Secunia PSI (Personal Software Inspector)

FileHippo Update Checker

Ninite Pro

Alternative Software Choices

But sometimes you may need a software product for a short term project or can’t afford the high cost of some of the most popular packages.

For example you may need to edit a photo for a brochure you are creating, but the $500 cost of Adobe Photoshop is too much for this one time use. There are alternatives, some of which are free, but still have all of the same functionality as the higher cost products. Also some companies provide ‘cut down’ versions of their premium software packages such as Adobe Photoshop Elements.

Some dis-advantage associated with alternative software are sometimes there maybe a lack of end user help and support, the latest security or bug fixes or latest features, but these are usually out-weighed by the cost savings.

Some places to find Alternatives Sources of Software

alternativeTo
This website lists alternatives software packages for Windows, Mac, Linux, Online and Mobile OSes such as IPhone, Android, Windows and S60. Enter a software package and you will be given equivalents or alternatives which are rated by users so that you can see how popular it is. You can also filter the choices by the type of license you are looking for such as Commercial, Freeware or Open source

Open Source as Alternative
Osalt only lists open source alternatives to commercial or closed-source software. Look for the Commercial package and you will be given alternatives to it and can see which operating system platforms it is available for.

Similar Site
This website helps you find similar websites for example if you used GMail.com for your email, but wanted an alternative then enter in the URL of the website you are currently using and you will be given a list of websites that provide similar services.

Gizmo’s Freeware
Under the Freeware Categories section you will find a list of software categories, which then break down to the ‘Best of’ in each, such as ‘The Best Email Client’. There are usually very good descriptions of each alternative product and there are rating and discussions to help you choose.

See larger image Getting Started with Open Office .org 3: OpenOffice.org 3.0 (Paperback) By (author) OOo AuthorsTeam List Price: $31.95 USD New From: $25.43 In Stock Used from: $21.50 In Stock

Small Business Backup Checklist

According to BackBlaze in their annual survey, 94% of computer users still risk data loss by not backing up regularly enough.

The risk to your business by losing data is not just the inconvenience of having to do some re-work, but it can affect your credibility, sales, leads, reputation and ultimately your bottom line as well as potential lawsuits filed by clients regarding professional liability.

Data loss can occur because of many reasons including human error, hardware failure such as a hard disk crashes, software corruption, hardware destruction, theft, loss or viruses and since more of a companies business is done using computers then backup should be one of the most important I.T. tasks.

Source: BackBlaze

Backup is different to Disaster Recovery, in that when a disaster happens, you need a prepared plan to recovery and continue your business, but backup deals purely with data loss prevention and recovery. The best backup plan would be that every piece of important data was backed up immediately when it was created, but in the real world this is seldom possible for every type of data/record that you may have, so compromises must be made. Backup doesn’t usually deal with application settings and configuration, but in small businesses it maybe easier and more convenient to include this.

The first step in the small business backup check-list is to identify your data repositories. Depending on the size of your company and the type of data/records that you have this maybe easy, but consider that as well as documents you may have in your ‘My Documents’ folder on your laptