them. Software makers spend an inordinate amount of effort on R&D, learning what it is we small business people need. They then create powerful software applications designed to fill those needs.

Buy them. Learn them. Use them.

The mistake many of us make (myself definitely included) is that we get this great software and never take the time to learn everything it can do for us. A day of training can make you far more organized and effective.

Check out project management software, or customer relationship software, etc. They can really help.

3. Don't be a slave to email: When I read that the author of The 4-Hour Work Week spent a little more than an hour a week on e-mail I was incredibly jealous. Few of us have figured out how to stop the onslaught of email to that degree, but even so, it is possible to be smarter about email:

• Designate the amount of time a day you want to spend doing email and stick to it.
• Set aside time for email once or twice a day, and again, stick to it.

The mistake some make is getting so caught up in email that they check it several times a day (or hour!)

4. Get your office organized: Constantly searching through stacks of papers and piles of notes is no way to run an office. Get the office supplies you need and put them where you will use them. Color-code files. Get a shredder. Buy a bigger file cabinet. Get an extra bookcase.

Organizing your office is one of the easiest, most affordable things you can do to be more productive.

5. Delegate: You don’t have to do everything yourself. Giving some of your workload to others will free you up to use your time better.

Especially now, anything you can do to be more productive is a smart move.

Recently Google released yet another change which is being referred to as the “Google Penguin” update. Sounds very cute, much like the friendly Google Panda…yeah right!!

In this post I want to discuss this latest update, and once again address some common concerns, as I seem to be getting a lot of worried people contacting me after their sites got hit hard by Google over the past few months.

So What is Google Penguin?

Penguin was an update to the Google algorithm that was released on the 24th of April, with intention of apparently penalizing sites for over-optimization, otherwise known as spamming. The first thing I want to say is that its early days, and no one knows exactly what this update was precisely targeting, but nonetheless I will do my best to share some insight, as I can happily say that I actually experienced a positive increase or no change across the board on all my websites after this update, and also after the latest Panda update which happened the week prior.

First off, we can start to get an understanding of this update by reading what Google officially states about it. If you read the Google Webmaster blog it says this:

“The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines. We’ve always targeted webspam in our rankings, and this algorithm represents another improvement in our efforts to reduce webspam and promote high quality content. While we can’t divulge specific signals because we don’t want to give people a way to game our search results and worsen the experience for users, our advice for webmasters is to focus on creating high quality sites that create a good user experience and employ white hat SEO methods instead of engaging in aggressive webspam tactics.”

OK so as you would expect Google doesn’t spell it out for everyone, but rather provides a very vague overview and focusses on their overall intention with the update. The key things that we can take from this statement I believe are “high quality sites” and “good user experience“, nothing we didn’t all know already, but who’s actually doing it is more to the point.

One can safely assume that this update, after reading the full Google blog post, was looking at keyword stuffing in content, as Google gives  a really over the top example of what this looks like. The example is a poor one, as that sort of keyword stuffing has been slapped by Google for years, so I guess it’s some level of more critical analysis of over use of keywords in your On Page SEO that this update was targeting. With that said, you might want to pay attention to how your content uses keywords and make it look natural. Golden rule for all SEO, make it look natural if it isn’t totally natural!!

The Good Old User Experience

I’ve been harping on about the user experience on this blog a fair bit over the past few months, and you guessed it, I’m going to continue to do so, as I keep seeing sites that get slapped by Google, where the webmasters are shocked and have no idea why. In most cases when I look at these sites, I can see glaringly obvious reasons, as the sites are clearly not designed for the user at all.

I want to also add this quote from Matt Cutts (head of Google Anti-Spam team):

“We want people doing white hat search engine optimization (or even no search engine optimization at all) to be free to focus on creating amazing, compelling web sites. As always, we’ll keep our ears open for feedback on ways to iterate and improve our ranking algorithms toward that goal.”

…”even no optimization at all…” yeah right, and pigs may just fly one day too!

Also its important to note that Google Panda 3.5 was also rolled at a week prior to the Penguin update, around the 17th of April, so if you lost a significant amount of traffic around that date, then you were most likely ‘Pandalized’ rather than ‘Penguinalized!!!!’

Oh and let’s not forget the 750,000 unnatural backlink warning messages that Google sent out prior to these changes, warning webmasters to remove links that were acquired through unnatural means…what an interesting few months its been!

Google is on the Aggressive

Ok so it doesn’t take a genius to notice that Google is on the aggressive right now, trying their hardest to remove spam from the results and level the playing the field for SEO. I ‘ve never experienced this many changes so closely related than what we are seeing now.

One thing that I must say I find pretty frustrating is that Google tells us not to do much if any SEO, other than make your sites easier to crawl etc…and when it comes to offpage SEO they expect it to happen naturally. The problem for the small guys and gals doing web marketing is that it’s virtually impossible to get enough exposure in the first place so that other webmasters even know about our sites to even consider linking to you. Sure large brands don’t have to worry as they already have a following.

So I don’t think the playing field is that level when Google does the changes they make, but regardless we have to play by their rules as closely as we can, or pay the price of getting no traffic from Google.

So with that said, in light of all the carnage going on out there right now, here’s some suggestions that might help:

Build Sites that Don’t Look Optimized

If Google wants people to just blog away and build affiliate marketing sites or stores etc…without doing any significant SEO, then we really need to mimic this as closely as possible. If you take a look at a few dozen sites ranking in Google now for various keywords, ask yourself if you think they are doing careful On Page SEO or not.

It’s really not that hard to spot, just look at some of the titles of pages on sites and ask yourself if these look like they were written with the keyword in mind or the topic in mind. Of course you will see some junk that is ranking and ask yourself how this got there, but just overlook that as Google will remove the junk eventually, so don’t get caught up on that just focus on good quality yourself.

Also have a look at all the content on the sites and ask yourself if the topics were written with keywords in mind or with topics in mind. Of course if you want to get traffic to your sites, you really have to do keyword research, and then target these keywords, however do it as natural looking as you can, so you still target keywords but fly under the radar!

Create Sites that Will Naturally Get Good Signals

If you focus on building great quality sites, that your traffic will love, then they will naturally want to bookmark your site and share it on Facebook and Google Plus. Not only that though, they will most likely come back again and also search for your site in Google using the site name. Ideally you want your site to get a lot of searches for its name, as it’s a clear signal to Google that people like it. Other good signals are the time on your site, low bounce rate, high average page view etc…

The only way you stand any chance of getting these “good signals” happening on your site is if you actually have a good site, not rocket science really. The problem is that good sites take effort and time and a lot of people can’t be bothered, and instead continue to put up low quality thin sites, and try all sorts of things to dodge the Google bullets, but honestly it’s all a waste of time in the long run, trust me I’m speaking from experience.

Google are only going to roll out more and more updates like Penguin and Panda, who knows maybe the next one will be called “Google Poodle”, ha ha, then you can say your site was “Poodlized!!! In all seriousness though, the sooner you move towards managing less sites, and focussing on higher quality, and thinking about the user experience, that better you will do in Google.

Off Page SEO Can’t Hurt Your Sites…Or Can It?

Ok so here comes the bombshell, Google sent out all these unnatural link warning to webmasters over the past few months, and sites who got them experiences a drop in rankings. The result is that many webmasters frantically started to remove any links they thought Google might frown upon and then submit for a reconsideration. I assume many SEO companies got dropped by webmasters, only to be replaced by news ones who get on their high horse and claim they are pure whitehat SEO and all will go well if the webmaster is to choose them…I doubt it…no one is 100% whitehat.

So why is this a bombshell then? Well the obvious question is, “if low quality backlinks to your sites can harm them, can’t we all go out and build a bunch of low quality links to our competitors?”

My response to this used to be “No way, if Google allowed this it could well create total chaos online”

My response now is “I’m not sure anymore, and I am starting to think low quality links combined with a lack of good signals coming off your site may well cause problems for you!”

I don’t think these recent changes in regards to backlinks will cause widespread chaos by any means, the reason being that chaos, I assume, would mean the likes of Amazon could be taken down, or other well established authority brands. I don’t think will ever happen, as these kinds of sites have way too many good signals for Google to ditch them, and the same goes for much smaller, yet quality sites too.

So what about sites that are ranking well but don’t have many “good signals”, are these open for attack from this negative SEO? I can’t definitely say, but my assumption is that possibly yes, if the negative campaign against them is particularly nasty in nature and well planned out. I sincerely discourage anyone from getting involved in these tactics, as it’s not the way to win a battle, and we would all not like it if someone did it to us.

Avoid Obvious Forced Linking

I encourage people, if you are using forced link building, and I think most of us will have to, make sure you don’t use overly spammy links, such as mass auto-blog comments, profile links, very public blog networks etc…anything that is really obvious and easy for Google to spot as forced linking. Also do your best to create content and tools, anything that will increase the chances of people linking to you naturally.

Also if you create a decent following in your niche this will happen much more easily. I think the key is to use linking as much as you need to, to gain momentum, but don’t rely on forced linking only, otherwise your site will not look natural.

Conclusion

To close this post I want to leave this final thought, spend time analyzing high quality sites in various niches, and take notes on how they make the user experience a good one, and do your best to employ as many of these techniques on your own sites.

If you enjoyed this post, I would be super grateful if you would shar on Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus below.

Thanks!

by William Harrell

Much has been said about social networking and how it will effect the way we communicate going forward. However some fail to realize how it’s going to effect other things, for instance search optimization and online advertising.

Years ago banner ads were taboo. If you had them on your site then you obviously did not know about the glorious world of Google Adwords. Everyone soon switched to the Google Ad platform and used the paid ads on search platform to boost bottom lines and make life easier. Some companies like Zappos for instance have well documented cases where they relied very heavily on paid ad placement to drive sales. Organic search placement was placed on the back burner and paying to play became the norm.

Now we are in a new era, one where mobile and social will rule the search world. Localization through different channels will be the norm for all good SEO plans going forward and some out of the box thinking will have to be applied to get companies in the position to reap the benefits of mobile search. For instance, if an Apple iPhone user is using the “Siri” search to look for a hamburger place, Siri will use Yelp.com to find restaurants close to that person using the GPS coordinates in their phone. So if your hamburger joint’s SEO plan does not include localization using 3rd party sites like Yelp, meaning only using the major search engines like Google & Bing then your website might not even come up using this method.

Lets talk about social influencing search. Google+ and the +1 feature seems to be a simple way to give a page a little extra klout. What we are really looking at is the evolution of search. Having a social account with a number of influential friends will not only give you tons to read in the form of cute sayings and status updates about other peoples days, you will also get their recommendations (or +1′s) when you are searching. So two people, in the same location, of the same exact demographic will one day produce a completely different search and there is nothing you can do as far as traditional search optimization to stop it. Do not be too worried about your ad placement however because new avenues will open up in the form of paid status updates, mobile ad networks and social network ad placement which will take the place of the mobile Siri search that didn’t include your business.

Marketing your business online has never been easier and there has never been more ways to do it. The trick is finding a company that can use all these new and innovative techniques to engage customers and make them want to be involved with your brand enough to share your message and advocate your brand. This is what the new social web search will be about.

Be reasonable. Do it my way. (Bumper Sticker Quote)

If everyone did things my way, there would never be disagreements. But that world doesn't exist and we all face disagreements every day. Most view disagreements as undesirable but actually, if  handled effectively, disagreements often can lead to creative solutions that really work for everyone concerned. The following are tips on making sure disagreements become productive rather than divisive

1: Make certain there is really a disagreement
Ever witnessed a "volatile agreement"? It can actually be funny, as long as other people, rather than you, are involved. For example:

A says, on Monday, "The report won't be available for at least two days."

B says, "That's ridiculous! We won't have it until Wednesday!"

There's no disagreement here, right? Most likely, B was expecting to hear a specific day, rather than an interval of days. In other words, B might not have been listening carefully. In this case, A could say, "Wait a minute, we're saying the same thing. Wednesday is more than two days from Monday."

A variation of the volatile agreement is the "volatile non-disagreement." For example:

A says, "Babe Ruth played for the Yankees."

B says, "Baloney; he played for the Red Sox.

Here, B's mistake is thinking that playing for the Yankees and playing for the Red Sox are mutually exclusive. However, as most people know, Babe Ruth actually played for both teams.

Other false conflicts could involve time (different time zones), distances (miles vs. kilometers), or release levels (different/additional functions, depending on the release).

I could cite other examples, but I think you get the point. Matters that appear to conflict might not really conflict at all. Listen carefully to the other person and make sure there really is a difference.

#2: Separate yourself from your position
In his classic work The Psychology of Computer Programming, Gerald Weinberg describes the concept of "egoless programming." Under this concept, a team of technical programmers, including the author of a program, reviews that program, checking for errors. The less defensive the programmer feels about the code, the more productive the review process will be. In other words, the process goes more smoothly if the programmer separates himself or herself from the program and doesn't view discovered errors as a personal attack.

In the same way, actors, when interviewed about a role they play, generally refer to their own character in the third person. When talking about his character, Benjamin Martin in The Patriot, for example [SPOILERS AHEAD], Mel Gibson would more likely say, "Gabriel's death had a big impact on Benjamin" rather than "Gabriel's death had a big impact on me." Similarly, he would more likely say, "Benjamin Martin is a man who's trying to escape his past," rather than "I am a man trying to escape my past."

Try to adopt this view of disagreements. If we involve ourselves personally with our positions, we will have a harder time being objective about them. That lack of objectivity can prolong a disagreement needlessly. Try to view your position not as "your" position, but merely "a" position. In the same way, if you have an issue with someone else's position, make clear that your concern is with the issue, not with the person, if that's the case.

#3: Maintain professionalism
We've all heard the old saying about "disagreeing without being disagreeable" and that "honey attracts flies better than vinegar." The lesson learned, treating people with respect "” even those with whom you disagree "” can earn you respect in return and gives your position added credibility.

#4: L I S T E N!
The volatile agreement involving the two-day delay could have been avoided had person B listened carefully. Listen to what they have to say completely before responding. If you have to interrupt, for example, because the other person is being long-winded or redundant, try to summarize your understanding first. People sometimes express themselves differently than you expect. If you fail to listen, you might find yourself responding not to the other person's actual position, but only to what you thought the other person's position was.

#5: Recognize and avoid "straw man" arguments
This point carries over from the previous one. It's easy to argue against a position that no one has. Attacking a position that isn't really the one a person holds is called a "straw man" argument because, like a straw man, it's easily knocked down.

If you fail to listen carefully, you may find yourself wasting time reacting to such a position rather than to someone's actual position. It's bad enough to attack a straw man by accident; it's ethically questionable if you do it deliberately. Similarly, make sure others really do understand your own position.

#6: Agree to disagree
Sometimes, no matter how much discussion occurs, you're unable to agree on one particular point. In some cases, that single disagreement prevents further discussion. However, other times, you might be able to switch to other topics. If so, it's best to "agree to disagree" on the point of contention and move on to the other areas. Maybe later you can return to the disagreement and work through it. But try to make progress in spite of the issues about this one thing. If nothing else, say “That’s your opinion, and I respect that!”

#7: Watch what you say
Once spoken, words can never be taken back. There's no "untalk" feature corresponding to an email "unsend." Similarly, when a stone enters a pond, it sends out ripples that go only outward. As the saying goes, "A harsh word stirs up anger."

Momma advised my to count to 10 before answering. In particular, and in view of the earlier advice to separate person from issue, be careful about overusing the words "you" or "your" or similar terms. Doing so blurs the line between person and issue and can make the other person feel defensive or accused.

A good technique is to "play Columbo," a reference to the old television series about a detective with that name. Peter Falk, who played the role, came across as an idiot who always needed someone to explain things to him. In the same way, if you have a disagreement or concern, consider expressing it via a question rather than via a statement. Does the other person's position lead to a problem? Ask questions so that in answering them, the other person realizes the issue as well. Just don't overdo this technique or it will sound contrived and insincere.

#8: Use a lower voice
Just as "A harsh word stirs up anger," "A mild (soft) answer turns away wrath". I have seen this used in heated boardroom debates and it works. "If you lower your voice, frequency, volume, and pace when speaking, you accomplish three things. First, you reduce any tension that might exist. Second, you force the other person to listen to you. Third, because of its unexpected nature, lowering your voice can gain you a psychological advantage in the discussion.

Case and point: Board members were arguing which direction the company should take. Passions were running high.. booming voices were shaking the walls, red eyes, veins bulging, fists shaking, I thought for sure it would turn into a fist fight! Then one manager crossed his hands behind his head, sunk down in his chair and took a long stretch like only a cat who is very comfortable could. As he softly spoke in low pear-shaped tones, the room became quite and calm. Folks listed intently and completely to his point and, in this case, it was unanimously adopted and met with great success.

#9: Try to see the other person's point of view
In a previous blog entry, I talked about the importance of seeing the other person's point of view when explaining a technical concept. That same principle applies with respect to disagreements. The more you understand someone's position, the more you may understand their concerns "” and the more likely you can resolve the disagreement. In fact, before responding with your own position, consider paraphrasing the other person's position and concerns first. Doing so sends a powerful message. Even more important, emphasize first those matters upon which you and the other person agree.

#10: When the disagreement is resolved, put it behind you
We all know the saying about "water under the bridge." Once a matter is settled, don't keep a record of wrongs. Let it go. Dwelling on past differences seldom leads to productive results and can lead to bitterness and bad feelings. Look back only to learn from what happened, so that you can avoid similar mistakes (if any) in the future.

#11: Usually there is more than one way to get something done.
Rather than wasting time massaging your ego and debating endlessly, if their way works, just do it their way, give them credit for a good ideal, and get the job done!!!

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Well it happened again. Last Wednesday I needed a hard drive for a computer. Since I needed it NOW and didn't have one in stock, I safaried to North Charleston to see what kind of local deals I could find from a computer store. This became quite an adventure as you will soon see, but first a little history lesson on computer stores.

I say it happened again because then situation reoccurs about once a year, and that’s not too bad because if you run out of hard drives once a year, it means that the management of that inventory item is about right. You can read about last years safari by clicking here.

Well, so much for history, how about that; A quick look on the internet found a Seagate Barracuda 500 gig SATA drive with 32 megs of cache for $35.99 plus shipping. Best Buy offered the same drive for about $129.99. OUCH that hurt! Who said you couldn't make money on computer stuff.

So I made the trek back to Summerville along Rivers Avenue to Hi way 78 stopping at each computer store I found. The first couple of stores matched the Best Buy price on the same drive. The next offered a 320 gig for $70.00. OK - kind of old and small, that will work ring it up!. Your total is $106.48. WHATTT! How do you get $106.48 from $70.00??? "Sorry sir, I got the wrong price." The darn thing wasn't even in a box and the plastic wrap was torn. Thinking back, this same store tried the same thing on me last year. In fact, it looked liked the same drive.

The next store offered a 500 gig for $255.00. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing; $255.00 for a 500 gig drive? I asked to talk with the manager. He was friendly, and we talked about the high price of overhead, and how shipping prices have doubled in the last year. As such he said “you seem to be a nice guy. I’ll tell you what, I’ll let you have the drive for $205.” The manager became visibly upset when I turned him down.

Next stop Wal-Mart:  Main Street, Summerville.. They had 6 Seagate 1 Ter SATA drives 16 megs cache in the box with cables and documentation for 98.98 plus tax, and a guarantee that if it didn't work, I could bring it back. Eureka! I HAVE MY DRIVE AT LAST!!!

Not so fast!  Last year when I purchased a hard drive from Wal-Mart, I had to take it back twice. They exchanged it quickly, but there was still the hassle of going back and forth to Wal-mart. But not this time. This time the first drive was good and my hard drive safari was over.

 For many computer stores, the game has changed very little. If they sell a Dell with a 1 Ter drive, it may have originally come from the factory with a 350 gig drive. They take that one out and place it in a plastic wrapper and sell it for $150.00 plus $30.00 for cables. Then they buy a 1Ter gig drive for $59.95 with cables and mark the Dell unit up $150.00. The new cables that came with the drive are placed in new packaging and sold separately. That’s $305.05 in additional profit.

Perhaps if we run out of drives next year, we’ll write a “hard drive safari 2012.

Well it happened again, but this time it was my Linux server hard drive. Interesting because my Linux server is an 11 year old Dell with an Intel Pentium 4 processor that still performs about as fast as a Windows Server with duo core processors.  It was the hard drive partitioned as “home”, where I keep all of the user data for the company that went down. That means that I could simple replace the drive, restore the data from one of my many backups, and be back in business in no time. Timing could not have been better as I use Friday as a “clean-up day”, and only had one appointment scheduled for noon. So I took off early just to see what I could find from local vendors, but instead of starting my safari in North Charleston, I began looking for vendor’s right here in Summerville.

Perusing the internet, I found Seagate 1 Terabyte 7200 rpm drives 32 Megs of cache for about $50, plus $10 shipping, so $60. This was up $15 from last year.

Last year’s hard drive safari was just like the year before, and the year before that, and so on. The only thing that changed was the names of the companies and the size of the drive.

This year was very different. The first three local computer stores that I visited did not stock hard drives. Why, I asked? The common answer was that drives are getting so much bigger, so fast, that if they bought a drive today for stock, it might be obsolete tomorrow. What was more interesting is that two of the three offered to buy a drive for me at Best Buy at cost, then charge only for installation and for restoring my data, around $200 for labor. Best Buy price was $79.95. That plus installation is almost $300. No way would I put $300 into an 11 year old computer. Just doesn’t make sense! Besides, when I told them it was Linux, they admitted that they couldn’t work on it anyway.

So I made the trek through Summerville, down Hi way 78 to Rivers, stopping at each computer store I found. I couldn’t find anyone in Summerville that stocked hard drives. The two stores I visited on Hi way 78 last year were gone. But then I found the same stores on Rivers Avenue that I visited the last couple of years.

No new tricks here. The first store offered a 320 gig for $70.00. OK - kind of old and small, that will work ring it up! Your total is $106.48. WHATTT! How do you get $106.48 from $70.00??? "Sorry sir, I got the wrong price." The darn thing wasn't even in a box and the plastic wrap was torn. Thinking back, this same store tried the same trick on me last year, and the year before. In fact, it looked liked the same old “piece of drive”!

The next store offered a 320 gig for $149.00. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing; $149.00 for a 320 gig drive? I asked to talk with the manager. He was friendly, and we talked about the high price of overhead, and how shipping prices have doubled in the last year. As such he said “you seem to be a nice guy. I’ll tell you what; I’ll let you have the drive for $99.” The manager became visibly upset when I told him about the Best Buy price turned him down.

The next store had a 500 gig drive for $79.95, but when they rang it up on the register, it came up $99.95 plus tax. What’s the extra $20 for? The Sada cables were extra. Now, I know that the drive came with Sada cables, power and data. These guys snatch the cables out of the box, reseal the box, mark the cables at $19.95, and put them on a rack for sale. What a “rip off”! Time to move on!

I began to tire from the adventure, so I went to the same store that I bought a drive from last year, Wal Mart. Guess what? They don’t sell internal hard drives anymore. What a shock because last year they nearly matched the online price AND, if a drive fails, they replace it immediately. Other stores would make you send it back to the manufacturer, and that could take weeks.

So Wal Mart was OUT! Now, what to do? I slid into Best Buy. First I went to the “Geek Squad” counter. Interesting deal. They said, buy your hard drive at the store (you pick it out and pay for it), then we will install it for $150. I asked for a written estimate and they said ok. Much to my surprise, the total wasn’t $150, but $219.95, that’s and extra $69.95. What is that for? The answer, diagnostics. They don’t do anything without running diagnostics first. When I told them the computer ran Linux, they retracted their offer.

So I went into the retail part of the store and found my drive, Seagate 1T, for $79.95 plus tax. Time to end this adventure, make my noon appointment, and get the server running.

At the register the checkout person was very insistent that I apply for a Best Buy credit card. I kept saying NO NO NO and she kept say But But But. The deal is that if I apply, I get $20 off of my purchase. That means my drive goes from $79.95 to $59.95, and that I’m under no obligation to accept the credit card. What a deal. I bought the drive, got the discount, turned down the card, and was off to my appointment, $20 to the good.

 For many computer stores, the game has changed very little. If they sell a Dell with a 1 Ter drive, it may have originally come from the factory with a 350 gig drive. They take that one out and place it in a plastic wrapper and sell it for $150.00 plus $20.00 for cables. Then they buy a 1Ter gig drive for $50 with cables and mark the Dell unit up $150.00. The new cables that came with the drive are placed in new packaging and sold separately. That’s $295.05 in additional profit.

Perhaps if we run out of drives next year, we’ll write a “hard drive safari 2013.

Saturday I needed a hard drive for a computer. Since I needed it NOW and didn't have one in stock, I safaried to North Charleston to see what kind of local deals I could find from a computer store. This became quite an adventure as you will soon see, but first a little history lesson on computer stores.

The first IBM PC store in Charleston was Franklin computer. Sure you could buy Tandy at Radio Shack and Apples from the local computer boutique, but Franklin was the only game in town for IBM PCs; you paid list price, and the waiting list was long but distinguished.

 Soon, other computer stores opened (bearing the IBM name but not IBM Authorized) with unbelievable low prices on IBM PCs, even selling them for half the price of Franklin. Franklin, unable to compete, soon went by the wayside. But why the price differential? Franklin, an authorized IBM dealer, sold only "True Blue" PCs with only IBM parts inside. The other computer stores purchased "Bare Bones" IBM PCs on the "Grey Market" and built them up with "brand x" drives, memory, and peripherals.  "True Blue" stores could not compete with "Grey Market" "Build-ups".

Some of the "build-ups" were of good quality,  others were not so good. But it seems to me that if you advertise an IBM PC that it should be IBM through ‘n' through. Otherwise it's like buying a Ford Mustang only to find a YUGO motor and transmission under the hood. Needless to say, I never played that game.

Well, so much for history, how about that; A quick look on the internet found a Seagate Barracuda 500 gig SATA drive with 32 megs of cache for $35.99 plus shipping. Best Buy offered the same drive for about $129.99. OUCH that hurt! Who said you couldn't make money on computer stuff.

So I made the trek back to Summerville along Rivers Avenue to Hi way 78 stopping at each computer store I found. The first store matched the Best Buy price on the same drive. The next offered a 320 gig for $70.00. OK - kind of old and small, that will work ring it up!. Your total is $106.48. WHATTT! How do you get $106.48 from $70.00??? "Sorry sir, I got the wrong price." The darn thing wasn't even in a box and the plastic wrap was torn. I let him keep his drive, kicked the dust from my feet and went on to the next computer store.

This store had an 200 gig for $70.00. As I waited in line the lady in front of me was paying for a $275.00 computer repair on an old computer worth about 2 cents. As she checked out she asked for a detailed list of the parts used to repair her PC and labor. "Sorry MAM, I can't do that. But your cash register receipt list codes for parts used and a total for labor". She asked the cashier, "Can you tell me what those parts are so I can write them down?' Cashier replied. "Sorry Mam, only the technician knows what those codes mean;  NEXT!".

The cashier brought me a 200 gig drive covered in finger prints with no box. Then she handed me a power cable and a SATA data cable off the wall and said " 200 gig drive $70.00, Data Cable $15.00, Power Cable $15.00, Tax, that will be $106.50, and if it doesn't work when you install it, don't bring it back here, send it to Seagate".  I let her keep that one too!

Next stop Wal-Mart:  Dorchester Road. They had 6 Seagate 1 Ter SATA drives 16 megs cache in the box with cables and documentation for 98.98 plus tax, and a guarantee that if it didn't work, I could bring it back. Eureka! I HAVE MY DRIVE AT LAST!!!

Not so fast!  When I got back to the shop and installed the drive it didn't work!  So I trekked back to Wal-Mart for a quick exchange,  popped it into the computer, and it didn't work again. Back to Wal-mart. Third times 's' a charm! It works!!! Finally!!! The experience was costly but I learned a lot.

For many computer stores, the game has changed very little. If they sell a Dell with a 500 gig drive, it may have originally come from the factory with a 150 gig drive. They take that one out and place it in a plastic wrapper and sell it for $70.00 plus $30.00 for cables. Then they buy a 500 gig drive for $35.00 dollars with cables and mark the Dell unit up $150.00. The new cables that came with the drive are placed in new packaging and sold separately. Net gain, $205.00. And so on - and so on - and Scooby dooby dooby!

Stream Hi Def video to 3 TVs, 3 iPads, 3 SmartPhones whilst downloading "who knows what". Will the internet have enough bandwidth?

Solving the puzzle of high-definition video, Internet packet protocols and other esoterica comes down to a single question for most consumers: how many remotes will I need? If the rumors sweeping the tech and financial worlds are true, it may that Steve Jobs' legacy won't be the iPhone, the iPad, iPod or even the iMac but rather the iTV, or whatever it will be called. Read More – Click Here!

Faster is better. Who wants to wait for a WebPage to load? And if you run 10 or 20 tabs at a time like me, load time can be excruciating unless you know how to rev up your Web Browser, and this is how we do it:

1. Use a High Output Web Browser:

The new offerings by Microsoft, Google, and Mozilla run circles around their older siblings. There is a lot of debate has to which one is faster. I’ve studied and performed speed tests, and found that each one out-performs the other depending on the test. Chrome10 appears to have a slight advantage today, but the way these guys leap-frog each other, who knows who will be king of the hill next week. Windows Explorer is fast but has some difficulty with compatibility, especially if you run Windows XP (it doesn’t work at all). FireFox just feels faster, and will run on All Windows flavors, PLUS MAC, and Linux. So take your pick, just make sure it is the latest version.

2. Dump the toolbars:

To win a drag race you might have to dump the spare tire, seats, and even fenders to get light enough to win. The Toolbars in a Web Browser is extra weight that, when removed, greatly increase load time and operating speed. Toolbars can hog memory, chew up bandwidth when they send unnecessary data to the vendor, and take up screen space. I know, some of them can be pretty useful, but doing without can really pick up the pace.

3. Use Tabs instead of Windows:

Tabs are like racing slicks and Windows are like street tires. Slick give you better tractions on the strip, and tabs can make a big difference in Web Browser performance. Most Web Browsers treats each tab as an individual process, and Windows uses a child process of a parent. If you use Windows, if one area of the Web Page crashes, you have to close the browser and you have to find each window all over again. However, If your particular tab happens to crash, for some reason, all you have to do is close that one tab. The other tabs remain in tact. Organizationally, multiple tabs in a single window makes it faster to locate the page you need to work on. No more maximize and minimizing windows, to see what’s there over and over again until you find the right one Opening a single window with multiple tabs is far more efficient AND uses less memory.

4. Disable Flash:

Flash to a Web Browser is like Smog Devices to race cars. Flash can really eat up memory and processor power causing a page to load really slow. And if you are trying to run 5 or 10 pages, it might appear to lock you up completely. Simply turn Flash off by default, and enable it to view the things that you need to view with flash. Problem is, Browsers like Crome10 and FireFox requires an add-on to disable Flash. Internet Explorer uses a built-in tool accessed by clicking Tools > Manage Add-ons > double-click Shockwave Flash Object > Remove All Sites.

The only other thing I can think of that will increase Web Browser speed, besides buying more bandwidth from your ISP, is to use a ram-disk for your Web Browser cache. Whist Ram is 100 time faster than hard drive cache, it is difficult to configure and maintain. But the first four will not only get your going Browsing Faster, It’s speed that you can really feel. What a rush!

Faster is better. Who wants to wait for a WebPage to load? And if you run 10 or 20 tabs at a time like me, load time can be excruciating unless you know how to rev up your Web Browser, and this is how we do it:

1. Use a High Output Web Browser:

The new offerings by Microsoft, Google, and Mozilla run circles around their older siblings. There is a lot of debate has to which one is faster. I’ve studied and performed speed tests, and found that each one out-performs the other depending on the test. Chrome10 appears to have a slight advantage today, but the way these guys leap-frog each other, who knows who will be king of the hill next week. Windows Explorer is fast but has some difficulty with compatibility, especially if you run Windows XP (it doesn’t work at all). FireFox just feels faster, and will run on All Windows flavors, PLUS MAC, and Linux. So take your pick, just make sure it is the latest version. 

2. Dump the toolbars:

To win a drag race you might have to dump the spare tire, seats, and even fenders to get light enough to win. The Toolbars in a Web Browser is extra weight that, when removed, greatly increase load time and operating speed. Toolbars can hog memory, chew up bandwidth when they send unnecessary data to the vendor, and take up screen space. I know, some of them can be pretty useful, but doing without can really pick up the pace.

3.Use Tabs instead of Windows:

Tabs are like racing slicks and Windows are like street tires. Slick give you better tractions on the strip, and tabs can make a big difference in Web Browser performance. Most Web Browsers treats each tab as an individual process, and Windows uses a child process of a parent. If you use Windows, if one area of the Web Page crashes, you have to close the browser and you have to find each window all over again. However, If your particular tab happens to crash, for some reason, all you have to do is close that one tab. The other tabs remain in tact. Organizationally, multiple tabs in a single window makes it faster to locate the page you need to work on. No more maximize and minimizing windows, to see what’s there over and over again until you find the right one Opening a single window with multiple tabs is far more efficient AND uses less memory.

4.  Disable Flash:

Flash to a Web Browser is like Smog Devices to race cars. Flash can really eat up memory and processor power causing a page to load really slow. And if you are trying to run 5 or 10 pages, it might appear to lock you up completely. Simply turn Flash off by default,  and enable it to view the things that you need to view with flash. Problem is, Browsers like Crome10 and FireFox requires an  add-on to disable Flash. Internet Explorer uses a built-in tool accessed by clicking Tools > Manage Add-ons > double-click Shockwave Flash Object > Remove All Sites. 

The only other thing I can think of that will increase Web Browser speed, besides buying more bandwidth from your ISP, is to use a ram-disk for your Web Browser cache. Whist Ram is 100 time faster than hard drive cache, it is difficult to configure and maintain. But the first four will not only get your going Browsing Faster, It’s speed that you can really feel. What a rush!

In today's microwave society in which just-in-time manufacturing models, heightened customer expectations, and 24/7/365 accessibility demands burden both manufacturers and service providers, little time remains for much else. Small businesses often don't have the resources or inclination to track the latest computer news, security threats, or even common break/fix tips. And not all small business owners are adept at maintaining best technology practices.

As a result, small businesses frequently make certain technology mistakes. Here's a look at these mistakes, along with specific steps IT consultants can take to assist small businesses in correcting these common failures.

#1: Insufficient technical support

Many organizations go without technical support, relying instead upon an employee whose love of Warcraft may make him or her the local office "computer guru." Other organizations may depend upon a staffer's friend or relative (who's "interested in computers") to provide technology advice or assistance when critical systems fail or slow unacceptably.

Some turn to their hardware manufacturer's telephone support line for help, only to be disappointed when the solution to many problems proves to be performing a reinstallation (thereby resulting in the loss of all the business owner's data). Some rely upon a big box electronic store's service arm, never receiving the same (novice, often undereducated, and inexperienced) technician twice. And still others locate a student or individual who provides computer support "on the side."

These support methods are not cost-efficient. Nor are they effective information technology investment, troubleshooting, or administration options.

Small businesses need knowledgeable, trusted technology partners who are proficient with current technologies and willing to help learn their industry's operations requirements. Once a qualified technology expert is familiar with a client's needs, appropriate services and solutions can be recommended and deployed. The result is almost always more cost-effective, more efficient, more profitable operations for the client.

#2: Hardware/software issues

Smart organizations set PC service lives at three or four years. There's a reason.

"When you look at costs, particularly around a four- to six-year lifecycle, it may seem like you are saving money", says Info-Tech Research Group analyst Darin Stahl. “But really it's costing you.” That's because support expenses increase. Retaining PCs longer than three or four years often results in repair and support costs that meet or exceed the price of new systems.

This is the second common tech mistake businesses make: They fail to standardize hardware components and software applications, where possible. The result is a mishmash of components that complicate troubleshooting, repair, and deployment and require companies to support a variety of programs with different license terms and renewal dates. Incompatibilities often result.

Worse, older and obsolete hardware is less efficient, increases downtime likelihood, feeds staff and customer frustration, endangers sales, and threatens other lost opportunities.

Small businesses can overcome common hardware and software issues by:

• Retiring equipment at proper lifecycles, typically three to four years.
• Standardizing hardware components.
• Standardizing software applications.
• Working with an IT consultant to leverage vendor relationships and reduce costs/negotiate more attractive pricing.

#3: Insufficient power protection

A single power outage, surge, or spike can damage expensive electronic components and result in critical data loss. Consistent surges and brownouts, meanwhile, shorten the lifespan of computers, printers, network components, and other equipment.

Many businesses deploy simple power strips. Others continue depending upon surge suppressors deployed five and even 10 years earlier. When thunderstorms, electrical outages, and other disasters strike, the damaged systems and corrupted or lost data — not to mention downtime — resulting from insufficient power protection prove costly.

Organizations should deploy quality battery backup devices (with built-in surge suppression) for all critical desktop PCs. Further, technology professionals should connect all servers to uninterruptible power supplies and test them regularly to confirm adequate failover protection is in place.

When deploying battery backups, businesses should properly install and configure corresponding cables and communications software. Network protections should be leveraged whenever possible, as well, in attempts to remediate cable modem, DSL, and other surge sources that can destroy telecommunications and computing equipment.

Since surge suppressor quality varies, organizations should purchase such equipment from trusted vendors. And since surge suppressors (and batteries) wear over time, businesses should replace them regularly.

Simple power strips should be avoided whenever any computer, server, network device, or other important component is present.

#4: Illegal software

Possessing illegal software may be the easiest trap into which many organizations fall. The issue is widespread (the Business Software Alliance estimates 22 percent of all North American software is unlicensed), making it our fourth common tech mistake plaguing small businesses.

Certainly, licensing issues quickly prove perplexing. The differences between OEM, retail, and open license software escapes the understanding of many business owners. Yet manufacturers are becoming more aggressive in locking down licenses (via product activation technologies) and prosecuting offenders (often via the BSA, which has collected more than $81 million in settlements).

Many organizations don't recognize they do not “own” software, since programs and applications are commonly licensed. Worse, some firms use “borrowed” applications or pirated programs. Problems arise either in the form of audits and penalties or challenging delays (due to product activation conflicts and other licensing issues) when returning failed systems to operation.

Businesses must understand there are no shortcuts to running legitimate operations. All software, applications, and programs must be properly licensed.

With more manufacturers implementing product activation features, in which software programs report their installation and usage back to the manufacturer, overuse or outright piracy is becoming more difficult or impossible, anyway. But violations still occur.

Businesses can protect against licensing errors and penalties, and help ensure the fastest recovery times when failures occur, by carefully documenting and tracking all software license purchases and deployments.

Further, software licenses (including for operating systems, business line, and office productivity applications, accounting programs, security tools, and other utilities) should be purchased only from reputable technology partners. License sales on eBay that look too good to be true are.

Finally, when installing new programs, organizations should pay close attention to the license agreements they accept.

#5: Insufficient training

Mention software training in most any conference room, and you're likely to hear groans. Boredom, bad classroom experiences, lack of interest, or complexity all contribute to employees' resistance to learning new applications. But that doesn't change the fact that insufficient training ranks as the fifth common tech mistake impacting small businesses.

How bad is it?

It's estimated that office staff understand less than 20% of the available features in the software applications they use. That means 80% of the features, time-saving capabilities, and cost-reducing functions remain unused.

Gross inefficiencies result. As a consequence, many processes — including repetitive data entry, complicated calculations, and automated data selection and reporting — are completed manually, which introduces a greater likelihood of errors entering the process.

Tasks that could be completed in moments often consume exponentially more time. Considering that many of those tasks are repeated each business day by multiple workers, it's easy to see how the costs quickly become significant.

Most small businesses don't employ full-time trainers. Therefore it's imperative that small businesses identify technology partners, training centers, or other programs that assist staff in maximizing software applications.

Even when training resources are present, there's no guarantee staff skills will improve. For that to happen, businesses must make computer and software training a priority. Tap technology partners or other consultants to conduct regular lunch-and-learn sessions. The business can spring for lunch and, for a few hours of consultant's fees, expose entire departments to important new features and capabilities.

An organization's technology training commitment can be reinforced using performance reviews. Businesses can add specific course, off-site training, and even certification requirements to staff education programs and performance review objectives. When partnering with a local training center, businesses can create customized instructional programs or select prepackaged modules.

Organizations with limited budgets, meanwhile, can leverage self-paced instruction manuals and computer-based training aids to assist employees in improving their skills after hours or in their own homes.

#6: Security failures

Small businesses frequently fail to accommodate security issues. Organizations either don't recognize the risks or don't take them seriously.

The costs are staggering. Large U.S. organizations lose some 2.2% of their annual income due to security attacks, according to an Infonetics Research “Costs of Network Security Attacks” report. That's expensive. The FBI estimates such computer crime costs U.S. industry in excess of $400 billion.

Organizations don't need to have a high profile to become a target, either. Hackers have created innumerable automated programs that scour the Internet 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, seeking poorly secured systems, servers, PCs, and networks to infect and exploit.

Unfortunately, businesses everywhere are falling victim to compromised systems, robotic attacks, identity and data theft, and more. Organizations that fail to properly secure client and customer data often find themselves in the middle of security crises that result in bad press, lost sales, and forfeited customer trust.

Fortunately, completing simple steps assists small businesses in preventing security failures. Here are several best practices all organizations should adopt:

• Implement and enforce strong password security policies for all PCs, servers, network equipmen, and software applications.
• Regularly update operating systems, network equipment firmware, and applications with the latest security patches.
• Deploy business-class firewalls in all locations; connect no systems directly to the Internet.
• Secure all wireless networks.
• Disable guest accounts.
• Implement Internet and e-mail usage policies that preclude personal use of those technologies.
• Prohibit file-sharing programs.
• Deploy proven antivirus, anti-spyware, and anti-rootkit applications and update them regularly.
• Regularly perform security audits and correct all deficiencies.

#7: Poor backup strategies

Despite numerous choices, methods, and options, many organizations fail to adequately back up data — a mistake that can be unrecoverable.

Statistics reveal there is a 50% chance an organization will cease operations immediately when critical data is lost. Worse, an organization's odds of failure rocket to 90% within two years when critical data is lost. Data losses cost an average of 19 days' productivity. Recovering data from damaged disks, meanwhile, is incredibly expensive.

Even organizations that believe their data is properly protected may find themselves at risk. Occasionally, incorrect data (as in the wrong data) is backed up. In other cases, tape backups prove unreliable. (Gartner Group estimates only half of all tape backups restore successfully.) Fortunately, small businesses can follow simple steps to securely protect their data.

Since data backups are so critical to an organization's livelihood, small businesses should work with proficient IT consultants or technology partners to ensure the right data is being backed up and that it's being backed up as frequently as required. In addition, technology professionals should regularly test backup sets to confirm the data can be recovered in its entirety.

Consultants can work with small businesses to determine what data, files, and information should be backed up, how often to create the data sets, where to locate the backups, and how often to test the sets' integrity. Consultants also prove invaluable in updating backup routines when software upgrades, migrations, and other updates change critical file locations. Further, technology professionals can ensure business data remains secure, which is a critical concern for physicians, financial institutions, and even retail outlets.

#8: Virus exposure

Viruses not only remain a major threat, but their dangers are increasing. The BBC reports that unprotected PCs become infected within eight seconds of being connected to the Internet.

Infections are proving expensive, too. In the book The Dark Side of the Internet, author Paul Bocij estimates the average virus incident costs organizations $2,500 in remediation and data recovery expenses. A report by ICSA Labs places businesses' costs even higher (at $99,000 per incident).

And the numbers, varieties, and types of threats only increase. Malware programs are evolving at such a clip that many security software vendors have eliminated daily updates in favor of distributing patches every four hours.

Often, businesses and users simply fail to implement protection. A survey conducted by the National Cyber Security Alliance revealed that 67% of the respondents did not have up-to-date antivirus software. Worse, some 15 percent had no antivirus application installed.

#9: Spyware exposure

Before we address virus solutions, let's visit spyware, which is an equal threat — and potentially even more daunting.

Spyware differs from viruses in its nature (spyware typically aims to track user behavior, collect user information or sensitive data, and display unwanted advertisements, whereas viruses often destroy data, corrupt systems, or enable hackers to remotely control a system). But spyware's business impact has reached epidemic levels.

The respected trade group CompTIA estimates spyware infections require two-and-a-half days to resolve and cost small and medium-size businesses $8,000 a year, which doesn't factor lost revenue. As evidence businesses aren't doing enough to protect themselves from the threat, CompTIA pointed to the information its research recently uncovered. More than a quarter of business users reported their productivity suffered as the result of a recent spyware infection, and more than a third reported being infected multiple times within the last six months, with some reporting being infected as many as 10 times!

No virus or spyware strategy is foolproof, but most technology consultants recommend the following steps:

• Install reputable antivirus and anti-spyware applications.
• In high-risk environments, a second standalone anti-spyware application is warranted.
• Regularly update antivirus and anti-spyware programs.
• Do not let antivirus and anti-spyware program licenses expire.
• Perform regular automated antivirus and anti-spyware scans.
• Regularly review security program log files to confirm proper operation.

Further, businesses should avoid deploying “free” security products in businesses. These products are often deployed in violation of the license agreements (which require licensing the software in businesses, academic facilities, and nonprofit organizations) and don't support frequent updates, real-time protection, or automated scans.

#10: Unsolicited E-mail

Most every business and user is familiar with the problem of unsolicited e-mail, also known as spam. Spam messages have become a serious issue, particularly for small businesses that often misunderstand the problem and fail to take effective countermeasures.

The Radicatti Research Group estimates spam costs businesses more than $20 billion a year. Further, almost half of all e-mail is estimated to be spam.

Thus, small businesses are investing valuable time, money, and system resources processing, delivering, and even storing these unsolicited e-mail messages. In addition to lowering productivity (staff must regularly sift through hundreds or more junk mail messages, deleting the spam, in search of legitimate e-mail), spam takes a toll on an organization's servers and workstations, which often must dedicate processor cycles, disk space, and backup media to untold gigabytes of unwanted mail.

Technology consultants wield several weapons in the war on spam. In addition to network filtering software, consultants can deploy server-based spam protection. Some organizations choose to outsource e-mail processing to a vendor that can monitor e-mail streams and filter out unwanted messages.

But such filters can generate false positives. And they're not cheap. Therefore, it's often a good idea to begin by adopting effective methods for managing unsolicited e-mail messages. Here are several first steps all e-mail users and small business owners may take to minimize spam:

• Do not publish e-mail addresses in plain text on Web sites; instead use form-based tools that prevent robotic harvesting.
• Avoid forwarding chain e-mail messages.
• Ignore credit repair, get-rich-quick, and other common e-mail solicitations.
• Use reputable e-mail filters (such as those included in Microsoft Outlook, Google Gmail, and other programs).
• Read all terms before ever submitting your e-mail address to another party.
• Review privacy policies before ever providing an e-mail address.
• Consider creating a free e-mail account (Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, etc.) for submitting to third parties.

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Squatting menacingly in the corner of your favorite restaurant, movie theater, supermarket or bowling alley, the claw machine is a harsh mistress. There's something unmistakably hostile about its steely, three- or four-fingered grip, and something immeasurably frustrating about the feeling of horror and loss you get as your prize slips from your tenuous grasp at the very last second.

Don't despair. Instead, even the odds a little. Follow these simple tips, and you can't lose. (OK, you can lose, but you'll lose a little less often.)

Read More - Click Here!

Everyone has run into it: bureaucracy that gets in your way and prevents you from achieving your goals. Whether

you're trying to find the right support solution, fix something that's broke, or return an Internet purchase,

you will often encounter problems. Here are some tips for dealing with those bureaucratic hurdles...

#1. Pick your battles

Remember the story of the boy who cried “Wolf”? Eventually, when the wolf did attack, no one came to help the

boy. In the same way, make sure that when you take on the bureaucracy, it's really worth it. Must you have a

change in the way things are done now? Does it truly make your life or work unbearable? The tips below can help

you, but keep in mind that in using them, you are spending political capital. If you can live with the current

situation, it might be best to save your battles for truly important things.

#2. Determine what you really want

When faced with obstacles or frustration, it's common to focus so much on them that we forget what we really

want. Then, when the person in charge asks us, we hesitate and stutter because we haven't thought things

through. Think about what you'd want if the bureaucratic obstacles were to be removed. Be as specific as you

can, in terms of dates and quantities.

#3. Think through your acceptable alternatives

You might not get what you want. That's how life works. So you need to think about what alternatives you could

live with. In particular, think about the different “levers” you can pull. Can you change the location where

something happens? What about sequence? If the person you want to see is unavailable, could someone else in

that department help? If you can't get all of what you want, can you live with some now and some later? If the

other side doesn't suggest alternatives, you can suggest them yourself.

#4. Don't take things out on the front line person

Getting angry at the service desk or help desk person rarely will accomplish anything. Chances are, they lack any

authority to make decisions. That's why they're telling you that the policy is the way it is. Getting angry solves

nothing and might only delay a real solution. If you have to be annoyed, be clear that you're not upset at that

person but rather at the policy.

#5. Find the decision maker

If you want something, you need to find someone who has the authority to make the decision. As noted above,

only rarely will that person be on the front line. More commonly, that front line person merely carries out the

already established policy and will be reluctant to make exceptions. You will need to find that person's boss, or

the boss's boss, who will have the authority to make the decision that's favorable to you.

#6. Remember that there's strength in numbers

You have a greater chance of getting what you want if you have allies -- other people who have the same

concerns. If all those other people voice the same issues, the other side knows that you're not just some isolated

troublemaker.

#7. Be clear on your escalation process

If you have trouble with another organization, say within your own company, be clear on how you will escalate an

issue. Will you go to your own boss first? Will you approach the other department's boss yourself? In any case, be

clear with your boss on this process. If and when you do escalate, think through as much as you can about the

issues, why you're escalating, and what you want done.

#8. Document the situation

Documenting the situation will help the other side know what's going on. It also shows that you're staying in touch

with the situation. Be as specific as you can on names of people, dates, times, and actions that were promised.

#9. Respond positively to the \"roadblock comments\"

Those “We can't do that” or “don't have the authority” comments drive you crazy, don't they? Here's a way to

handle them: Turn them around to a positive question and then ask the other person that question. For instance,

a response to “We can't do that” would be “What can you do?” A response to “don't have the authority” would be

“Who does have the authority?” A former co-worker of mine varied the latter question by asking, “Who has the

ability to fire you?” While that question follows the principle I outlined, I don't recommend it for general use.

#10 Build up your political capital

You often must call in favors when you need to get things done. Therefore, take time to build up good will and

hence political capital with others. Be helpful when you can (while of course keeping your own job as your top

priority). Build relationships with others (what the Chinese call guanxi). Those relationships can help you if these

other tips don't.

#11 Be gracious when you get your way

No matter how frustrating the situation, be gracious if and when you get your way. A “thank you” takes little time

and effort, but is a nice touch and can make things easier for you the next time.

#12 Remember the serenity prayer

When all else fails, remember the serenity prayer: Ask for courage to change what you can, serenity to accept

what you can't, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Picking the right printer is tough. Just look at the choices, brands, types, speeds, feeds, functions. It’s enough to make your head spin. But if you follow a few simple guidelines, you will end up with a good printer, that does what you want, for a good price. So let’s get started.

What kind of printing do you want to do? This is important because some printers do an OK job at everything whilst other do a great job at one thing and a poor job at another. Example: If all you do is pictures and portraits, you would be better off with a dedicated portrait printer. But a dedicated portrait printer does a terrible job of printing letters and spreadsheets. So if you do a lot of portraits AND a lot of letters and spreadsheets, you may be better off with two printers, a dedicated portrait printer and a general purpose printer.

Multi Function Printers: Standard printers can do a good job (not great) at portraits too. But you might also want to scan pages and pictures, make copies, or even fax. In fact, the price of multi function printer have come down so much that it might make more sense to by one of these instead of a general purpose printer. And we don’t even print pictures anymore. We proudly display them on our TV and Cell Phones.

Speed and Volume: The two go hand-in-hand, and has a great impact on the type of printer that you should buy. Buy a cheap printer, run a lot of paper through it, and it will burn out quickly. So look and the amount of printing that you plan to do each month, and pick a printer that will meet or reasonably exceed that volume.

Ink Jet VS Laser: Ink Jet is great for low to medium volume printers, but the two technologies are beginning to overlap. Laser printers will handle a lot more volume, but the laser cartridges are much more expense than ink jet. However, cartridge for cartridge, the laser cartridge may yield a lower price per printout or page. However, shelf life of both laser and ink jet is about a year. After that, the cartridge may fail, or ever worse, it may foul and ruin your printer. So part of the choice between Laser and Ink Jet goes back to the volume printed. For really big volume print jobs, don’t burn out your printer, use a printing service.

Do You Really Need Color? Guaranteed, as soon as you buy that black ‘n’ white printer, you’ll need color. Buy a color printer

Paper output is a considerations too. Most low-end printers do standard 8 ½” by 11” only. More expensive printer can do letter, legal, 11” by 17”, may have multiple paper drawers, sorters, collators, and ever staplers. Fancy huh – expensive too.

How will you connect to the printer? The options are USB, WiFI (Wireless), Wired Ethernet, FireWire (Apple) and Blue Tooth. Just make sure your printer will connect the way you want it too. USB, Wired Ethernet, and FireWire are the most reliable.

Best Buys on Printers: I always wait until the end of a product cycle and buy the printer I want at a close-out price. The multi function printer I have now was $795.00 when it first hit the stores, but I got it on close-out for $59.95. You can find great deals on printer on the internet, but you have to pay $10-$20 for shipping. Many of the larger stores will match online price. Don’t be afraid to ask for a discount.

Ink is Ink and Toner is Toner: My printer has 4 ink cartridges and the “Big Computer Store” wanted $24.99 each. Darn! That’s more than I paid for the printer. I would have been better off buying a new printer! So I went down the street to a “generic brand” ink cartridge store and got all 4 cartridges for $10.99. What a sweet deal!

It sound like a lot but you can do it. Decide what you want to do with the printer, how much printing, then scourer the internet to compare specs, reviews, and deals, and you’ll make a good choice.

If you have one or more folders that are set to Read-only in Windows Vista and you aren't able to view or change the attributes in the Properties dialog box, you can work around the problem by using the attrib command line tool.

To view or to remove the Read-only or the System attributes of folders in Windows Server 2003 or in Windows XP

Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then press ENTER.

To view the syntax for the Attrib command, type attrib \\? at the command prompt.

Warning If you remove the Read-only or System attribute from a folder, it may appear as a ordinary folder and some customizations may be lost. For example, Windows customizes the Fonts folder and provides a special folder view that permits you to hide variations, such as bold and italic. It also permits you to change the folder's view settings in ways that are specific to fonts. If you remove the Read-only and System attributes of the Fonts folder, these customized view settings are not available. For folders that you have customized by using the Customize tab of the folder's Properties dialog box, the folder icon and other other customizations may be lost when you remove the Read-only attribute.

If a program cannot save files to a folder with the Read-only attribute, such as My Documents, change the Read-only attribute to System by using the Attrib command at a command prompt.

To remove the Read-only attribute and to set the System attribute, use the following command:

attrib -r +s drive:\\<path>\\<foldername>

For example, to remove the Read-only attribute and to set the System attribute for the C:\\Test folder, use the following command:

attrib -r +s c:\\test

Be aware that some programs may not operate correctly with folders for which the System attribute and the Read-only attribute are set. Therefore, use the following command to remove these attributes:

attrib -r -s c:\\test

To view or to remove the Read-only or the System attributes of folders in Windows Vista

Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then press ENTER..

To view the syntax for the Attrib command, type attrib \\? at the command prompt.

To remove the Read-only attribute and to set the System attribute, use the following command:

attrib -r +s drive:\\<path>\\<foldername>

For example, to remove the Read-only attribute and to set the System attribute for the C:\\Test folder, use the following command:

attrib -r +s c:\\test

Be aware that some programs may not operate correctly with folders for which the System attribute and the Read-only attribute are set. Therefore, use the following command to remove these attributes:

attrib -r -s drive:\\<path>\\<foldername>

For example, to remove both the Read-only and the System attributes from the C:\\Test folder, use the following command:

attrib -r -s c:\\test

If the Run command is not listed on the Start menu, do the following:

Click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, and then click Run.

Is there a way to legally collect email addresses?

There are lots of way to get folks to sign up for your newsletter, blog, and marketing offers, and this is how we do it:

1.Put an offer on the back of your business cards to get people to sign up for your newsletter.

2.Tradeshows - Bring a clipboard or sign-up book with you to tradeshows and ask for permission to send email to those who sign up.

3.Include a newsletter sign-up link in your signature of all of your emails.

4.Send an opt-in email to your address book asking them to join your list.

5.Join your local chamber of commerce, email the member list (if it's opt-in) about your services with a link to sign up to your newsletter.

6.Host your own event - Art galleries, software companies (one here has a party every quarter and invites the neighboring businesses), retail shops, consultants (lunch & learn) can all host an event and request attendees to sign up.

7.Offer a club where you give something special to people who sign up.

8.Incentivize your employees - Give them $ for collecting VALID email addresses.

9.Giving something for free like a PDF? Make visitors sign up to your opt-in form before you let them download it.

10.Referrals - Ask you customers to refer you, and in exchange you'll give them a discount.

11.Bouncebacks - Get them back! - Send a postcard or call them asking for their updated email address.

12.Trade newsletter space with a neighboring business, include a link for their opt-in form and ask them to include yours in their newsletter.

13.SEO - Make sure you optimize your site for your keywords. You need to be at the top of the natural search when people are looking for your products or services.

14.Giveaways - Send people something physical and ask for their email address as well as their postal address.

15.Do you have a postal list without emails? Send them a direct mail offer they can only get if they sign up to your email list.

16.Include opt-in forms on every page on your site.

17.Popup windows - When someone attempts to leave your site, pop up a window and ask for the email address.

18.Include a forward-to-a-friend link in your emails just in case your recipient wants to forward your content to someone they think will find it interesting.

19.Include a forward-to-a-friend on every page of your site.

20.Offer a community - Use Ning as your easy-to-set-up community and have your visitors interact and sign up for your newsletter.

21.Offer "Email only" discounts and don't use those offers anywhere but email.

22.Telemarketing - If you've got people on the phone, don't hang up until you ask if you can add them to your newsletter.

23.Put a fishbowl on your counter and do a weekly prize giveaway of your product - then announce it to your newsletter. Add everyone who put their card in on to your newsletter list.

24.Include an opt-in form inside your emails for those people who get your email forwarded to them.

25.Tradeshows - Collect business cards and scan them into a spreadsheet. Make sure you ask permission to send email to them, then mark the card.

26.Use Facebook - Host your own group and invite people to it, then post new links often. From time to time, post a link to sign up for your newsletter.

27.Use Facebook - Post the hosted link from your newsletter into Linked Items to spread the word.

28.Use Facebook - Include an opt-in form on your Facebook Fan page.

29.Use Twitter - Twitter the hosted link of your email campaign every time you launch.

If you would like to share something that has worked for you, please let us know!

“HOW come my pictures look like a monkey took them?” The following article will help you quickly learn how to take great pictures by paying attention to composition. ..

As a family with four beautiful daughters, we spent a fortune on photographers, I mean a fortune! So one day I walked into a pawn shop and bought a professional film camera (that's all they had back

then) and a book on photography which I followed step by step.

My first pictures: So I got the camera stuff home, read a little in the book, then lined up my sweet little girls in the back yard to take some master­ pieces. Sweet smiles, cute antics, dressed just so,

these pictures have got to be winners. And they would have been, except whilst focusing on my girls, I never saw the basement cover laying on the ground and a toilet stored under the house beaming in the sun. Awwwful!

After more reading and shooting more pictures, I learned about composition, and how to really look through the camera and see what was going to be in the frame of the picture. As I practiced, the pictures got better and better.

Digital cameras are much easier because you don't have to worry so much about lighting and focus, and the results are instant However, no matter what you shoot with, the same principles apply. Composition Is King.

Composition Suggestions: The subject (what ever you want to take a picture of) should “EAT THE FRAME.” Fill the frame with what you are taking a picture of (the subject). If my tightly lined-up girls were framed head at the top, feet at the bottom: left arm of girl 1 to right arm of girl 4, there would be no room for covers and toilets. But whilst looking at your subject, look at the back­ ground too and remove item you don't want in the picture (if you can) OR move your subject to a different location.

Shoot what's important: Head to toe shots are great, but what may be important is their beautiful smile. In that case, framing the top' of the head and the left ear of girl number 1 to right ear of girl number 4 might yield better results also. Keep asking yourself, can I get closer? Can I get closer yet? You will be pleased with the results.

Add a little background: When vacationing, it's easy to get caught up in shooting pictures of where you are, like mountains, trees, and buildings. However, years later, those pics usually get passed over in favor of photos with friends and family. So when taking pictures of that magnificent tree, place your traveling companions in the shot, using the 75/25 rule. That is, make sure that people occupy at least 75 percent of the picture frame. That way when you view those' pictures of your vacation years from now, it will be like sharing the experience with those folks in the picture all over again.

Subject a little off center: Amazing results can be obtained by shooting your subject a little off-center of the frame. I like to mentally divide the frame vertically into three sections. Then I

place my subject in the center of the first two OR last two vertical sections, leaving the remainder of the frame for the background. Talk about making your pictures pop!

Orientation: Picture formats are usually rectangular. Therefore, some pictures, like one or two people, or trees, lend themselves to turning the camera into the portrait position, sideways, whilst a line of people, or a river, usually look better in the landscape position. If you experiment with orientation, you will soon see what works best for the type of pictures that you wish to take.

Shoot lots of pictures: While folks are lining up for that eventful portrait, take a few pictures before and after you say CHEEZE. You may find several winners or good pictures that way. Also, you can take a large picture, then crop specific parts of a picture to get smaller group shots and single portraits.

Picture taking is fun, and the memories they make are priceless. But paying attention to “composition” can easily turn your good pictures into WOW Pictures!

Work, family, friends and a few hours for yourself? Sometimes it seems impossible to fit everything in one day. If you are looking to spend less time at your computer and more time somewhere else, check out these clever keyboard shortcuts.

Windows of opportunity

If you often work with several windows open simultaneously, you’ll save valuable minutes using these quick key options.

1. To minimize a window to your toolbar, press ALT, SPACEBAR and N.

2. To maximize a window to your full screen, hit ALT, SPACEBAR and X.

3. To reduce the size of a window without hiding it, press ALT, SPACEBAR and R.

4. To close a window, hit ALT and F4.

5. To go to the last window you had open, simultaneously click ALT and TAB.

6. To select one window when you have several open, hold down ALT, and maneuver by clicking TAB to the window you want.

To speed up Excel

You can easily accelerate your spreadsheet skills with these handy tricks.

7. To move right to left, cell by cell, hit TAB.

8. To move up and down, cell by cell, press ENTER.

9. To delete data in a cell, use the BACKSPACE.

10. To enter a formula, press = (equals sign).

11. To enter a date, hit CTRL and ; (semicolon).

12. To enter a time, press CTRL and SHIFT and : (colon).

13. To do a quick spell check, press F7.

14. To change numbers to dollars, click CTRL, SHIFT and $.

15. To make figures a percentage, press CTRL, SHIFT and %.

Working with words

If you are using Microsoft® Word, check out these handy shortcuts:

16. To create a new document, click Ctrl and N.

17. To close a document, click Ctrl and W.

18. To preview what you are about to print, hit Alt, Ctrl and I.

19. To print a document, press Ctrl and P.

Faster folder and files

You can speed up your desktop driving with these tips.

20. Having trouble finding something on your desktop? Select any file, folder or desktop icon, then type the first letter of the item that you are looking for. The item will be highlighted. If there are several items starting with the same letter, keep clicking the letter until the one you are looking for is highlighted.

21. To rename a file or folder, simply click on it and press F2. You can now type in a new name.

22. To bring up the START menu, press CTRL and ESC.

Extra time for you!

The more you use the above shortcuts, the quicker you will become. You’ll increase your productivity and decrease the time you spend at your keyboard when you’d rather be doing something else!

Recommendations in this article should only be applied to devices that you own or manage yourself. If you are part of an enterprise organization, please verify that these recommendations are compatible with your internal IT standards prior to applying them.

Microsoft is a trademark of the Microsoft group of companies.

In today's unhealthy economy, one can't help but wonder how small businesses can effectively achieve cash management. In fact, even medium scale and large scale business are struggling to cut back on their expenditures during the current economic situation.

Everyone is tightening their belts, both customers and consumers. But how much and where...

Imagine the consequences if no one wanted to purchase goods other than the essentials. What will happen to the restaurant industry? What will happen to the retail industry, particularly those marketing electronics and those gadgets that people can manage without?

It's not just a matter of reducing expenses. Small businesses need to survive and compete with the lower prices that are offered by their competitors--and good cash management is a must.

Here are some tips to help you to save money and manage your business and cash flow. These will also help individuals to better manage their home expenses.

1. Energy Consumption

Electricity is an expense we can't avoid, but if you are able to keep your energy consumption lower than normal, you can save a fair amount of money. One way to save energy is through the use of laptop computers. Sure, they can be more expensive than desktop computers, but imagine the great savings you'll get when it comes to energy consumption. A laptop or notebook computer consumes around 90 percent less energy than desktop computers. Most small businesses use computers, and if these are replaced with laptops when the time comes, energy expenditure will be less. The more computers your business uses, the more money you will save.

2. Telephone Costs

The telephone is essential to all small businesses, and many use mobile as well as land lines. Check up on your monthly plan and negotiate a better deal. As competition is increasing, many businesses are stuck on a deal they started off with, and if they renegotiate they can save a lot of money. Use mobiles only where necessary since they are significantly more expensive to use than land lines. Good cash management involves keeping a close eye on communications costs, especially those that are non-essential.

If you use multiple telephone lines in your business, consider VOIP as an alternative. This can allow you to make huge savings, particularly if you have more than one location for your business. Also, Skype offers a completely free service between Skype users, and it is less expensive than normal to phone non-Skype users.

3. Save on Your Ink

Ink for printers can be another expensive item, particularly when calculated over a year. Try to go paperless and print only what is essential. Use recycled cartridges or buy in bulk to save money. Printer sharing on a network can save on the cost of the hardware and also on ink!

4. Save on Lighting

Most people turn off the lights in their homes when they leave the room, but strangely they rarely do so at work. Make a point of doing so. Switching to energy-efficient light bulbs can save a lot of money over a year.

5. Use the Internet

Small businesses should use the internet as much as possible. It is amazing how many tasks can be carried out online, including business calls, sales calls, online business conferencing, video conferencing, live meetings, instant messaging, seminars and so on.

Owning a small business involves almost constant communication with customers, suppliers and other employees. This can be expensive, particularly if it involves travel. It is just as easy to communicate online as by telephone, and video conference is cheaper than a transatlantic flight! Online seminars can be arranged for training purposes, and advertising costs can be slashed through online advertising. Websites are becoming easier and cheaper to put up with every day that passes. The internet offers many opportunities for you to improve your cash management and improve your overall cash flow.

6. Assess your Office Space

Perhaps you have too much office space and you can afford to let some of it out until you have expanded enough to need it. If you are renting, share the rent with another small business that only needs a desk or two.

7. Buy in Bulk

A lot depends on your cash flow situation, but it is sometimes cheaper to purchase office items on a quarterly rather than a weekly or monthly basis. This is particularly true if bulk discounts overcome the problem of tying up your capital in stock. You will save on delivery charges, but make sure that you budget the use of such supplies, since there is sometimes a temptation to use more materials or supplies when stocks are higher than normal.

Although times might seem bad, those with the ability and desire to make savings will come through in a much stronger position than small business owners who do nothing. Don't let that be you, and by following these seven cash management tips for small businesses, you should be able to make significant savings.

SevOne’s vision is to remove all limits to data collection, reporting, and affordability. The perception of limits is always changing. The way enterprises and service providers define affordability limits have changed dramatically because of market uncertainty.

Some believe that software companies have trained enterprise customers to buy software at the end of a quarter, when the best deal can be negotiated. But now, some companies can’t buy anything at the end of a quarter, regardless of price and value. The market severely punishes high profile public companies that don’t have predictable financial performance, especially during times of uncertainty. There are a limited number of short-term controls or levers to control financial performance. The only real lever is to cut expenses, which means postponing purchases. The levers are not very discerning. There isn’t a lever to postpone only “nice to have” purchases so, “must buy” purchases can get held up too. So, a great Lever Large value and a great price isn’t enough. Whatever your product could save could be lost in market value if a company misses its expected financial performance.

The US market is bouncing along at few points of growth – if we drop a few points into negative growth – then it’s called a recession. No real difference from where we are now, but the press will make a big deal out of the word "recession," which will hurt confidence. The US economy doesn’t have any more real bubbles, so it’s relatively stable. Europe is a different story. The debt load of Spain, Portugal, and Greece is unsustainable and the ECB (European Central Bank) doesn’t have the tools to fix it. Their objective is to control inflation (unlike the Federal Reserve in the United States) it does not have a second objective to sustain growth and employment. Furthermore, Europe doesn’t have an FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) – which allows a US bank to fail and be reorganized over the weekend and re-opened as a new bank on Monday. So, this is a big problem that doesn’t have any easy solutions. We don’t know how the European politicians will handle this, but it will be painful and it will impact the US – Contagion!

So, why aren’t we panicking? We have the success formula, that even works in down and uncertain markets. Last week I had lunch with a very senior financial executive who serves on high profile public boards. He is not seeing panic in the boardrooms. He is seeing confidence. Smart CEOs are hunkering down, making difficult choices, but investing because they are confident that the market will get better. These companies will dominate as the market improves, as will SevOne.

So, how are we maintaining aggressive growth in a down market? How is SevOne becoming one of the smart investments that transcend market difficulties? Our competitors would like to know how we booked more business in Q3 than any preceding quarter. Here is the secret:

To maintain momentum in a difficult market, your offering has to be an MB+E2B (Must Buy & Easy to Buy)

Providing the best price/value (best of breed) alternative is a given – being a “Must Buy.”   A Must Buy has to be...

    Tied to key services and high priority initiatives, such as a VoIP or video conferencing, mobility

Clearly prove how it will save money by telling them what infrastructure is needed to assure quality services

Easier to implement and easier to scale than alternative

Easy to buy is a different story for every customer. One way we make our offering easy to buy for everyone is by making a simple all in one offering (physical appliance, virtual appliance, or cloud delivery). So our price catalog is one page. Simple strategy; Include everything we develop in one scalable solution. Let the customer decide what they need to use or can afford to use. If they find value, they will use more and buy more as they need it.

Easy to buy also means removing artificial business limits. Today we structure our offering to closely align with the customer’s appetite. One new financial customer asked us to offer what he called a convertible ELA. This way he could solve immediate problems in three areas, limiting the immediate expense, but the purchases count toward an Enterprise License Agreement, capping the total cost.

Another customer made a large, seven-figure subscription commitment in September, but in October intends to use capital budget dollars to make a seven-figure purchase. It’s important to point out that this customers’ initial subscription was very small. The SevOne implementation scaled organically completely controlled by the customer.

If, for some reason, you find that you must turn off System Protection, this is how we do it:

1. Click Start | Control Panel | System and Maintenance | System (in Classic view, just System)
2. In the left pane, click System Protection.
3. Enter the administrator credentials or confirmation if prompted.
4. Click to uncheck the box next to the drive on which you want to turn off System Protection.
5. Click OK.

Word of Caution: Turning off System Protection will delete all restore points created for that drive. Turning it back on will not get them back!

   
How to automatically shutdown your Windows 7 computer at the same time every day

Many of us leave the computer on all night to receive updates, defrag, and do virus scans. Using this tip will enable you to shut down your computer at a designated time to conserve power, and this is how we do it:

1. Click the Start button and in the search box, type Scheduled tasks
2. Click the item when it appears in the search results list under "Control Panel."
3. In the Task Scheduler console, in the Actions pane on the right, click "Create Basic Task ...".
4. In the Wizard page that opens, give the task a name such as "Shutdown" and write a description (if you want) such as "Shuts down the computer at 1:00 a.m. every day."
   
   Click Next.
5. On the Task Trigger page, select "Daily" and click Next
6. On the Start Date and Time page, fill in the date and time you want to begin (such as 9/7/11 and 12:00 a.m.) and click Next.
7. On the Action page, click "Start a Program" and click Next.
8. On the Start a Program page, in the Program/script field, type:
   
   C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe
9. Windows is installed on a drive other than C, substitute that drive letter.
   
   Click Next.  
10. Review the Summary page and click Finish.       

Now Windows will automatically shut down at 12:00 a.m. each day. Just before, a pop-up notification will then display telling you that "Windows will shut down in less than a minute."

If you take Adam Harvey's advice, here's what you might wanna wear to a party this weekend: A funny hat, asymmetrical glasses, a tuft of hair that dangles off your nose bridge and, most likely, a black-and-white triangle taped to your cheekbone. Optional: Cubic makeup patterns all around your eyes.

All of these otherworldly fashion accessories – which could leave a person looking kind of like an opulent villain from "The Hunger Games" - have a singular goal: to stop your face from being detected by cameras and computers. Called CV Dazzle (short for "computer vision dazzle;" more on the name later), Harvey's project is a provocative and largely theoretical response to the rise of surveillance cameras on street corners and face-detecting technology that's been incorporated into social networking sites like Facebook and Flickr.

Read More - Click Here!

My wife and I run two Linux boxes, Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick, and Debian Squeeze. For both of them the installation is about the same.

#1. Install Wine 1.2 or better. Which ever version of wine that you decide to use, make sure it is a “stable” version and not a development or beta version. In Ubuntu use Applications > Ubuntu Software Center. In Debian, click System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager.

#2. Download iphlpapi.dll from http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?iphlpapi. Place the file in folder directory.wine/drive_c/windows/system32.

#3. Now let’s configure Wine to run Watchtower Library. Start Wine by clicking Applications  > Wine > Configure Wine, then click on "Libraries". In the field New Override, enter "iphlpapi" and click "Add". You may see the warning message. If so, simply click Yes. Close and exit Wine.

#4. Open your Documents folder and create a new folder named WT2011. Copy the contents of the Watchtower Library 2011 to the WT2011 folder.

#5. Next we will need to change the permissions on the executable files in the NT2011 folder. Simply open the folder, and for each file that ends in .exe, do a right mouse click, click Properties > Permissions, and fill the check box that say “Allow execution file as a program”.

#6. You are now ready to install Watchtower Library 2011. Simply double-click startup.exe and follow the prompts.

#7. You will be presented with two Watchtower Library 2011 shortcuts on your desktop. Keep the one that looks pretty and delete the other one. Now Double Click the remaining Watchtower Library 2011 shortcut.

On some systems, you might see lines instead of text. No worries here, all you need to do is install a True Type font, and you are in business.

#1. Go to Applications > Internet > terminal

#2. Ubuntu: Type the following: sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer, then enter admin password

       Debian: Type the following: su, enter admin password,  apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer

#3. Restart Watchtower Library and everything should work just fine.

Invoicing is a slippery slope that can quickly become a devastating liquidly nightmare. The easiest way to put a company in peril is to delay invoicing. If billing doesn't go out in a timely manner, cash won't come in. The solution is simple!

Invoice Daily!.

Numerous studies indicate quick receipt of accurate bills improves customer satisfaction any payment. Possibly more important is that timely invoicing helps reduce bad debt and increases the likelihood of receiving full payment within traditional remittance cycles.

Billing Practices To Avoid

#1. Don't wait to prepare and distribute invoices on the 15th and 30th of each month. This common billing routine is inefficient and dangerous. It artificially limits your cash flow by automatically delaying invoice cycles. Worse, firms following this model tie up their cash, credit lines, and artificially inflate Accounts Receivables. This is especially true for businesses  that incur labor and/or material costs up-front. Following this model results in your business providing customers with interest-free loans. That's not a smart business model.

#2. Avoid billing hardware/Materials and software/Labor costs on the same invoice. When a client signs off on a project, the next step is typically for the company to order or build the required hardware/materials. Companies sometimes wait to bill for that hardware/material when the deployment completes; this can negatively impact cash-flow, especially when multiple systems are deployed. Bill for the hardware upfront (i.e., the day it's ordered)! Better yet, accept a cash deposit before placing the order.

#3. Bill Daily! Waiting to complete billing tasks, even a couple days (even if you take great notes), opens up an opportunity for errors (that can damage your invoicing credibility). Also, you are still limiting cash flow. Worse, you're creating delays between the time service is provided and a bill is received. The longer that gap, the higher the likelihood that payment problems could arise.

#4. If possible, allow the project manager to complete the invoice. Whichever engineer completes a project, that's the staff member who should enter the billing information. While there's nothing wrong with having a director or a supervisor review client invoices before they're mailed, unless the actual technician performing the service prepares the bill, it's quite likely that an additional service the client requested and received may go unbilled.

All things considered, it makes sense (dollars and cents) to distribute invoices daily as it benefits cash flow, improves client satisfaction, increases the likelihood of quick payment in full, and reduces the possibility of bad debt and liquidity issues.

Can’t remember if the fork goes on the left and the spoon goes on the right? For perfect P's and Q's, you know exactly whom to ask: Emily Post.
 
But what are the rules when you're talking with a friend and she whips out her cellphone to check her email, or when someone you never liked in high school suddenly wants to be friends on Facebook? Who’s there to tell you the right thing to do?  Once again, it’s Emily Post

Read More - Click Here!

Social networking is one of the biggest buzzwords in the tech industry today - but what if you could bring all the sharing abilities of a social network site right to your desktop? Microsoft's Social Desktop does allows you to share documents, pictures, ... without having to copy or upload them to another location. To me, the security implications are a little scary, and that would have to be addressed, but what with the push toward the \"cloud,\" I wouldn't be surprised if this eventually became the computing model of the next generation. Read more here:
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/SocialDesktop/

Reports of the untimely demise of the ink pen have been greatly exaggerated. Case and point: Just try to buy a house or execute a legal document of any kind without "pulling out the pen!” Courts of law and financial institutions want to see nothing but ink at the bottom of the document. Only then is the deal truly "done."

In ancient times, to consummate an agreement, known as a covenant,  a stone monument was erected and the parties to the agreement left their mark on the monument in blood, showing that the covenant was seriously binding upon all parties. Thus the expressions "written in stone" and "signed in blood" were literal, just look at the scars. Later, sticks were used to make impressions on dried mud or clay tablets, pottery, and even building materials like wood.

Historians and anthropologist don't really know when the first pen was invented or by whom, but it is widely believed that ancient indigenous people in various areas fashioned writing instruments out of bamboo sticks and/or bird feathers, based on materials that were readily available to them. They left their mark on wood, animal skin, and even stone. Ancient prose of Mahabharata, Ramayana and Puranas used this type of writing instrument circa 5000 BCE. In ancient Egypt, pens made out of thin reeds were used to write on papyrus scrolls. In certain regions of Pakistan, reed pens crafted from bamboo are still used by students, who write their lessons on wood planks.

Today, Computers and Smart Phones make communication faster and easier. But when sending a letter of thanks or apology, or a card to Mom, nothing expresses emotion and depth of feeling like "the pen.” I doubt that Mom will keep your text with the smiley face :-), but she will keep that precious “hand-written” card. The Pen is still the most personalized and sincere ways to express yourself and your convictions.

Since pens and writing can convey emotion, it is important to choose the correct color for the writing task. From a search of the internet, we came to the following ink color conclusions :

"Black Ink pens are used in business letters that convey facts, or explanation of facts,  rather than emotion. Black is used for official signatures as well as payment or collection letters."

"Blue Ink pens expressions are less ridged and a little friendlier. Blue ink exudes confidence in oneself and the ability to meet an objective. Blue in appropriate for formal writing and business letters of all kinds." Blue ink is usually acceptable for signatures. However, black ink is preferred."

"Red Ink letters are 'power documents.' Red ink can be used when stating demands or for collection notices. However, Red ink may be viewed as insulting to the reader, and tantamount to a declaration of war. Though red ink guarantees maximum impact, such impact is almost always negative."

"Green Ink conveys the impression that one is goal oriented, and serious about making money. Green conveys a health concern for the environment. I’m just not a “green ink guy”,  but if you want to be different,  green ink may be right for you."

Could it be that people see a correlation between the type of pen a business person uses and the quality of the business product and service? Could it be that bringing a  BIC pen to a sales or board meeting is like taking a rubber band to a gun fight?

Yes, I text and send email. But when I send a sales letter, it is hand-written in blue ink, and very sincere. When I mess up and can't meet a delivery date, after the in-person apology, I always follow up with a hand written blue ink and very sincere letter. And when it comes time to close the deal, I always use my most impressive pen, one that reflects the superior quality of our products and services, one that says this agreement is "written in stone" and "signed in blood, that you can count on this covenant and that my company and I will never fail you. Now that’s impressive. A computer email or Smart Phone test just can't touch that. Only a pen can convey "that important message beyond words."

What does your pen say about you and your business?

How it works:       The KHCONF service is a simple conference bridge application. You call into the system from the meeting location, and the homebound friends call into the system from home, using a preassigned PIN.

In the majority of the US, Generic Conferencing can provide a local phone number, so there is no charge to the friends who call in. In European countries, the number provided is a geographic number so that the cost to the friends is as low as possible.

The system provides the congregation with the ability to retrieve a count of the number of listeners, the ability to select a listen-only mode or commenting mode (if the sound system supports that) on a per caller basis, and on line reporting tools so you can keep track of who is calling in.

Support Options:   Subscribing congregations are provided with an emergency hotline number to call if the conference service is not working. Questions or problem that are not related to an emergency or system down problem are handled via email.

Callers to the emergency hotline are prompted to leave a message, and this pages a technician who will attempt to respond immediately.

FAQ:

How many callers can be tied in at once?   This is dependent on your location and the subscription options. In the US, Tier 1 Local Number customers can have up to 20 per congregation tied in. In Tier 2 areas, up to 10 listeners are included in the monthly cost. Additional listeners can be added for an additional charge. In the UK and Ireland, up to 8 listeners are included in the basic service, and for an additional charge that can be increased to 18 listeners.

How do we pay for the service?   Invoices are e-mailed once service is setup. E-mail invoices are used to keep the cost of the service as low as possible. In the US, these invoices are sent monthly to new subscribers, and in the rest of the world the subscription is an annual subscription. Congregations may pay electronically or via check. More information is provided once the subscription is setup.

How can I find out if you have local numbers in my area?   Choose your country in the "Order Service" box on the left. All US numbers are loaded into our system. In the UK and Ireland, please E-mail us at support@khconf.com. Include the address and phone number of your primary meeting place in your e-mails.
Some members of our congregation have to make a long distance call to reach the meeting location, does that make a difference?   Yes, it does. There are several ways to handle this. In many instances we are able to provision two local numbers and tie both together, so that everyone can call a number that is local to them. Please email us at support@khconf.com with as much information as you can and we'll look at the situation and make a recommendation.

The website says you have no local numbers in my area of the US. When will that change?   Generic Conferencing has no direct control over the coverage areas, we just work with suppliers who provide those services. We are constantly working to find additional suppliers to expand the local number coverage area. However, in the US, there are areas that are very expensive to serve. In these areas, the lowest cost option is a toll free number, charged at a 2 cents per minute per caller rate.

Can we just get an unlimited long distance package and use the local number service even though there is no local number in our area?   Generally speaking, this is a bad idea. For more information about why, please click here.

How long does it take to setup new services?   This depends on your location. It can be as few as two weeks, and as many as eight weeks.

What equipment do we need to buy?   Most congregations already have the equipment that is needed. You simply need a device (like a Hanstech box) that connects your sound system to a phone line. We recommend you talk to your RBC Sound Department, or email us for a contact at a company that sells these devices.

Contacting KHConf:

By E-Mail:   support@khconf.com

By Telephone: (214) 329-1847
Note: Due to the overwhelming response to this service, we are not able to return telephone inquiries. Please email support@khconf.com with any questions or inquiries.

By Mail: P.O. Box 687, Crowley, TX 76036 USA

The scale of layoffs over the past few weeks is unprecedented. The impact on these people who have been shown the door and on the companies that have let them go will linger for years to come. Besides the emotional damage that occurs when people are forced out, there is a tangible cost to companies when knowledge and experience walk out the door. Once that knowledge and experience are gone, no amount of TARP money will bring them back. It may be too late for some companies to prevent this now, but putting measures in place will lessen the blow in future.

Networking is the major purpose for having a LinkedIn profile...Agreed? In the past week I have been making many connections, but I was surprised at how many did not have contact information readily available.

Aside from making your email address and phone number clearly visible on your profile page, there is another way I just found to make sure someone can contact you or invite your connection.
This is done through the "Introduction" process.

When someone comes to your profile, if they are not already directly connected to you, they have three ways to request a connection.
** They can click the yellow "Connect" button appears at the top right,
** They can send you an InMail,
** Or they can click the "Get Introduced Through a Connection" link.

If they click the "Connect" button they will be brought to the "Invitation Page". Then they must select one of the buttons which require some form of existing connection (group, job, colleague, friend) or for them to have your email address. Without these connections, they can not send the invitation (unless they stretch the truth a little).

You can use the InMails, but I do not recommend it – Too Expensive. If they use the "Get Introduced Through a Connection" link, it opens a page for them to request an invitation through someone else they already know. About half way down the page there is a box for the message they wish to send you. Right next to that box there are two small statements: "Mr. Blank is interested in" and "Mr. Blank's contact advice". THIS IS THE PLACE for you to put more contact information. NOTE: This method of contact is also limited. Regular accounts are limited to 5 standing “Introductions” at a time, so you can’t rely on people to use this method to contact you.

Almost all of the profiles I see have the section completed for their interests. Not many of them have the contact advice filled in. If you put your contact information (email and phone#) in that section, then your potential connection can go back to the "Invitation Page", click on the "Other" button, enter your email address and send their invitation. You can provide contact information in this section by the following steps:
1. Go to the "Home Page" for your profile,

2. Put your cursor over your "Name Link" on the topmost right corner and click on "Settings" in drop down list,

3. If prompted, enter your password.

4. When your profile opens, click on the "Email Preferences" tab on the bottom left of the screen.

5. Click on the link that says "Select the types of messages you're willing to receive",

6. At the top of the opened box is a list of items for you to select indicating your interests. On the bottom is the "ADVICE TO PEOPLE WHO ARE CONTACTING YOU" box.

7. Here you can enter anything you want (Email/Phone/Other Info) and it will appear in the "Get Introduced Through a Connection" box I mentioned above.

Now your hopeful connection can go back to the "Request Invitation" link, Click on the "Other" button, enter their email address and send their invitation request.

How did I come across this information? The hard way. I am trying to build up my local links here in South Carolina as I seek to garner more connections for my Environmental Services business, and as I am keeping my eyes open for "regular" employment. I would invite anyone who, in the name of the spirit of entrepreneurship, would send an invitation to connect with me.
Keep on Connecting.

It is no secret that social media has rapidly evolved into a mainstream tool for business and networking.  While Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are strong social sites, LinkedIn seems to tilt its scale more towards a business-network orientation.

In fact, 59 percent among executives from the Fortune 500 companies say LinkedIn is their platform of choice over Facebook or Twitter.  This is up from 41 percent who called LinkedIn their most important social account a year earlier, according to a June report by Performics and ROI Research.  LinkedIn has more than 100 million members in more than 200 countries, on all seven continents. As of this past June, LinkedIn counted 33.9 million unique visitors, up 63 percent from a year earlier, according to internet analytics firm ComScore.

Market-research firm Lab42 finds that top-level executives and entry-level workers use LinkedIn differently: Younger members use the site mostly to post résumés and network for jobs, while more experienced professionals use it to demonstrate thought leadership and expertise, promote their businesses, conduct market research and–perhaps most important–win new business.

So, how might companies win new business on LinkedIn?

Target searches for keywords you’ve identified as central to your business. For example, target titles such as “VP of marketing,” specific ZIP codes and company names to identify key contacts to call or e-mail.

Track who is looking at your profile and your staff’s profiles. You can then research those individuals or companies in greater depth and perhaps market yourself or your business to them.

Research individuals and/or companies you are targeting for potential interaction. Set up a Company Page.
Setting up your business as a “company” on LinkedIn isn’t going to generate a bunch of leads, but it does give you an opportunity to have a presence on LinkedIn beyond a personal profile to ratchet up your company’s charisma with lots of activity rather than simply lots of members.

Discern patterns. Notice who’s connected in your industry.  Participate in LinkedIn groups catering to your target market in order to engage in conversations with the right people. Seek out groups

Using LinkedIn efficiently does take some focused effort, but it can be well worth it. Of course, be aware that your competitors are also able to apply these same tips and tricks; they are privy to the same social insights that could be giving them inside information about you. Your competition can also notice who you are connecting with, which could tip them off about potential new business you may be seeking to establish or have already established.

Organic Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of crafting or improving a website to increase search engine ranking, resulting in higher volumes of traffic to a web site. The assumption is that the higher a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it "ranks," the more searchers will visit that site. So effective SEO improves ranking for specific target audiences.

Please keep in mind that pictures and flash presentations do nothing for search engine ranking because search engines can only read text whilst evaluating a website. Therefore, a text-rich site, totally focused on your product and/or company is imperative for website success.

As a marketing strategy for increasing a site's relevancy, SEO considers how search engine algorithms work and what people search for when they want something. SEO efforts may involve website coding, presentation, and structure, as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine programs from fully indexing your website. Other more noticeable efforts may include adding unique content to a site.

To be affective, however, one must remember that if people don't see what they want and can easily take appropriate action, they will quickly move on to another site, leaving yours \"in the dust\" So websites must appeal both to search engine indexes and your web surfing audience. This requires a good Plan, Design, Implementation, Promotion, and Maintenance.

Pay per click (PPC) is paid advertising used on websites, advertising networks, and search engines where advertisers pay when a web surfer actually clicks on an ad to visit the advertiser's website. PPC works like an auction. Web advertisers bid on keywords that they believe their target market would type into the search bar when they are looking for products or services. When a user types a keyword query matching the advertiser's keyword list, the advertiser's ad may appear on the search results page. These ads are called "sponsored links\" or \"sponsored ads\" and appear next to, and sometimes, above the natural or organic results on the page. The advertiser pays each time a user clicks on the ad.

Pay per click ads may also appear on content network websites. In this case, ad networks such as Google, Adsense, and Yahoo! Publisher Network, attempts to provide ads that are relevant to the content of the page where they appear, and no search function is involved.

Minimum PPC start at US $0.01 - US $0.50). However, bidding for popular keywords can cost much much more!

It is strongly recommended that websites utilize Organic SEO whether or not they play PPC for these reasons:
1. SEO appeals to a broad range of search engines whilst PPC is search engine specific.
2. If PPC crosses your bid threshold, SEO will insure a higher ranking in the search engines.
3. If you stop playing PPC, your website may still enjoy a high rank.

You can stick a newspaper clipping in a folder and read it in 50 years. Not so with digital content: both the media AND the format can become unreadable. With so much of the world’s data - and yours - in digital form, more people wonder: how do I keep my pictures, music, videos, documents and more around for decades? Floppies? Tape? Flash Drives? Here's how.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=376&tag=nl.e040

No one is perfect. A project manager typically does the best job they can,  given the information available at the time. However, project managers sometimes make mistakes. This could be a mistake in communication, in estimation, or in understanding the project "Deliverable", etc. It would have to be a fairly large mistake to be classified as a formal issue, but large mistakes do happen.

Issues management is normally a cold and logical process, involving problem identification and resolution techniques. However, these specific types of issues can be especially difficult to resolve since the project manager may feel some defensiveness (and perhaps embarrassment) for having caused the problem to begin with. If this happens to you while managing a project, use the following steps to deal with it effectively.

1. Own the problem
You must first recognize the problem and own up to the fact that you caused it. If you caused the problem but try to blame it on others, you will probably find that resolving the problem is much more painful to you. If you caused the problem, or if you were partially at fault, be mature and honest enough to own it.

2. Communicate openly
You may be surprised how liberating it can be to just come right out and say that you blew it! I went to a meeting many years ago where the participants were ready to pound on a project manager because of a major problem that he caused. However, the first thing the project manager did when the meeting opened was to admit the mistake and take total responsibility. The rest of the attendees no longer felt like they needed to blame the project manager for all the problems--he had already admitted it! With that quickly out of the way, you can now focus on resolving the problem.

3. Resolve the problem coolly and calmly
You have the personally painful part out of the way. Now look for alternatives and resolve the problem using your normal issues management techniques. Don't get caught back up in the personal pain by acting defensive or by looking for ways that you can save face. Given the mistake made, look for the best resolution for your project.

4. Learn from the mistake
Turn your stumbling block into a stepping stone. Generally, each mistake you make can be turned into a learning experience. You can put better processes in place if that is appropriate. Or you can apply the learning personally and change your management processes (maybe even slightly) so that this type of problem does not occur again.

If you handle problems like this you will generally find that people give you the benefit of the doubt, and, in fact, many will even admire you for the way you address these personal challenges

Have you ever come across a product that really caught your eye that you have never seen online before?

If you have and you still know where to find it, why not consider trying to market it online? There are really countless ways of doing this, depending on the nature of the product and where you get hold of it from, but in general if you come across something that hasn’t really taken off online yet you have a great chance of beating everyone else to the punch.

Becoming a sales agent usually means you get a percentage from every sale you make, so the way to approach this opportunity depends on how many products you can get access to. Some businesses allow you to join as a sales agent and sell a range of products, in which case you could set up a website (with their agreement of course) promoting all of them in turn. You would then receive orders via your site and process them via your supplier directly.

It does depend a lot on how you get hold of the product or products in the first place though. Some businesses may agree to let you promote their product on a sale or return basis, or alternatively you may have to buy a quantity of the product first and take a chance on whether it would sell well online or not.

Whichever way you approach this opportunity, it’s clear that you should get stuck into some research before you agree to anything. Find out as much about the product as you can – who it would appeal to, what price it retails for, and how much your profit margin would be on each unit.

It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of finding a product that you love and you think you could make money with, but you need to be certain that a lot of other people will like it just as much as well! By finding out as much as you can in the first place you stand a better chance of making a good profit.

If you haven’t seen any particular product which grabs your interest the best place to start looking – ironically – is online. Search for companies that have offline sales agents already and think about approaching the best ones (the ones that appeal to you the most) with your proposition. As hard as it may be to believe there are still some businesses that don’t have any kind of online presence at all – and you could be just what they are looking for.

One final point – you should try looking in your local area to see what businesses are there, before you look any further afield. Quite often they will be the ones who haven’t got online yet.

It might take some work to find a product you like that has great potential for taking online, but the end result can be well worth it. Let us know your thoughts by leaving a message below before you start hunting.

Domain name flipping is the simple process of buying a domain name and then selling it for more money – so what exactly is website flipping all about?

If you’d prefer something a little more challenging (and potentially a lot more profitable) then website flipping might just be for you. It’s a longer process but the time you invest in this particular activity can net you a lot of cash. And there is more than one way of doing it as well, as you’re about to find out.

There is an ever growing band of people who have figured out that flipping websites is a great way to build up skills, knowledge and an impressive income at the same time.

The basic idea starts with you looking for a topic which does well online. Once you have a successful website on that topic (which you’ll do in one of the following two ways) you can offer it for sale to someone else.

The first way to do this is to start from scratch by selecting a domain name, building a website around it and building it up until it gets a good amount of traffic and interest from people who are into that subject. This can take some time as you will need to get the site indexed in Google before you can take advantage of the amount of search engine traffic that can come your way.

The idea is to build a site that has real money making potential, as well as being able to generate a good volume of traffic. You can do this by integrating elements such as Google Adsense, affiliate links and paid advertising into the site – and in some cases, paid memberships as well.

The second route to follow is easier – but it requires a little bit more research on your part. If the idea of building a site from scratch doesn’t appeal to you but you still want to sell websites for profit then this method should be the one to try. The trick is to look for a website that someone has built which is getting a reasonable amount of traffic. Keyword research will reveal those subject areas and keywords which are perennially popular online, and it is these kinds of websites you should be looking for – something that will always be pulling in traffic.

The fact is that you cannot simply pick a great domain name and stick a few articles and affiliate links on a website and expect it to make money. It takes time and effort, and that’s why websites which have the potential to do really well end up failing. It’s not so much the site as the owner in many cases.

So if you make a reasonable offer to that owner for their website, the chances are good that they will be only too pleased to get shot of the site. And that gives you the chance to get in there and really develop it in order to build on the traffic and potential it already has.

After a few months – when you are earning a dollar or more every day from your website – you can think about selling it. There are a number of websites and forums that have sections for flipping websites to other people, and depending on the profits you are making and the traffic you are getting you could make anything between a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars by flipping just one site.

And once you’ve done that and no doubt learned a lot from the experience, it’s a case of ‘rinse and repeat!’ There is no limit to the number of websites you can flip at any one time, although don’t forget you need a few months to go by before you make your first sale since you need your websites to develop before you can flip them. Once you get the ball rolling though you can expect to be selling one or more every week.

But before you become a ‘pro flipper’ for a living, why not leave us a comment in the box below? Then all you need to do is start scouting round for your very first flippable website!

Of all the different ways there are to make money online, this is probably one of the more unusual. It’s certainly not the first one to come to mind… and yet when you think of where you could end up by giving it a go (does the name Yahoo sound familiar?) you can see why it’s worth at least considering the idea.

What’s more, you can choose your focus so that it appeals to everyone online or just a specific topic area. If you choose the second option you could end up building a whole empire of websites over time.

So what is a website directory anyway? Simply put it’s a website which lists other websites. But of course it’s a little more than that. By putting them into specific categories everyone visiting your site will be able to find what they need quickly and easily.

The first step is to decide what you want the focus of your directory to be. Do you want to list anything and everything, or do you want to concentrate on a particular topic? For example you could create a directory listing shops and stores in a particular country. You obviously need to pick a subject area where there is plenty of meat to include; a website which lists fake mustache sellers in a specific town probably isn’t going to be that big.

Once you have your topic you need to create your site, and it needs to be a good one. It’s worth getting it designed professionally because people simply won’t use it if it doesn’t look respectable. The cost will be worth it though because you will then be able to charge for your listings.

Adding a fee structure to your website is the way in which you will make money. Free listings will also generate valuable free advertising and promotion for you, since in return for a free listing you will ask for a backlink to your website. The free listings should also be basic so as to allow for paid listings to stand out more and be worth the money you will charge for them.

So what kind of paid listings should you offer? You can charge for two basic types; for example a normal paid listing would appear at the top of its relevant category, whereas a premium paid listing could involve the use of bold type as well, so it would stand out more from its rivals.

You can develop paid services as much or as little as you like; for example free listings may not include a clickable link to the website being advertised, whereas paid listings will. You could also add an optional extra fee to premium paid listings to allow the purchaser to add their business logo or a photo to their listing as well.

The fees you charge are up to you, but it’s important to remember that people won’t pay money if their websites aren’t going to be seen by lots of potential customers. That’s why you need to make sure your site has real value by generating streams of traffic towards it (a good reason for having free listings which require a link to your site).

The more traffic your website directory is capable of getting, the more traffic your customers are likely to get in return, and the more they will be prepared to pay for a premium listing. In this way building a successful directory has two main areas of interest – firstly you need to get plenty of listings on your site, and secondly you need to get plenty of traffic to those listings.

By doing this you will be adding real value to your website and word will start to get out that your website directory does indeed help to drive traffic to people’s websites. Once you can legitimately lay claim to this then the paid requests for inclusion will start pouring in.

Once you get to this stage you might also consider spreading the word about the efficiency and benefits your site offers by spending some of your profits on more advertising. Google AdWords could get you even more paid listings for very little outlay.

Leave us a comment below to let us know what you think, and then start making plans for your very own website directory. Good luck!

How would you like to earn a little extra cash each month? Or even replace your income, working less to make more money…

For anyone wanting to make money online, affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to get started. Affiliate marketing is the act of referring online shoppers to various products and gaining a percentage of the sale in return. As an affiliate marketer, you are given your own links to a product so the seller knows when a customer you referred buys their product.

So what exactly are the benefits of affiliate marketing? There are dozens. Many sellers offer great incentives to affiliate marketers, with some offering as much as 50% commissions on products you refer customers to. This means you can make money on the side (or even replace your entire income if you become successful at it). This is one of the legitimate ways to bring in a passive income, as people from all around the world are buying products online at every minute of the day. You don’t have to develop any products yourself, either. It’s very easy to find outlets in which to plug in your links (oftentimes for free!). And make great money.

Writing articles related to the products you’re trying to market can be very beneficial in many ways. One, this builds your online presence, and thus, your credibility. Writing articles on one subject but with many angles will help you understand exactly what the product you’re affiliate marketing is all about, and help you to identify your target audience. Also the more articles you write, the more people will know about you, which will be great later down the road when you’re ready for your own website.

Writing blog articles for free in exchange for being allowed to include links to your products can be helpful in that you will have full access to each blogger’s followers. This way, you won’t have to go out and find your own customers, you just market to people who are already interested in the subject and are web-savvy (a must for anyone who would consider buying products online).

There are also article sites that will allow you to include links to your products at the bottom of the article, and better still: some sites might even pay you small fees for your articles. The key to attracting as many customers as possible is writing a fantastic article that isn’t too sales-pitchy and showing them how their lives can be even more enriched if they check out the products you have listed.

One day, you’re ultimately going to want to take the leap and get your own website. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just something simple enough for customers to navigate easily. Here, you can have your own store with links to the various products you’re marketing, as well as build a customer base through blogging. This opens multiple channels of communication with millions of potential consumers. Combined with social media marketing in order to get even more people connected, you can eventually have great success with affiliate marketing, as long as you choose quality products to market and sell them effectively.

You may not realize it but there are a number of ways you can cash in with Amazon.com. The way you choose as being the best one for you will largely depend on what you are already doing, and that’s where this particular blog comes in.

By doing this you will find that you can take advantage of the sheer amount of traffic and respectability that this website commands all over the world. It’s a lot like eBay in this respect – a lot of the hard work is done for you.

One of the best things about Amazon is that everyone can make some money with it if they want to, because it has a number of options to choose from. You will no doubt have heard about the Advantage program, which is ideal if you already have published books (no matter whether they are self published or through a conventional publisher) as you can get them listed on Amazon by following the instructions they give you in the Advantage program. This method also enables you to use On Demand publishing to minimize the risk of self publishing stacks of books that may not be sold.

But there is a lot more to Amazon than that. If affiliate marketing is more up your street, then take a look at their Associates program, which allows you to recommend customers to various products in order to make sales on them. The program is very well put together and as you would probably expect from such a major site there is a lot of information to read through as well.

Once you have signed up for free, you should make the effort to explore everything the site offers you. You will see that you can create banners, ads and much more to enhance your site – and this even extends to the colors you pick for your ads.

But one area you should definitely look at is the potential to create what they call an aStore. There are examples of these given on Amazon itself, and while they are quite basic in nature they do allow you to create web pages that are centered around a particular theme. So for example if your website is about golf, you can create an aStore which is stocked with the best books on golf and golfing.

This can be linked to from your main website or blog, giving an extra dimension to your site and giving you the opportunity to make more money from it as a result.

You can also select which colors you wish to use for these pages (you can build many more than just one!) so it will look exactly the same as your main website. You will need a website to join the program and they will vet it to make sure it is suitable for inclusion (but don’t worry, most are – it’s only the obvious types of exclusions that will apply) but this doesn’t even have to be one you pay for; people have got in by having a well constructed page or site from a free provider.

There is the potential to make a lot of money from the Associates program in particular, and it’s great to use if you have a whole range of websites since you can take advantage of the wide range of products they stock – it’s not just books and DVDs!

So if you are looking for a way to monetize the site or sites you have now, hotfoot it to Amazon and sign up for free. It is one of the best ways to start making some money by offering quality products at great prices.

Be sure to leave us a comment below before you start investigating everything that Amazon has to offer though!

Just in case you haven’t stumbled across this website yet, Craigslist is the basic looking but extremely popular website that has classified adverts for virtually everything you could think of.

As such it offers a number of ways that you can make money – all you need to do is get your thinking cap on and decide what way would work best for you. The vast majority of adverts are free to post, making this a great way to get in touch with people and offer services and products for sale.

With a little creative thinking you could soon join the band of people who are making a nice income from advertising on Craigslist.

One of the best ways to make money with this website is to think about what services you can offer to other people. The beauty of Craigslist is that there are separate parts of the website for each country and area, so you are sure to find one near you that would be ideal for posting your advert to.

You can often make money quite easily by offering a service related to one of your hobbies. For example, if you love gardening why not hire yourself out to do light gardening jobs for other people? This could be as simple as a lawn mowing service, or as complex as a complete garden makeover. The sky is the limit here, but be sure you have a list of prices and you know exactly what you are offering before you place your advert.

You can also use Craigslist to search for items that other people are looking to get rid of. Once you have something worthwhile you can sell it to someone else using everyone’s favorite website eBay. For some reason there are a lot of people who don’t think of using Craigslist in this way, which means there are a lot of bargains to be had – and a lot of money to be made once you sell them via this or any other auction site.

If you are currently selling items from your own website or via any other means you can also make money by selling them directly through classifieds on Craigslist. So long as you list them in the right section and describe them accurately (including relevant keywords wherever you can) you should get a good response and more sales just from doing this.

If you are thinking of making money via Craigslist in any way, it’s well worth spending some time browsing round the site to get an idea of the sheer scale of what it is all about. This activity alone should give you several ideas for making money that you might not previously have thought of.

Before you post an advert, make sure you read the help pages to ensure you don’t unwittingly break any rules. The help pages can be accessed via the top left hand corner of the home page. They are reasonably straight forward but you will want to use this site for many months to come, so it pays to look through them first to make sure you understand everything.

In short, Craigslist offers plenty of ways to make money from home; all you need to do is figure out the best way for you. But make sure you start with that research first. A search online will also reveal some blogs where other people share their own ways of bringing in an income from this site.

Make sure you leave us a comment below before you start making some healthy profits for yourself though!

If you always wanted to earn online income but didn’t know where to start, why not jump on the most popular social network site and take advantage of their ad serving platform?

Featured Story: Click Here to read about 2 College Guys Who Made $119K in One Month Using Facebook!

Believe it or not, tens of thousand of people are using Facebook every day to chat with their friends and have fun… while others are making money at the same time.

Would you like to know how to cash-it on this social phenomenon?

Would $5… $50… or $150 in additional income make you happier? What would you do with the “new found” money?

Let’s make it happen, here are three quick steps:

Step #1

Once you have signed up to Facebook your first step should be to think about how you want to present yourself. You don’t want to fake it, just be yourself and showcase your skill, your hobby or knowledge – that is what makes money from Facebook.

Don’t forget that you want to attract the attention of a specific group of people here, so that you become known as someone who is something of an expert on one particular subject. So choose wisely!

Step #2

Go for a popular niche that you personally like and have an interest in. Develop your persona in that area. If you already have something of a web presence in a particular area then you’ll use that in your advantage because — it will help you as more and more people become aware of who you, your skill/knowledge and how this can help them.

Step #3

Your first port of call, if you have anything second hand to sell which is related to your niche, is the Marketplace. It’s free to place ads in the Marketplace and there is no limit on how many you can place.

EXAMPLE: you come across a bargain lot of books on your subject on eBay or at a yard sale you can list them all individually on Facebook and sell them on for a profit.

If you have a budget to spend on advertising and you have some external websites you want to promote, you can try out the Social Ads to see what benefits you get from them. It is well worth reading through the relevant help section to see what is involved though, as it is quite in depth.

FACEBOOK BEST ADVANTAGE:

The main benefit of becoming a Facebook member is that you can build and use any number of applications to perform certain tasks on your profile page.

The GREAT NEWS is that Facebook doesn’t frown at users making money from their Facebook page, and indeed many people link in to other websites outside of Facebook itself.

People are constantly building new applications and often they are used by many other users to create pages that appeal to their own particular needs.

This is partly why you will succeed in making more money from Facebook if you brand yourself carefully before you get started on the site.

BRANDING YOURSELF?

Figure out what it is you want to do and what you want to achieve. If you already have a website up and running then you will be able to link into that, so keep the look and feel of your Facebook page in the same vein as your site.

But while you can link to other sites outside of Facebook, some people also sprinkle some affiliate links on their actual Facebook page itself. For example, some quick research revealed one person who links into a range of ClickBank products on their page and does well from doing so.

So long as you start from a strong position with a particular focus and brand in mind, you can do well by experimenting with all the benefits that Facebook offers (and they’re growing).

Take time to build up a network of friends and make sure you become known for being an expert in your particular sphere of interest/niche.

Exposure is what you should aim for. The more people you make friends with and add to your network, the more money you should be generating. However, don’t make the mistake to go after “friends” for money.

Put people first, money will follow. It’s like in the real life, just a different medium, the same communication skills and principles apply though.

You should always sound, look and act real, don’t pretend to be someone else. People feel it nowadays more than ever.

Every time we turn around we’re hearing about another social networking site offering users unlimited possibilities. Twitter is just such a site. Twitter is a very popular site that’s gaining more popularity every day. Members are constantly “tweaking” their friends, family members and even work associates! It seems like almost every one of all ages has a Twitter account today and many are making money doing it. Yes, you can make money with Twitter. Join the thousands of others that are doing that very thing. While you won’t become a millionaire overnight, Twitter offers you a great chance to earn some real cash!

Twitter Offers Many Money-Making Opportunities

There are several ways you can make money with Twitter. Before you can begin making money on Twitter, you will need lots of contacts the better. It’s been shown that Twitter users are getting as many as 20,000 followers within just the first month or two of joining. Imagine if you made a sale to just 1% of these followers: you’d have sold to 200 people. The opportunities to make money are endless with Twitter. So make as many friends as you can on Twitter and develop a good trusting relationship with these users. The more Twitter friends you make, the better your opportunity to make money.

Become an Affiliate on Twitter

Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money online while doing very little in the way of work. Most online companies offer an affiliate program to anyone interested. Find a company that offers affiliate marketing (it will be on the bottom of their website). Sign up and wait to hear from them. They’ll check out your Twitter page and make sure it offers good opportunities for sales. Once they’ve accepted you as an affiliate, you’re all set to go.

Put up an attractive ad for the business and promote it to all your followers. The more of your followers you can get to purchase the product, the more money you’ll make. Since Twitter is such a large social networking site, the possibilities just keep getting bigger and bigger. Some companies will even pay if a person just clicks on the ad without making a sale, although these are rarer. Affiliate marketing is a very popular way to make money and if you have a Twitter page anyways (who doesn’t?), you may as well make some money at the same time.

Make Money on Twitter with RevTwt

RevTwt is a platform that deals with CPC (cost per click) and allows you to make money from your tweets. For those unfamiliar with Twitter, tweets are messages and posts you put on your Twitter page.

Sign up for an account with RevTwt and they’ll check out your Twitter profile. After doing this, they’ll allow you to put ads for different products or services on your Twitter page. Each time someone clicks on these ads, you can make money.

As you can see, there’s a lot of money to be made off of Twitter but the key is to get as many followers as possible so make all the friends you can!

YouTube is one of those websites that really has taken the internet by storm. So long as you have the right equipment to shoot a home movie (and it isn’t too hard to come by without shelling out loads of cash nowadays) you stand a chance of developing an existing business or starting a new one, purely by signing up to YouTube and putting those movies online.

But that doesn’t explain what kind of videos you should be making. Well relax, because that is what you are about to find out. There is one very good way to make money using this website, you are about to find out what it is.

Let’s start by looking at YouTube as a way to bring in more business for your existing venture. If you can shoot short videos related to your business (making sure you include the URL to your website on the video itself) you can expect to receive more traffic to your website and hopefully more customers as a result.

Let’s say for example you run a website which sells all kinds of craft items. So you might make a video showing people how to make their own home made cards. They would then check out your website to see what you sell. This process can be duplicated no matter what kind of business you have.

The key is to think visually. It’s no good simply sitting in front of a camera telling people about something – you need to show them as well. Always remember this when you are thinking of ideas for videos – you will get a better response to them if you do.

In this sense you aren’t making money directly from YouTube; rather, you are using it as a way to make money elsewhere. It is a great tool for attracting attention and funneling people off the site. You cannot actually tout for business directly on the site anyway, so you are better off focusing on how you can get the attention of people whom you could sell to. Once you figure out how to do that, they will be more than happy to check out your website to see what you offer.

But what if you don’t already have a business to promote? Well, there are a number of people who have been successful in promoting affiliate opportunities on the site – again by inserting the relevant web address on the video itself (if you go on YouTube you will see this appearing time and time again as a kind of watermark effect) and either posting a video that is free for anyone to use and post, or by making their own. Again, so long as you post something that is relevant to what you are selling you should get a decent amount of traffic flowing to your website.

It might take a short while to get used to how uploading videos to YouTube works (particularly if you haven’t done it before) but once you have done a couple you will get the hang of it. More importantly you will have found another stream of income to add to your internet marketing arsenal of ideas!

One final point – be original. You can choose copyright free videos, but if you can make a fairly decent one yourself, why not try and attract more attention with that?

Leave us a comment below to let us know how you intend to use YouTube to make money!

What is the one thing that everyone is looking for when they go online? You’ve got it – information. And if you can supply it in all kinds of shapes and forms then you will be paid for doing so, which could lead to a whole new career as a web writer.

Of course it isn’t just online markets that need content; there are hundreds of other markets you could break into as well, including magazines, but overall it is the internet which offers the best opportunities, especially for the beginning writer.

So why should you start online when you want to earn money writing? The reason is simple – it isn’t just editors that need your work. Website owners, people with newsletters that need writing and countless others all have writing jobs that they can’t or won’t do or don’t have the time to do themselves.

That generally sends them scurrying to websites like Elance and Get A Freelancer to find people who will write the articles and content they need for them. There are plus points and negative points to writing for the internet; you won’t often see your work published under your own name as you will usually be ghostwriting it for someone else, but you will get a lot of work since jobs quite often come in batches. You won’t often get just a single article to write for instance – you might get a half dozen, ten, twenty or even more, so the money can soon mount up.

The best places for finding work are the aforementioned sites, but you should also look on classified ad sites such as Craigslist for jobs in your own country and in other places around the world. There are also plenty of writing related websites that can easily be found via the search engines if you look for ‘online writing jobs’ or something similar. Don’t forget blogging jobs as well; if you have your own blog then you already have experience in blogging, so apply for as many as you can. Ongoing blogging jobs are great for bringing in a regular stream of income.

Getting started and building contacts is the hardest part. Go for jobs you feel confident in doing to begin with; after a while you will pick up speed and complete them faster and much more easily. You will soon learn to juggle your work as well in order to meet all your deadlines before they fall due – this is an essential skill you will need to develop in order to position yourself as one of the best in the business.

You could also work for a ghostwriting team if you prefer; these can also be found via the search engines and a simple email should reveal whether they are accepting new writers at any time. This can make life easier since you don’t have to go looking for work all the time – it is generally supplied by the team leader, depending on how that particular team works.

But can you really make a full time income by doing this? The answer is yes you can, but speed and quality are of the essence. If you produce good work then people will naturally come back to you for more of the same. They will also pay more for work of a better standard, so make sure you don’t put yourself down with the $2 an article crowd.

It will take time to build up enough work to be able to leave your current job and start a brand new career as a web writer, but there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to do this if you persevere and keep checking the classified ad sites and job boards every single day. Don’t wait to apply for jobs either – do it as soon as you see them appear. Getting in early can make all the difference in some cases.

So do you think you have it in you to be a writer? If you do there is a huge market out there just waiting for you to dive in. Just remember where you came from, and leave us a comment by using the form below before you go and begin your new career!

Managing by due date is the only way to proactively manage the project workplan

If you are an inexperienced project manager you've probably gone down the "percent complete abyss" at some point. Here's how it goes: The project manager assigns a piece of work to a team member and asks that it be done by Friday. The team member agrees but sure enough, on Friday the work is not done. The project manager asks how close it is and the person responds "90% complete." The project manager walks away, confident the work is almost done. The next Tuesday the project manager asks if the work is done and the person says no, but he is 95% done. The project manager is satisfied that progress is being made and walks away. On Friday the work is still not done, but the team member is now 99% done. The next Tuesday he is 99.9% done.

You get the picture. If you're the project manager, what have you learned when a person says he is 90%, 95% or 99% done? In fact you haven't really learned a thing. When a person tells you that an activity is 90% complete, what they heck does that mean? Why not 85% complete or 93% complete? It's all just a subjective guess.

(I understand that percent complete may have value on a project basis if you're using earned value calculations. But it's meaningless on individual activities. Even in earned value, you usually care only about precision with three values -- 0% -- not started, 50% -- started, 100% -- completed.)

The better way to manage the work is to ask "when will the work be done?" If the schedule shows an activity should be completed on Friday and the work is not done, don't ask the team member for the percentage complete. Instead ask the team member "when will the work be done?" Asking when the work will be completed gives you concrete information you can place on your workplan, while also getting the team member to make another commitment to the new end date.

Here's how that scenario plays out in the prior example with our team member named Joe.

Project manager: "Joe, your assignment was due today and I see you're not done. Let’s discuss why." (They discuss the reasons.)

Project manager: "When will the work be done? Next Tuesday. Okay."

(Next Tuesday arrives. Work is still not done.)

Project manager: "Joe, this work was due last Friday. Then you told me it would be done Tuesday. The work is still not done. Why?" (They discuss the reasons.)

Project manager: "When will the work be done?"

Again, you see how the scenario plays out. Asking for when the work will be done requires Joe to re-commit. After missing two deadlines, hopefully Joe now feels a genuine obligation to get the work done -- a level of commitment that doesn’t exist in the 90%, 95%, 99% scenario. This also gives the project manager information in terms of Joe’s ability to manage his time, estimate his work correctly and meet his commitments.

Managing by due date is the only way to proactively manage the project workplan.

Here are 3 things to keep in mind during the times when all forms of common sense seem to have gone up in smoke and craziness rules the hallways:

#1 Results = Rewards: There will be times it seems that form and process are the most important things in your company and consequently to your boss. They aren't.

Over thirty years, I don't recall a single person getting a monster bonus at year's end or awesome promotion for following the company's process better than the rest of the team. Over the long run, great rewards go to those that shows great results. If you want that promotion or raise, this is how you get it!

#2 Face time works better than technology: So your boss is incompetent; & doesn't have a clue about the company, your job or even his own. Do you really have to waste more your time meeting with him or her? Yes, absolutely. And it's not a waste.

It's actually smart to spend one-on-one time with your superior. Don't rely on email or voicemail. Your boss probably receives too many electronic messages already. And while it seems like efficient time management to communicate through email or voicemail, it does little good for your career if (s)he doesn't know much about you beyond the role you perform. Go out of your way to talk to the boss about your responsibilities and accomplishments in person. Leave it to everyone else to fill up the boss' in-boxes. In addition, you my learn why your boss is the boss and gain a greater appreciation for the guidance an tutelage provided!

#3: A good listener is hard to find: Recognize that all bosses expect to be heard and then have their directions followed. So - Listen, listen, listen. And remember that you have two ears and one mouth for a good reason.

Don't be one of those misguided types who debates everything they're instructed to do. After the first 1 or 2 times, it doesn't show anyone how smart you are. It just becomes tiresome.

If these tips are tough to accept, keep in mind that someone else in your company is ready and willing to give the boss what they want. Better it's you.

Branding is getting the public to think of your company when they want to buy.

Examples: Document Copies - XEROX, Computers - Dell, Toilet Paper - Charmin.... Tap into that and you own the market. But is it realistic for a small business in a local market to make that happen?

By knowing how your company is perceived by the rest of  the world, you can use your image to instill trust, loyalty, and stability within your customers. When you think of Lowe's Home Improvement you should think of a hardware store that focuses on low prices. When you think of Home Depot you should think of a hardware store that focuses on customer service. Lowes customer base is more interested in finding low prices for their hardware and supplies while the Home Depot customer base is more interested in having help finding what they need for their projects.

Most companies have a logo and/or slogan which is also part of their branding strategy.

Typically a company will use their main theme in their slogan. Domino's Pizza promotes themselves as the delivery experts while Papa John's Pizza promotes themselves as the pricier Better Ingredients, Better Pizza. Again the conclusion is simple; the Domino's customer base orders from Domino's for a speedy delivery while Papa John's customer base orders for the quality and taste. Business branding is a marketing strategy used to promote your companies goals which attract customers.

Your Branding Strategy

Choosing the right business branding strategy for your business will help in

attracting customers that share a common need for what you sell. Some people feel that providing great customer service is what they want to focus on. This is by far the most

popular and attractive branding method used to this day. Then you have businesses that focus on providing the lowest prices possible. This also works very well, especially in a market with expensive name brand items. Taking care of your customers is very important because they are the source of your success. There will always be customers who want to find the best deal while there will be customers who will want service and assistance.

The Internet Marketplace

Selling products on the internet is different than selling products in a brick and mortar store. There are still a lot of people who refuse to buy anything over the internet

because of the inconvenience of waiting for the product to be shipped, payment

methods, and the possibilities of fraud. The number of people becoming comfortable with buying products online is growing everyday, exponentially every year, and especially during the economic slowdown.

The Informative Pre-selling

The soul of the internet is information and this is what most people use the internet for and lot of folks are using the web to research products and prices before they go shopping. When consumers walk into department stores they already have something in mind they want to buy and they don't need much if any information about the product. I have found that on the internet it is much better to provide good informative content about your products to make sales. The main reason people are online is that they are looking for information about the products they want to buy so it is important to provide everything you can about each and everyone of your products no matter how known or trivial it may be.

Business Branding With Product Information

No matter what you choose, a good customer service policy or a low prices theme, you can use information to make sales. A good strategy I have seen is to use information as your companies branding strategy and combine the low prices and customer service themes. Set your store up to compare products with the information you provide for each product side by side. This is really useful to the customer who can then decide which one they want, the product that is cheaper or the product that is of better quality. This is the road that a lot of successful e-commerce businesses have taken because it provides a solution for each type of customer you may receive.

Conclusion

Having a targeted business branding strategy can eliminate any mystery your shoppers may feel when browsing your on-line or brick 'n' motor store. When you give your business a theme and show your customers your goals, they will be more willing to buy from you. Your business will have a direction and once you have established trust among your customers repeat sales will come. Who knows, you might become the next "Pillsbury that Makes It Best!"

For nearly two decades, consulting firms, technology companies, R&D-driven corporations and other knowledge-intensive organizations have made significant investments in \"knowledge management\" initiatives. These initiatives are intended to facilitate the capture and transfer of company expertise as a way to spur learning and innovation.

But research by Wharton management professor Martine Haas and Morten Hansen, professor of entrepreneurship at INSEAD, indicates that knowledge sharing efforts often fail to result in improved task outcomes inside organizations -- and may even hurt project performance. However, organizations that plan carefully before launching a knowledge-sharing initiative, and support these efforts along the way, have a much better chance of adding value, the researchers say.

Haas acknowledges that, initially at least, the premise of their research appears to contradict accepted wisdom. \"The expectation has been that knowledge gathering should be beneficial for project teams,\" Haas says. \"This thinking is consistent with strategic management theories [suggesting] that knowledge resources provide a critical source of competitive advantage for firms.\"

Yet in practice, according to Haas, the types of knowledge shared and the design of the organization's project teams are likely to influence the success or failure of a knowledge-sharing effort. \"Companies and other organizations are spending large sums of money to capture and disseminate their stores of knowledge,\" she notes. \"But a significant number are not getting the full value of their investment. In fact, project teams that are badly designed or use the wrong type of knowledge for their task can see their performance suffer rather than improve as a result of efforts to use knowledge from other parts of the organization.\"

In a paper titled, \"Different Knowledge, Different Benefits: Toward a Productivity Perspective on Knowledge Sharing in Organizations,\" Haas and Hansen identify two distinct ways in which knowledge sharing usually occurs in organizations. \"The first way is through direct contact between individuals, typically when one person advises another about completing a specific task,\" says Haas. \"The defining characteristic of this mode is that the handover of knowledge requires direct contact between the provider and receiver -- through meetings, by phone or via e-mail.\" Direct contact allows for the transmission of tacit or non-codified knowledge that may be difficult to put in writing.

In contrast, another way to obtain knowledge is through the use of written documents available from databases or libraries,\" Haas notes. \"This mode is appropriate for knowledge that can be readily codified, including certain procedures and other data.\"

Using Codified Knowledge

In a study of 182 sales teams that were bidding for new client contracts in a management consulting company, Haas and Hansen found that using personal advice from experienced colleagues can improve work quality. As an example, their paper notes that colleagues with experience in areas related to a sales proposal can provide complementary expertise that a team can draw on to generate ideas and identify possible solutions for a prospective client.

The relative richness of direct personal contact also enables colleagues to help a team develop customized and creative products for its client, since they can tailor their advice to the specific situation and engage in two-way discussions to gain insight.

Enlisting the assistance of experienced colleagues who can directly communicate to external constituencies, such as clients, also sends a signal that the organization has deep competence in their area, Haas notes. "Consultants frequently travel to sales meetings with potential clients accompanied by experts from the firm who help them convey the message that the consulting work will be done by competent individuals. Also, the names and credentials of advisors often are listed in proposal documents, identifying them as contributors to the proposal and to the future project work.\"

The strategy of obtaining personal advice, however, also involves processing costs. Having colleagues attend meetings or appear on client documents can backfire if these colleagues are unwilling to exert the effort needed to fully understand the client's situation, adapt their knowledge to the task at hand or respond to client demands. \"Teams need to be aware\", says Haas, \"that the signaling benefits of expert colleagues can be offset by the possible problems involved.\"

Further, contacting colleagues who might be able to assist the team and securing their help takes valuable time, both directly and indirectly, when the need to reciprocate arises. Considering the costs of personal advice, the net effect of using this type of knowledge on time savings is unclear and likely to be weak.

One way around this is to utilize codified knowledge, typically electronic documents. According to the researchers, electronic documents affect project performance through the mechanism of reuse, or the proportion of a document's content that a team can incorporate directly into its project outputs. \"In the management consulting context, electronic documents often include detailed information and well-developed analyses, such as market data, algorithms, software code and competitor profiles,\" says Haas. \"Reuse of existing information and analyses can help teams to avoid duplicating the efforts already expended by others.\"

But here, too, processing costs are involved, she notes, since the documents may have to be reworked or augmented to adapt the knowledge they contain to a specific task.

\"We find that using codified knowledge in the form of electronic documents saved time during the task, but did not improve work quality or signal competence to clients, whereas in contrast, sharing personal advice improved work quality and signaled competence, but did not save time,\" Haas says. \"This is interesting because managers often believe that capturing and sharing knowledge via document databases can substitute for getting personal advice, and that sharing advice through personal networks can save time. But our findings dispute the claim that different types of knowledge are substitutes for each other. Instead, we show that appropriately matching the type of knowledge used to the requirements of the task at hand -- quality, signaling or speed -- is critical if a firm's knowledge capabilities are to translate into improved performance of its projects.\"

While part of the challenge is to use knowledge appropriate for the task, Haas notes that organizations also face the problem of setting up teams in ways that help them take full advantage of the knowledge they use. As the researchers note in their paper, many project teams in knowledge-intensive organizations operate in environments than can interfere with their ability to perform well because they are characterized by overload, ambiguity and politics.

These characteristics create problems when teams attempt to obtain and use knowledge from other parts of their organization. \"In overloaded environments, project teams face a multitude of possible issues to address and solutions with which to address them, and as a result of ambiguity, there is little way to know which problems and solutions to select,\" Haas says. \"Beyond these problems, multiple stakeholders may have personal agendas and interests in the team's selections that may actually work at cross-purposes with the team's own efforts.\"

'Time Famine'

In a study of 96 teams in a financial institution, other researchers investigated design features that can help teams avoid such problems by enhancing their processing, sense-making and buffering capabilities. They identified three conditions that can increase the benefits that teams gain from using external knowledge: slack time, work experience and decision-making autonomy.

\"The concept of 'slack' refers to the availability of resources that go beyond the requirement for regular activities,\" notes Haas. \"Slack time is the amount of time and attention the team members can commit to the project beyond the minimum required.\" Studies have found that \"time famine\" -- or a feeling of having too much to do and not enough time in which to do it -- can reduce team productivity.

Teams with insufficient slack time may download large quantities of documents from a database without checking their quality, skim the papers on their desk superficially -- missing important information -- or fail to solicit sufficiently diverse views by only consulting close colleagues who will return their phone calls promptly. These shortcuts can reduce the benefits of the knowledge inputs they obtain. In contrast, Haas points out, \"slack time increases processing capability because team members have more time and attention available to allocate to knowledge-related as well as other task activities.\"

In ambiguous situations, meanwhile, team members face multiple interpretations of the information, know-how and feedback they obtain, and they must engage in a continuous process of sense making to construct meaning from these inputs. The level of prior work experience possessed by team members may also create absorptive capacity that facilitates the assimilation, interpretation and application of new knowledge, Haas and Hansen note in their paper.

Research points to the conclusion that prior experience generates tacit knowledge that enhances a team member's ability to interpret external knowledge appropriately and apply it effectively, notes Haas in a 2006 paper titled, "Knowledge Gathering, Team Capabilities, and Project Performance in Challenging Work Environments.\" Additionally, prior experience tends to help team members move up their own learning curves, helping them to build on past successes and avoid past mistakes when they interpret and apply external knowledge.

Consequently, teams with members who have more years of work experience -- with the focal organization or with other companies -- possess greater capability to make sense out of chaos. Further, Haas suggests, team members with longer organizational tenure can make better judgments about how to interpret and apply external knowledge in ways that are appropriate in the particular organizational setting, compared with team members who are relatively new to the organization.

In addition to staffing teams with experienced members, if possible, and giving them sufficient slack time, Haas argues that an organization's project teams should be given sufficient autonomy to make their own decisions. \"While many outsiders who provide information, know-how and feedback to team members do not attempt to influence the team unduly, others may promote their own agendas and interests through distortion or manipulation,\" she says. \"If a team cannot buffer itself against efforts to excessively influence its decisions, its project may be derailed by these external agendas and interests.\"

As Haas notes in her earlier paper, \"the buffering capability of a team is greater if it has more autonomy, or collective control, over critical decisions about its objectives, resources, design and processes. When team members have the ability to make independent decisions, they can reject influence attempts that might harm the project and resist giving in to potentially harmful external demands about critical task-related decisions.\"

In turn, she adds, outsiders tend to interpret greater autonomy as a signal that a team is more capable, making external interference less justifiable. Finally, the buffering advantages of autonomy also can enhance the processing and sense-making capabilities of project teams by freeing the team members to focus more energy on their activities.

Leveraging Knowledge Successfully

Early organizational design research in the 1970s focused on arrangements that increase exchanges of information across internal boundaries, such as official boundary-spanning roles or cross-functional taskforces, Haas points out in her earlier research. Subsequent research on project teams emphasized the importance of going beyond the team's boundaries to find valuable information for the task.

Recent studies of social networks have further illuminated the types of interactions that facilitate information exchanges in organizations, she adds. These examinations of the social side of knowledge sharing have been complemented by research on knowledge management technologies, including electronic database systems and communication innovations ranging from e-mail to teleconferencing.

But for the most part, according to Haas' earlier paper, studies of knowledge gathering have overlooked the costs involved, as well as the difficult problems faced by teams in environments characterized by overload, ambiguity and politics. Yet even if teams manage to gather knowledge successfully, the benefits of gathering that knowledge may be limited by such costs and problems, especially if the teams fail to match their knowledge gathering efforts to the task requirements or lack the capabilities to utilize the knowledge effectively.

Haas' most recent research efforts draw upon studies in the consulting and financial industries, but she says the underlying issues may be found in many organizations that depend on knowledge sharing efforts, including research and development teams in consumer goods, pharmaceuticals and other manufacturing settings, as well as legal, accounting and other professional service firms.

A central concern that these environments usually share is that their projects are non-routine, according to Haas. The difficulties inherent in performing successfully on innovative projects are increased further by the rapid pace of change in many knowledge-intensive industries, she adds.

Overall, research by Haas and Hansen suggests that organizations that care about knowledge sharing must look beyond intermediate goals -- such as promoting knowledge capture, search and transfer -- when setting up and supporting initiatives in this area. To effectively leverage knowledge sharing activities, they must consider the costs as well as the benefits of knowledge sharing processes, and make sure they understand the implications for task-level performance outcomes.

Moving beyond a focus on knowledge sharing itself as the outcome that firms are trying to maximize, Haas and Hansen's research has identified three dimensions of task performance -- work quality, time savings and signals of competence -- that are often critical to the productivity of knowledge work.

The first key implication is that it is unsafe to assume that more knowledge sharing is always better. In fact, the researchers note, using too much of the wrong type of knowledge can harm project performance because there are costs as well as benefits involved. The second key implication is that it unsafe to assume that the net effects of using even the right type of knowledge are always positive. Instead, the design of a project team affects its ability to achieve the desired advantages of knowledge sharing. It is not uncommon for organizations to install costly knowledge management systems, such as document databases, or to spend time promoting knowledge-sharing forums among employees and others.

"These are big investments,\" says Haas, \"and organizations need to understand how to take advantage of them most effectively if they are to fully deliver on the tantalizing promises they offer\"

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In this economy, being able to close important deals and negotiate better prices and terms is more essential than ever. But if you're worried that being a good negotiator means having to fight dirty, you're wrong – a negotiation should be an opportunity for give and take that results in a win-win situation for the participants involved. Learning how to negotiate effectively can help you achieve these winning results while strengthening business relationships.

Start improving your negotiation skills with these dos and don'ts:

Don't appear needy.

People can smell desperation. This will weaken your position and allow opponents to get you to make too large a concession or give too deep a discount.

Don't take it personally.

Getting your emotions involved will cloud your ability to make sound arguments and judgments. To keep yourself from losing your cool, think of yourself as a professional deal maker who will not be personally affected by the outcome of the negotiation. Take your emotions out of the equation.

Be prepared to walk away.

Being able to say “no” and mean it ensures you don't end up making a bad deal. Before going into negotiations – and before your emotions and the heat of the moment become part of the mix – set your walk-away point. Then if the terms offered do not match up to your expectations, walk away. This not only strengthens your position, it will also win you some respect.

Don't force it.

By dragging out negotiations that are going nowhere, you're wasting time and causing a lot of frustration. By pressuring your opponents to make an agreement they don't want or can't afford to make, you're creating bad feelings that could lead to mistrust and a wary working relationship. Remember, it's about give and take, and when neither party is willing to budge, the negotiation is over.

Further, like many things in life, it's beneficial to:

Do your research.

Good negotiators come prepared. They find out what their opponent's needs and wants are and what competitors can offer. They anticipate objections so they can counter them with arguments or other concessions.

Practice, practice, practice.

Like anything else, getting good at negotiating requires practice. Develop your confidence by practicing whenever you have the chance, whether it's at a flea market or at home with your family members. Get used to negotiating in your daily life.

Ask for it.

Many people dislike negotiating because they feel embarrassed or scared asking for things they want. But if you don't ask for something, you'll rarely, if ever, get it. In fact, you may be pleasantly surprised by what you can get if you ask for it. If the answer is “no,” then you have a starting point for your negotiations.

Those who are good at negotiating usually enjoy it. So don't dread or fear negotiations. See it as a fun exchange, a battle of skills, practice grounds for future negotiations, and more importantly, as a way to build up the client-vendor relationship and win terms, prices and deals that are advantageous for you and your business.

An employee (not one of our customers) was moved to a less prestigious position but received the same pay. Both jobs were performed in an air-conditioned office in an eight hour day that began at 7:00am. . However, the new job offered little upward potential and prestige. The employee was simply moved to a position with a greater need in the billing department.

The instructions were simple, print the invoices, stuff the invoices in a window envelope, run the envelope through the envelope sealer, then run the envelope through the stamp machine.

Sounds simple enough to me. Easy job; no headaches. In fact, this person did the same job two years ago. What could go wrong?

Well, I'll tell you. Rather than placing the stamped envelopes in the mail basket, the employee crammed them into a cuby above the desk where they sat for five weeks. AR balances were rising whilst receipts took a dive.

Mean time, the IT guy had to add phone lines in the area, opened the cuby and invoices began spilling out onto the floor. As the IT guy feverishly re-stuffed the invoices back into the cuby, the CFO (Chief Financial Officer) noticed the ruckus down the hallway and perused by to see what the excitement was all about. You should have seen his face when he realized that over 1.7 million in invoices where "here instead of there"! Ready to be mailed instead of ready to be paid! Good thing you didn't hear what he said!

When asked why, the employee responded "You never told me to mail them!"

Should this employee "get off on a technically"?

In my book, employees should exert themselves mind and body as agreed for the companies benefit during working hours. And if you have a question or see a gap in the process, it is the employee's duty to ask!

If you require additional information or assistance with this item, please give us a call.

It probably comes as no surprise that many organizations are prepared to foot part of the bill if you work from home. Or you might be contemplating a home-based business. Setting up a home office sounds easier than it is, but at the same time, is pretty simple. You just need to have some foresight into devising the office space you want to work in.

Of course if you're going to be in that home office all day, you should push for maximum comfort and efficiency. But even that doesn't have to break your bank account.

1. The Desk: It's easy to go cheap with pre-fab furniture. But if you're going to be working at home all day (even if not) you can still find a nice desk. Can't afford a new one? Check out craigslist.com to find furniture in your own area. You can also find a cheap quality furniture at office furniture stores. The small mom-and-pop shops often have floor sample discounts and other deals that push Wal-Mart or Target fiberboard desks to the dust. Not to knock the big box stores, though. Some of their materials are very sturdy and you can even find a good desk there if you wait for close-outs.

2. Embrace technology:

Again, it depends what your needs are out of a home office. But if you're going to run a business from it, I highly advice putting money into an all-in-one machine that will print in color, copy, fax, and scan (if you don't already have separate machines). They work well and take up less space. I have a Brother MFC 5860 All-In-One. It has USB, Network, and WiFI capability. I paid $99.00 dollars (Office Max). I usually buy quality machines that reach the end of their sales cycle. Six months ago this machine listed for $499 - big savings.

A good computer is key. Depending on what you do, though, you may not need the speediest, top-of-the-line machine. Laptop VS Desktop - Option call. But since you will probably want your computer to last a few years, buy name brand and do it right. Again, closeouts can save much coin. My Toshiba, (Pentium Dual Core 360 gig drive 4 gigs ram) listed for $1995.00 six months ago but I found it at Circuit City for $449.00.

Internet access: DSL is OK - Cablemodem is better.

Network: WiFI works but wired network is much more reliable

WiFI: Stick with 802.11g - 802.11n is not ready for prime time

FAX: Unless you do a lot of volume, fax services are the way to go.

Phone Service: Voicepulse gives me unlimited long distance and every calling feature imaginable for 49.99 a month and their system is never down.

Problems arise on many projects. A proactive project manager should have a set of problem resolution techniques that can be applied in different instances. One technique for analyzing complex problems that appear to have many interrelated causes is called a “cause and effect” diagram. Because of its shape, this technique is also called a Fishbone Diagram. (Another name you might hear for this technique is an Ishikawa Diagram. This is named for Professor Kaoru Ishikawa, a Japanese professor who pioneered the diagram in 1943.) Some benefits of a Fishbone:

Diagram include:

• It allows various categories of causes to be explored.
• It encourages creativity through a brainstorming process.
• It provides a visual image of the problem and potential categories of causes.

The following description and examples show how the problem-solving technique works.

First, describe the problem on the far right side of the diagram. This may be the actual problem or it may be a symptom — at this point you’re not exactly sure.

Draw a long horizontal arrow pointing to the box. This arrow will serve as the backbone from which further major and minor causes will be categorized and related. (See Figure A.)

Figure A

Identify potential causes and group them into major categories along the “bones” of the Fishbone Diagram. You should brainstorm to identify the major categories; at this point, you shouldn’t be concerned if there’s disagreement about whether a category holds the potential cause — just put them all up. Make sure to leave enough space between the major categories on the diagram so that you can add minor detailed causes in later. (See Figure B.)

Figure B

Continue to brainstorm the causes by looking at more detailed explanations for each of the major cause categories identified above. The team should ask whether each category is a cause, or if it is a symptom. If it’s a symptom, try to identify the more detailed causes on slanted lines that hook up to the appropriate major category lines. (See Figure C.)

Figure C

Sometimes, the detailed causes will have other, more granular causes coming off of them. If so, connect additional lines to the detailed lines. Three levels of detail is usually the practical limit for this diagram.

When you finish brainstorming major causes/symptoms and more detailed causes and symptoms, the team can begin analyzing the information. Evaluate each major cause and the potential detailed causes associated with it. Remember that the original list was compiled by brainstorming where all ideas are included. Now, you must determine which items seem more likely to be the cause (or one of the causes). Circle the items that are most likely and need to be investigated further.

If there’s not an obvious consensus on the top areas to investigate, use some sort of voting system to formally narrow down the top choices with the biggest chance of success. For each item circled, discuss how the item impacts the problem.

Once you circle the causes that appear to be the most likely, you should create an action plan for attaching these causes. This will most likely involve some high-level actions and assigning the cause to a team member to be analyzed outside of the meeting.

Remember that this technique is used for complex problems with multiple causes and allows you to identify potential causes for the problem and determine which ones are most likely to be resolved.

You use Microsoft Word's spelling checker every day, and probably just as often encounter some of the tool's puzzling behavior. Do you know how to get rid of a word that you mistakenly added to its dictionary, for instance, or how to hide the red wiggly lines that appear all over your document?

The following ten tips will help you to work more efficiently in Word 2010, and they will even make you and your documents look smarter.

1. Control the 'Check Spelling as You Type' feature
This default feature reviews spelling within your document as you work, indicating with a red wiggly line any words that are missing from the spelling checker's dictionary. The feature can be distracting, but it's easy to disable. To do so, choose File, Options, Proofing, click the Check spelling as you type checkbox to clear it and reverse the current setting, and then click OK.

2. Check foreign-language spelling
Word isn't naturally bilingual, but you can train it to process more than one language at a time. Ordinarily, when you're working on a document that includes text in, say, French, Word likely won't recognize the other language if you've set your primary language to U.S. English; in this case, Word will add wiggly lines under the assorted foreign words, suggesting that they are all misspellings.

You can avoid that situation by setting Word to check the French text using a French word list. To arrange this, select the text in French (or whatever foreign language you're using), and click the Review tab on the Ribbon toolbar. Then click Language and choose Set Language in the Proofing group of buttons. The Language dialog box will appear. Here you should click the language to use for the selected text; the listed languages displaying checkmark icons are available for use in checking spelling. Click OK to finish.

3. Add unusual words to the dictionary
If you know ahead of time that you will be using some unusual words, and if you do not want Word to report them as possible misspellings, you can add them to the dictionary.

Choose File, Options, Proofing, and click Custom Dictionaries. Click the custom.dic file--or the name of the dictionary to add the words to, if you are using a special dictionary--and click Edit Word List. Type a word, and click Add. When you're done, click OK to exit the dictionary.

Adding words one at a time is sensible if you have only a few. But if you have a long list of words to add, it's best to do so by editing the dictionary file itself.

First, from the Custom Dictionaries dialog box, make a note of the file-path entry that shows where the custom.dic file is located. Then launch a plain-text editor such as Notepad or WordPad, and use it to open the custom.dic file. Type or paste your words, one word per line, into the document and then save it. Word will automatically sort the items into alphabetical order when it next uses the file.

4. Remove misspellings in the Spelling Checker
If you add a misspelled word to the dictionary by accident, Word won't identify it as misspelled until you remove it.

Choose File, Options, Proofing, and click Custom Dictionaries. Select the default dictionary in the list; typically this is the custom.dic file. Click Edit Word List to open the custom.dic dialog box, which contains a list of words you have added to Word's custom dictionary. Scroll down the list, click the errant word, and then click Delete and Close. In the future, if you use this misspelling in a document, Word will properly flag it as a mistake.

5. Determine what the Spelling Checker checks
Depending on the type of work you do, you may discover that Word either finds errors where none exist, or fails to catch the embarrassing errors you do make. For some terms, such as email addresses, URLs, or items containing numbers, you can decide whether Word checks their spelling or leaves them alone.

The idea that mainstream technology is built to eventually malfunction may be less of a conspiracy theory and more grounded in fact than we realize. This is for a couple reasons. First, making long-lasting equipment is expensive. Second, companies want you to come back and upgrade your equipment periodically.

For cell phones, the life span seems to be about two years. The main threat against cell phone durability isn’t the memory card that holds the address book, nor the fancy screen that shows the numbers. The problem is: battery life. After a year or two of reliability, older phones may last a day on one charge, if not just a few hours.

Fortunately, there are precautions you can take to extend battery life:

Read More - Click Here!

We've all found ourselves in meetings where things rapidly drift off track. Conversations drift off track. Ideas are conflated, strange concepts breed in the conversational undergrowth, and an enraged leader eventually tears off his shoe and pounds on the table. Eventually a dead horse comes wandering in so everyone can engage in some ritual flagellation.

If you take away from the above that I don't much like meetings, you'd be right. That said, I do know a thing or two about how to pull them back on track. I'm also occasionally known to be abrasive, frustrating, and pushy, so take what I have to say on this matter with a grain of salt.

Step One – Ruthlessly discard the irrelevant It's amazing how easy it is for people to drift off course when presented with irrelevant details. We create the most confounding connections between two completely unrelated pieces of data, then defend that connection to the death. The arguments about these things can last for days, weeks, even years. Even bringing them up in meetings wastes time, and wasted time is wasted life.

My personal mistake here is not so much in the ruthless winnowing out of the irrelevant as it is in my forgetfulness about the emotions involved. People attach great personal importance to the things they pursue. Otherwise, why would they bother? Just because I don't agree with them, or want to stay focused on dealing with the meeting's “mission” doesn't mean that my goal is the goal of all the other meeting participants.

Step Two – Cut people off after the third iteration Iterations are good in projects, better in writing, and absolutely horrible in meetings. Unfortunately we seem to have learned, somewhere, repetition is the key to success in all communications. If we repeat the same words often enough others will come to believe them simply because they hear them often enough.

My personal inclination is to cut people off after they have repeated themselves for the third time. Especially when the repetitions involve something wholly irrelevant, or even worse just discovered to be irrelevant, to the meeting's purpose. As a rule, though, people tend to like their iterations. It makes them feel like they have accomplished something when they say the same things over and over again. Taking away that feeling of accomplishment will not make you popular.

Step Three – Point at the elephant in the room The truth, any truth, is rarely welcomed in a meeting. If someone in a meeting asks you if you can “speak truth to power”, what they really want to know is if you are dumb enough to point at the white elephant in the room and tell everyone about it. They already know about it; they just won't do anything about it for their own emotional, political, or practical reasons.

Me, I point at the elephant. There's a part of my personality which simply cannot, and will not, allow people to prattle on and on about something minor when we need to address the big issues. I'm working on keeping my big mouth shut, but it's kind of a struggle most days.

So there you have it - three lightning fast ways to tick people off in meetings. Use them with care

Our information systems department was charged with the objective of combining two offices—totaling 110 people—and relocating both offices, their server rooms, and their entire IT infrastructure to a completely renovated building. And we were supposed to do it all in three and a half months.

As soon as we got word of the move, we scoured the Internet looking for advice on how to perform such a task. We came up with precious few tips. Mostly, we discovered a lot of generalities, such as “plan, plan, plan” and “make contingency plans because things will not go as planned” and “communications will be the most critical and difficult aspect of the move.” Obviously, most of these “tips” are self-evident and not very helpful.

Thus, now that our move is successfully completed, we decided to put together some documentation on how we did it so that our experience may help others in a similar situation. These are the highlights of the move and the things we in the IS department felt we did right, as well as what could have been improved upon.

Preparations

Appoint a project manager and assemble a relocation committee

Key people from each department must be in on the move, and appointing a project manager to oversee the operation can ensure that this happens. Naturally, IS/IT will be a key department during the move and can make or break the project depending on how things go. Communication between the groups is critical for planning and executing the move efficiently.

Do not procrastinate

Like us, most IS departments are probably barely keeping up with their general day-to-day tasks and when it comes to the relocation project, it would be easy to keep saying, “We’ll start next week.” Don’t put it off. Start planning as soon as you know about the move. The time goes by very fast, and you will be depending on a number of departments, vendors, and other partners to help you. They may require some significant lead time.

Give yourself a cushion

When negotiating with your general contractor (if you are building or expanding), make sure you give yourself a cushion from the time the contractors finish working to the time you move in. Our project manager agreed to a contract with the firm renovating the building that called for the contractors and subcontractors to be out by 5:00 P.M. on the last Friday of the month. That was the same time the movers would start moving things in. This turned out to be one of the most critical mistakes that occurred, and it came close to derailing the whole move. Movers were shoveling furniture in while contractors completed their painting, wiring, and odds and ends. Part of the problem was that we did not build in a tough enough penalty for the contractors not finishing on time, and the general contractor took full advantage of it.

Inventory and document your current systems

Conduct a thorough hardware inventory and get a complete understanding of how your current system works and how it will be transformed when it moves to the new building. Until a few months before our move, our documentation was rather slim on what machines we had and how the LAN and WAN were laid out. We had a pretty good concept in our heads of how everything worked, but when we laid it all out on paper, we found we were mistaken on a number of key points.

To create an inventory of all our machines, we used Blue Ocean’s TrackIT (www.trackit.com) software, which allowed us to remotely retrieve all the hardware and software making up each computer in the company. Once this was done, we could assign asset numbers to everything and use the reports TrackIT generated to make sure that all the machines were properly accounted for and positioned during the move.

Documentation of the WAN and phone circuits took a fair amount of time, and we discovered that we had a number of data circuits we were still paying for but no longer using. We photographed all our installations and put these, along with Visio drawings of all the equipment and their connections, into a communications binder. This binder helped tremendously when we met with various vendors to explain what we were proposing. Shortly before the move, we made a detailed inventory of the critical servers using Ecora (www.ecora.com) in case we had problems with them after the move.

Start a project binder

On the first day of the project, we put together a project binder. At the front of the binder, we put a zip-lock pouch for our pens, keys, and other odds and ends we needed. Next came a couple of pages stapled with all the business cards we collected during the project. We used these pages a lot. The rest of the binder was divided into four parts: Data, Phones, Move, and Configuration. In the back of the binder, we stored our large floor plans.

As time went on, the binder became unmanageable with all the information we added, so we created further subdivisions. The binder was our bible, and it went with us whenever we went to the new building. In addition to the binder, we kept a running log of all the conversations we had with various people, along with the action items that came out of those conversations. This turned out to be useful for reminding vendors of things they promised to do and then conveniently forgot as work progressed.

Meet with the vendors

As early as possible in the project, identify all the contractors and vendors you will need to help you and come up with a list of questions you will need to ask. At the beginning of the project, we used some mind-mapping software and a couple sessions of brainstorming to come up with an overview of the move and to identify which vendors were needed to help us. This early brainstorming showed us that there would be a considerable change in our LAN, WAN, and phone configurations and that if these were not handled properly, it would cause immense problems.

As soon as we could, we called in the main vendors. The phone guys would take care of our internal phone circuits and voice mail, while the telco would handle the external phone and WAN circuits. The ISP (in conjunction with the telco) would switch over our Internet service, and finally, the consultant—an individual from a company we had just hired to look at our current IT situation—would help us with the logistics of the move. One of the chief praises we heard from all concerned was the amount of lead time we had given them. Everyone told us horror stories of people leaving the phone, WAN, and ISP connections to the last minute and paying the price for doing so. Still, even with the long lead time, we experienced trouble with some of the vendors.

Meet with the builders

Schedule time with the architect (if necessary), the general contractor, and subcontractors as soon as possible. If there are previous tenants of the building, try to meet with their IS/IT people as well. In our case, the previous IS group left us server racks, custom patch cables, and Krone patch panels, which ended up saving us a huge amount of time when we moved—not to mention a considerable amount of money.

With the vast changes taking place within the building, it was not feasible to use the current LAN and phone wiring. Our consultant and the LAN subcontractor both recommended we proceed with all new Cat 5e wiring, which we did. In our opinion, to use any of the current wiring would be asking for trouble. The meeting with the contractors allowed us to get our ideas on the table early. We determined that we would come up with the room-numbering system, the number and placement of LAN/phone drops, the layout of patch panels, etc. The contractors then gave recommendations on the best way to accomplish what we wanted.

Plan the physical room layout

One of our first objectives was to lay out the room-numbering system and determine what equipment would go in each room. We broke the floor plan for the building into logical suites that could fit on four single 8.5" x 11" pages. We then made up two floor plans, one that showed where each computer, fax, printer, and modem went, the other showing the layout of the individual drops in each room. Copies went into the project binder and were given out to all contractors and move committee members to ensure that we were all on the same page when it came to what happened in each room. This turned out to be a never-ending task because the floor plan changed numerous times, as hard as we tried to keep it nailed down. We had to redo our numbering scheme on more than one occasion.

We also made schematics of the LAN and phone patch panels showing where each connection terminated and gave them to the wiring subcontractor. This documentation proved to be tremendously useful and allowed us to switch phones and computers between rooms with the greatest of ease, unlike in our previous poorly documented building.

Plan the new network

We had a fair idea of how we wanted our new network to look. After sketching it on a white board with the help of our consultant, we transferred it to Visio and added it to our project binder. We set up the network so that each switch would have a logical part of the organization attached to it. That way, if there was a problem, we could instantly spot which switch/circuit it was on, and traffic would be localized to specific switches for specific areas. We adjusted the IP subnet arrangement we had for our current system.

Plan the power consumption and server setup

This would be the first time that all our servers would be together in one room, and a quick look at the power consumption showed us that our current UPS setup would not be able to keep all the servers, switches, and routers up for any length of time if the power went out. This led us to find out all the volt ampere statistics for the equipment that would be plugged in to the UPS units and showed us that we would have to purchase an additional UPS.

Plan the server room layout

Our current room was a narrow corridor with the backs of the servers and equipment racks right up against the wall. Behind the racks was a tangle of wire that was almost impossible to get through to see the connections at the back. Our new room would be different. The servers would be mounted on mobile server racks that had ample room for books, tapes, tape drives, and other devices. The racks would stand off from the wall by a couple of feet so that we could get behind the rack to the connections on the back of the servers. The switches would be mounted in an adjourning room on racks left by the previous occupant. These stood away from the wall, giving us lots of room to get behind when we needed to.

We made sure that we had plenty of cabinet space, but we had to give up some workbench area. It turned out to be a good tradeoff. We installed a separate HVAC unit to keep the room cool, as the building A/C was switched off during the night. We worked closely with the office manager who was in charge of moving the furniture for each office. She gave us layout diagrams for each room so that we knew which jacks to make hot well before the move.

Manage the phone company

Our first meeting with our telco allowed us to hammer out what we would need for the move: new phone numbers for our direct-dial numbers, new fax numbers, new frame relay, and point-to-point WAN connections. The most critical need was for the new phone and fax numbers. Keeping our old phone numbers would have been very expensive, but we were able to secure a block of numbers that allowed us to keep our last four digits. Only the prefix would change. The fax numbers would all change too. We had to keep nipping at the telco to get the information to us as soon as possible since new stationery, letterheads, business cards, and other items had to be purchased, and letters with address changes had to be mailed out to customers and vendors.

None of this could go out until we had a firm commitment from the telco that the numbers were written in stone. It took a few weeks for this to happen. Telephone companies definitely move at their own pace—a snail’s pace, in most cases. We also started working on the ISP cutover. This seemed as if it would be straightforward, except for the fact that the telco had to install the line that our ISP would connect over. (For a while, this situation seemed as if had disaster written all over it, as we will see shortly.)

After the phone and fax numbers were nailed down, we had to assign them. We built an Excel spreadsheet that could be sorted by name, room number, four-digit extension, old number, and new number. This made life a lot easier when the inevitable changes came about. We gave the spreadsheet to the phone guys early on, and they were able to make sure that we had all the equipment necessary to support the required amount of people.

Build A Time Matrix

Early in the project, we used Project 2000 to start building a timeline for the project using our own swags and those of the various contractors. The problem was that none of us was really an expert with Project, and we had a hard time showing who was doing what at various times. We eventually abandoned Project 2000 and went to a simple Excel matrix that had all our vendors and support organizations along the top and the days leading up to the move down the left side. We printed this out on a wide carriage plotter and taped it to our door. We then filled in who was doing what on any given day and put any extra comments out on the right side of the sheet. It was very easy to use and see what was going on at all times.

We entered critical events into our Outlook 2000 calendars with reminders set. This setup allowed us to see how the project was progressing at a single glance. As the time approached for the move, we broke out the tasks and put them on a checklist. We then printed the list and checked off the tasks as jobs were completed. It turned out that there were a number of details we did not see when we first started making our plans. We added these items to the checklist as we came across them. Writing down tasks became increasingly supremely important as the day of the move got nearer and life got more hectic. At the beginning of each month during the life of the project, we got together and made sure everything was still on track as we saw it.

Problem, problems, problems

As much as we tried to avoid problems through careful planning, they still reared their ugly heads. Most of the problems had to do with lack of communication, either between our vendors and us or internally, within the vendors themselves. The worst offender was our telco. We had been warned by many people to keep an eye on it and to not believe what it told us. This turned out to be true.

Our first hint of trouble came when a voice mail message from the telco installer told us that he had installed four new Network Interface Units (NIUs) in the new demarcation room. We wanted a PRI, a frame, and a point-to-point connection, so what the heck was the fourth? We took a look and found three NIUs but no indication as to what they were. By this time, we were figuring that NIU stood for Nonexistent Interface Unit. We tried to call the tech back on the number he left, but that turned out to be a wrong number. All this took place on a Friday.

The following Monday, the ISP told us that we were to have someone on site so that the telco could install the ISP connection and that it would not do it unless somebody was present. So we kept someone on site all day at the demarcation room—and nobody showed up. Irate e-mails went to the ISP, but they were directed in the wrong direction. It turned out that the telco had installed the circuit on Friday by accident and did not install the frame circuit we requested. A few days later, we got a call from a telco tech saying he was installing the frame circuit. Unfortunately, he was installing it in the wrong facility. Apparently, there was a mix-up in the paperwork, he said. No kidding! Eventually we got it all sorted out, or so we thought. The telco was not finished with us yet.

More problems down the stretch

As time got closer to the move, other problems arose. Some last-minute room changes caused the wiring subcontractor to mess up his LAN terminations. We had sent the changes to the electrical contractor, but somehow they never got to the LAN guys. For some reason, instead of swapping out the mismatched wires, they pulled all the wiring out and started punching them down again. Something was suspicious here, but we were never able to figure out what went on.

For a while, there was no activity at all, and the days ticked by. We had to start rattling cages for things to start moving. But by then, the project was in trouble. We could see it, the subs could see it, but the general contractor refused to see it. We would not be done by move day. We wanted the server room to be the first room finished so we could move our infrastructure in and have everything set up and ready for the day of the move. It was not to be. It turned out that the server room was actually the last room finished, which caused us a great deal more work than we bargained for. Having a week of cushion between the time the contract ended and when we moved in would have been of great benefit to all.

Where is the consultant?

As the move got closer, it became harder for us to find our consultant. We think he had another project that was taking up his time, and we were small potatoes to him. To help us with our routed environment we called on a router guy, another independent contractor we had worked with before who knew our setup well. Even though he came in at a late stage of the project, he turned out to be the most reliable of our vendors and bent over backward to see that our routed environment worked. In truth, we did not need our original consultant since our plans were sound and we were well prepared.

Advance configuration pays off

We made some major changes to the WAN environment involving frame relay and point-to-point connections to other facilities on circuits provided by the telco. Since our distrust of the telco was growing rapidly by this time, we started putting routers in place and configuring them to test the circuits. Naturally, there were problems, and the router guy grew to be on intimate terms with the telco’s tech support. But we were able to take care of the problems well before the move day. We now knew we had good connectivity to all our facilities, which was a good thing since the telco was about to let us down again. If we hadn't set up connectivity before the move, it would have increased our stress level many times and probably caused us to miss being up on Monday.

The final week

During the final week, we had conference calls with all our vendors to make sure that we were all on the same page. Even though the telco sounded like it knew what it was saying, it was to drop the ball yet again. Our telco account manager was heading out on vacation, but we got the phone and pager numbers of all the other reps we could find. As it turned out, we needed them. We packed up everything in boxes and labeled them with the room numbers they were bound for. It was a far less hectic week than we imagined it would be; however, the weekend would make up for it.

The movers

We can’t say enough about the moving guys. And believe it or not, it is almost all good. They were fantastic to work with and had moving down to a science. We had it in our heads that large, sweaty, gorilla-like individuals manhandling furniture and equipment over the space of five or six days would move everything individually. Not these guys. They told us we would be completely moved and basically set up over a single weekend.

One of the major barriers we had to a conventional move was that the two buildings we were leaving had no elevators. This was not a problem for these guys! They removed fire escape doors and railings on the second and third floors and brought in a high-lift forklift to get all the furniture down from the upper stories. Computers did not move with the furniture. All the computer

equipment from each room was picked up, bubble wrapped, and placed in what looked like a cupboard on wheels, which they called a gondola. When the gondola was full, it was covered in plastic shrink-wrap. All the gondolas were moved in a single truck. Every piece of furniture, every phone, every computer was tagged with the room number it was destined for. It did not work out perfectly, of course, but we could fault the movers for very little. They had great attitudes and they played a huge part in making the move as successful as it was.

The floor plans

Make sure the new building has large floor plans posted on the walls in as many places as possible. Ours were a bit confusing and caused things to move more than once after they were placed the first time. In addition, every room had a furniture position diagram and room number on it taped on the wall outside. The movers were able to place the furniture in the correct position immediately and had very few re-moves later on.

Making the move

When it’s time for the IS/IT department to physically tear down the equipment, get some help. Our IS group consists of three network/systems people and one database programmer: not enough to handle the move. We hired an intern who worked with us the previous year and hunted down a user who was pretty savvy with computers and had him help us as well. Everybody was busy during the teardown. Unfortunately, a number of users simply walked away from their machines and did little to prepare them, ignoring our instructions. To avoid this, you should send out a memo instructing them on how to prepare their desks for the move and follow up a few days prior to make sure that everyone understands the importance of this.

Our move took place over the last weekend in March. The accounting department shut down on Thursday evening. They were not getting new cubicles, so their current cubes were going to be removed and reassembled over Thursday evening and into Friday before the main move took place. The last thing we needed would be more contractors stumbling over each other on Friday.

Before the accountants started shutting down computers, we had them perform a few tasks for us so we would not be so busy running around helping them come back up on Monday. (These instructions applied to everybody, not just the accountants.) They had to delete all their printers since the printing environment and printer names would be changing. They also had to clean up any junk they had on the servers and on their own machines. Finally, they had to release their IP addresses, as many computers would be switching subnets. The teardown of server equipment was pretty straightforward. Everything was marked, and we knew where they would be positioned once they moved.

The ISP cutover took place in the morning. We had a spare router with a built-in CSU/DSU and a laptop with all the necessary IP addresses in place, so all we had to do was take it to the new demarcation room, plug it in, and get online with the ISP. After some confusion on the ISP’s part, the link came up, and one of our biggest worries vanished: E-mail and Internet access would be available on Monday.

Once we arrived at the new building, the mayhem started. Our server room was still not ready; the wiring contractor was still punching down and testing the LAN wiring. The fiber-optic backbone had the wrong connectors, the electricians were wiring the UPS in place, and the phone guys were muscling their equipment in. There were four people wedged into the telco closet, where the fairly dim light made it a pain to work. We should have had some fluorescent

lamps installed before we moved; it would have made life a lot easier. As we did not have a chance to set up our room before the move, it was piled high with boxes crammed with books, cables, tools, etc. If we had had a chance to set up the room beforehand, we could have had power strips, extension cables, patch cords, and handset cables all ready to go. As it was, we had to go scrambling through boxes to find these things.

By the end of Friday evening, all the servers, switches, and routers were in place and communicating. Saturday was spent hooking up and testing each patch cord as it was plugged into the patch panel. Doing this helped us catch a couple of bad cords and crossed wires. So much for the LAN wiring certification! The patch panels were all marked with the room number and socket number that corresponded to the faceplates in each room. This made it really easy for us to switch room layouts when users found their rooms were not set up as they wanted.

We had numerous problems with the telco and the local phone guys getting things going between them. For the most part, we left them to deal with each other, as we had enough on our plates.

Sunday continued with bringing the system up and hooking up workstations and phones. Even though the phone guys said everything was okay when they left, we found numerous problems that took a couple of weeks to fix. By that time, the individuals who set up our system were long gone on other jobs, and we had to make do with our regular tech, who appeared a bit lost at first. It took him awhile to get all the bugs ironed out. The battle with our telco took a lot longer. It put in an extra frame relay circuit we did not need in another facility, then took awhile to set things up the way we wanted. We thought we’d made what we wanted clear to the telco. There was probably more confusion within the telco than anything else.

Post-move activities

When Monday rolled around, users came in to find their computers and phones ready to use. However, it still took about two weeks for things to settle down enough for us to finally get our office set up. Our documentation paid off in spades. We were able to make a spreadsheet with the phone port numbers, phone numbers, and room numbers. This, along with clear markings on the phone patch panels, allowed us to fix phone wiring problems in a fraction of the time it would have taken us in the old building, and we did not even have to tone the lines.

The server racks on casters worked beautifully, and we were immediately able to move them about the room while the contractors finished working. It was easy to get behind the racks to plug in wires and plug other equipment into the power strips. We also pasted the names of the servers on the back of the racks so that we could figure out which was which from the back.

Final word

It was finally over. The project had been quite a pain because of the additional work we had to do over the last three months, but it was well worth it. We learned a tremendous amount about setting up an office from scratch, and we were able to come out with a better, more organized information systems structure in the end. We hope that our experiences documented here can help others have a successful and less stressful move.

I have to admit, Windows 7 leaves a lot less to fuss about than Vista. It’s nice to start your computer in the morning, do stuff on it all day, and not experience any difficulty.  I concede, it is much better than Vista. But there are things to consider...

Of course, us Linux or MAC users, still have to struggle with what isn’t there in Windows 7 that have been so common in Linux for years, the ability to work with multiple screens (panes or sessions). But I’ll take reliability any day! Perhaps Microsoft will catch up some day.

But will I upgrade any of my workstations to Windows 7 right now? No No NO. I find the initial investment to be prohibitive and nobody looks forward to the learning curve. 

They are not giving windows 7 away and this is no upgrade path from Windows XP.

Windows XP has proven to be very reliable over the long hull, and, as they say, “if it ain’t broke  don’t fix it. So I will leave all but my development workstation on XP (plus one Vista laptop).

But when it comes time to replace one of my workstations or laptops, I’ll take Windows 7.

One word of caution: Before ordering that computer with Windows 7, make sure Windows 7 will work with your printers, scanners, and software.

One of the most common complaints is: "My computer is too slow! What can I do?" There are actually a number of reasons why this could be happening, and luckily, a number of ways to solve the problem. Here are our top five recommendations to help boost your desktop or notebook speed and perrformance. 

1. Clean up your hard drive
A typical hard drive is crammed full of files you really don’t need. The less stuff that’s on your hard drive, the faster your computer will be.  

The best way to free up space on your PC is with the Windows® Disk Cleanup utility. To access it, go to Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools, and then click Disk Cleanup. You might need to specify which drive you want to clean.  

In the Disk Cleanup box, scroll through the content of the Files to delete list and check the items you want to remove. If you’re not sure what to get rid of, the safest bets are temporary Internet files and programs you’ve installed that you no longer use. When you’re done, click OK. 

If you don’t want to delete files altogether, such as things like photos and music or video files, consider moving them to an external hard drive. 

2. Get rid of visual effects
Windows Vista® comes with some cool visual effects, but they can drain system resources. Disabling some will speed your system. To do this, click on the Start button, and then Control Panel > System and Maintenance > Performance Information and Tools. 

Click on Adjust Visual Effects. You may be asked to enter an administrator password. Then click on the Visual Effects tab, and select Adjust for Best Performance. Then click OK. 

3. Scan for viruses and spyware
One of the main culprits of sluggish PC performance is malware: viruses, spyware, Trojan horses, worms, and other kinds of malicious unwanted software. If you don't already have some kind of antivirus protection installed, you should do so right away! Consider using Microsoft Windows Defender, which is included in Windows Vista, and is available as a free download for Microsoft XP SP2. Make sure to schedule an automatic virus scan at least once a month. You should also always keep a firewall running to help block malware from getting to your PC in the first place.  

4. Add more RAM (the easy way)
Adding system memory (also known as random access memory or RAM) can be a good way to improve a PC's performance. However, upgrading memory can sometimes be difficult and costly. Windows Vista now offers Windows ReadyBoost, which allows you to add memory without having to install anything. It allows you to use a flash memory device, such as a USB flash drive or a secure digital (SD) memory card, as an additional memory cache. 

5. Run a defragmentation utility
Disk Defragmenter is a Windows utility that consolidates files and folders on your computer's hard disk so that each occupies a single space, which in turn speeds up reading and writing to the disk. 

To defragment your hard drive, go to Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter, then select the drive you want to defragment. Then go to Settings and make sure there's a tick beside the two options in the section When defragmenting my hard drive, then click OK twice to begin. When the defragmentation is done, you'll probably have to reboot your computer. 

After following these tips, you should notice an improvement in your computes performance.

Most requests for bank finance are turned down, not because clients are a poor credit risk, but because they have approached their bank ill-prepared. Providing banks with what they want to see will enable you to get what you want on the first try...

CASHFLOW

Provide data that shows you understand and can manage your working capital (debtors, creditors and stock) and that the cash in your business is sufficient to cover the bank's interest (as well as other key costs such as tax, dividends and replacement capital). "Cash is king" and even profitable businesses can fail if cash is not managed. Understand your cash movements and you may even need to borrow less.

OUTLOOK

Present forecasts which communicate the amount required, payback period, risk and return to the bank. Figures should be more sophisticated than forecast sales and profit and should ideally show the relationship between profits, your balance sheet and cash flows. Sensitivity analysis is important to help the bank understand when they risk non-repayment. Forecasts should always be based upon the most up to date actual data.

MARKETS

Explain your market. Focus 20% of your efforts explaining what has happened and 80% on what you expect to happen and why. Do not worry, top economists sometimes get this wrong too. The point is you need to show the bank you have thought about it, considered the likely outcomes and that you have a clear action plan.

MIX AND QUALITY OF CLIENTS

Detail clients by name/industry/region/contract length. The strength of your clients and their ability to pay = the strength of your business. Building your business around one client is high business risk.

UPDATE

Give the bank up to date management information especially if annual accounts are dated. Information should be produced at least quarterly, split into division/region and include profit, balance sheet and cash flow breakdowns. Management information should be used to update forecast/budget data and any differences should be explained.

NEED FOR LIQUIDITY

Show the bank that your business is liquid and can survive. Tell them how quickly you get your hands on the cash and know your debt maturities, credit terms and what cash is tied up in assets. Think beyond a simple current assets/current liabilities ratio and consider your ideal liquidity position. Remember too much liquidity means assets could be generating a higher return elsewhere.

INCOME

Know your financial definitions. Are you talking about gross profit, operating profit, net profit or EBITDA (earnings before interest tax, depreciation and amortization)? All are common in the financial analysis of businesses. Also ensure you can discuss the seasonality and cyclicality of your industry.

COMPETITION

Tell the bank how you have you performed in comparison to your competitors? Be prepared to discuss your competitors' strengths and weaknesses. This provides confidence that you are a proactive management team that really understand the business.

ACTIVITIES

Break your business down by activity/division and tell the bank which activities are performing well and which are a cash drain and why. Explain how divisions complement or overlap each other and the strategy for each. Be ready with forecasts if necessary.

TRACK RECORD

Unless starting up, provide at least 3 years accounts to a bank (5 years ideally if approaching a new bank) and up to date management accounts. A bank will need this data for the financial analysis of the trends in ratios and margins. It will also give them confidence in your management track record.

EQUITY, DEBT AND THE BALANCE SHEET

Communicate your risk (equity/directors' loans) versus the risk to the bank. Know the real strength of your balance sheet by having current market values of assets to hand and full details of debt (including off-balance sheet exposure such as leases and guarantees). Be clear at the outset what security is and is not on offer.

About the Author: Forward Financials are experts in the financial analysis industry and as Qualified Accountants, Qualified Bankers and City Analysts combined we speak the language. With our comprehensive financial pack you can make a professional approach to lenders, shop around for the best deal and negotiate fees from a stronger position. We do not believe in a template approach as every business has different drivers and needs. We therefore build bespoke financial models to forecast sales, profits and cash flow. We also provide historic, competitor and market analysis.

Are you one of many business owners who lose sleep over a negative review? Worse, are you unaware of negative feedback about your business? Whether we like it or not, online reviews are here to stay and customers have more power than ever to affect our businesses. Rather than feeling upset, helpless, or even angry, you can take control of the situation by handling your negative reviews in a professional manner. Here are some guidelines to help you control potential damage to your reputation from negative reviews.

1) Check Your Reviews Regularly
It’s important to respond to negative reviews in a timely fashion.  If you respond quickly, the person who wrote the review is more likely to respond positively because you showed that you care.  Also, other Yelpers who are reading the negative review will have the opportunity to read your comments and see how you responded.

2) Thank the Reviewer
We should always thank Yelpers for taking the time to share their experiences.  Often, they are providing valuable feedback and suggestions. Treat your negative reviews like a suggestion box. In some cases, they can help you improve upon your customer service or business.

3) Acknowledge the Problem
If the gripe is legitimate, apologize for the situation and invite the reviewer to come back after you have rectified the problem. You may offer them a refund or an incentive on a future visit [if the situation warrants this type of action.]

4) Golden Rule – Customer is Always Right
If  you disagree with the complaint, do not show it.  Just thank them for their feedback and do not try to offer them an explanation unless their review contained a factual mistake.  Follow the golden rule of NEVER arguing with the customer.

5) Ignore the Haters
If you receive a verbally abusive review, do NOT respond. Flag the review and move on.  Unfortunately, there are negative people in this world.  You can’t win them all.

6) Always Stay Professional
What is more important than the negative review is what your potential customers think about your response.  No matter what is in the negative review, Yelpers will view you and your business by your reaction.  Stay calm, take the high road, and always stay professional.

Defined by it's small size, light weight, low price, horsepower, and operating system, Netbooks are becoming very popular. But are Netbooks ready for \"Prime Time\" business use?

Netbooks run either Windows XP Home edition or Linux (not only is Linux unfamiliar to many, but the versions of Linux on Netbooks are not the mainstream popular distributions like Debian, Ubuntu, or Red Hat). They do not run XP Professional, Vista, or Apple OS X. Microsoft arbitrarily restricts Netbooks from running the Professional Edition of Windows XP Professional. Likewise, Apple arbitrarily restricts OS X to Apple hardware and it has never played in the low-end realm that Netbooks occupy. Windows Vista requires too much horsepower to run on a Netbook.

Basic Netbook Spec:

Screen Size: 9 to 10 inches

Screen Resolution: Up to 1024x600

Processor: Intel Atom processor

Ram: Up to 1 gig

Storage: Up to 16 gigs (several models use ram drives instead of mechanical hard drives)

Price Point: Between $300 - $400

Interface: Usually a Ethernet port and/or WiFI

Operating System: Windows XP Home or Unknown Linux Desktop Distribution

Wow! Sounds Interesting! Specially the Price!

But are Netbooks ready to replace Laptops in Business or Corporate Networks???

According to Gartner Group analyst Leslie Fiering, “Netbooks are coming in as a 'second laptop' that workers are buying  themselves". It would be very surprising at this time if Netbooks were taken seriously as laptop replacements. After all, Netbooks run on Linux desktop operating systems or Windows XP Home. Linux does not run Microsoft Office, the flagship of business desktop applications, and nobody should be running XP Home on a business network for security reasons.

There are a few Netbook exceptions such as the HP 2140 Minithe,  the Acer Aspire One, Lenovo S10, and the Asus N10, ... that are more business-friendly  priced between $450.00 and $650.00. Buy why bother! At that price range you could buy a good laptop running XP Pro, Vista Business, and all of your corporate  sanctioned software.

Netbooks - Why Not:

1. Small Screen Resolution: Netbooks have either a 9\" or 10\" screen with a maximum resolution of 1024x600 VS a laptop with 14" to 17" screens and minimum 
1024x800. Netbook limited screen resolution makes it difficult for modern program applications and Web pages to work. And it is more than the pain of extra 
scrolling on a Netbook. Many of these applications, web pages, and pop-up screens will lock up a Netbook, or present an unclickable dialog box. The box may 
say "Click here to continue" but you can't see the click button. Typically, Netbook users running business apps end up rebooting their Netbooks many times to 
complete some simple tasks resulting in data corruption and a very frustrated Netbook user experience.

2. Itsy Bitsy Keyboard: Business users that do even a modest amount of typing may "go postal on you" trying to type on that itsy bitsy keyboard. The keys are 
smaller, closer together, and lack the touch, feel, and endurance of their business laptop counterparts.

Another major issue is that the keyboard is not a standard layout. Some keys may appear in a different place; some keys may require the pressing of a "fn" 
(function key) to access; some of the keys may be missing all together. This results in more productivity drain and user frustration.

3. Multitasking - What Multitasking: The Netbook standard Intel Atom processors with 1 gig of ram can run one application pretty good. But make one of your 
apps MS Outlook and anything else, or a large Excel spreadsheet and anything else, plus your AntiVirus software, and your are in for a long day!

Summation: Netbooks might good since for an entry-level home computer. But when it comes to the office, leave it at home!

ManageEngine OpManager maps all the devices in your network to give detailed visual representations of your LAN and WAN. The maps are automatically generated and can be scheduled to always present the latest picture of your network; so you need not go back to creating maps when devices are added/moved/removed. Real-time status of devices and bandwidth heat maps help administrators quickly identify problem spots to then drill down and troubleshoot. The maps can also be exported into Microsoft Office Visio, edited and used for reference at the NOC/datacenter.

In addition to providing network maps, OpManager is also a monitoring, reporting and troubleshooting tool for your network. Used by over 8,500 businesses worldwide, OpManager is the flagship product from ManageEngine, the leading provider of low-cost enterprise IT management software. A free 30-day trial copy is available for download, with free support over a toll free number.

• Company: Zoho Corporation
• URL: www.manageengine.com
• Email: sales@manageengine.com

PacketTrap IT is a comprehensive and affordable network monitoring and IT infrastructure management solution. PacketTrap’s ease of install use combine with broad and deep monitoring capabilities to provide administrators with unprecedented visibility into the performance of the network itself, as well as the devices and applications running on the network. PacketTrap is able to monitor all the devices on your network, including routers, switches, firewalls, servers, desktops, VoIP, virtual servers and wireless access points. With PacketTrap’s own ptFlow technology you can monitor NetFlow, sFlow and J-Flow enabled devices, and even unsupported devices; ensuring that you can monitor traffic on all your network devices. The most common benefit PacketTrap users realize stems from our ability to pinpoint the specific problems on the network and see where its coming from. PacketTrap also provides automatically updated, easy-to-view network diagrams and advanced email and SMS alerts.

• Company: ScriptLogic Corporation
• URL: www.scriptlogic.com
• Email: rob.dawson@scriptlogic.com
• Price: $1,995

InterMapper provides an at-a-glance, real-time view of your network devices, services, applications, connections, and traffic patterns. Drilling down on maps and charts uncovers details needed to fix performance problems and keep mission-critical networks up to service level requirements.

InterMapper can be used for spotting and fixing performance problems, notifies you that the network performance threshold has been exceeded, makes sure that web, email, databases and other business-critical services are available 24/7 and overall network troubleshooting.

• Company: Dartware LLC.
• URL: www.intermapper.com
• Email: info@dartware.com

Leveraging a unique multi-level discovery technique, LANsurveyor automatically discovers your LAN or WAN and produces comprehensive, easy-to-view network diagrams that integrate OSI Layer 2 and Layer 3 topology data (including switch-to-switch, switch-to-node, and switch-to-router port connections). With two mouse clicks, this data can be exported into Microsoft Office Visio and easily shared with your colleagues.

Additionally, LANSurveyor will automatically track and account for changes to the network in real time with a unique continuous scan feature that can immediately detect new devices on the network and dynamically update the network map.

• Company: SolarWinds, Inc.
• URL: www.solarwinds.com
• Email: sales@solarwinds.com
• Screenshot: click here

Download Spiceworks completely free customizable network mapping software for IT pros in small to medium businesses. *This is NOT a free trial, "freemium", or stripped down verision.* Spiceworks provides access to the entire software suite whether you're a one-person operation or you manage 1,000 network devices. And it's free forever - including live support and all product upgrades! In addition to network map capabilities, Spiceworks software also offers free access to: network monitoring and management tools, a full-featured help desk, troubleshooting fixes, asset management software, power management tools, and an online community of IT pros like you to answer questions, share tips, and solve IT problems. Download today - and share with your peers!

TechGenix Reviews & Awards:

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  • Dec '10
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  • Jan '11

• Company: Spiceworks
• URL: www.spiceworks.com
• Email: info@spiceworks.com
• Screenshot: click here
• Price: Free

SANDeploy Server is a powerful iSCSI target software for Microsoft Windows, that allows you quickly convert any Windows machine became an Multi-Target, Multi-LUN, Multi-iSCSI SAN in less than 1 minute. SANDeploy Server was designed for easy configuration, so any user can use iSCSI SAN without expert.

SANDeploy Server not only supports the common features but also a lot of features that the others do not have, such as: standard image disk device, physical disk device, physical optical device, virtual CD/DVD-ROM emulator and even SPTI device.

• Company: SANDeploy Limited.
• URL: www.sandeploy.com
• Email: support@sandeploy.com
• Screenshot: click here
• Price: 249.95

Edraw Network Diagrammer provides a common graphics technology for network mapping across departments and disciplines, helping IT professionals transform raw data into visual understanding.

Using the Edraw solution, network professionals can; Quickly assemble network diagrams using intelligent, data-driven shapes, Create accurate, up-to-date network documentation, Provide hyperlink to build the relation in Assets, Pre-defined network shapes to build networks, Accurately track assets and costs, Diagram directory hierarchies to produce migration scenarios.

• Company: EdrawSoft
• URL: www.edrawsoft.com
• Email: sales@edrawsoft.com

WhatsUp Gold Premium edition is a powerful, proactive monitoring and management solution, designed to easily manage networks of all sizes, from SMB to enterprise. It’s tried, tested, and proven on networks just like yours – over 100,000 of them. With WhatsUp Gold managing your network infrastructure 24x7, your life as the network manager just got easier. WhatsUp Gold Premium ensures you have clear visibility, actionable intelligence and complete control to make not only fast decisions, but better ones. When you invest in WhatsUp Gold Premium to manage your network infrastructure, you’re not just buying some software, you’re teaming up with a company that’s been building robust, easy to deploy and hassle free network management solutions for nearly 20 years.

• Company: Ipswitch Inc.
• URL: www.whatsupgold.com
• Email: info@ipswitch.com

10-Strike LANState is a network mapping, monitoring, management, and administration software for corporate Microsoft Windows networks. LANState generates a network map, which speeds up accessing to remote hosts' properties and resources, and managing those. Scan your network, find hosts, place them on a network diagram, and monitor their state! The program can export network diagram to graphic image, Microsoft Visio, and XML scheme.

The program also includes a number of useful features for obtaining information on remote computers. LANState has a rich host monitoring functionality with multiple types of host checks allowing you to see the state of your network at any time. The program displays a network map, monitoring device's state (active/inactive) in real-time. You just click a tray icon at any time, and see which servers and computers are switched on, and which do not respond. Web access is also supported (LANState Pro).

• Company: 10-Strike Software
• URL: www.10-strike.com
• Email: info@10-strikesoftware.com
• Price: $149.95

From choosing the right physical media and conduit size to pulling cable to making long-term infrastructure decisions, networking two buildings is a challenging undertaking. These pointers will help you effectively plan and execute this type of project. 

1. Wireless may not be the best solution: Too often, when a team is contemplating how to connect two buildings, someone will offer a wireless solution. Yes, there are wireless solutions that will connect two buildings, and antenna boosting equipment for better service. However, a hard line connection is more reliable if installed in conduit correctly. Here's a general rule of thumb: "Use a hard line connection unless you can't".

Site-to-site connections using wireless connections are frequently disrupted by an obstruction, weather (in some technologies and applications), or interference. Also, wireless technologies have a shorter lifespan, as replacement technologies are rapidly developing for this market space.

2. When dealing with conduit, think big: Most building connections today will be a fiber connection in hard plastic conduit. This conduit is usually buried about two feet below the ground. When sizing out what type of conduit to use (even if you're working with a heavy equipment or installation professional), always think larger than you need.

Example: You can fit the bare cable of fiber optic networking in just about any size conduit. However, if this project is a "one of a kind' type, you may have some price pressure to deliver the best solution for the technology need. When you size up the equipment and supplies, you may require a set of fiber cutting tools to end the line at each point. But the most cost-efficient solution may be simply ordering a to-length fiber optic cable that's pre-terminated. In this case, you may save a great deal on fiber tools, but you should go up to the next size (and test the entire fit) for pushing a termination through conduit. For a recent project I did, we pulled two SC connectors through 1-inch conduit.
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Best practice: When pulling fiber through a conduit, be careful with the line. Take the following steps to make it easier on the pull:

Get the pull line to the end of the conduit the easy way: Make a small ball of tape, put it in a plastic bag (sandwich size), tape the pull line to it, and pull it through with a medium duty vacuum on the end side.

Have conduit straightened out before pulling the fiber through.

Insulate the header of the cable well with electrical tape. Any pressure will then be taken by the tape instead of the connector or cable.

Have people on each side pulling at the end and feeding the cable into the beginning to minimize stress points.
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3. Go absolute cutting edge for physical media : Thinking for all future connections, select the best physical connection (usually fiber or multiple fiber lines) for what will be buried. You don’t want to have to dig it up or remove this connection once it's in place. It makes no sense to run CAT-5 over copper when in a few years, you may remove this medium for the backend of most networks.

4. Call before you dig!: Each state has a "call before you dig" service. A simple Google search of Call before you dig Ohio (or any other state) will take you to the site that can give you procedural information, underground line requirements for your state, and other important facts. When networking two buildings, you will want to use orange markings to identify the connection as a communications system. Most locations use orange for all communications media, but check your local requirements before starting any work and arranging your support staff for the project.

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Important safety note: Digging can be very dangerous, as there are many underground utilities, including gas and electric, that can be deadly. It goes without saying to follow all relevant precautions and enlist the services of heavy equipment and facilities or installation professionals for projects of this nature.

Best practice: When digging, it's advisable to have a team that's familiar with operating the necessary equipment to help you lay the conduit. A ditch digger may seem like a fun tool, but enlist your facilities maintenance staff or others more suited to operate this equipment.

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5. Run extra media through the conduit: While you're there, you may want to tag on an extra line or two. For example, if you plan to connect two buildings with a fiber connection, run an extra fiber and maybe a few CAT-5 lines as well. These extra lines may come in handy later. You can group relevant categories of connections in the conduit freely. You can't, however, run power through these lines--no mixing communications and power types. PoE (power over Ethernet) may be considered a power conduit instead of a communications conduit if you seek to pair it with another type.

6. Leave a pull string in the conduit: In case you decide to pull another type in the conduit in the future, leave a pull string (even high test fishing line does well) in the conduit. Simply tape it to the header of the piece you're pulling through and when you feed your fiber or other type in, also feed the pull string.

7. Avoid the telco whenever possible: If your buildings aren't very close together, you may not be able to avoid a telco for the connection. But in short-distance situations, you might be able to work out arrangements with local authorities and property neighbors to coordinate the installations of private conduit. If the two buildings are fairly close, it may be worth the effort and higher initial cost to get a private conduit instead of the ongoing cost of an ISP or carrier service.

8. Think below protocol layers: When designing the basic objectives of your connectivity project, don’t think in terms of VLANs and IP addresses at first. You want to establish your connectivity in a way that extends your manageability to the highest level, so focus on Layer 1 and Layer 2 of the OSI model. Who knows, we may dump TCP/IP in a few years anyway for something better, if IPv6 is not well received. You may also consider using WAN protocols for efficiency or segregation on this connection instead of simple TCP/IP configurations.

9. Share Internet connection points: The last thing any IT department wants is an additional monthly payment, so be sure to keep your Internet connection points centralized where possible. Ensure that your networking configuration allows you to manage the access by the different geographical locations (buildings), by user, or by some other manageable mechanism. Also, having two connection points (one in each building and a LAN connection between the buildings) poses a security threat of multiple entry points. However, a case can be made from a disaster recovery or business continuity perspective to have a backup carrier connection in another building, yet accessible.

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Best practice: Be sure that the Internet traffic, or any other traffic, is throttled, cached, or otherwise managed from a QoS perspective if there's a large number of clients or a lot of traffic in the other connection point.

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10. Make long-term infrastructure decisions now: For the network clients in the second building, make decisions about the local name resolution, file server storage resources, e-mail servers, and authentication/directory servers that may be local to the first building. Should the second building involve a small number of clients and less traffic, you may not want to have a true data room there. You can simply extend the back-end services from the primary building. But if the second building will double traffic to your server room--and possibly over a limited-speed connection--you may need to make some of those resources central to the destination.

It's official. On January 19, 2012, Google announced that it will penalize sites with pages that are top-heavy with ads. Such WebPages will either disappear from Google Ranking or move down significantly. Google says, "Be mindful of having too many advertisements on any of your pages, in relation to "meaningful" content. There seems to be a direct correlation between the number of advertisements on a page (especially above the fold advertising), and the overall ranking of a page. Make sure you have plenty of quality, relevant content to balance out your web pages." The change  called the "page layout algorithm" takes direct aim at any site with pages where content is buried under tons of ads.

Google Continues: "This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites - sites which are low-value, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites - sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on. It is important for high-quality sites to be rewarded, and that's exactly what this change does."

Read More – Click Here!

Read More - Click Here!

Microsoft’s first batch of patches for 2012 will include fixes for security vulnerabilities in the Windows operating system and Microsoft Developer Tools and Software.

In all, Microsoft plans to ship 7 bulletins, one rated “critical,” Microsoft’s highest severity rating. A critical bulletin typically deals with security holes that allow remote code execution attacks with minimal user action.follow Ryan Naraine on twitter

The Windows vulnerabilities will apply to all versions of Microsoft’s flagship OS, including the newest Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

Microsoft also announced that one of the bulletins will fix an issue described as a “Security Feature Bypass.”  It is the first time Microsoft has used this label on a security update.

The patches will be released next Tuesday (Jan 10, 2012) at approximately 1:00 PM EST

According to every ad and brochure Nissan put out, the Leaf gets 100 miles per charge. Because after driving this car for five months, I can tell you I have yet to get 100 miles per charge. The last three times I measured, it was 55, 58 and 58. My life now revolves around a near-constant calculation of how far I can drive before I’ll have to walk. The Nissan Leaf, I can report, is perfect if you don’t have enough anxiety in your life.

I told a friend of my disappointment, and his response was, to say the least, humbling. “You mean to tell me,” he said, “a car advertisement lied?” Click Here - Read More!

The purpose of the Action System is to allow users a means for entering and monitoring Action Items. In turn, the responsible departments can monitor and take action on the requests, and mark them Complete with a Complete Date when finished.

As such, Action System has three user tools in the main menu, Items Entry, Items View, and six filter lists, Active, Unassigned, Pending, InActive, ListAll, and Complete. The program uses a Web Browser and can be accessed from the Goer IntraNet site.

The main screen consists of two windows, a menu window to the left and Activity screen to the right. Selection from the menu will display in the Activity screen. The menu screen will remain active at all times to allow rapid movement through the program.

Main Menu
Place your mouse arrow on the desired selection and click.

Item Entry

To enter an Action Item, click Item Entry
Enter the desired information. The tab key or a mouse click will take you from one entry field to the next.
1. Enter your UserID, the same ID used to log into the Network or DataFlo, IE rmcnary (12 characters max).
2. Select the responsible department from the list - the one that can fix the problem
3. Select the Customer Commodity Code from the list, IE line for Linens 'n' Things (4 characters max)
4. Enter the part number (9 characters max).
5. Enter the Work Order Number (9 characters max).
6. Description is used to describe the problem. Don’t leave anything out but be as brief as possible.

7. Click the \"Add Action Item\" button to save your request. The system will assign an \"Item Number\" for quick tracking purposes. Reset to erase your request

Item View:

To view Action Items, simply click Item View This option will allow you to filter your list by the following criteria: Item Number, UserID, Customer or Commodity Code, Part Number, Work Order Number, Department, and Assigned.

Select One Only please, then click \"View Selected Item\"

The system will display a list of Items based on your filter selection. You can view or edit an Item simply by clicking on the desired Item number.

You can View and/or change any data at this point. To save the changes click \"Update Item\".

You can also select another menu option or click the back arrow on the WebBrowser Tool Bar.

Active Items

Active Items will allow you to view a list of all Active Items. If you wish to view a specific Item, simply click the desired Item number. The data will be displayed in a view form that allows update of information.

Unassigned

Unassigned Items will allow you to view a list of all Items that are not assigned. If you wish to view a specific Item, simply click the desired Item number. The data will be displayed in a view form that allows update of information.

Pending

Pending Items will allow you to view a list of all Items that are waiting a long period of time for additional information or funding. If you wish to view a specific Item, simply click the desired Item number. The data will be displayed in a view form that allows update of information.

InActive Items

InActive Items will allow you to view a list of all item where no action will be taken. If you wish to view a specific Item, simply click the desired Item number. The data will be displayed in a view form that allows update of information.

List All

List All will list every Item in the system regardless of status or assignment. If you wish to view a specific Item, simply click the desired Item number. The data will be displayed in a view form that allows update of information.

Complete

Complete Items will allow you to view a list of all Completed Items. If you wish to view a specific Item, simply click the desired Item number. The data will be displayed in a view form that allows update of information.

Since this program uses a web browser, you can use the forward and back arrows, make a new selection from the menu, or exit the browser to close the program.

Someone introduces you as the next presenter. The audience sits expectantly, awaiting your arrival. You step up, prepare to begin your talk, launch your presentation and nothing appears on the screen. Or equally disconcerting, no sound emerges from the speakers....

Think it can't happen to you? Think again. I hope it doesn't, but if it does, here are some things to check.

1: Is the projector plugged in?

Of course you have checked the end of the power plug that goes into the outlet or the power strip. Make sure, though, and follow the line all the way to the end. If you have a number of cords going into a strip, it's possible that yours, the one for the projector, might have been disconnected. Also, remember that old song that Judy Collins sang, "Both Sides Now." Check the OTHER end of the power cord. If it isn't hard-wired into the body of the projector, it will have a plug connection. Make sure that connection is in place as well.

2: Is the switch turned on?

I'm really sorry if these first two points are insulting you, but they're too important to skip. Make sure the switch to the projector really is On. Chances are, the projector uses the international symbols for On and Off. Keep them straight by remembering that the symbol for On, the vertical line (|), looks like the number one, which is close in spelling to on.

3: Is the outlet live?

Even if the projector is plugged in, and even if the switch is on, the projector might not be getting power. Check any power indicator lights on the projector. If there aren't any, check the outlet itself. Are other devices from the outlet or strip getting power? If so, your projector should as well. If your projector is the only device, test the outlet or strip by using another device. Remember too that a strip itself can have an on/off switch.

4: Is the video connection physically in place?

Your projector needs more than just electric power. It also needs video signals from your computer. Usually, that connection comes from a cable with a D-shell connector or a USB connection. Make sure it's in place and it's tight.

5: Is the computer sending a video signal to the projector?

Maybe a video cable is in place, but your computer might not actually be using it. The computer might not be sending a video signal to the projector. To resolve this problem, look on your keyboard or in your computer documentation on how to enable such sending. For example, on many Dell laptops, pressing the function key along with the F5 key toggles the display mode from PC only to projector only to PC and projector simultaneously.

6: Is the projector set for input from the computer?

Even if the video cable is in place, and even if the computer really is sending a video signal to the projector, the latter might not be expecting it. Such displays often are designed to receive input from other sources, such as a DVD player. You may need to use a setup menu for the projector to change the source of input.

7: Is the projector sleeping?

Projectors often are equipped with an energy-saving sleep or hibernate mode. In such cases, hitting the power button once or twice quickly will take the projector back to active mode.

When I'm working with a projector, I try to avoid putting it into (or allowing it to go into) a hibernate mode. Instead, if I want to hide the projector display from the audience, I will simply put a piece of paper against the lens or loosely cover the lens with a lens cap. I want to take no chances with the projector and its hibernate mode.

8: Forward or reverse projection?

Projectors generally are set up so that they display images from the front of the screen. However, sometimes, for aesthetic reasons, you might want to display images from behind the screen. In that case, the projector needs to display images “backward.” If you see such backward images, check the forward/reverse projection setting.

9: Right side up or upside down?

Similarly, projectors can be designed to hang from the ceiling. In such cases, they are upside down, and their displays have to be adjusted accordingly. Therefore, if your image appears upside down, check the appropriate setup menu on the projector.

10: Is the display resolution compatible?

If you're still getting no display, make sure that the projector can handle the resolution settings of your computer. You might need to make your computer display less fine - that is, setting it to lower numbers. You can do so in Windows via the Control Panel Display icon (in classic view) or via the Change The Screen Resolution task under Appearance And Themes.

11: Are the sound settings correct?

If you're not getting sound, the problem could arise in any of three areas. First, look at the application that's generating the sound — for example, Media Player. Make sure the volume setting is greater than zero. Second, check the sound settings for your computer itself, via the Control Panel's Sounds And Audio Devices applet. Make sure that the volume here is also set to greater than zero. Most important, make sure that the Mute option is not selected.

12: Are you using the right sound jack?

If you're planning to get sound by plugging a 1/8″ minijack cable into your computer, make sure you're plugging the cable into the headphone jack, not the microphone jack. The latter might be labeled with a headphone icon, and it probably will resemble the letter “C” on its side.

SmartPhones have enough processing power these days to allow you to run a presentation off the devices. Imagine how great it would be to go the venue carrying a SmartPhone in your pocket instead of lugging a laptop bag. The following suggestions will help you make your SmartPhone PowerPoint presentation memorable…

• First, search for a presentation package for your SmartPhone. Windows Mobile SmartPhones comes with PowerPoint which really makes it simple. However, if you are running Blackberry, Droid… there are plenty to choose from, including Pocket Slides from Conduits Technologies, Inc. The benefits and the pitfalls of the available presentation packages would fill volumes, so try a few and pick one you like.
• You will need the venue to supply a computer attached to a projector or have a VGA adapter for the SmartPhone if you want your work to be seen by the entire audience. Some projectors use WiFI or BlueTooth. But if not, It is worthwhile to search online for VGA outkits for your model of SmartPhone; this would allow you to connect directly to a projector and deliver the presentation straight from the device.
  Or, you could connect your SmartPhone to a laptop using Remote Display via Bluetooth and, instead of being tied to a lectern, you could move around the audience, controlling the slides from your SmartPhone.
• Alternatively, you could connect your phone to a laptop using Remote Display via Bluetooth and, instead of being tied to a lectern, you could move around the audience, controlling the slides from your SmartPhone.
  You could use the SmartPhone simply as a memory stick to bring the presentation to the venue and then transfer it to the venue’s PC; however, it would be just as easy to use a memory stick and not have to use ActiveSync although, in my bitter experience, it is a lot easier to lose a USB memory stick than a SmartPhone.
• Most SmartPhones have a built-in voice recorder; a good time to use the recorder would be during the Q&A session. If your memory is as bad as mine, it’s best to record anything that requires a follow-up because failing to deliver on your promise of further contact is not a good way to further your career.

And, of course, make sure you deliver a good presentation. Many people mistakenly use every PowerPoint feature to embed video, music, animation, and far too much text in their presentations, thus creating a great demonstration of the presenter’s PowerPoint skill and often overshadowing the real message of the talk. A good presentation includes simple and meaningful graphics, such as graphs of market share and images of products teamed, with bullet-point type text that the speaker expands on verbally. Keep in mind that you can use your SmartPhone like it’s your personal cue card system.

One downside of delivering a presentation from a SmartPhone is the screen is smaller and a different shape than a PC screen, so when it is blown up on an OHP screen, the resolution will look grainy. You would have to tailor the text and graphics to allow for this resolution issue. It’s yet another reason to keep your PowerPoint presentation simple.

At the end of your presentation, you unplug the SmartPhone, put it in your pocket, and leave. How cool is that?

'Prepare For Microsoft Internet Explorer 8','

Coral from Nuvox asked: Greg - How will this compare to Google Apps? Good question! Internet Explorer 8 competition is Google Chrome and FireFox. http://www.google.com/chrome I do not care much for Chrome. It is “new” but it may mature into something useful in the future. I use FireFox about 70% of the time. Internet Explorer is imbedded into the windows operating system and you really cannot function in windows without it. Also, some important banking, shipping, insurance, government, … websites demand internet explorer. Google Apps consists of: gmail: Fast, searchable email with less spam google talk: im (instant messaging) and call your friends through your computer google calendar: organize your schedule and share events with friends google docs: share online documents, presentations, and spreadsheets google sites: create websites and secure group wikis 20+ other google apps Google Apps competition is Microsoft Live. I don’t know who copied who, but they both do the same thing. Google Apps and Microsoft Live are good for “down ‘n’ dirty get ‘r’ done stuff and allows you to work online from anywhere. However, for most business use, Microsoft Office (good but expensive) or Open Office (good and free) does a much better job..

By default, IE (Internet Explorer) prints a web page along with those annoying headers and footers, giving you information (such as the date it was printed) that you may not want to advertise. You can turn off headers and footers for a particular print job by clicking File > Print Preview > Turn headers and footers on or off.

However, if you want to turn them off permanently, this is how we do it:

1. Click File | Page Setup
2. In the dialog box, under the section labeled \"Headers and Footers,\" remove the text in the boxes.
3. Click OK.

Alternatively, you can change the information in the headers and footers. Example, &d or &D is what puts the date in the printout. Likewise, &t or &T inserts the time. If you want the footer to show the page number only, just put &p in the footer.

“I chose that word because it’s a good SEO keyword,” they say.

Ah. It may be a good SEO keyword but it’s certainly not a good people word.

But before I get too far down this path, let me give you all a little background info. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. What that means is you make your website and other online copy “search-engine friendly” so the search engines will rank you high for your chosen keywords. (Like on the first page when someone does a search for that keyword.)

One of the main tactics used to optimize your site is to scatter your chosen keywords throughout your copy (the frequency and positioning seem to change depending on how close the Moon is to Jupiter so I’m not going to even go down this path today.)

Why do you want that? Presumably so you get more online visitors to your site.

On the surface, it makes sense. Your website ranks high on the first page when people do a search for your keywords, they see your website and click on the link.

Easy, right? Well… First off, SEO (like everything Internet-related) has changed. A few years ago, SEO made perfect sense. That WAS the main way people found things on the Internet.

However, with social networking taking the world by storm, and more people on Facebook and YouTube than Google, people using the search engines have dropped significantly.

Now, that’s not to say you don’t need to take the search engines into consideration. There’s no question people are still using the search engines. But their searching habits have changed. Now they’re more likely to search for you after hearing about you via offline methods (like newspapers, magazines, television, direct mail, speaking, meeting you at an event, etc.)

Of course, people will still do generic searches for keywords that relate to what you sell. But trying to get yourself on page 1 of those rankings can be really difficult. And with Google changing their algorithms every time the wind changes directions, you can be on Page 1 one day and knocked down to Page 20 the next. (Also known as the dreaded “Google Dance.”)

So what do you do?

Well, my thought is while optimizing is not a bad idea, I wouldn’t put too much energy into it. And I certainly wouldn’t put words that sounded weird or off to my ideal clients on my online materials even if they were strong keywords. (Look, if you’re going to do all this work to get your ideal clients to visit your site, do you really want to turn them off with bad writing and poor language choices?)

Google and all the other search engines are going to reward you if your website isn’t deceptive, offers great content, and the content changes regularly. If you do that, the search engines WILL like your site regardless of your SEO. (You might not end up on Page 1 but the search engines will regard you fondly and will probably not move you around too much during any dances.)

And the reality is, it makes far more sense to focus on other avenues for people to find you. Be active on social networking sites, post articles, upload video, blog more. All of these things will increase your visibility out in that wild world we call the Internet FAR more than simply focusing only on SEO.

And if you focus on those activities, then you can put your very best writing on your website — the kind of writing that will make your visitors eager to learn more about you and do business with you — instead of suffocating your copy with keywords that may make those very same visitors click away

Everyone wants their website on the first page of Google. But few make it. Why?

1. Your domain name is meaningless
Your cryptic domain name means something to you, but it doesn't contain any keywords relevant to your business. So it means nothing to Google.

2. Your site is slow
Remember all those amazing graphics and special effects your designer did for your site? Well, they're slowing it down. Google hates slow websites, and so do your visitors.

3. Title Tags
Every page has a title tag, but it's not on the page, it's in the html. Google expects title tags to be short, descriptive, keyword rich and highly relevant to page content. Google hates poor title tags, and it especially hates a poor homepage title tag.

4. No Text
Google looks for regular text on your page and ignores text you've put in a graphic. It expects text to be informative, focused, keyword rich and completely relevant to the title tag. Google hates pages that lack text, or contain text that's not relevant to the page topic.

5. Nobody Likes You
You've fixed everything above, so now you think you have a great website. Trouble is, Google will not take your word for it. Instead it will check the Internet to find websites that link to yours. Then it will check their quality. If it finds a few high quality sites that link to your site Google will take that as a vote of confidence. And it will finally stop hating you! 

When I worked as a business consultant, I was often asked to help small businesses reduce shipping costs. With the continued increases in shipping costs, and continued economic crisis, companies can benefit by every opportunity to cut expenses. As you read about the ways that I have helped companies cut their shipping costs, think about how these examples might help your small business.
 
Never Pay for Packaging Again
 
When addressed by companies that want to reduce their shipping costs, the first thing that I suggest is to eliminate packaging expenses. Build a relationship with your local grocery store as grocers usually unpack and destroy hundreds of boxes a week. See if you can take boxes when you need them, or if you can take enough to get you through a few weeks at a time. It would not be unlikely to reduce your yearly shipping costs by hundreds or thousands by simply getting free boxes.
 
I tell employees to bring in their old newspapers and magazines whenever they have a chance. These can be used as package filler instead of bubble wrap and packaging foam. I have seen customers save hundreds of dollars a month by eliminating the need for packaging filler.
 
Delivery Area
 
One of my favorite tricks for reducing shipping costs is to show small business owners how to figure out their self-shipping area. By having your employees make deliveries and pick-ups for you, you should be able to see a significant decrease in your overall shipping costs. All you need is a map and some little markers.
 
Tag the locations on your map where your employees live. Connect these locations like connect-the-dots to show the area in which you can have your workers make deliveries or pick up product on the way to work or on the way home. Plot out any customers or suppliers in this area. Chances are good that you will be surprised at how much money you are wasting on shipping costs. How you get your employees to do this extra work is up to you. Paying for lunch, gas, or an extra hour's pay might be much less than the local shipping cost.
 
Is There an App for That?
 
App creators have come up with inventory and shipment tracking applications for tablet pcs and smartphones. Take a look at these apps and be mindful about all of the steps in your shipping process. Maybe one of the inventory apps can help streamline your overall process. There are chances that you might find an app that will help keep track of shipments that could be lost and hurt your bottom line. Maybe an app can be modified so that your customers can use the app to place their orders through their tablets and phones. This could help you to reduce your order-taking expenses which would ultimately reduce your shipping expenses.

I used to think I knew a lot about scanning pictures. After all, I’ve used, sold, and trained people on scanners for over 15 years. But a couple months ago my wife pointed to a 32”x18”by18” chest that held ALL of the family’s photos and said “wouldn’t it be nice to have all of our pictures on computer so we could show them on the TV and use them on our Smartphone’s? Besides, if we had a fire or something, what would we do?” I was thinking this was going to be one of those “nice ideas” that never happened. But then she said “wouldn’t it be nice to show them to the kids when they visit over the holidays?” Whelp, she “suggested” a deadline, and I hate to disappoint her, so I put together a plan and went to work.

The scanner I use is an HP OfficeJet 8500, part of an all-in-one printer with HP Solutions Station software. They had a less expensive one, about $50, that comes with the same software that would have worked just as good. Other brands work fine too. Just make sure the scanner is “name brand” has a good user rating, and 300 resolution, cause that is the resolution you want to use. Now I don’t have any negatives or slides to scan. But if you do, make certain your scanner is setup for them.

The pictures I scanned ran the gamut, from hi-quality 4x6 glossy pictures taken with a 35mm professional camera to 10x12 portraits, to 3x3s taken long ago with a 110 instamatic, Polaroid’s, and 1x1 pictures from a photo booth at a fair. Some of the print finishes were glossy, some were matt finished, and some hung on the wall so long that the pictures stuck to the glass. We even had some old timey black ‘n’ whites on plates.

However, 90% of them were in albums with a clear plastic sheet over them, and that made it easy. Question is, do you take them out of the album or do you scan them through the plastic? I experimented and found that if the plastic was clean and flush with the picture, I couldn’t tell the difference. So I put whole album sheets on the scanner glass and did scanned them that way.

The software was amazing. An album page might have 4, 6, 8, or more pictures on it. The software detected the edges of each picture and saved each in its own file. After scanning it would display the pictures and allow me to rotate clockwise or counter clockwise by right-clicking the image. It would also allow me to crop, take out redeye, scratches and dust.

Some of the pictures required a little more massaging. Some were badly faded or the colors turned gray, blue, or brown. I used PhotoDraw, but most drawing software will do the same thing. It allowed me to click on something in the image that should be white. Based on that selection, it would alter the colors and make it right. And most of the time, it did a great job of fixing the color.

Whilst fixing pictures, you can also crop or enlarge. Don’t overdo it. If you enlarge more than 10 or 20%, the image might get “grainy”. But many times you can turn a picture of folks in the distance into a prized portrait. You can also get rid of X son-in-laws and brother-in-laws too (hee hee).

Whelp, I got ’r’ done. 5871 pictures, about 6 gigs worth. We put them on 2 computers and 3, 8 gig memory sticks, two sticks went in the safe and the other is plugged into the BluRay so we can see them on the TV. My Wife is grinning from ear to ear. While the job was grueling, the rewards were more than expected, in that whilst scanning, I remembered so many things that I should never have forgotten about people and progress, and what brought us to where we are today. Truly a rewarding (but not to be repeated) experience. My advice, get started, stay at it, enjoy the process, and reap the rewards.

You may not be thinking of scalability when you design a room to house your servers and other network components, but your job will be made much easier when the network starts to grow if you've taken that growth into account at the beginning. 

In a small business, "the" (one and only) server may sit in a corner of someone's office or hide out in a small storage closet. There are problems with those solutions: they aren’t very secure, and they aren’t very scalable. If office space is at a premium, it might be difficult to convince management that your servers need their own room (and good luck on getting the boss to sacrifice the only wasted space on the premises--part of his big corner office--to construct one).

But if the organization is serious about protecting its IT investments, it’s important to find a way to build a proper server room, one that offers physical security for the machines that host your most mission-critical applications and store your important data. But how do you make a small space scalable? Let’s look at some ways to do just that.

Selecting the space

If you have the option, select a space that’s larger than you currently need to accommodate future growth. Your business may be operating with a single server solution like Microsoft Small Business Server (SBS) now, but as the company grows, you’ll almost certainly find your network evolving beyond its limitations.

For security, performance and useability reasons, you will probably eventually want to separate your domain controller from other server functions, install the perimeter firewall on its own separate server, and perhaps create a DMZ or perimeter network where you’ll place mail and web servers and others that need to have direct contact with the Internet. When your company implements wireless, you’ll need a place for one or more WAPs. When it decides to cut the telco cord and go with Voice over IP, you’ll need room for a call server/IP PBX. All these new devices will necessitate more switches and routers.  And the heat they generate may dictate the need for a good cooling system.

You may be thinking that if the company grows large enough to need individual servers and all these extra goodies, you’ll have so many employees that you’ll have to move to different quarters anyway. That may or may not prove true. Many organizations today are saving money by allowing employees to work from home, implementing second shifts, and finding other ways to accommodate an increase in the number of employees without requiring more office space. However, the increased network traffic and productivity resulting from remote users and/or 'round the clock use of the network’s resources will increase the load on the IT infrastructure and will likely require restructuring and/or additional devices in the server room.

Populating the space

As you set up or add to the infrastructure, keep scalability in mind. For instance, if you add a second server, you might purchase a KVM so both servers can share a keyboard, monitor and pointing device. Instead of buying a two-port KVM to meet your immediate needs, it may make more sense in terms of scalability to look at one that will let you add additional servers as they’re needed.

Don’t forget the concept of physical scalability when you choose a form factor for those new servers, either. Especially in a limited space, a rack-mount or blade system is far more scalable than tower style servers. You can put a dozen rack-mounted servers in the same amount of space that would be used by only a couple of tower machines. The extra cost for the rack-mount form factor might be offset by the savings in space, especially in tight real estate markets where square footage is at a premium.

On the other hand, keep in mind that rack-mount servers are themselves limited in expansion capabilities. There’s little or no room to mount extra internal drives or to add expansion cards for additional functionality (for example, you might need to add additional network interface cards for multi-homed servers). These limits on expandability should be balanced against the space savings in accordance with your individual current and future needs.

Increasing scalability with virtualization technology

Another way to increase the physical scalability of your servers is to buy powerful machines and run several logical servers on one physical server with virtualization software. This can also save you money, since you’ll need to buy fewer machines.

You can use VMWare’s free VMWare Server or Microsoft’s Virtual Server 2005 to install multiple instances of your server operating systems, and then install the appropriate server applications on each. Thus you could have three logical servers, seen by the network as three different computers with their own individual IP addresses, running on a single machine.

Expanding the space

No matter how efficiently you pack the room, eventually you’ll probably need more space than it offers. That’s why it’s a good idea to consider, in the beginning, how and where you might be able to expand in the future. A server room that backs up to another room that you might later be able to commandeer could save you a lot of grief years from now. Which would you prefer to deal with: cutting a door into the office on the other side of the server room wall to double your floor space, or having to move everything (not to mention all that rewiring) in order to move into a room twice the size on the other side of the building?

Remember that as the organization grows, you’ll need that extra space for such things as a testbed network where you can check out new operating systems and applications or make sure service packs and updates are compatibility with your applications before deploying them on the production network, or distribution servers for more control over patch management.

Summary

Scalability is important in relation to more than just your network hardware and software; it’s also an important consideration when designing the space in which your network components live.

Samuel … asked the question, “is it crucial to buy up all related domains for your website when u launch? such as yourdomain.com and the misspellings, as well as .org or .net domains?”

In times past that was the thing to do. Buying up all possible domain names meant higher traffic or more people finding your website. If your primary domain was, let’s say, traffic.com, you would probably buy traffic.com, traffic.org, traffic.net, traphic.com, traphic.org, traphic.net, as many iterations of traphic.com and misspellings that you could afford.

But that was a time where folks plugged in the domain name directly into the http address or URL field of a browser. Today, even if they know the URL or web address, they usually plug the name into a google or yahoo search field, click search, then pick the link from the search list. If they don’t know the domain name, they usually search keywords or find your site from a link on another site.

Once your site is found, many folks add your website to favorites or a bookmark and access it from there the next time, OR simply do a drop-down to find your website in history.

Buying all possible iterations of a domain name can be very costly. In yesteryear, we only had .com .org and .net. Now there are hundreds of domain extensions like .biz .tv .mob… and some have a price tag of $50 or more.

My recommendation is to put your money where it will do the most good, and that is rich effective website content so folks ‘do what you want when they get there’, and SEO (search engine optimization) so folks can find your website in the first place.

However, Samuel received lots of answers from a forum, and here they are:

TrentH  - Well, if you plan on going big? I'd say yes, atleast get the .org .net stuff, those are crucial. Than as time pass's find the common miss spellings and do them as well.

Brian-de-vie  - In principle it's a good idea, but reality has to kick in somewhen, have you calculated howmany ways 'yourdomain' could be misspelt ? Your prime domains should be .com .net .org & if applicable your country code ie .co.uk Other versions only if you expect to do some serious trading in those countries/regions, ie. .eu .cn etc.

fox80129  - Yeah, it's a good idea to buy at least .com .net and .org. Then, if your site/project is getting bigger and bigger, go for the misspelled domain names too ;-)

Junior Guru   - It's not "crucial" to buy up all the other extensions and misspellings. It may be helpful, though, but certainly not of the utmost importance.

If you publish many websites you could easily find yourself with many hundreds of domains and looking back wondering why you spent 5 figures in domain registration fees over the past few years.

shakir  - Mo chance of misspelling .org,.net instead of .com. but wise verse is possible.Its good to buy all domain .org.net and .info if you are keeping a trade name

greatandrew  - I am sorry, but I can see no reason for which it is expedient to be done!

WHT Addict   - You see, shakir, it is almost impossible to protect a trademark ordering multiple domains for the same website! For this reason it is enough to hire a good lawyer!

theuniverse  -  it depends on your site. buy yourdomain.com,.net,.org,.mobi. if your site is for specific country ,buy country extension also.

Newbie   - Yes, Its always a good idea to buy all the extensions for your main domain.

first, it helps in safeguard your brand, second, you could utilize it for other territories. Misspell version is helpful to avoid losing traffic. Don't forget to register a "sucks" version as well ex: yourcomanysucks.com

Sleep mode, Shutdown, and Hibernate are options that we can choose to use when our computers are not in use. The best method/s to use really depends on our objectives. Do we need instant access? Are we “Green Conscious” and trying to save energy? Are we trying to maximize the life our our computer? Armed with a clear objective and a knowledge of how each of the three features works, we can make a decision that will enable us to meet our goals. So let’s dig in and find out what Sleep, Hibernate, and Shutdown are all about.

Sleep mode: A special power-saving setting that resembles a coma. Sleep mode, also known as Stand By or Suspend, saves energy but doesn’t quite turn the computer off completely. The monitor, hard drive, and various other components may be shut down, but the Operating System (Windows MAC Linux) saves our current activity in ram memory so that it can continue right where you left off when the computer resumes (comes out of sleep mode). Power consumption my be reduced as much as 90% whilst in sleep mode and your monitor and hard drive may last a little longer because of less-use. Since the computer isn’t completely off, the computer resumes quickly, and will put you right back in the program that you were working in before it entered Sleep mode. There is a downside to Sleep mode; if your computer loses power whilst in Sleep mode, you will loose unsaved documents and there is a slight risk that you could corrupt your program.

Shutdown: Shutdown is very simple. Programs are closed, data is either saved or discarded, the computer ceases to functions, and no power is used during Shutdown.

Hibernate: Hibernate shuts down your computer completely. However, a “Snap Shot” of what you were doing at the time of shut down is retained, that is, saved to your hard drive. When the computer comes back on, it starts programs and opens data/documents, so that you can continue working right where you left off. Unlike Sleep mode, no power is used when the computer hibernates. This is good from an energy point of view. However, the start-up time is much longer than Sleep mode and Shutdown.

What we do: We usually do not Shutdown our computers. Computer seldom break down because of use. The power savings is is minimal, and this allows us to automatically run updates, virus scans, and backups at night rather then fight or compete with them during the day. Since memory is only made to remain stable for about 24 hours, we restart our computers each morning to refresh memory and delete cache.

Sleep mode and Hibernate have an interesting feature that can be used to great advantage. They both have the ability to “Wake Up” when called upon to do so by program like AntiVirus and Microsoft Update. So what we do is set the computer to go into Sleep mode after 15-30 minutes of inactivity, then Hibernate after 1 hour of inactivity. In that way, we get the best of both worlds. We save some energy during the day when the computer is not in use, and we can access our data quickly when it comes out of sleep mode. At night we save energy but still received automatic computer updates and Virus Scans.

Why not just leave the computer on all the time? Fact is, Safe Mode, Hibernate, and Ram Memory don’t always work as designed. Power blips and Ram imperfections may cause data loss or file corruption. So if we plan to be away from our computers more than a few minutes, we should save our data and exit our programs, especially at night when we go home for the evening.

Bottom line: It is best to use all three modes, Sleep, Shutdown, and Hibernation, in combination for efficient computer operation and energy savings. But always remember to restart your computer in the morning to insure a trouble-free day.

'In this tough economy, some small businesses have considered cutting back on regular maintenance for their networks and computers. The following is a list of the 10 most common technical missteps that have resulted in system failures with data loss:

Insufficient technical support
1. Unresolved Hardware/software issues
2. Insufficient power protection (no battery backups or UPS with dead batteries)
3. Illegal software
4. Insufficient training
5. Security failures
6. Poor or no backup strategy
7. Virus exposure (no antivirus or out of date subscriptions)
8. Spyware exposure
9. Unsolicited e-mail
10. Not maintaining and enforcing a technology and email policy

It is imperative that small businesses adopt or maintain the following business practices:

1. Implement and enforce strong password security policies for all PCs, servers, network equipment, and software applications.
2. Regularly update operating systems, network equipment firmware, and applications with the latest security patches.
3. Deploy business-class firewalls in all locations; connect no systems directly to the Internet.
4. Secure all wireless networks.
5. Disable guest accounts.
6. Implement Internet and e-mail usage policies that preclude personal use of those technologies.
7. Prohibit file-sharing programs.
8. Deploy proven antivirus, anti-spyware, and anti-rootkit applications and update them regularly.
9. Regularly perform security audits and correct all deficiencies.
10. Maintain and evenly enforce a technology and email policy

Whether you’re an employee of a company or an independent professional working for yourself, working from home might make sense,. However, you should also be aware that working from home can cause problems if you are not prepared. So here are some tips for successfully working from home.

1. Dress the part: No, you don’t have to don the three piece suit or the wing tip shoes or the

   female equivalent. But neither should you simply roll out of bed and move to your desk, clad

   in your pajamas. Yes, it’s unlikely your co-workers or clients will see you dressed this way.

   Nonetheless, the way you dress can affect your attitude and your productivity. In addition, the

   act of changing can help you distinguish, psychologically, between work and home — an

   important distinction, discussed more below.

2. Keep a separate office: For the same reason your dress should be different for work, so

   should your office. You probably could work from the kitchen counter or in the family room.

   However, the chances of distractions and of lowered productivity increase significantly

   compared to working in your own separately defined home office. The separate area might

   also be necessary to satisfy IRS home office requirements (but check with your tax advisor to

   make sure).

3. Discipline yourself regarding break times: Yes, you can knock off work every 10 minutes to

   watch television or pop in a DVD. If you do, though, you might go through the day without

   accomplishing anything. The need for time management and discipline becomes even

   greater when you’re on your own. Establish those periods of time when you work and those

   times when you take a break and stick to them.

4. Discipline yourself regarding snacks: In other words, watch what you eat. It’s easy to wander

   to the kitchen for a snack. Too much snacking will ruin your productivity and your waistline.

   Exercise discretion and discipline here as well.

5. Check insurance: Make sure your homeowner insurance covers your work-at-home activity.

   This issue is particularly important if you anticipate having visitors, such as co-workers or

   clients. You might even check to see whether your company will subsidize part of that

   insurance.

6. Educate and set guidelines for the family: Do you have a spouse, children, or even parents

   living with you? Make sure they know about this arrangement. It might be difficult, but they

   need to realize that even though you’re at home, you’re still, at times, “at work.” Having a

   constant knocking on the door to handle this or that domestic emergency will prevent you

   from concentrating and completing your tasks. Establish guidelines for when you are

   available and stick to them.

7. Establish start and stop times: Many people think that working from home helps achieve

    work/life balance. Yes, it can, as long as you keep clear the distinction. If you don’t, your

    work/life balance actually could become even worse because you won’t know when to stop

    “working” and start “homing”. As with dress and with your office, set clear times when you

    start working and when you stop. When the latter time comes, really DO stop. Avoid going

    back to your home office or just to send one more e-mail.” That one e-mail will become a

    second, and a third. Once the time comes, just stop until the next day.

8. Use a separate phone line for business: Regardless of whether you’re an employee or on

    your own, get a separate line for your business. Having your five-year-old answer the phone

    for relatives or friends might be cute, but it could mark you as unprofessional to others who

    might call. If you use an answering machine or service, call your own line and check the

    quality of your greeting. You don’t want to sound like you’re speaking from the wreckage of

    the Titanic.

9. Clarify computer ownership and policies: Whose computer equipment will you be using? Will

    the company supply you with a computer or will you be using your own? If the latter, how will

    any acceptable use policies affect your computer? Does your company use of your own

    computer preclude you from using it for personal matters? What antivirus or patch update

    policy will you need to follow? Clarify these questions before you begin your computer work,

    because they touch on important privacy and security issues.

10. Check zoning if necessary: Check with your local government about your work arrangement.

    If you’re receiving visitors or receiving regular deliveries, the government might be concerned

    about traffic and parking. However, if all you’re doing is plain work, you likely will have less, if

    any, problem. In any event, it’s always good to make sure.

11. Keep in touch with the boss: I’m sure you have heard the saying, “out of sight, out of mind”?

    Don’t let that happen to you. Make sure your boss knows about your accomplishments. If

    your schedule calls for you to be physically at your “real” location once or twice a week,

    consider meeting with your boss about what you’ve been doing. Otherwise, make sure your

    boss knows about your projects and successes, either via phone or e-mail. You don’t want

    your lowered visibility to hurt your chances of promotion and salary increases.

When the social networking phenomenon began, many companies dealt with it by not dealing with it — they simply banned/blocked social networking sites on the company network. Like the U.S. government's attempts at Prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s, that didn't work so well. Today's young workers have grown up with Internet access and come to the job with the expectation that they'll have those resources at their disposal. If you deny them the ability to check their Facebook pages during lunchtime or tweet when they're taking a coffee (or more likely, energy drink) break, they might find a way around it or may leave to work for a company that has fewer restrictions.

But it's not just about catering to spoiled workers. In many business types, businesses are learning that social networking, used properly, can be an effective business tool...

Having your employees involved in the community can enhance the company's reputation and bring in more business — so long as it's done right. Thus many large firms, especially in the technology industry, are actually encouraging their employees to blog, tweet, and participate in forums and social sites on company time.

Even so, you still need to exert some control over how these sites are used. You can't just give employees free rein and hope they'll all exercise common sense. And you can't, in all fairness, blame them for violating rules that don't officially exist. You need a social networking policy that explicitly lays out what is and isn't permissible, both on the company's network and outside of it if they're presenting themselves as representatives of the company.

If you do decide to take the “easy” way out and just block social networking sites at the company firewall, remember that what employees are posting from home can still affect your company's reputation, so you still need a social networking policy. In this article, we'll provide some tips on what you should be sure to cover in your social networking policy.

1: A clear company philosophy

Before you can develop a policy, you need to define the company's overall attitude toward social networking. Is it something that you consider to be a strictly personal activity, which should be generally restricted — like personal phone calls and visits from family members — to the employee's break and lunch times? Or is the company interested in encouraging employees to use social networking for business purposes and incorporate it into their working time?

Some sites, such as MySpace, are primarily for personal socializing. Some, such as LinkedIn, are purely for business. But others, such as Facebook and Twitter, straddle the fence and are used by many for both purposes. You may want to allow or disallow use of specific sites during work time, but that's a challenge because new sites are always popping up and old sites are always evolving. For example, Facebook began as a venue for college students, but the demographics have changed. A recent study showed that the number of older Facebook users has grown tremendously  over the past year, in comparison to the number of younger users.

2: The definition of "Social Networking"

It may seem obvious, but it's important that your policy define what is meant by “social networking” or “social media,” since the term means different things to different people. Everyone knows Facebook is a social networking site, but what about Flickr (photo-sharing site), Indaba (musicians' collaboration site), or LiveJournal (blogging site)? Are Web forums, such as those hosted by many companies for their customers to ask questions, considered a form of social networking under your policy? What about “old-fashioned” online networking methods, such as email discussion lists and newsgroups? Or what about Digg, the “social news site” that allows people to share content?

You may want to name specific sites and technologies, but because new sites are always popping up, you should make it clear that the policies are not limited to the named sites.

3: Identifying oneself as an employee of the company

Your social networking policy should also make clear whether employees are allowed to identify themselves as representatives of the company. Most social networking sites have fields in the user profile for work experience, job title, etc. By identifying oneself as an employee of XYZ Inc., a social networker becomes, to some extent, a representative of that company, and everything he/she posts has the potential to reflect on the company and its image. Unless the employee is engaging in social networking for the specific purpose of promoting the company, some organizations prohibit their employees from listing the company name on such sites. If employees are allowed to advertise their association with the company, your policy should impress upon them that they take on the responsibility for representing the company in a professional manner.

If social networking users identify themselves as employees of the company, your policies should require that any personal blogs and other personal posts contain disclaimers that make it clear that the opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of the company.

4: Recommending others

Some social sites provide for members to write recommendations or referrals for friends/associates. If an employee does this as a representative of the company, it may give the appearance that the company endorses the individual being recommended. That could create a liability situation if another company hires the recommended person on the basis of the recommendation. For that reason, some company policies prohibit employees from making such recommendations or referrals.

5: Referring to clients, customers, or partners

Your company's relationships with clients, customers and partners are valuable assets that can be damaged through a thoughtless comment. Even a positive reference could be picked up by a competitor and used to your company's disadvantage. Your social networking policy should make it clear that employees are not to reference any clients, customers, or partners without obtaining their express permission to do so.

6: Proprietary or confidential information

Even though you may have other policies that cover the dissemination of the company's proprietary or confidential information, trade secrets, etc., the social networking policy should reiterate those policies and provide specific examples as they relate to social networking sites. Because social networking communications are somewhat informal, it's easy for employees to develop “loose lips” - especially when they think they are discussing only among themselves.

Social networking sites have varying levels of security and as public sites, all are vulnerable to security breaches. Your policy should make it clear that proprietary information is not to be discussed or referred to on such sites, even in private messages between site members who have authorized access to the information. You may want to spell out examples of information that is considered to be off limits, such as the company's financial information, intellectual property, information about customers, and so forth.

7: Terms of Service

Most social networking sites require that users, when they sign up, agree to abide by a Terms of Service (ToS) document. Your policy should hold employees responsible for reading, knowing, and complying with the ToS of the sites they use. It should not contain rules that require employees to violate the common ToS stipulations. For example, most ToS agreements prohibit users from giving false names or other false information, so the company policy should not require users to use pseudonyms when signing up for social networking sites.

8: Copyright and other legal issues

Policies should require that employees at all times comply with the law in regard to copyright/plagiarism. Posting of someone else's work without permission is not allowed (other than short quotes that comply with the “fair use” exceptions). Other relevant laws include those related to libel and defamation of character. A good rule of thumb is the one our mothers taught us long ago: “If you don't have something good to say, don't say anything at all.” Defamatory statements can lead to lawsuits against the author of the statement — and if that is one of your employees, at the very least it can bring bad publicity for the company. A slander suit was filed against singer Courtney Love for posts she made on Twitter.

9: Productivity impact

Social networking sites can be good tools for developing business relationships, but they can also turn into big time-wasters. It's easy to set rules for purely personal use of the sites, but it's more difficult to draw the lines when it comes to business-related networking. As with the “six martini lunch,” appropriate use often slips gradually into abuse without the employee even realizing it. That's why it's important to set guidelines and priorities. Your policies should make it clear that social networking activities are not to interfere with the employee's primary job responsibilities.

10: Disciplinary action

To have teeth, a policy must include consequences for violations. The policy should spell out that violation of the policy can result in disciplinary action, up to and including termination, and reference other company policies that lay out the appeals process and other relevant information.

Chief Marketing Officers, entrepreneurs and business owners are doing everything in their power to interface social media into the super-fast evolution of technology, and how they impact marketing.  They already know that social media connects them with their audiences, but the information gap on the true costs involved in a social media campaign is widening faster than the learning curve.  The time and resources invested in a campaign must be understood and evaluated in order to realize some level of return on that investment.

Three things to consider when contemplating a social media campaign:

Read More - Click Here!

Introduction

Organizations may not know exactly how to manage social networking sites from a policy

perspective. While organizations cannot control what its associates do on these sites,

authoritative policies can be drafted to establish protocol for appropriate and inappropriate

behaviors as it relates to the workplace. The following is a  sample policy that you can use and customize to protect your organization’s interests. 

Social Networking Policy

Authority

This social networking policy applies to all associates, contractors, business partners or other

parties with a material interest in [Acme, Inc.] (collectively referred to as the associates). This

policy is approved by Human Resources and the executive steering committee. 
State of social media, Social media, professional networking sites, rapid-fire communications, blog sites, and personal

Web sites are all useful technologies; [Acme, Inc.] realizes this fact. Every associate has an

opportunity to express and communicate online in many ways, and [Your Company] encourages an

online presence. Above all else, everyone needs to use good judgment on what material makes

its way online. 

This policy will set forth guidelines that employees should follow for all online communications in

reference to [Your Company].

Relevant technologies

This policy includes (but is not limited to) the following specific technologies:

  Personal blogs 
  LinkedIn

  Twitter

  Facebook

  MySpace

  Personal Web sites

  Digg

Responsibility

Any material presented online in reference to [Your Company] by any associate is the responsibility

of the poster. We encourage all communication to be made in an identifying manner, to

establish credibility above all else. Along with clear identification, associates must state that any

opinion is yours individually and not a form of official communication from [Your Company].

Topic matter guidelines

[Your Company] associates are encouraged to use the following guidelines in social networking

practices:

  Be relevant to your area of expertise.

  Do not be anonymous.

  Maintain professionalism, honesty, and respect.

  Apply a \"good judgment\" test for every activity related to [Acme, Inc.]: Could you be guilty of

leaking information, trade secrets, customer data, or upcoming announcements? Is it

negative commentary regarding [Your Company]? 

Activity showing good judgment would include statements of fact about [Your Company] and its

products and services, facts about already-public information, or information on the [Your Company]

Web site.

Further, if any associate becomes aware of social networking activity that would be deemed

distasteful or fail the good judgment test, please contact the anonymous social media response

center at: socialresponse@[Your Company].com. 

Company assets

The use of company assets (computers, Internet access, email, etc.) is intended for purposes

relevant to the responsibilities assigned to each associate. Social networking sites are not

deemed a requirement for most positions, and certain job titles are not permitted to access

these services over the Internet. For associates that are allowed to access these services, a

reasonable and limited amount of use of company assets are permitted for social networking

services. 

Inaccurate or defamatory content

Associates who participate in online communication deemed not to be in the best interest of

[Your Company] will be subject to disciplinary action. This online communication can include but is

not limited to:

  Company information or data leakage.

  Inaccurate, distasteful, or defamatory commentary about the company.

Disciplinary action can include termination or other intervention deemed appropriate by Human

Resources.

Off-Limits material

This policy sets forth the following items which are deemed off-limits for social networking:

Intellectual property, trade secrets, or customer data

[Your Company] 's intellectual property, trade secrets, and customer data are strictly forbidden from

any online discourse except through mechanisms managed internally by [Your Company]

communications or marketing groups. 

Online recommendations

Some sites, such as LinkedIn, allow members to \"recommend\" current or former co-workers.

[Your Company] forbids associates to participate in employee recommendations for reasons of

company liability. All communication of this type should be referred to Human Resources for

verification. 

Financial information

Any online communication regarding the company's financial data is strictly forbidden except

through mechanisms managed internally by [Your Company] communications or marketing groups.

Company-sensitive matters

Any online communication regarding proprietary information such as layoffs, strategic decisions,

or other announcements deemed inappropriate for uncoordinated public exchange is forbidden.   

Solid state drives offer a number of advantages over traditional platter-based hard disks. SSDs are smaller, faster lighter, and less prone to failure because they lack moving parts. But the big reason we aren't all using them is that they cost far more than a traditional hard disk drive. A quick check of tigerdirect.com shows several models of 160 GB SATA hard drives for under $40, or about 62 cents per gig. The least expensive 120 GB SSD is $155, or $1.29 per gig.  The largest SSDs at this time are around 360 gigs at over $1200. You can buy 8 or more 5 TB drives for that.

But is there a place for SSDs? SSDs are great for loading lots of small files very very quickly, like booting an operating system (like Windows or Linux) or running a program (like Microsoft Office or Open Office). There is much debate concerning SSDs effectiveness at reading large sequential files like videos, data files, and large pictures. In addition, modern CPUs easily handle data accessed from multiple drives and the internet. The CPU is not the bottleneck; it’s the hard drive.

Therefore, the best solution may be a hybrid solution. Use a 120 gig SSD for your operating system and programs, then use a large traditional hard drive for data storage. In this way, you get very fast access times whilst holding on to your precious dollars.

Quick Pitch: Search the web anonymously

Genius Idea: Stealth is a search engine that does not store cookies, track IP addresses or save search terms.Your internet footprint can be minimized with a new stealthy search.

The Stealth search engine allows users to search the Internet without being trailed by cookies and other tracking devices. The startup is all about protecting privacy.

Jon Cook, the founder of the startup, was inspired by the intermingling of Google’s social media and search engine. Google’s updated privacy terms nudged Cook to roll out a service that allows users to avoid being tracked online.

Stealth doesn’t store cookies, track IP addresses or save browsing history like many of the top search engines such as Google and Yahoo do. Websites and a user’s browser communicate and share information through cookies, which can pick up private data from users.

“One of the scary things about Google is they track everything you do even when you aren’t on Google,” Cook said. “I think people want real privacy and that is what Stealth offers.”

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There are a number of programs that start automatically when boot up your computer, and some of them are not necessary, causing your computer to boot slow and run slow. There is an easy way to prevent programs from starting automatically, and this is how we do it:

1. Click your user account icon or type your password to log on.
2. Now immediately press the Shift key.
3. Hold it until the desktop and taskbar load.

Easy – HuH!

The homepage of your website is often the landing page and is critical to the success of your online business. When people land on this page, you have just a few seconds to capture their interest. This page will be a giant factor in your conversion rate which is the ratio of visitors that respond to your goal action. This goal action can be subscribing to your newsletter, signing up for your ecourse, ordering your products, etc.

Your homepage needs to contain certain elements to be successful in raising your conversion rate. Read the list carefully and check to see if your homepage meets all of the following criteria.

1. Color - The color you choose for your website can have a big effect on your visitors. The type of site you have should be a factor in the colors you choose. There are essentially two types of colors - cool and warm.

Browns, blues and greens are cool colors and can make you feel relaxed, calm and assured. These colors are good for sites pertaining to medicine, relaxation and other sites that have reassuring answers to your problems.

Yellows, reds and oranges are warm colors that bring out feelings of energy, excitement and happiness. These colors work well for exercise sites, sports sites and other energetic type sites.

Purple is a good color for fashion and jewelry sites. It emulates sophistication, royalty, and luxury, but it is also feminine and romantic.

2. Clutter - How does it make you feel when you walk into a business that is messy and full of clutter. It doesn't exactly bring out the confidence in said business. Your website is the same way. You don't want it to look like a junk-filled mess! Keep it simple, clean, consistent and easy to follow. Don't fill your site with flashing banners, junk ads or fancy hard to read font.

3. Header - The header you use for your homepage is very important. You have just a few seconds to "capture" your visitor and the header can be a vital factor in achieving that goal. Make your header professional, short and to the point. You want the header to get the visitor to want to know more about you and your products/services. The header should outline in a few words what the benefits of your site are in a way that will make the visitor stay longer. Color is also a consideration.

4. Ease of Navigation - Another critical point to consider is how easy it is for people to navigate your site. Does your site feel like a maze with doubts on how to get from here to there? Visit your site as a customer and take note on how easy it is to navigate and how well laid out and simple the page is. Is your menu easy to find and follow? Is the font easy to see and read? Does one part of the page flow into another? Are your links prominent and easy to find? Look over every aspect of navigation with an extremely critical eye because people will not stay on a site that makes them feel lost and confused.

5. Use Testimonials - Testimonials are invaluable to your site because they reassure the visitor by increasing your credibility thus allowing them to trust you and your products more easily. Sprinkle a few short testimonials on your landing page where appropriate and have a section saved just for some of your best testimonials. Use detailed testimonials as opposed to more generic ones. For example: "I love your product and will purchase more" is not as good as "Your product helped me lose 20 lbs in just 6 weeks!"

6. Contact Information - Nothing makes me leave a site faster than when no contact information or email address is found. This, to me, says the person does not want to be bothered with customers, questions or anything else. I wouldn't ever do business with a website that does not provide complete and accurate contact info. More than likely, not many people would so it is extremely important to have your contact info prominently displayed on your homepage and every other page of your website.

7. Capture Visitors' Email Addresses - Most of us are familiar with the phrase, "the money is in the list." In a big way, this is true. Capturing your visitors' emails allows you to keep in contact with them so you can build that ever important relationship that will turn them into customers. Most people will not purchase anything on a first trip to a website so by capturing their emails you can astronomically boost the chances of converting that person into a customer. You can put a subscription form on every page of your site and be sure to have one on your landing page. Building a mailing list will help you market your sales, specials, etc. and will also help you build a solid customer base.

8. Call to Action - A Call to Action is a specific thing you "order" your visitors to do. This can be done with a text link or graphic. For example: Clíck here for a free marketing ecourse. You are giving the visitor very clear and concise instructions on what to do. Sometimes your visitors need a little push to complete the call to action so you would use something like this: Provide incentives to help your visitor make the decision to complete your call to action. Have just one clear call to action. Do not give you visitors too many choices because it will just result in confusion and indecisiveness.

9. Always Proofread - Always proofread and proofread again to be sure you catch all typos, grammatical errors and so forth. Make sure all your links work and everything on your landing page is in working order and correctly done.

10. Analytics - Be sure to take advantage of your site stats and analytics. This information can be critical to making your page a success. Google Analytics is free and provides a great service for anyone who has a website. You want to see how many people are going from your landing or homepage to other pages of your site. And if they are not, try to find out why, so you can improve your homepage. Monitor your bounce rate, conversion rate and other valued information.

You just cannot throw up a website and expect to boost your revenue. You have to nurture, maintain and care for your site and always be improving it. Keep abreast of the latest trends, info and data and always be learning how to make it better. Your landing and/or homepage is critical because it often decides the fate of your site so be sure to make it the most efficient and effective webpage possible.

There’s a lot of excitement around the potential for the widespread adoption of solid-state drives (SSD) for primary storage, particularly on laptops and also among many folks in the server world.  As with any new technology, as it is introduced we often need to revisit the assumptions baked into the overall system (OS, device support, applications) as a result of the performance characteristics of the technologies in use.  This post looks at the way we have tuned Windows 7 to the current generation of SSDs.  This is a rapidly moving area and we expect that there will continue to be ways we will tune Windows and we also expect the technology to continue to evolve, perhaps introducing new tradeoffs or challenging other underlying assumptions.  Michael Fortin authored this post with help from many folks across the storage and fundamentals teams.  --Steven

Many of today’s Solid State Drives (SSDs) offer the promise of improved performance, more consistent responsiveness, increased battery life, superior ruggedness, quicker startup times, and noise and vibration reductions. With prices dropping precipitously, most analysts expect more and more PCs to be sold with SSDs in place of traditional rotating hard disk drives (HDDs).

In Windows 7, we’ve focused a number of our engineering efforts with SSD operating characteristics in mind. As a result, Windows 7’s default behavior is to operate efficiently on SSDs without requiring any customer intervention. Before delving into how Windows 7’s behavior is automatically tuned to work efficiently on SSDs, a brief overview of SSD operating characteristics is warranted.

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Introduction: Companies today continually strive to eliminate waste in order to maintain a competitive edge.  In order to remain competitive, organizations must adopt principles and concepts that will help  them operate more efficiently.  As many companies face increasing pressure to drive down prices  they become more open to new ways of thinking, such as the five‐phase lean approach.   Tool/Concept Defined  So what is lean? “At a high level it is a way of giving people at all levels of an organization the  skills and a shared means of thinking to systematically drive out waste by designing better ways of  working, improving connections and easing flows within supply chains.” (Wood) By eliminating  waste companies can simultaneously reduce costs, make better use of resources and deliver better  customer value. (Wood) The five‐phase lean approach is one approach that allows companies to  overcome obstacles such as, proper integration and communication involved in becoming lean. This  approach builds the principles of lean which are customer defines value, eliminate waste, customer  establishes pull, involve and empower people who add value, and the total cost is the ultimate  performance metric. The five‐phase lean approach is a systems approach that allows each phase of  implementation to build on each other. The different phases of implementation are as follows:  stability and flexibility, continuous flow, synchronous production, pull systems, and level production.  Stability and Flexibility    Building a lean system can be disastrous if the systems don’t allow for stability and  flexibility. “Systems must handle the changes involved in lean manufacturing and the instability that  occurs as change takes place.” (Allen) All companies are unique and require a certain strategic fit for  successful implementation. It’s important to understand that problems will arise and changes will  need to be made in order for the system to function correctly.

Don’t overreact or rush processes
just because a problem arises. This doesn’t mean that the lean approach is a complete failure. It’s  important to realize that lean is not a collection of tools but a way of thinking across your company.  (Flinchbaugh) Companies must be open to new ideas and ways of solving complex problems.  Problem solving techniques such as the PDCA (Plan‐Do‐Check‐Act) can help determine any sort of  deviation from the standard.   Continuous Flow  A balanced production line requires improvements and ongoing observation to eliminate  waste and examine connections and flows. Continuous flow requires products to flow from  workplace to workplace. (Wood) If product isn’t flowing the way it should then customers aren’t  getting what they need. Document the way the process is done, and use that standard to eliminate  variation in the process or how the operator does the job.” (John Allen) McDonalds, for example,  has a very detailed operations manual that consists of several hundred pages and weighs about four  pounds. (Schlosser) Detailed documentation of processes allows companies to standardize  production and synchronize employee workstations. A clear view of processes helps eliminate  wastes and identify areas where bottlenecks might occur.   Synchronous Production    Synchronous production occurs when the rate of production equals the rate that satisfies the  customer.(Allen) The rate is called the takt time. The takt time can be defined as the maximum time  allowed to produce a product in order to meet demand. (Wikipedia)  If products aren’t continually  flowing then the takt time will be at an unacceptable level. Standardized production will allow for  acceptable takt time rates and appropriate measures to complete production on time.   

Pull Systems
Pull systems pull products from one workstation to the next. (Allen) Pull systems are unique  in the fact that they require seamless coordination among different workstations. Each workstation  can’t complete the desired task unless the previous workstation performed their intended duty.  Unfinished work creates waste and an increase in takt times. John Allen suggests, “Structure your  line or conveyor process so that it will stop if the unit is not accepted in the next workstation. If the  conveyor does not stop when a part fails to move on, work‐in‐process accumulates or operators  struggle to produce more than one unit in the established takt time.” If systems aren’t flexible, then  product will back up and customers won’t receive product.   

Level Production    
Level production means all products must be leveled into the production sequence on the  basis of volume, mix, and sequence. (Allen) Replacement parts should be made in small volumes in  order to level out the production. The purpose of this is to level production of the highest volume  units and have long‐term objectives built into the others. Smaller component parts can be made  periodically at times that don’t disrupt higher volume items. This shows how the lean phases can  accommodate unique situations and adapt to changing issues. Frequent tests of these tools should  match against underlying principles of lean. Commitment to the implementation of lean and  development of a long‐term strategy are essential to the five‐phase lean approach.   An Example Where the Tool/Concept is Used    A company that manufactured merchandising equipment in the Midwest had a huge spike in  demand. The welding process was one of the major processes that were slowing production at the  plant. Managers decided to implement lean into the process where the base of the equipment was  welded together. The company needed immediate results so they moved to the flow and pull phases of  implementation.  
    
Before - After    
The company had processes and workstations all over the place. In between each workstation, material  was moving by forklift which was very inefficient. In order to pull things together they hired another  group leader; eliminated a scheduler in one line; moved unneeded people to other departments; gave  one operator two jobs; moved component materials closer to workstations; and established new  systems to allow product to move freely. “In five months, subassembly inventory decreased 61%,  manpower was reduced 9%, and ROI was 281%. (Allen) Since product was continually flowing through  the system, inventories decreased and takt time decreased.  However, since the first two phases of  flexibility and stability were ignored, preventative maintenance was almost non‐existent, employees  weren’t properly trained, and eliminating errors wasn’t a primary focus. Companies must follow all the  steps of the five‐phase lean approach to achieve maximum results. Skipping phases opens the doors for  small mistakes that will become major problems in the future. Every company is unique and must form  the five phases of lean to adapt their strategic fit.                
    
Works Cited and other valuable resources  
Allen, John H. “Make Lean Manufacturing Work for You”. Manufacturing Engineering. Dearborn: June  2000. Vol. 124, Iss. 6; pg. 54.    

Flinchbaugh, Jamie. “Lean is Born from How We Think: Fostering Sustainable Business and People  Success Through New Ways of Thinking”. Products Finishing. 2007‐06. Vol. 71, Iss. 9; pg. 34‐35.    

Hicks, B.J. “Lean Information Management: Understanding and Eliminating Waste”. International Journal of Information Management. 2007‐08. Vol. 27, Iss. 4; pg. 233 (17)    

Jacobs, F. and Chase, R. Operations and Supply Management: The Core. New York: McGraw‐Hill    International Edition, 2008.    Schlosser,

Eric. Fast Food Nation: the Dark Side of the All‐American Meal. US: Houghton Mifflin Books,  2001. 1‐356.    
Wood, Nigel.“Lean Thinking: What It Is And What It Isn’t”. Management  Services. 2004‐02. Vol. 48, Iss.  2; pg. 8‐11.           

More information  “Evaluation Of The Lean Approach To Business Management And Its Use In The Public Sector”.   
November 11, 2007.   http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2006/06/13162106/19    Hicks, B.J. “Lean
Information Management: Understanding and Eliminating Waste”. International Journal       of Information
Management. 2007‐08. Vol. 27, Iss. 4; pg. 233 (17)    Nash, Mark, and Sheila Poling. quot;Strategic Management of Lean.quot; Quality 46 (2007).    Ozelkan, Ertunga, Gary Teng, Thomas Johnson, and Tom Benson. quot;Building
Lean Supply Chain and  Manufacturing Skills Through an Interactive Case Study.quot; Industry & Higher Education 21 (2008).  Keyword: lean implementation.    Peccei, Riccardo, and Jimen Lee. quot;Lean Production and Quality
Commitment. a Comparative Study of  Two Korean Auto Firms.quot; Personnel Review ( Farnborough ) 37 (2008).

If you polled managers and asked them to list the things they have the most difficulty doing, somewhere near the top of the list would be “saying no.” I can already hear many of you saying, “Well, my boss tells me no all the time.” But it is, in fact, a difficult act for more managers than you think.

I’ll qualify the above by saying that I am talking about the hard no and not the easy no. If an employee comes up to you and says, “Boss, can I buy that new piece of equipment we talked about?” and you look at your budget and quickly see that you are running near deficit, then saying “no, we can’t afford it” is an easy no. It’s easy because;

1. you have indisputable facts to back up your decision,
2. it’s a person with less power and authority asking, and
3. your relative risk for saying no is low; thus, we have the easy no.

On the other hand, when there are situations in which managers have to say yes or no to a question that is based solely on one’s best judgment, when you have to do it publicly, and when it means denying a peer or other authority, it can have serious repercussions - that is what I mean by a hard no.

Project managers are often faced with the situation described above regarding scope creep. They may find themselves in a meeting where they are being ganged up on by a group of customers and feel boxed in. The clients clearly want something that is out of scope, and the project manager knows that by giving in, not only will it add time and expense to the project, but it stands a good chance of jeopardizing the success of the project altogether. The project manager has only his or her best professional judgment to rely on, and the client challenges it or discounts it in a public setting. It is at this point that many project managers buckle under the pressure being applied to them and yield to the client, thus, failing to issue a hard no.

Obviously the situation described above can be described as difficult, at best. The project manager is being challenged publicly and, perhaps more importantly, his or her judgment is being called into question - never an easy thing.

I have found though that there are ways of helping yourself when it comes to the hard no — to make it less of a painful process.

Get comfortable speaking in front of a group and managing a meeting. Some folks just lack confidence when addressing more than a handful of people. While they may be brilliant one on one, for whatever reasons, working in front of a group makes them nervous. The remedy is knowledge and experience: knowledge, regarding how to manage a meeting, read people, and communicate effectively; and experience, because the process has become more familiar the more times you’ve been through it. This is definitely a case where practice can help to make perfect.

Know the facts. The more knowledge you have regarding the issue, the better prepared you are to defend yourself and cut through the BS.

Believe in yourself. If you doubt yourself, you are less likely to show a “spine” when you are pressed in public, particularly if your judgment is being called into question.

Don’t take it personally. Try to remain as emotionally detached as you can; you can be resolute and even passionate about your position, but the minute you find yourself feeling angry, sad, or scared, you diminish your effectiveness and lower your confidence, as well as impair your ability to think rationally.

Understand your position relative to others. Realize that saying no is a statement of position and the weight of your no is dependent on your relative position of authority/power and your persuasiveness. You can be in a position of power and your no will have the weight of authority, or you can have little authority but be very persuasive and have an equally weighty no. Conversely, you can have the authority but never exercise it; thus, your nos become insignificant. You can also have little authority — and act like it — and never be heard.

I personally do not like to say no, because often times that shuts down dialogue to a workable solution. However, I am always prepared to say no if it is needed, and I do not fear using it when I feel it is necessary. As I sit here and think about it, the hard no is a lot like a firearm. It should be used with authority when absolutely required, yet never used recklessly. It should be used with a great deal of consideration, but when the decision is made, it should be decisive.

Skillful use of the hard no is an important part of leadership. No one respects a spineless manager, or one who is reckless in his or her decision-making. Becoming proficient with issuing the hard no takes practice and good judgment. Master it and you will make your managerial life much easier.

Two monitors are Great, Tthree monitors are even better! With three monitors, there's a "center" to focus on, and 50% more display area. While there's certainly a point of diminishing returns for additional monitors, I think three is the sweet spot.

I was excited to learn that the latest AMD and nVidea Graphics cards have gone from two to three video outputs, which means you can now use triple monitors with a single video card upgrade at a modest price point!

nVidea GeForce GTX 590

The GeForce GTX 590, in very few words, is one graphics card made out of two graphics processors. Internally they are connected through a PCIe connection (onboard) and then they operate in SLI mode. To accomplish something really sturdy and powerful, NVIDIA took their fastest GPUs available and without any compromises on the number of shader processors etc. inside that GPU they started designing the card.

The end result is a dual-GPU product that runs two ICs called and tagged as the GF110, the very same stuff you find in the GeForce GTX 580, and in its bare essence the GTX590 is in fact two 580s albeit clocked slower. Memory wise NVIDIA has sizable and expensive memory volumes due to their architecture, we pass 1 GB per GPU as standard these days for most of NVIDIA's series 500 graphics cards. Each memory partition utilizes one memory controller on the respective GPU, which will get 256MB of memory tied to it. The GTX 590 has six (x2) memory controllers (12x256MB) = 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory. The TDP is roughly 365 Watts, a very respectable number really. TDP = Thermal Design Power. Roughly translated, when you stress everything on the graphics card 100%, your maximum power consumption is the TDP.

Read Full Review Here!

AMD Radeon HD 6990

So then, again a dual-GPU card, it is based on two Cayman GPUs. Take a Radeon 6970 and multiply everything by two. And that is roughly the R6990 in a nutshell, features and specification wise, yet now it's one card.

The AMD Radeon HD 6990 graphics card features dual-BIOS capabilities. This feature is controlled by an “Unlocking Switch” sitting close to the CrossFireX connector on your board. The switch toggles between the factory-supported Performance BIOS of 375W TDP (BIOS1), and a more extreme Performance BIOS (BIOS2) that unlocks higher clock speeds and up to 450W TDP of performance.

The reference default is BIOS1 which we'll use. The Radeon HD 6990 comes armed with an astonishing 3072 shader processors, thus 48 SIMD based shader clusters, split up in a twofold engine per GPU. The domain and shader clock is locked in at 830 or 880 MHz. The card comes paired with 4 GB of memory clocked at (effective) 5000 MHz (2GB per GPU).

Read Full Review Here!

For instructions on setting up your three monitor system, Click Here!

Matrox TripleHead2Go DisplayPort Three Monitor Laptop

Laptops can do it too, but you will pay a premium price for both the laptop and side attachment. The Matrox TripleHead2Go DisplayPort Edition external multi-display adapter adds up to three monitors to your laptop or desktop computer. It connects to the video output of your system and uses the system's existing GPU to provide high-quality, uncompressed graphics and video across all monitors. Ideal for professionals requiring more desktop space for maximum productivity and gamers wanting a totally immersive experience, this little black box lets you run different applications on each display or view one application across multiple monitors. Organize your workspace more efficiently, multi-task more comfortably and make fewer errors with a Matrox TripleHead2Go-powered multi-monitor setup.

Read Full spec!

Can you imagine seeing Santonio Holmes' Super Bowl-winning catch against the Cardinals captured from the perspective of the ball, surrounded by a packed stadium and flying past some of the best athletes in the world? Or perhaps the moment just after Lionel Messi fires at goal, but just before the keeper extends to stop the shot? We have the goal cam, the field cam, and the helmet cam. But the best may be still to come: the ball cam.

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Prepare the night before for your next day’s events. Print out your schedule for the next day and have everything you need to realize the results you want from the activities listed.

For every appointment or activity you do, you always want to think about what is the result you want to have happen and then do the things that help put you in the best possible position to attain that result.

What do you need for each phone call, for each meeting, for everything that gives you the highest probability to reaching your goal?

If you have a meeting somewhere, print the directions out in advance.

If you have a meeting with someone, make sure to have all their contact information printed out and/or a file prepared with everything you will need.

What got us to where we are today isn’t necessarily what will get us to where we want to be.

Review every process and system you currently have in place and ask yourself if this system currently is effective at achieving the results you desire.

You may have to make minor adjustments and enhancements to the way you have been doing things to achieve the future results you want.

Always put yourself in the highest probability position to achieve your goals.

What a year! For many, 2008 was a year they would like to forget. Between over-leveraged mortgages, banks that failed or were too big to fail, and a restructuring of the auto industry, many individuals and businesses alike are looking to 2012 with a more hopeful outlook.

In the coming months, the healthcare debate, business incentives and changes to the tax code will be at the forefront of local and national debates. Though important, these are issues in which the individual small business owner has minimal say. Instead of focusing on these larger issues, entrepreneurs should focus their efforts on enhancing small business productivity, prudence, and profit as we move into 2012. But how???

Productivity

In the last few years, many companies learned to do more with less as cuts in spending and employment left many small businesses demanding more out of their employees. In 2010, small business productivity will remain vital as employees continue to carry a heavy workload. For companies to succeed, they need to arm their employees with the right small business productivity tools.

By identifying and implementing the right small business solutions, entrepreneurs can get more out of their employees and save money. Increased productivity among full-time employees can result in more sales, the development of better products and services, faster completion of tasks, and improved customer service.

Regardless of the industry, many companies will turn to small business communication solutions that can improve productivity. For example, a doctor's office may select an Interactive Voice Response system (IVR) to more efficiently handle and direct calls during and after business hours. Companies with hourly employees, like field service repair companies, may use location-based services to track field technicians and redirect them based on cost drivers like fuel consumption. Or, many companies may look to deploy BlackBerrys to their staff to help them stay connected anytime, anywhere helping fuel better small business productivity. Finding small business solutions that improve productivity will greatly impact a bottom line.

Prudence

While the economic freefall has halted and the economy even had some bright spots in 2009, most companies are not popping celebratory champagne. And as much as we'd all like to see 2010 herald a recovery of small business productivity, many economists and so-called "financial experts" are predicting only a slightly stronger economy in 2012. Next year, prudence will be the name of the game when it comes to small business solutions.

With a sharp eye on spending, small businesses will need to be prudent in their decision making and ensure they are making the right investments. Finding employees that have the right skill set, investing in developing or marketing your best product, and selecting small business solutions that will help your company grow will all demand prudence.

But this careful decision making will not only focus on spending, but on all aspects of small business productivity. Many companies may reexamine their niche market or how they \"have always done things" to find new and better small business solutions. Just as Thomas Jefferson once wrote, "...a little rebellion now and then is a good thing,\" a shake-up of how your small business operates may be in order.

Profit

One consequence of the downturn is that many companies unfortunately closed their doors. As a result, those who survived the recession now have fewer competitors vying for customers. As the economy stabilizes, banks begin to loan more money and businesses are more comfortable with spending money, the small businesses that positioned themselves correctly will have a stronger opportunity for market penetration than they've likely seen in recent years. By making prudent decisions and focusing on driving small business productivity, companies will be well-positioned to profit in 2012 and beyond.

If the past 12 months have taught us anything, it's that no amount of economic forecasting is completely precise. But, let's all look forward to 2010 with a focus on productivity, prudence, and profit, as well as the promise of what a new year will bring to small businesses.

I blog to provide my customers with tips on better utilizing the computer & network technology that you already own. It also keeps me in front of my customers when I'm not physically there. There are lots of good reasons to blog that provide a good return on investment. Here is my top 20:

1. Current events. Can you link what you do in your business to a current event? Open up your daily newspaper or your RSS news reader and see what's happening in the world, your country, your state, or your city. Give your opinion about the event and a solution, if you have it, and relate that to your business if you can.

2. Trends in your industry. I read constantly and subscribe to more industry publications than I have time to review. However, there are a handful that I do regularly read, and it's to those that I look to for what the trends seem to be. When you blog about the trend, put your unique perspective on it, or write a rebuttal post, disagreeing with the relevance of the trend.

3. Get personal. Tell a story about what's happening in your life or in your business that would be useful or instructive for your readers. Chronicle both your highs and lows, your wins and your struggles. One key to successful blogging is getting personal with your readers. The more \"real\" you are with your readers, the better your reader gets to know you and begins to like and trust you. You become a \"real, live\" human being to them who faces similar issues that they face.

4. Top 10. Most of my writing is in the form of a Top 10 list because it's an easy way for me to outline the points I want to make and then go back and fill in the details for each point. In this case, each of your points for a topic can become an individual blog post, and when all the points are complete, you can compile the full list for an article for your ezine or website.

5. Frequently asked questions. If you've been in business for awhile, you know the questions that clients and prospective clients ask you to answer over and over again. Instead of repeatedly responding to the same questions, write a series of blog posts that answer your target market's most frequently asked questions.

6. How you helped a client solve a problem. Clients hire you to solve a specific problem they're having, whether they do that when they buy your service or your product. List 3-5 most recent problems that you have helped your clients solve. Create a post that talks about the problem and the solution you provided (either with your client's permission, or by making it generic enough to hide the client's identity) that becomes a learning experience for your readers.

7. Interview an expert. What people do you know and admire in your industry? If you admire them, chances are that members of your target market do, as well. Contact them for a short email or recorded interview and ask them 3-5 questions that you'd like to hear them answer about their lives, their businesses, industry trends, or how to solve a particular problem. Publish the interviews as blog posts, adding audio and graphics if you have them.

8. Solicit and answer questions. Ask your ezine subscribers or blog readers to ask you their most pressing question related to what you do. I do this and get questions for 1-2 blog posts per week, and it helps me stay in touch with the needs of my readers, as well.

9. Review something. Read a good book lately related to your industry? Just purchased a product to help you solve a problem? Reviews aren't limited to the critics at the New York Times. Blog about your experience with a product, book, or service, highlighting both the high points and low points, and whether you would recommend that others use or purchase it.

10. Read other blogs. Go to Google's Blog Search or Technorati and find other blogs related to your industry or your target market. Add those to your blog reader and take an hour or two each week to read the posts on those blogs. Do you agree or disagree with the post? Have another point of view? Think the blogger was on target but you want to expand on her point of view? Reading other blogs is a great way to generate ideas for your own blog.

11. Keep an idea file. Sometimes a blogging idea or concept will strike you when you don't need (or want) to blog. Begin a blog idea file by creating a document or spreadsheet to track your ideas and thoughts. If you're in the zone, go ahead and write the post, and then you can post it to your blog on a day when the idea well is dry.

12. Create a tutorial. There's always something you can tell your target market how to do. Create a written, audio, or video tutorial of the process as your blog post. Depending on the complexity of the tasks, the tutorial may need to created in multiple parts, like Part 1, Part 2, etc., which would make for multiple posts to your blog.

13. Share a positive/negative email. I often share exceptionally positive or negative emails I receive from people (without names to protect their identity as appropriate) either to celebrate kudos I've received or to demonstrate how I responded to a particularly nasty or upsetting comment. I get the most mileage out of the negative emails, and I often ask for feedback about how my readers might respond to the situation.

14. Take a tour. Take a self-made in-person or virtual tour of something useful to your readers. For example, if you're a dating coach, tour the top 5 online dating sites and report your experiences as a client in each. If you're a restaurant consultant, visit 3 local restaurants and evaluate what's often overlooked in staff training based on your experience as a customer.

15. Write about a Twitter or Facebook update. You only get 140 characters in Twitter to write about something. If you need more space, or want to respond in greater length to someone's Tweet or Facebook status update, do so in your blog. Thought-provoking questions are often asked on Twitter, and the answers may inspire you to blog.

16. Create a \"Best of\" list. What are the top 7 blogs to read in your industry? How about the top 5 people to watch? What about the 10 most useful online tools you use? Nothing attracts attention on a blog quicker than a list, so create one yourself or ask your readers to help you in the process.

17. Report from an event. Attending a professional trade show, conference, or networking event? You can report live about your experiences at the event on your blog. Talk about the workshops your attended, the vendors you met, the speaker you heard -- the sky's the limit!

18. Debunk a myth. Each industry is plagued with myths and fallacies about success/failure or what does/doesn't work that the industry professionals would like to see vanquished once and for all. Use your blog to debunk some of the most common myths/preconceptions/notions in your industry and set the record straight.

19. Talk to newbies. Picture yourself as a newbie in your industry once again. What do you know now that you didn't know then? What questions did you ask? What knowledge do you have that you think everyone knows? Getting back to the basics can help bring all of your blog readers up to speed.

20. Write about a client conversation. Many times I'm inspired to blog as an expansion or continuation of a conversation I had with a client. The blog post focuses on a topic of the conversation, not the conversation itself. Typically the strategy/idea/technique you've discussed with one client will benefit your blog readers as well.

This is just the tip of a very large iceberg of ideas for posts to your blog. Take a look around your life, your business, conversations with clients and colleagues, and what's happening in the world around you. You'll soon begin to see more potential for blog posts than you ever thought possible!

In 1988, a local remanufacturer of automobile automatic transmissions, WTI (Williams Technologies (now Caterpillar)), invited Toyota to come to their facilities in Summerville, SC to present the idea of using remanufactured transmissions instead of new transmissions as warranty replacements. The use of Remanufactured transmissions instead of new would reduce Toyota's replacement cost by 50% and would create a lucrative opportunity for WTI and the local economy.

It took years to get Toyotas attention because, in the mind of Toyota, they could not conceive of the idea that one of their transmissions would fail. Their planning, engineering, manufacturing, and quality checks were “world renown” TPS (Toyota Production System) was the goal or envoy of every manufacturer; they truly believed that they would not produce a product that would fail. And in practice this proved to be true. Folks bought Toyotas because they never broke down AND they retained one of the highest resale values in the business.

Finally, in '92, Toyota agreed to a test. They send 25 broken Toyota transmission to Summerville. These units were not documented in any way. No paperwork, no documentation of what the transmission is, what vehicle it came out of, or what broke. WTI's mission was to identify each transmission, the root cause/s for failure, and to document the corrective action. Then, WTI was to remanufacture each transmission and return it to Toyota where it would be tested like one of their new transmissions. A major task indeed.

I remember the day Toyota came to town, 10 men dressed in black suits, as though they were going to a funeral. They were led to a special part of the main production floor where the 25 transmission were laid out in perfect diagonals, in five by five rows. Each transmission was covered with a clean white sheet. As such the transmissions resembled coffins.

I was simply not prepared for what came next, and neither was anyone else. The QM (quality manager) moved to the first transmission and lifted off the sheet whilst the 10 men in black suites turned to face the transmission, and bowed in unison as though honoring a Conrad lost in battle. The QM read the spec sheet identifying the unit and possible vehicle application. The interpreter indicated that the unit identification was correct.

Then came the most bizarre thing I ever saw. The QM began listing the causes for failure. The 10 men from Toyota began bowing low and muttering in Japanese. Of course I could not understand what they were saying, but I could tell they were sincerely cut to the heart and extremely remorseful as though they were personally responsible for the death of that transmission.  Later, the interpreter told us that the 10 men from Toyota were acknowledging their failures, apologizing to their coworker for letting them down, to the company for putting a blemish on Toyota's good name, and to the country for besmirching it's repetition. But most of all, apologizing to their customer who trusted Toyota to provide a quality automobile. This process was repeated again and again until all 25 transmission viewings were complete, and each time the 10 men reacted with the same level of intensity. I fully expected to see the 10 men the next day less 1 pinky finger (Ninja / Yakama style).

Never again would we see the “men from Toyota”. The transmissions went back to Japan for testing. WTI received a report, with many thanks, stating that their assessments were correct and that the remanufactured transmission test results were nearly as good as new transmissions. However, Toyota believed it was in the best interest of their customers to use the experience to improve their existing products and to continue to use new transmissions as warranty replacement. Strangely, Toyota recommended to Honda and Nissan that they consider Williams Technologies for their warranty replacement products. WTI remanufactured Honda torque converters and Nissan transmissions and steering boxes for many years.

But this recent Toyota accelerator and brake issue, What's with that? Could it really be that, what was the envoy of the automotive world, is now the bane of the industry? After this experience with Toyota 20 years ago I can hardly believe what I am hearing. How could a company with a culture fully focused on quality and customer satisfaction, A have such a failure and B not take responsibility, and C try to hide it from their customers and D be Sooo Slooow To Fix IT? Is it Greed or simply bad association with other manufacturing cultures like China and the US? Is true commitment to customer satisfaction dead? Perhaps Ford has a better idea!

Of course I always try to derive some kind of learning experience from things I see and read. In this case, it's the same old story. If you remain fanatically focused on your Customer's wants and needs, profits will never die and you may be able to pick up additional market share when the Toyota of your industry gets greedy.

Yes you can turn any scanner/printer combo into a copy machine using software, and you don't even have to pay for it...

A free program called (appropriately enough) Photocopier works with XP, Vista and even older versions of windows like NT and Windows 98. Simply set the number of copies and the lightness level, click the Copy button and, well, IT MAKES COPIES!!! it just works.

Click the link below to download the program:

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,21240/description.html?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a41:g26:r25:c0.013669:b20067169:z0

If you're just beginning to explore the potential benefits of Twitter, these recommendations will help you build a network that has some real value.

If you're a longtime Twitterphile with half a million followers, you probably know most of the things I'm about to cover here or else it's coming too late. But if you're still getting things off the ground and trying to figure out whether there's any value in relationships that consist of 140-character snippets, I think you'll find these 10 rules helpful in building a more valuable network.

To be honest, my own interest in Twitter is in the potential it has yet to develop. At this point, I don't think it is what it could be. The value of attention is still real, but getting people's attention isn't the challenge anymore. It's getting the attention of the right people, which on the Internet means building a relevant network of people who share your interests. The natural shortcoming of Twitter is that it keeps racing by, and each message is just a blast that spreads for a moment and then gets washed away. Contrary to the premise that a good network is based on reciprocation and mutual interests, randomly building your "followers" to five, ten, or a hundred thousand can create a mess for you to sort out when the real worth of momentary messaging becomes clear. (Hint: I don't think it lies in blasting out “secrets” about teeth-whitening or free webinars about how to get/buy more followers.)

The intent of the guidelines below is to prevent the tendency toward superficiality and quantity-over-quality in Twitter's growing stream (just under 50 million unique visitors per comscor” Facebook has more than 300 million by comparison). Many of these ideas I've picked up from other people who are better at it that I am.

Is it even possible to avoid Twitter's inherent weaknesses? Last week, Dell announced that it attributes three million dollars in revenue to Twitter since 2007. That's a start.

The rules

1: Don't direct-message me with something you are selling, especially at odd hours. That will get you deleted.

2: Don't follow anyone whose messages say "Follow me." Saying it is not a good reason.

3: Never follow anyone whose name is a city, vacation spot, or other vague reference.

4: Don't follow anyone whose ratio of followers to following is more than 4:1. (Sorry celebs' any exceptions to this have to be outrageously interesting, and most of you are not.)

5: If you talk more than once about what you ate recently, you get unfollowed. No exceptions.

6: Don't follow people who use to direct-message someone with some personal comment instead of using (e.g., @Joe eah) This either means the person isn't following you or you are just lazy.

7: Don't follow people with o_O as their icon/photo. Lame (or spam).

8: Porn and other raw sewage gets deleted and/or blocked. Sorry; not my idea of a network.

9: Unfollow people who keep sending the same message. Once might be an error or a correction, but this is the wrong way to overcome the "shotgun" shortcomings of Twitter.

10: Ignore and possibly unfollow people who consistently send out a URL with no explanation. Unless you have a network of only your relatives, why would anyone expect people to click on something just because they sent it?

Building the quality network

To sum things up, here's what you should be looking for in building your Twitter network:

• People with the same interests you have (check relevant # filters)
• Those in your professional field with pertinent things to say
• People who generally make great observations and thought-provoking connections
• Sources of relevant “early news flashes” that are relevant to their network(s)

Building this kind of group will take more time than using an auto-responder, but it will give you a network that has some real value. And keep in mind that the people who are successful with any social media tool are the ones who start with the premise "What can I give?" rather than "What can I get?"

Every want to view two spreadsheets side-by-side? Or perhaps a program and a Word document? This is how we do it:

1. On the taskbar, click the button of the first window that you want to display in the side-by-side view.
2. Hold the CTRL key while right clicking the second window.
3. Click Tile Vertically in the right context menu.

UCC has the potential to replace a lot of business travel. Think about it! Most users have been invited to attend a Web conference, but many of them aren’t \nbeing proactive by managing their own meetings. (Of course, some of us choose \nnot to let technology suck up all of our energy, but that's another discussion.) \nWeb conferencing can definitely be a big help in this area, and there are a \nnumber of products that offer lots of flexibility. Here are four products to \ncheck out:

• Cisco WebEx
• Citrix \nGoToMeeting
• Microsoft Office Live Meeting
• IBM Lotus Sametime Unyten

All of these products let users conduct meetings over the Internet. Imagine — \nno travel delays, no business class costs, no lost equipment, no harried, \nsleep-deprived employees. Just log in and go! Web conferencing has the potential \nto save your clients money and improve their response time and effectiveness \nwith their own clients. (Do'™t forget, stay-at-home employees can benefit from \nWeb conferencing as well.)

Most of my experience is with Microsoft Office Life Meeting, which I love. \nYour clients systems and needs will dictate the best product for them. If your clients are not already using Web conferencing, be proactive and take the idea \nto them before they come to you.

The concept of search engine optimization (SEO) has gained a lot of importance due to the success it brings to a website. After all, if you don’t show up on the search engines, your prospects will never find you on the internet...

You may have the best products and services to offer, best performance certifications, and an amazing team of professionals ready to serve your customers. But if you don’t have any business.

So how do search engines work?

I Like Spiders and Bots!

One of the facts about search engines is that they utilize software programs known as bots or spiders that crawl the web and build a database based on their findings. These spiders are sent to view and index pages which are later processed and retrieved from the database. A search engine spider is designed in such a way that it reads any document from top left corner to the bottom right corner as humans do. From this database, programs use algorithms to determine what type of your website you have and how it should be ranked compared to the other websites it has spidered.

Text Links

You can also use these bots to your benefit by allowing them to spider your site completely. You can place text links that direct to some of your main pages on the website at the bottom of your page so that spiders can easily crawl through your site. It is also recommended to have a text link that directs to your site map.

Site Title

The title of your site is very important as it not only serves as a reference for the Internet users who type in the keyword but also it is one of the first things that is viewed by the search engines. You must select the best keywords and place in your title and also make sure that these keywords are relevant to the content on your webpage. In other words, if you have a title about widgets, that page should talk about widgets.

Meta Tag Description

A meta tag description contains a brief description of the webpage content. It is usually placed after the Title tag and before the Keywords Meta tag. Search engines usually use this as a source of information to know the theme of the site and to aid them in listing and ranking the website. Your meta description may contain two to three sentences with the main keyword placed in the beginning of every sentence. This description appears fully or partially along with your reference link when users search. If a keyword appears in a meta tag, you must have text in the body of your page or risk being blacklisted.

Keyword Usage

Choosing the right keywords to optimize your site is very important. The content on your WebPages should contain the keywords that you are optimizing so that the search engine can easily track your website when a user enters a search query containing your keyword. Using your keywords correctly can help identify your site related to that particular keyword from all other sites on the Internet.

Keyword Rich Content

This is a crucial part of the SEO process as it involves creating compelling text that would make readers remember by linking back to it. Your web page content should be written in such a way that it contains targeted keywords with an ideal keyword density. The content you write must make sense and should be relevant to the person visiting the site. You should also avoid mixing too many themes on a single page. It is also good to know that search engines are mainly text driven and are oblivious to images, sounds, flash movies, java script, frames, directories, and similar stuff. Therefore having lots of these on your website may not be very helpful from the SEO point of view.

Anchor Text

Anchor text is hyperlinked text that you can click on. This is used in the content as an internal link that directs visitors to different topics contained in different pages in the website. Keywords that are most relevant and that relate to the overall content of your site should be used in the anchor text as search engines use this to relate your webpage content to the user query.

In summation, to get a favorable listing in search engines, feed your Spiders and Bots!

Twitter Lists are like “groups”. They offer a way for you to bunch together other users on Twitter into groups so that you can get an overview of what they’re up to. That’s because Lists aren’t just static listings of users, but rather curated Twitter streams of the latest tweets from a specified set of users.

In other words, you can create a list that groups together people for whatever reason (the members of your family, for example), and then you can get a snapshot of the things those users are saying by viewing that list’s page, which includes a complete tweet stream for everyone on the list. Lists allow you to organize the people you’re following into groups, and they even allow you to include people you’re not following.

People like names; computers like numbers. Example, at work your name is “Joe” but your employee number may be 123. In this way accounting can calculate your payroll check by using a computer program and mail it to your address by equating your name with your employee number. In the internet world, people find the WebSite Active Technologies by using the Domain Name active-technologies.com. However, computers use an online system of Domain Name Servers (DNS) which equates active-technologies.com to it’s number or IP address, 74.54.176.82, thus getting you to the desired website.

People try to obtain Domain Names that represent what the Website does or that represents the Website owner. I chose activeblognews.com because it does both, it is the name of the publication AND it describes what the Website does. This not only makes a WebSite easy to find and remember, but it helps the WebSite get a better listing in search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

Today, with over 129 million active Domain Names (according to dailychange.com), it is extremely difficult to get a Domain Name that properly represents your website. This has spawned an entire industry that buys, sells, and auctions domain name leases, some at a modest cost, others with glitz and glamor names, for ginormous amounts. What’s in it for us? If you start a business today AND lease a Domain Name that has been in existence for 5 years, somehow the search engines give you credit for being in business for 5 years (the length of time the Domain Name has been around), and that adds to your Search Listing Credibility.

Domain names are obtained through a Domain Registrar. You might deal directly with the Registrar or you may purchase it from a Domain Reseller, ISP, Web Hosting Company, or other places, but ultimately, the Domain Names comes from a Registrar. The registrar sets the rules, conditions, and prices on domain name leases. They are also responsible of making certain that your new Domain Name and corresponding IP address is released to DNS servers around the world so that folks can see the WebSites using the Domain Name VS IP address.

DNS Servers are operated by ISPs (internet service providers), governments, businesses, and just about anybody that wants one (you could have your own if you want). It is the responsibility of the DNS Server owner or provider to make certain that they have the latest DNS information. Just last week, a major local ISP dropped a list of IP address from their DNS server. That meant that nobody on that ISP service could see those dropped Websites. The results was that my customer could not see her own WebSite on her work computer, but her neighbor next door could (and she could see it on her cell phone too) because they used different ISPs. The offending ISP was notified of the problem and the the issue was resolved within a few hours. It took time because DNS Servers usually update their records on a schedule, and the schedules vary between companies. My personal DNS Server updates every 30 minutes, whilst my ISP updates theirs once every 24 hours, at midnight. That is why changes can be made to a Domain Name, and some folks will see it right away, and others may not see it for 24 to 72 hours, the time it may take to propagate all of the DNS servers around the world.

Domain Names are leased, and not owned. When you resister a new domain name, you are buying the right to use the name for a specific period of time. The minimum lease is 1 year, maximum of 10 years. When a domain reaches the expiration date, the Domain Name can be renewed for 1 to 10 years at the current rate, or allowed to expire.

Domain Names as Trade Marks and Copyrights have different rules. In times past, when the internet was new, you could buy a Domain Name that may benefit a company and make tons of money by holding it for sale at a huge price. Soon, large corporations went to court claiming that they had the right to these names because they were identified with their “National Brand”. However, there is still a vibrant market for internet Domain Names that are kool and catchy.

Reclaiming Expired Domain Leases can get really tricky. The reason is that each Domain Registrar flies by their own rules. Some Registrars have varying “Grace Period” whereby you can renew the lease without penalty; others haven none. Some offer a “Redemptive Period” of varying lengths of time, where the domain name may be “Redeemed” for a fee. Still other Domain  Registrars may place the Doman Name open for general public consumption, place it in an auction, set a sale price an offer it for sale like a used car, keep the Domain Name for themselves, or retire the domain name so that it can never be used again (estimated 380 million retired Doman Names). In addition, rules can change.

Expiration Bots: These bots are internet scripts or programs that constantly ply the internet looking for domain names that are reaching their expiration date. As soon as the Domain Name expires, they attempt to lease them, keep them for a period of time, then offer them for sale at a premium price. Many of the companies that buy and sell Domain Names use such programs.

Therefore, renewing Domain Names before expiration is extremely important.

Domain Thieves are rampant and one that you should be aware of is a little form comes to your in the mail. The letterhead is impressive and the message looks very official. I can’t name any of the companies because I would be sued into oblivion, but the form reads “Domain Name Expiration Notice”. “As a courtesy to domain name holders, we are sending you this notification of the domain name registration this is due to expire in the next few months". Now we charge less than $20.00 per year for domains, but they will take your domain for only $35.00 per year. And you wouldn’t believe how may good people sign the form and enter their credit card information. Read Carefully OR you could loose your domain!

Domain Transfers are regulated by ICANN (Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers). There are lots of rules concerning Domain Name Transfers, but the main rule to be aware of is the “60 Day Rule”. This rule was put in place to keep folks from hijacking a desirable Domain Name. Basically what it says is that Domain Name Ownership cannot change in the first 60 days after the Domain Name is first created, and it cannot be changed in the first 60 days after ownership has changed. This rule, while cumbersome, has greatly reduced Domain Name Hijacking.

.com .net .org .edu .gov .mil: In times past, you could tell the type of WebSite by the designation at the end, .com = commercial site, .net= ISP, .org=non-profit, edu=education, .gov=government, .mil=military. Today, only government and military designations are protected. Anyone can get a .com .org .net. .mobi is another designation that is quickly gaining popularity for mobile computers and SmartPhones. And now that all the kool .com Domain Names are taken, others like .bus. .biz,  and .co are cropping up.

The US Truth in Domain Names Act of 2003, in combination with the PROTECT Act of 2003, forbids the use of a misleading domain name with the intention of attracting Internet users into visiting Internet pornography sites. Domain Name AntiCyberSquatting And Consumer Protection Act passed in 1999 aimed at preventing TypoSquatting and deceptive use of names and trademarks in domain names.

Whether you are just starting a web design project, looking at revamping an existing site, or just wanting to double check the usability of your current web site you should consider these 7 Basics of Good Web Design.

These basics are aimed at new visitors/customers; your repeat customers will be judging your web site on different values. Just like wearing the appropriate clothes for a job interview, these basics will help you pick out the \"look\" of your web site so that you make a good first impression.

1. Fast Loading Web Site - Any way you look at it, a fast loading page should be your number 1 concern. The web is all about speed, fast searches, fast purchases, fast information. You can't have any of that with a slow loading page. Ask yourself this question - have you ever been on Google doing a search for something important and a link you clicked on didn't open up immediately? What did you do? Patiently wait for the page to open or move onto the next link on the page? My favorite sites open almost immediately.

So, a few suggestions: Make sure that your images are properly optimized. Don't use very many large images, save those for a different page. Keep any auto-running multimedia to a minimum, provide links to run media instead. Check your code for anything else that could affect your page loading times. Since text loads almost instantly go ahead and use all the text you want, just keep everything else under control.

2. No Meaningless Splash Page - Do you appreciate a fancy animation page that doesn't tell you anything and you have to wait for before the web site will open? Neither do I. The last thing I want once I find an interesting site is to wait through some animation before getting to the first page. This doesn't mean that I don't want multimedia on a site, I do. I just don't want an animation before the first page that forces me to wait for it to finish before getting onto the site. It's like having to wait for a salesperson to finish their memorized speech before you can ask them a question. No thanks! I like animation, just in the right place and at the right time. Plus, if I am a returning customer, I will have already seen that animation and don't need to see it again.

My suggestion is to use a smaller animation contained in your main landing page which also includes your main message and links to the rest of your site. It will make for a faster loading page (smaller file) and your visitors can go ahead with accessing your site without having to wait for the animation to finish.

One final note, don't ever put your logo as the only content on your landing page with a link that says \"Enter Site\". This just screams Unprofessional and will drive away potential visitors in droves. The last thing I want to do is to click on another link just to get into the site. This is a total waste of my time. I usually will skip a site if I see this.

3. No Annoying Web Gimmicks - Now that you have your visitor on your site quickly the one thing you don't want to do is to drive them away just as quickly. So, don't put anything annoying on that first page. No loud background music that makes them quickly hit the volume control or the back button on their browser. No flashing animations while they are trying to read your content. No popup, flyout, expanding ads that cover your home page. Basically, leave the gimmicks alone until you are sure that your visitor will stay on your site. Most casual visitors will leave your site in just a few seconds, no sense on driving them away more quickly.

Multimedia is great on a web site, just don't bombard your visitor with it first thing. If you want audio, then put in a nice picture with a link, like a picture of yourself with text saying something like \"Let me tell you how to make fifty thousand this month!\" If they are interested, they will click on the link and listen to your message; if they are not interested in audio, then you should be using a different pitch anyway.

Also, monitor what advertisers are putting on your site if you sell ad space. I am sure you have seen those ads with the animated dancing figure, cute the first time you see it. But after seeing it 10,000 times with every imaginable character I have added the company to a líst I keep of companies I won't do business with. So their animation has gone from \"look at me\" to \"you annoy me\" in my mind. Ads like these will impact your visitor's experience. So even if your site is perfectly designed, one misplaced ad can ruin all of your hard work.

4. Have a Clear Message - Too many web sites are a mish-mash of content. This is especially true of blog pages. Certain types of sites lend themselves to stream of consciousness content, but most don't. Make it easy for your viewer to understand what your web site is about, don't make them guess. Have a clear topic headline, followed by clear and concise text. This is also where a picture is worth a thousand words, but only if the picture directly pertains to your message.

You want your visitor to quickly understand what your message is. If they like your message, they will take the time to read the rest of your page and look around your web site. If they don't like your page, then it won't do you any good having them stay on your site anyway. So, don't make your visitors guess, let them know what you are about quickly and cleanly and you will have happy visitors. And when thinking about a sales page, a happy customer is a buying customer.

5. Coordinated Design - This one should be self evident, but it is surprising how many sites change their design for every page. You want your visitor to be comfortable in your site and one way to achieve that is by having a coordinated web design. Having a consistent logo, using a consistent color scheme, keeping your navigation in the same place. All of these help to create a coordinated design. This does not mean that you can't change colors or the \"Look\" on different segments of your site, but if you do, the changes should not be so drastic that it feels like you have moved on to a different site.

If you select one place for your logo, one place for your navigation, one look for your buttons or other common graphic elements and stick with those then you will be well on your way to a coordinated design. If you change colors for a different section, but keep the same logo location, the same navigation location, the same button shape, then your visitors will not become lost as they move from page to page.

6. Easy Navigation - Once you have grabbed your visitors attention you want them to be able to easily move around the different areas of your web site. This is done with easy to use navigation. There are three standard, accepted locations for navigation elements on a web page: along the top, on the left side, and at the bottom. I will usually put my main navigation either along the top or along the left side. I will then put text based navigation at the bottom of the page, this text based navigation is more for the search engines than anything else, but it also makes it easy for your visitors to move to the next page when they have reached the bottom of the current page.

Most people start reading a page from the top left and then read towards the bottom right. So navigation at the left or top will be seen as soon as someone enters your page. Also navigation at the left or top will not move or change position if the browser window is adjusted in size. The worst thing you can do is to put your main navigation on the right side of the page and have your page set for a large screen size. Let's say that your page is set for 1024 across with the navigation on the right, and someone views your page at 800 across, they will not see your navigation at all. The left side of your page will show perfectly, but the right side will be hidden outside of their viewing area. Of course by using floating or popup menus you can overcome some of these design limitations and keep your navigation visible at all times.

Unless you know that your audience will enjoy it, don't use Mystery Navigation. This is where your navigation is hidden within images, or spaced around the web page in some mysterious random order. This can be fun on gaming sites, or social networking sites, but in most cases the navigation should be easy to see and easy to use. If you do want to use Mystery Navigation, I would recommend keeping the text based navigation at the bottom of the page, just in case.

7. Have a "Complete" web site - And finally, no one wants to go to a web site only to find that the site is \"Under Construction\" and the content they are looking for is not there. These are words that you shouldn't ever use. If a section of your web site is not ready for prime time yet, then simply don't show it yet. It is better to have your site look complete and professional, then to have it look like a work in progress that should not be up on the web yet.

You can easily tell your visitors that you will be having more content in the future without having your site look like it is unfinished. Just use phrases like \"Content Updated Weekly\" or \"New Products Added Monthly\". Both of these will tell your visitors that it would be worth their time to come back and visit later, but neither one will make your site look unfinished. So no matter how small your web site is, give the impression that you have taken the time to complete the site before putting it up on the internet, this makes for a more professional presentation and a better visitor experience.

In Closing - By following the simple Basics of Good Web Design you will be well on your way to having an easy to use and successful web presence. Just keep in mind what you look for when you first land on a web page after doing a web search in Google or Yahoo, or other search engine. If you want fast loading pages, make sure your pages load fast. If you want to be able to find what you are looking for quickly and easily, then make sure you have easy navigation. Just keep your first time visitor in mind, put yourself in their web shoes and make your web site an enjoyable place to visit and success should follow.

Uninterruptable Power Supplies (Battery backups) are an added expense, and they are only needed when the power goes out. But what if the power goes out when you need your network the most?

Most small business server rooms have at least one UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply). Of course the intent of a UPS is to provide power to the servers, switches and internet connections in case of a power failure. The UPS also helps to regulate power and keep it clean from surges, spike, sags and brownouts. The more servers and network equipment you have, the more UPS units you will probably find in the server room.

We find that in most small business with only one or two servers, the UPS usually provides just a few moments of battery power to allow you to shut down the servers gracefully when the power fails. Some UPS units can be programmed to automatically shut equipment down in case of an extended outage or incase the power goes off at night. Without spending an arm and a leg and with careful calculations, you can purchase enough UPS juice to power your server room for several hours.

If you really need it and can afford it, you can buy UPS units for larger server rooms that will power your equipment for several or eight hours. Most UPS batteries have to be replaced every few years so be sure to budget for that. If your servers are really mission-critical, you can invest in a diesel generator. Of course companies like Ford, Nissan, and Allison Transmission have that kind of power, and it is a major investment and expense.

However, one smaller company I worked with had sub-offices/plants in two different states that depended on a data system in Charleston. A $15000 investment was paid for that first time the power went down during a spring thunderstorm. Power in Charleston was down for seven hours but the other two plants never lost a beat. This company had five small servers. With one or two servers the cost would be under $7000.

Educate management on UPS expectations

When I joined this company, I happened to come on board at a time when there was some construction going on down the street. One of our neighbors required more power than the city could provide so they were adding additional capacity in the underground conduits. It seems like we were experiencing power outages every few days. Most would last only a few moments so the servers never shut down.

One day, the power went out unexpectedly. The outage lasted longer than our batteries could provide the needed power for the servers and they began to shut down. Our phone system is located in the server room and is also plugged into the UPS units. When the batteries were exhausted, we lost our phone service too. Then I had to explain to the President of the company why phone system stopped working.

I tried to explain that the batteries had run down but he acted like that was the first time he had heard that such a thing could happen. “You mean they aren’t supposed to last for more than an hour?” I replied in the affirmative and watched his face turn red. We’ve got to do something to get the phones back online now! "I told him I had nothing to offer and reminded him of my proposal for a larger UPS.

Summary and conclusion

Did the boss agree to spring for the UPS after this little episode? Yes! and boy was I on the hook! Every meeting for several weeks he brought up the expense of the UPS until that one thunderstorm hit that took the power out for the entire day. Keeping those other two plants up and keeping the phone system running during that one outage paid for the new UPS. Now the UPS has been written into the company sales script, talking about our modern network system with eight hours of redundant reserve power translating into no missed shipments or phone calls due to Charleston thunderstorms.

If you require additional information or assistance with this item, please give us a call.

Chances are that you've already heard of and even visited Bing, Microsoft's new search offering launched earlier in June, replacing the Live search of yesterday. It's new, shiny, and has pretty pictures, but does it really have much effect on the market?

There have been those headlines claiming it's "taken a bite out of Google," but, looking at the statistics, it hasn't really affected the search industry at all.

It's been going around the web that Bing has won a glorious one percent of Google's market share-- that's what the headlines say, anyway. Taking a closer look, though, we see it's not really that exciting and that it's probably too early to tell one way or the other, anyway.

Though Bing did gain market share in the past month, and Google's market share did decrease, headline-happy journalists are blowing things a bit out of proportion. \"Bite\" is hardly the word to use, and "nibble" is also probably incorrect as well. According to StatCounter, since the introduction of Bing, Microsoft's share in US searches grew by .42 percent (sorry, rest-of-the-world-- you're again being represented by one country's statistics). According to the same statistics, Google's share dropped by only .24 percent during the same time span.

That's hardly detrimental to Google, and is actually normal and most likely has little to do with Bing. Like stocks, companies' shares in just about everything often go up and down in increments from period to period without any alarm, especially companies with as many customers as Google has. Stepping back and looking at the bigger picture, Google's shares in March dropped to 76.49 percent and then climbed back up to 79.08 percent in April-- a bigger difference than this past month.

All in all, the difference in percentages means very little in such a short amount of time. I'm no analyst except for my own personal speculations, but I think it's safe to say that Bing should get six months of being out in the wild before we begin to say it's cannibalizing other search engines.

Problem: “I bought a computer with 4 gigs of ram memory. However, Windows only shows 3 gigs. Where is the other gig of ram?”

There could be several reasons for this:

1. Some computer motherboards have a bios chip that will only allow the system to recognize a certain amount of ram. We saw a system two weeks ago with 2 gigs of ram installed, but the bios would only recognize 512 megs per bank for a total of 1 gig. This limitation was created by the manufacturer as a 32 bit Pentium processor can recognize 4 gigs of ram.
2.  
3. In another case, just last week, a new computer showed 3 gigs of ram in use whilst the system bios correctly showed 4 gigs installed. This system, like many built today, uses something called “memory mapped IO reservations,“ which means some of the memory is reserved for use by system hardware, caching, or dynamic video memory. If, for instance, you have 4 gigs of ram but Windows reports 3.5 gigs of ram, .5 gigs or 512 megs is being used or reserved for computer hardware use and cannot be accessed by Windows.

A Pentium 4, is a 32 bit processor with 32-bit register has memory 232 addresses, or 4 GBs of RAM, could be referenced.

A Dual Core is a 64 bit processor effectively increases the memory ceiling to 264 addresses, equivalent to approximately 17.2 billion gigabytes, 16.8 million terabytes, or 16 exabytes of RAM.

However, there are several issues with 64 bit computers:

1. Most 64 bit computers have artificial memory limits between 2 and 8 gigs
2.  
3. 64 bit Vista is buggy and more expensive
4.  
5. You must use 64 bit versions of your favorite software – expensive and buggy.

If you feel the need to have 4 gigs of ram, make certain your hardware will supporting before turning loose of the coins.

For a full explanation, please try the following links:

http://blogs.msdn.com/hiltonl/archive/2007/04/13/the-3gb-not-4gb-ram-problem.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit

I Know, many organizations curtail all possible spending in a recession. Budgets are cut, staffs are reduced, and new hardware purchases are often eliminated. During difficult economic periods, cost-cutting measures are prudent, even necessary for companies struggling to survive. But suspending hardware investments can prove shortsighted. Eliminating system replacements and PC upgrades may well worsen an organization predicament. Here are 8 reasons why new hardware purchases should be considered during a recession.

1. Equipment Still Wears Out: As bad as an economic recession becomes, one fact doesn't change. Power supplies, hard disks, motherboards, displays, and other components still fail. The laws of physics don't rest just because the economy is in turmoil. Electrical surges still occur, mechanical failures continue, and planned obsolescence keeps marching along. Simply put, PCs, servers, network components, and other business-critical items will fail, even in a recession. This equipment must be replaced.

2. Productivity Is Paramount: When PCs, displays, or network switches fail, it may be tempting to visit an old parts closet to dig out replacements. Old, entry-level Celeron- or Pentium-powered PCs with 256MB of RAM and rattling power supplie won't help managers (now often responsible for production tasks, too, due to departmental layoffs) efficiently complete expanded task lists. Nor will such machines enable overworked colleagues to run QuickBooks, CRM applications, or proprietary programs smoothly. Nor will a 15" CRT enable productivity gains when replacing a 22 widescreen monitor used to display customer information alongside order entry software.

The same is true for network equipment. Outdated hubs and routers were decommissioned for a reason. They were either too slow, failed to operate properly, or didn't meet the organizations needs. They certainly won’t improve productivity now, when staff sizes are smaller, remaining employees must absorb the workload of laid-of staff, and stress levels climb ever higher. The subsequent delays and inefficiencies translate to lost opportunities poor customer experiences, and less revenue.

3. Downtime Is Expensive: Older equipment fails more often. Outages and downtime are even more acutely felt during tough economic downturns, when fewer staff are available to diagnose the failure, identify appropriate fixes, obtain replacement parts, replace the failed component, and then test the repair.

Meanwhile, other employees facing more burdensome task lists are dead in the water. Their productivity drops to zero. Depending upon the situation, a single failure can prevent employees from accessing CRM systems, entering sales, billing clients, printing invoices, answering customer inquiries, processing claims, dispatching service personnel, and otherwise fulfilling critical operations. Sales plunge, revenue is lost, and an organizations financial standing declines.

4. Equipment Vendors Offer Discounts: Just like everyone else, computer manufacturers are facing hard times. Fourth quarter U.S. sales were off 3.5 percent. A January 2009 Time magazine article questioned whether the PC market will ever completely recover.

Manufacturers are scrambling to develop intriguing new product lines (witness netbooks) and improved, more cost-efficient distribution (including via layoffs and new strategic partnerships). In the interim, deals are available or the taking. Organizations shouldn't feel obligated to pay a posted online price (even if already discounted) for a new PC or pay the first price presented for a new bank of rack servers. Due to current economic conditions, sales representatives are more likely than ever to rework pricing for corporations needing new equipment.

5. Running Older Hardware Longer Costs More: Trying to squeeze a few extra years out of PCs or servers actually ends up costing organizations more in the long run than does replacing old equipment. According to Info-Tech Research Group lead analyst Darin Stahl, “When you look at costs -- particularly around a four- to six-year life cycle -- it may seem like you are saving money, but really it’s costing you, because you are going to increase your support costs".

Yankee Group Research Inc. research fellow Laura DiDio concurs. “One of the classic mistakes is [being] penny-wise and pound foolish. Some companies are not prescient enough to say, it's better keep good records and do regular inventories and asset management to see which servers, of which groups of power users, might need to be upgraded or refreshed sooner than others."

In a January 2008 Channel Pro magazine article, in which organizations are encouraged to replace 25 percent of their systems every year, author Carolyn Heinze added, “In the long run, these older systems wind up costing more in lost efficiencies, compatibility issues, service and maintenance, and downtime
6. Interrupting A Purchase Cycle Is Expensive: By replacing a quarter of an organizations PCs every year, for example, companies ensure critical employees receive new, faster, more reliable equipment annually. Then, the critical employees systems can be handed down to the next tier of operations staff. In short, using this method, every employee receives a hardware "upgrade every year, and no system is ever more than four years old.

Interrupting such purchase cycles is expensive, and not only due to the lost efficiencies, compatibility issues, and downtime costs. If an organization waits longer to replace the majority of its users systems, out-of-pockets costs spike (instead of remaining steady). Pay now or pay more later. That's the moral of this entry.

7. Newer Versions Of Software Demand Greater Resources: Many new technologies -- everything from new versions of accounting and bookkeeping software to CRM tools and new server platforms, such as Windows Small Business Server 2008 -- have greater hardware requirements than the older platforms they replace. Windows Small Business Server 2008 won't even run on 32-bit servers; the popular small business server OS now requires 64-bit hardware.

Organizations are being forced to upgrade system hardware, as programs become increasingly sophisticated and as Microsofts desktop operating systems demand more computing power. Windows XP, for example, required only a Pentium 233-MHz CPU, 64MB of RAM, and 1.5GB of hard disk space, whereas Windows 7Busines hardware requirements call for a 1-GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, and 128MB video RAM, along with 15GB of free disk space. Companies that choose to suspend hardware investments subsequently automatically forfeit the time-saving, cost-reducing advantages many new software applications deliver.

8. Employee Retention: Good employees are as valuable as ever. Even though the pool of potential replacement hires grows with the unemployment rate, the cost of locating and training new staff remains significant.
When a good employee leaves an organization, his or her department often experiences a slowdown while a suitable replacement is recruited and trained. Worse, vast institutional knowledge can be lost when the veteran employee leaves, never to be replaced.

Fortunately, hardware investments are among the elements that can improve job satisfaction. Rewarding valuable employees with new (faster, more reliable, more modern, sleeker) equipment can go far in reducing frustration, while also confirming an employees value and contributions. Awarding new PCs to key workers critical to ongoing operations is a simple step. Best of all, productivity gains usually result, as well.

Advertising is usually one of the first items on the chopping block (though it shouldn't be). You've got to cut costs, and you certainly don't want to lay off any employees if you can help it, so you start looking a bit more closely at your marketing budget to see where you can rein in ad spending. It's a natural reaction to a tightening budget, and there is a good reason for it.

Most business owners know that you need to advertise. Sure, word of mouth is great - there's nothing like a referral from a happy client to instill trust in a prospect - but you still need to be proactive in getting the word out. The trouble with advertising in the traditional sense is that it is difficult to know whether your efforts are working and what is generating the best value for your dollar. The uncertainty makes it hard to keep throwing money into your ad spend. When your budget tightens it is even harder to justify the cost when the benefits are fuzzy at best.

But marketing on the web is different. The costs are lower, return on investment can be much higher and traffic data allows you to chop out the dead wood and optimize your budget.

Search engines are a primary driver of traffic on the web (second in use only to email according to a report by Pew Internet & American Life Project and comScore). Search engine optimization (SEO), as a result, has received an increasing amount of well-deserved attention.

For most small businesses, SEO is new. Some have considered it, perhaps even done a bit of research on the topic, but haven't yet invested in it. Others have invested in it in the past and found themselves disappointed with the results. A few have found real success. In this economy, why should a company consider a new marketing channel like search when they're already looking to cut their budget? What about the risks involved in such a new endeavor? What if it doesn't work? These are all valid questions. For those who spend most of their time building and maintaining their businesses and systems, reading up on what makes search engines tick is unlikely. Understanding SEO enough to truly leverage it for growth can seem a long way off.

So Why SEO, and Why Now?

1.     Unparalleled ROI
2.     A 2006 MarketingSherpa survey of 3,053 client-side marketers determined that SEO was 
       viewed as the most valuable marketing solution in terms of ROI, even higher than email 
       marketing to in-house email lists. ROI is everything - especially in uncertain economic times.
3.    Targeted Traffic
4.     Traditional "push" marketing/advertising options often have you publishing an advertisement

        in a place where you're hoping it will get a lot of eyeballs. That's great, but the real question

        is: who owns those eyeballs? Are they the right people? Do they want or need what you're

        offering? With SEO, up front keyword research can tell you a lot about your market and what

        kind of language they're using. When you choose your keywords and optimize for them,

        you're addressing an existing need or desire - and you know that at least a good portion of

        visitors referred from search engines through your target keywords are looking for exactly what you're offering. In short, SEO helps to drive
       high quality traffic to your website and gets your   message in front of the right people at the right time.

5.   Precise Tracking
6.     Web analytics allow you to track your users with a great deal of granularity. The most basic

        and easy to set up analytics platform is Google Analytics - and it's free. Out of the box,

        Google Analytics will tell you where visitors are coming from (including what search engines

        and keywords), what pages bring in the most users, what keywords have the lowest bounce

        rates (the measure of users who immediately leave your site after viewing one page), what

        keywords drive the most pages per visit and average time on site and a lot more. With basic

        conversion tracking you can even tie keywords to conversion rates - an incredibly valuable

        way to identify the most valuable keywords and focus on them. Bottom line: with web

        analytics you can identify the dead wood in your campaign and focus on better opportunities

        to optimize your marketing budget in real time.

How should you approach SEO?

If you're considering investing in SEO as a marketing channel there are two basic options:

1. Take the SEO work on in-house

2. Hire an agency or consultant and outsource SEO

The In-House Option

Hiring for an in-house SEO position is often out of the budget range for small businesses - in this economic climate especially. Existing employees, on the other hand, can play an important role - especially those who are already regularly updating your website. It requires careful research, planning and execution, but with the right training and guidance much of the work required can be handled in-house.

There are also some simple things you can be doing in-house to improve your SEO. That company you partner with - do they have a website? If so, consider asking them to link to you (after you link to them). Links are a powerful way to improve your search engine rankings. That trade organization you belong to - do they have a directory on their website where they list and link to members? That could be the source of a quick and easy link.

Consider starting a blog? It's a great way to build content on your site and bring in attention and links - just keep in mind you've got to be serious about it and actually post regularly.

Search engines are very complex, but in the end the websites they reward with high rankings are those that get the simple things right: they feature interesting content on a regular basis, they stick around with the same domain name and with the same topic for years and they build links over time and from other relevant and trusted websites.

The Outsourcing Option

Full disclosure: I am biased. I run a search engine marketing agency. But I hope you'll hear me out anyway. Hiring an SEO agency to either handle the full scope of work or to consult on research and strategy and delegate to your web developer makes sense in many situations. SEO agencies usually spend a great deal of time researching strategies and tactics and compiling resources – all of which can help you hit the ground running with your SEO campaign. But you need to find the right agency.

Let's be clear: no SEO agency can guarantee you rankings or growth. If they tell you they can, they're being either dishonest or foolish, or both. The bottom line is that SEO experts don't control the search engines. Changes to Google's algorithm can, and usually do, come unannounced. That is out of our hands.

This doesn't mean, however, that the burden of risk should fall entirely on your shoulders. Failure of a campaign shouldn't mean you lost your investment, the agency \"did their best\" and it just didn't work out. Smart agencies recognize that the best thing they can do is share the risk with the client. How? Simply: they set specific goals and benchmarks and stick to them. That may mean they continue working at a discounted rate if they don't reach a goal. On the other hand, they may choose to work on a performance-based contract from the start so their compensation will be linked directly to the return on your investment. The point is, it should be more of a partnership than a client/vendor relationship. That is as important now as it ever has been.

SEO is scalable - you don't have to throw everything and the kitchen sink into it. Sometimes just taking a few small steps here and there over time adds up to success. Other times you need a one-time overhaul of your site, or maybe a long-term relationship with an expert who can help chart the course. It will depend on the goals you set for your website and how realistic they are given the limits of time and resources. But search engines are going to remain the primary driver of traffic and sales on the web for the foreseeable future. SEO, for that reason, shouldn't be an afterthought to your marketing plan, even in tough economic times - indeed, with such a high potential return on your investment, it should be a priority.

Most small business marketing (as well as mid-sized business) efforts seem to be floundering in today’s post recession market. Many are barely hanging on—just making it week-to-week, while others are doing remarkably well; considering the chaotic economy and changing market trends.

I’ve interviewed hundreds of decision makers, representing B2B, B2C and not-for-profit companies. While many issues were raised, the primary difference I discovered between struggling organizations and those thriving has to do with the existence and use of strategic plans to help guide their way. In virtually every instance, organizations making the Forbes “list of 100 Most Admired U.S. Companies” and Fortune Magazine’s annual list of “Best Places to Work,” put a high priority on creating and using strategic plans. For the most part, organizations with poor performance are scrambling, implementing and trying to manage tactics with no strategic plan. This is an example of what I would call “ready-fire-aim.”

“If you have no strategy, how do you know what tactics to employ?” asks Walter Wise, a Business Success Architect at BPI Strategy Group in Boston. He suggests that “without a plan, the outcome of failure is predictable. Many companies fail to plan properly, but none ever plan to fail.” Others agree, like Peter Ross, Senior Consultant at Capgemini in Charlotte, NC, who says “objectives and strategy are essential before implementing tactics. Determining the strategies will help achieve the objectives – break down the strategies into actionable steps (tactics) that will get you there. This approach allows you to assign “owners”, track progress, and measure success – all while helping to make certain tactics remain in support of objectives and strategies.” Janine Soika, MBA – Channel Marketing Executive in the Greater Denver Area, sees this more of a balance issue. She says, “Clearly you must know where you want to go, otherwise how will you know when you have arrived? But should you plan your trip in 2 weeks or 10 weeks? I opt for action, so chart your course, pick the best way to get there and go! Define your strategy, establish benchmarks, measure your progress and make course corrections as needed. Take action! In today’s market you need to be nimble and quick.”

I recall hearing one of my business professors, in grad school, pounding it into our heads that, “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.” However, when you can measure the level of effectiveness, it is easier to see what is working and what’s not.  My friend and colleague, Paul Davis of NextStep Marketing, Charlotte, NC, says, “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory.

We know how difficult it is when you spend all your time working “in” your business and don’t take the time to work “on” your business. You must expect that your company will react accordingly. Bottom line… no increase in value. There are many ways to get off the crisis management treadmill. If your organization doesn’t have the time or intellectual capital to create a strategic plan from within, then you should consider a strategic planning consultant. This will bring “fresh eyes” to your organization.  A consultant will ask the questions that need to be asked and deliver a plan that’s been created in collaboration with the owner and organization.

Physician and Corporate Wellness Director Chris Hawley from Modesto, CA says that “Investing the time to create strategies before jumping to tactics insures a quality heartbeat for the business. It also helps owner/managers enjoy the journey, working smarter not harder.”  Sr. Business Development Professional Chris Craven of Charlotte, NC takes a stronger position, “Without strategic plans you are doomed to fail,” he says.

Finally, Michael Oddi, Chief Marketing Officer at KSL Media in LA, advised that we consider the perspective presented by Seth Godin in his book, Poke the Box, “Sometimes companies suffer from planning overload and never implement their strategy. The most successful companies are driven by individuals who aren’t afraid to push the go button.”

Websites work. No matter what your business or profession, a website can generate business, promote goodwill among customers and prospects, and deliver strong marketing messages - whether your business is small, large or in-between, well-established or brand-new.

People use the Web in greater and greater numbers, more and more every day. Even if you are a completely local small business, service, contractor or consultant, odds are people have used search engines to look for your web site - and if you don't have a web site... well, you get the picture?.

Your business Web page delivers that picture to your customers and prospects, and does it 24/7/365.

Perhaps the most common misconception about business websites is that they must offer products for purchase, accept credit cards and process financial transactions, and so on. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

While ecommerce websites are increasingly popular, the vast majority of business websites are still for information and communication rather than purchase-oriented. If your business offers products and services appropriate for retail sale over the Internet, then by all means you should consider an ecommerce website. And if not, a website with product listings and directions to your store can get them "in the door".

The first thing you will need is a Web hosting service - that's the address of your business Web page, and the company that actually stores your business's website on its computers and makes it available to Web users. Many Web hosting companies offer both domain and hosting services. Here are some things to consider as you build a website for your business:

Choosing a Domain Name

Ideally the address of your website will match the name of your business, such as ABC.com; in reality, many addresses are already taken. If that's the case for you, give some thought to an original Web page address/name that reflects your business: ABCmytownname.com, perhaps, or something similar. Remember: your Web page address should deliver your business's name as closely as possible, as well as being memorable and distinctive. Your website's address is a marketing tool too.

Hiring a Web Hosting Service

Look for a Web hosting service that's well-established and has a reputable history. Also, don't forget the future - you will find that your business Web site can easily be expanded and updated to match future needs. Make sure your Web hosting service can accommodate changes and additions, quickly and economically.

Finally, choosing a full-featured service is smart. Does the Web hosting company also offer website creation and website software? What other features, services and products are available or included?

Creating a Website Design

Creating a website yourself is inexpensive. However, websites created with "website creation software or builders" does not have the ability to optimize the website to attract search engines. And without that, it may be very difficult to find your website.

Custom website design is not that expensive. If done right, they can quickly provide a measurable return on investment.

So let's get started....

You can hardly talk about eBay without bringing out the disgust in all of the people who feel they have been wronged by the eCommerce giant. This group is comprised mostly of sellers who feel eBay has treated them with anything but respect, particularly since changing feedback policies in early 2008 (of course that's not the only thing they don't like. See my top ten list of seller frustrations).

Although buyers have had their own fair share of complaints about eBay as well, it still continues to be one of the leading places that online shoppers go to purchase goods, although retail comparison site JiffyPrice recently showed that Amazon has lower prices on many items that are available for immediate purchase.

\"This goes to show how much savvy consumers can save by a very quick bit of shopping around,\" says JiffyPrice Founder Niall Thewlis. \"However, most consumers don't have the time to compare prices with umpteen different online retailers before making a purchase. We’ve simplified matters greatly, so that shoppers can quickly compare the price of an item between only Amazon and eBay, the two giants of online retail, in just a couple of seconds. We include only these retailers because they’re the ones that most people have used in the past and feel comfortable buying from.

Well that is one possible answer to the question. People feel comfortable buying from eBay (not everyone granted). Why do they feel comfortable? Because of the brand that eBay has established over the years.

Frustrated eBay sellers continue to flock to other sites to sell their goods, but none of them (Amazon excluded perhaps) carry the brand power that eBay does, and therefore can't possibly attract the number of customers that it can.

While not all eBay sellers are unhappy with the site, it seems that the core of them are. It is interesting to see a site that is driven by users continue to thrive despite the boycotting of many of those users who have helped it thrive in the first place. That is brand power.

There are plenty other sites out there that could compete with eBay, based on the testimonials from users who urge fellow ex-eBayers to use them. Yet we don’t really see any of them emerging as a real threat to eBay. eBay is to online auctions what Google is to search. Whenever someone cleans out their closet, they're encouraged to sell their stuff on eBay by their friends or family. I haven't often heard “eBay” used as a verb like with “Google,” but it might as well be one. “I have Sinbad's autograph. I wonder how much I could get for that on eBay.s Statements like that are commonplace (minus the Sinbad part).

Because people think about eBay as a place to sell stuff from their own closet, they also think there is a good chance to get some cool stuff that came out of somebody else’s. And they’re often right. This cool stuff could just as easily be listed on another site as well, but eBay is the first name that comes to mind. If any other competing site wants to truly leave a dent in eBay’s market share, it's going to have to so some really effective marketing.

(2/29/2012 Update) The yearly figures below now includes February of this year. As you can see the numbers are still growing at a healthy rate, and the business phone rings are increasing too. Please read the rest of the article and consider adding a blog to your webpage. Blogging has definitely had a positive impact on our business. quantity, quality, and customer retention.

(1/31/2012 Update) The yearly figures below now includes January of this year. As you can see the numbers are still growing at a healthy rate, and the business phone rings are increasing too. Please read the rest of the article and consider adding a blog to your webpage. The results speaks for itself.

New Customers – Credibility - Customer Retention – Generate Web Traffic Quickly

I've been blogging since 1992. I blog, first and foremost, because I love writing. I don't  write for a living because I never thought I was good enough to make a living from it. But I really enjoy writing, and blogging is the perfect vehicle for expressing myself.

My customers love it because of the value they receive from it, I.E. "free information on better utilizing the computer & network technology that they already own”. I know this because I receive emails telling me so.

However, the biggest benefit is that the business blog allows me to be in front of my customers when I can't physically be there. Blogging allow me to add value to my customers 24/7 and keeps my name fresh in their minds  as a valuable asset to their business. When wooing new business, sometimes the technology blog is just the thing that adds credibility beyond what my competitors offer, and it also is a major factor with customer retention:

The cost for blogging? $155.40 per year ($12.95 per month) for web hosting and $19.95 per year for the domain name, and the time I spend researching and writing articles.

Return on investment? Enormous! Blogging is my #1 marketing and customer retention machine.

Generate Lots of Web Traffic  

On 9/1/2011 we decided to move our blog from a dedicated blog site to our main homepage, active-technologies.com, and you wouldn’t believe the difference. On August 31, we averaged 48 visitors to our website per day and a total of 1510 per month. In September we averaged 161 visitors per day and 4853 for the month. And that is just the first month. Along with the 4 fold increase in daily web traffic, we received 4 times the inquiries, many of which resulted in sales. But the best part is that our search engine rank (google – yahoo – bing – ask) pushed us higher than our competition in our market for every keyword.  It’s like our business has taken on another life, blasting through space rather than clawing it’s way on the ground. You should try it!

It's one thing to create a blog; it's another to create a blog that readers want to visit again and again. If you're serious about using blog hosting to meet your business goals, there are nine tips to follow when developing a business blogging strategy:

#1: Find a valuable niche
The ideal blog dares to be different. Find a neglected (or new) area of your industry that will appeal to your target audience. Your goal should be to write your blog so that the time your customer spends, at that moment, reading your blog, is more valuable to them than time spent doing anything else. If you can accomplish this one thing, your blog and business will be a huge success.

#2: Enjoy yourself
Business blogging should never feel like a chore. When you create a blog because you're interested in its topic, your readers will appreciate,  and even reciprocate, your enthusiasm.

#3: Look at the big picture
While it's only natural to focus on the products and services you offer, you can also benefit from broadening your scope. For example, if you create a blog for your pet toy store, your target audience may be interested in posts about pet health and nutrition, or even pet rescue programs. Stick with your overall business blogging theme, but explore diverse (yet related) topics. In this way your blog will truly ad value in the minds of your customer rather than coming off like an infomercial.

#4: Know your competition - See what's out there
Online sources like Technorati ® and Google ® Blog Search can help you determine how many blogs are currently covering the topics you are considering. You might also want to look at the additional topics these blogs are discussing, which can inspire new ideas of your own.

#5: Network with other bloggers
Connect with other bloggers in your industry by using Technorati ®, Google ® Blogs, and other social sites to find like-minded bloggers. Once you find relevant blogs, you should bookmark them, comment often, talk with the author, and social tag their blog entries. By building these relationships, you can gain new links to your blog and – ultimately - new readers.

#6: Add media
Blogs don't have to consist of text alone. Video, images and surveys can all add interest to your blog. Mix the creative media into the text instead of placing it at the top or the bottom.

#7: Encourage interaction
Blogs have a unique ability to encourage conversations and create interaction. A blog with no comments isn't really a blog it's an editorial column or a standard website. Be sure to invite readers to leave comments each time you post.

#8: Keep up the good work
Develop  and stick to  a schedule when you create a blog. Your readers should know when to expect a new post, whether you're posting daily, weekly, semi-monthly, or monthly. Make certain your new blog material is regular and ON-TIME.

#9: Don't give up
It can take months to build a loyal base of readers when you create a blog. Plan to make business blogging a regular part of your communication strategy for at least a year.

When you create a blog for your business, your overall goal should be to attract repeat visitors. By following the nine tips for business blogging, you can keep readers coming back for more.

A typical Wi-Fi setup contains one or more Access Points (APs) and one or more clients. An AP broadcasts its SSID (Service Set Identifier, "Network name") via packets that are called beacons, which are usually broadcast every 100 ms. The beacons are transmitted at 1 Mbit/s, and are of relatively short duration and therefore do not have a significant effect on performance. Since 1 Mbit/s is the lowest rate of Wi-Fi it assures that the client who receives the beacon can communicate at at least 1 Mbit/s. Based on the settings (e.g. the SSID), the client may decide whether to connect to an AP. If two APs of the same SSID are in range of the client, the client firmware might use signal strength to decide which of the two APs to make a connection to. The Wi-Fi standard leaves connection criteria and roaming totally open to the client. This is a strength of Wi-Fi, but also means that one wireless adapter may perform substantially better than another. Since Wi-Fi transmits in the air, it has the same properties as a non-switched wired Ethernet network, and therefore collisions can occur. Unlike a wired Ethernet, and like most packet radios, Wi-Fi cannot do collision detection, and instead uses a packet exchange (RTS/CTS used for Collision Avoidance or CA) to try to avoid collisions.

[edit] Channels

Except for 802.11a, which operates at 5 GHz, Wi-Fi uses the spectrum near 2.4 GHz, which is standardized and unlicensed by international agreement, although the exact frequency allocations vary slightly in different parts of the world, as does maximum permitted power. However, channel numbers are standardized by frequency throughout the world, so authorized frequencies can be identified by channel numbers.

The frequencies for 802.11 b/g span 2.400 GHz to 2.487 GHz. Each channel is 22 MHz wide and there is a 5 MHz step to the next higher channel.

The maximum number of available channels for wi-fi enabled devices are: – 13 for Europe - 11 for North America - 1 for Japan (Channel 14) ^[1]

In North America, it is recommended that only channels 1, 6, and 11 be used for 802.11b/g to minimize interference from adjacent channels.^[2]

[Advantages of Wi-Fi

Allows LANs to be deployed without cabling, typically reducing the costs of network deployment and expansion. Spaces where cables cannot be run, such as outdoor areas and historical buildings, can host wireless LANs.

Wi-Fi silicon pricing continues to come down, making Wi-Fi a very economical networking option and driving inclusion of Wi-Fi in an ever-widening array of devices.

Wi-Fi products are widely available in the market. Different brands of access points and client network interfaces are interoperable at a basic level of service. Products designated as Wi-Fi CERTIFIED by the Wi-Fi Alliance are interoperable and include WPA2 security.

Wi-Fi is a global set of standards. Unlike cellular carriers, the same Wi-Fi client works in different countries around the world.

Widely available in more than 250,000 public hot spots and millions of homes and corporate and university campuses worldwide.

As of 2006, WPA and WPA2 encryption are not easily crackable if strong passwords are used

New protocols for Quality of Service (WMM) and power saving mechanisms (WMM Power Save) make Wi-Fi even more suitable for latency-sensitive applications (such as voice and video) and small form-factor devices

WiFI Hotspots are usually set up indoors and serve some type of retail establishment such as a coffee shop, book store, airport, hotel lobby or other establishment that provides services to people that roam from one city to the next on business.

A WiFI Hotspot usually consists of a single access point (radio) and a billing gateway. A complete WiFI Hotspot should cost around $500 to build and operate.

Customers of WiFI Hotspots are usually business travelers who are equipped with some type of computing device such as a laptop, personal digital assistant (PDA) or a cell phone that uses their own wireless CPE (customer premises equipment) antenna to access the WiFI Hotspot wireless network.

The most important feature of WiFI Hotspots is that it is “self-serve”; customers provision themselves. As soon as a user is within range of a WiFI Hotspot and the click on the view wireless networks option on Microsoft XP operating system, they are presented with the WiFI Hotspot's Landing Page.

The landing page is the first screen that a user sees when they attempt to login to the network. The landing page provides a form whereby the customer can enter their username and password in order to logon to the network. If the user doesn't have a username and password, they can buy one with a valid credit card.

Most WiFI Hotspots are a member of one or more roaming network aggregator services that allow their users to log on to any member network with a single username and password.

Allowing any customer to sign up for service while roaming into a WiFI Hotspot is a very important feature that is included NISP networks.

In a NISP network, the access point is set up as an outdoor WiFI Hotspot. Once the operator turns on the access point, all neighbors with some type of wireless antenna that are within range of the broadcast signal can sign themselves up as a customer.

I’m talking about Hyper-V, the virtualization technology that is being built into a desktop version of Windows for the first time. Windows 7 offered similar capabilities through the use of an add-on program called Windows Virtual PC. Hyper-V integrates this capability directly into the operating system, using technology that has proven itself in the server versions of Windows for more than three years. The average consumer will never need it, but it’s a godsend for IT professionals, developers, security researchers, and enthusiasts.

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The popularity of NetBook computers has taken both hardware and software makers by surprise. What was considered a niche market has become the new growth area for computer hardware. But will your NetBook run Microsoft Office or Outlook?

Operating system

Not all NetBooks use Windows, the cheaper ones reach that lower price by skipping the cost of Windows and using a version of Linux instead.

There's nothing wrong with Linux especially since you can download OpenOffice v3 for free to run on it. OpenOffice v3 can read but not write to the Office 2007 document formats. But you might decide to pay a bit more for the familiarity of Windows. After a slow start, Microsoft has sharpened their pricing on Windows XP for NetBook makers.

NetBooks have a slower processor and less memory than most laptops/desktops so Windows XP is preferred over Vista (there's little to commend Vista on a NetBook in our view). Make very sure that the NetBook has Windows supplied. We've seen some machines which aren't clear about the operating system and invariably that means there's a non-Windows OS involved..

Memory

With the slower Atom processor and slower hard drive, memory becomes an important factor. More memory means software can run more efficiently and hard drive use is cached better.

Generally speaking, the video memory is shared with standard RAM. For example a 512MB NetBook could actually running in only 448MB because 64MB is reserved for video.

We believe that 1GB of RAM is the least amount for anyone using Microsoft Office on a NetBook. If the extra cost isn't too much, jump to 1.5GB or 2GB. If you want to run that eternal resource hog, Microsoft Outlook, get as much memory as you can.

Keep in mind that installing memory into an existing portable computer can be expensive and cumbersome We suggest that you buy the NetBook with the hardware you need now and for the foreseeable future.

Hard Drive

Hard drives are generally around 80GB, though 160GB is possible.

Solid State Drives (SSD) will raise the price promising power savings and higher speed (though these claims are disputed). SSD drives are also smaller sizes with 4GB, 16GB or 32GB the most common. The sizes of SSD are increasing fast and in the next year you can expect to see 128 and even 256GB drives becoming available, for a price.

We like the idea and promise of SSD but are wary of the new technology. There are limitations and questions around the medium and long term write stability of SSD. We're inclined to hold off on SSD until the price comes down and Microsoft tweaks Windows to work efficiently with SSD (at present Windows assumes it's dealing with a standard hard drive).

A 4GB SSD is totally impractical for regular use with Windows with 16GB being the practical but still absolute minimum in our view.

Much depends on how much disk space you think you might need then add some because most people underestimate their disk space needs. If you're travelling you'll need space for your photos and maybe videos as well as any music and videos you bring from home for entertainment. Office users will need space for all necessary documents.

Windows always needs some free hard drive space to work with - about 512MB or a 1GB. Under that level Windows can start acting strangely.

On balance we're inclined to go for the 80GB hard drive option or larger. If you want to try SSD, go for the largest one available, probably 64GB.

USB ports

The MacBook Air, among many limitations comes with a single USB socket which is really insufficient for regular use. A single socket means you have to carry around a USB hub to use more than one device.

USB sockets can be used for external keyboard, mouse, external storage, memory card sockets and charging smaller devices like mobile phones/MP3 players (the latter two important for travelers).

Your NetBook should have at least two, preferably three USB sockets.

Battery

The Apple Mac book Air and now the Mac book Pro 17" have in-built non-replaceable batteries which we think is a thinly veiled piece of deliberate obsolescence. We're continually amazed at reviewers saying that the fixed battery isn't a problem because people replace their portable computer before the battery expires. Only people who get a regular re-supply of their hardware could say that.

In the real world, where people pay for their own computer, a laptop can last for years except that the battery loses ability to hold a charge over time. Eventually it only works with the AC power attached, which rather defeats the purpose of a portable computer.

The simple fix is to buy a replacement battery. With a new battery your NetBook can last a few more years quite easily.

Bottom line: make sure the NetBook has a replaceable battery.

Screen Size

NetBook screens are smaller than laptops around 9 or 10 inch screen dimension.

In terms of screen resolution you usually get a standard width but a shorter height than a laptop or desktop screen. For example a NetBook might have a 1024x576 or 1024x600 resolution instead of 1024x768 on a laptop.

The shorter screen is an issue when using MS Office. Most software has been designed with ever larger screens in mind - not smaller ones. Office suite software has the problem of making plenty of workspace available (ie document or worksheet view) while also showing enough features and status information. We'll talk about that some more later in this article.

Most NetBooks have glossy screens which look nice in the showroom but aren't so good in practice. The glossy screen is harder to see in brighter/sunny conditions. Your reflection in the screen can be distracting. We prefer the non-glare / matt screen which is readable in lighter conditions plus Peter doesn't have to look at his aging visage as he types.

An external VGA port is a good idea, it lets you plug the NetBook into a larger screen when you're at home and use it as a second computer. Many hotels now have video input sockets on the in-room TV's to let you move from a tiny screen to a really big one.

Keyboard

The keyboard is necessarily smaller than usual. That's OK for occasional use and web browsing but if you're likely to be typing a lot then you might find your fingers rebelling against you.

Try out the keyboard properly yourself before buying to make sure you're comfortable with it. Just a few key presses isn't enough - type a few paragraphs.

The multiple USB sockets we suggested above let you plug in an external keyboard and mouse for longer jobs.

A small wireless notebook mouse is a useful extra buy.

So will your NetBook run Office or Outlook – maybe – if you have time for the pain. I wouldn’t do it.

However, if you insist:

Office 2003

(This section applies to Office 2003 and most of it works with earlier versions of Office as well.)

The main toolbars in Office 2003 applications are on one or two rows.

See the controls for menu and toolbar display by right-mouse clicking on the toolbar or menu and choosing the Customize menu at the bottom (or Tools | Customize from the menu). There are three tabs, Toolbars, Commands and Options.

Word 2003 - Tools - Customize dialog

Under options, uncheck the box Standard and Formatting toolbars on two rows. This will put both toolbars side-by-side. Unfortunately, it also means you won't be able to see all the toolbar buttons as they'll disappear off the right of screen. For that reason you might decide to stick with two rows of toolbars.

You could remove toolbars entirely by unchecking them from the long list under the Toolbars tab - then you can work with remembered shortcuts and the menus alone.

An advanced option is to make your own custom toolbar with the icons you want from Standard and Formatting toolbars. You can do that by going to Tools | Customize | Toolbars, clicking New then copying icons from the supplied toolbars to the new one.

Leave off Options | Large Icons - they take up too much room.

Normally we suggest turning on the 'Always show full menus' option so you can see all menu items immediately. However, on a NetBook screen the menus can scroll off the bottom of the shorter screen so you might prefer to turn on 'Show full menus after a short delay'. Office 2003 will initially show common menu items plus those you've used in the past.

While Office 2003 can use less screen height than Office 2007 (because of the single or dual toolbars) the Ribbon minimization trick in Office 2007 lets you see all the ribbon features when needed and get them out of the way as you type.

Screen Views

To see text while typing (plus your choice of toolbars and menu) choose View | Normal. This removes margins etc and puts only text editing area on the screen.

You can switch to View | Page Layout at any time to see the overall look of the page. Even then you can see more text on the page by choosing View | Zoom | Text Width.

View | Full screen will get rid of toolbars, menus and status bars (again it works best if you start from Normal view). Move your mouse to the top of the screen and the Office menu will drop down. The 'Close Full Screen' button is there to help people who switch to this view and can't work out how to get back to the standard display - all you have to do is press Escape.

Reclaiming screen space

The status bar at the bottom of the screen is controlled from Tools | Options | View | Show | Status bar

In Print View the 'white' space between pages (it's the dark grey area on the screen) can go away by clicking in that area (a hide/show white space tip will appear) or from Tools | Options | View | Print and Web layout options | White space between pages.

The vertical ruler on the left in Print view is controlled from Tools | Options | View | Print and Web layout options | Vertical Ruler.

The horizontal ruler can be toggled on/off from View | Ruler.

Office 2007

The much maligned ribbon interface in Office 2007 has several features which make it ideal for smaller screens - though that's certainly not what the smarties at Microsoft envisaged when developing the ribbon.

The ribbon is a fixed height which the same height as Office 2003 with three toolbars.

Office 2003 - 2007 height comparison

However Office 2003 can be reduced to two, one or even no toolbars - see above.

Office 2007 has three main virtues for smaller screens:

Minimize the ribbon

You can minimize and restore the entire ribbon when needed. This is quite clever; we've talked about it several times before. The entire ribbon disappears leaving just the tabs, the Office button and the Quick Access Toolbar.

Word 2007 -minimized ribbon

The easiest way to get ribbon minimization working is to double-click on the currently active tab or two double-clicks on a non-active tab. Once minimized the ribbon will appear when needed then disappear again.

More details in the Office Watch article - Make the Office 2007 ribbon go away.

Variable Width

Office 2007, unlike earlier versions of Office, copes more elegantly with variable screen widths.

In Office 2003, a long toolbar simply falls off the right-hand side of the window if there isn't enough room.

The Office 2007 ribbon 'collapses' into smaller chunks depending on the width of the window. Chucks / sections of a ribbon on the right are the first to reduce in size (one of our gripes with the current ribbon).

Word 2007 - very narrow window with pop-down menu

Click on one of the down arrows under an abbreviated chunk to see all the usual options.

Keyboard shortcuts

Office 2007 has a powerful set of keyboard shortcuts both new ones and old favorites.

Simply pressing the Alt key will display prompts to keyboard sequences to all ribbon features see Office 2007 - new look - same shortcuts and More Office 2007 keyboard shortcut tips

A common misconception about Office 2007 is that the previous Office shortcuts don't work - but that's not true. All (or almost all) the common keyboard shortcuts from way back to Word 1 for Windows are still there even if the menu structure that originated them has gone. Try your favorite shortcuts and see … for example:

• Ctrl + N still opens a new default document.
• Alt+F then N opens the new document dialog box.
• Alt + F then P still opens the Print dialog.

In the past it too hours to install or upgrade an operating system. According to St. Pierre, a clean install -- where all files and data are wiped from the drive prior to installing Windows 8 -- should wrap up in 21 minutes, 35% less time than the 32 minutes Microsoft said it takes Windows 7 to do the same. For what Microsoft called a "medium upgrade," one on a PC with 213,000 files and 77 applications, Windows 8 is three times faster, finishing the upgrade in just 42 minutes, versus Windows 7's two hours and 11 minutes.

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Where is the Start Button; Where is the Start Menu?. If you are running the Windows 8 Consumer Preview and you want some or all of the Start Menu functionality when you're in desktop mode, you can have it your way without installing anything, and this is how we do it:

1. Get your Run dialog box by pressing Windows Logo Key + R
2. Check the Desktop option in the taskbar's Properties | Toolbars setting
3. Add the Search box to the taskbar by checking Address in the same setting

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Here is an interesting statistic— according to the Yankee Group, nearly 40 percent of today's workforce is mobile—and this number is growing. What does that mean to your organization? To some, it means staunchly refusing to face what's in front of you, and continuing to act as if wireless is something that you have to deal with only on a fringe basis.

Unfortunately, I see this happening in many organizations and it is just another sign that IT is not leading in the organization, but is instead lagging behind and having to play catch up and accommodate when forced to do so.

This, frankly, is the wrong attitude to take. If you haven't figured it out by now—a seamless blend of wired and wireless is the wave of the future. I say seamless, because your workforce will want to go from wired to Wi-Fi to cellular broadband, all within the same workday and all without having to jump through extraordinary hoops to do so. Any attempt at stopping this will make IT look obstructionist and behind the curve.

So what does this mean in terms of your planning? It should mean several things. Here are a few of them to consider:

1. Your organization needs to plan its infrastructure growth around providing secure wireless as part of the overall network, not just as an afterthought.

2. The Internet is part of every knowledge worker's regular tools. They will need to access it all the time, wherever they work from.

3. Expect that there will be a significant number of connections to your corporate network from OUTSIDE your firewall as part of regular business.

4. People will want all their applications delivered to them on a variety of devices.

5. People will expect their applications to perform similarly no matter where they are.

6. You NEED to get control of all mobile devices for your organization. In order to do so, you NEED to build flexibility into your standards. If you are going to demand only one kind of device and won't support the rest—you are asking for trouble.

7. It is ridiculous to supply all workers with a desktop and a variety of mobile devices. Find ways to make their mobile units part of their everyday devices.

8. Video streaming is a part of mobile computing. Stop trying to fight it and work on ways to control it and enhance it within your organization.

9. If VOIP isn't part of your infrastructure, it will be.

10. Integration is your key word.

Having listed things you need to consider in your planning, what are some of your possible solutions?

1. If you do not have a way to deliver your applications as a Web application, you need to develop this capability. I am specifically talking about remote desktop solutions provided by companies such as Citrix, Microsoft or other vendors.

2. If you aren't thinking about heading toward a thin-client environment, you should be. After all, if you are working on ways to provide the same level of seamless application use no matter what the device, why are you paying for all the horsepower of a traditional desktop? Yes there will be exceptions - but it's not the rule.

3. If AJAX isn't in your developer's tool kit, it should be.

4. Your applications will need to be able to support ALL browsers and operating systems as mobile computing devices take a variety of forms.

5. VPN is old school. Create an environment where you can manage connections from a variety of platforms—whether YOU manage them or not.

6. You need to be able to provide and support security from a number of platforms to a wide variety of platforms. This is also a good time to be thinking about single-sign-on capability.

7. Bandwidth management tools are no longer a luxury, they are a necessity.

8. You NEED to get phones and PDAs under your domain now! It should not be a difficult case to make.

9. You need a STRATEGY to move forward in order to handle the complexity that comes with integration—everything I have mentioned here needs to be considered in your strategy.

10. The computing devices of the future are here today; take a look at the Sony VGN-UX280P to see where things are headed.

Obviously there must be a great deal of thought and planning that needs to go into your IT strategy for the future. My point, though, is that if your mobile strategy is separate from your overall strategy, you have a severe disconnect and need to rethink your plan. Mobile and wireless need to be integral to the way you think and plan in all areas—from application development to infrastructure. If they aren't, you will find yourself playing catch up while the rest of your organization does an end run. And when they do - don't forget I told you so.

Today’s shared B2B social media posts can show you some new ways of managing your online marketing to connect with your target audience, measure your success, run your social profiles more efficiently and start a blog with the correct things in mind. There are also some writing tips from Hemingway thrown in for good measure. Better understanding of what you are doing and why, along with solid writing, will get further than you are today in your social media marketing.

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The man who shot his daughter's laptop and posted the video of it on YouTube just happens to be a solution provider.

Tommy Jordan, CEO of Twisted Networks, Greenville, N.C., said in an exclusive interview with CRN that he may even gain business as a result of the notoriety, adding he's received support from customers, employees and other solution providers since the video went viral. At last count, at least 50 solution providers across the U.S. have reached out to him.

Jordan shot the laptop in an emotional response to his daughter's Facebook post, in which she complained pretty strongly about having to do chores. The video has been viewed more than 28 million times since being uploaded Feb. 8 and clips have been shown numerous times on national television.

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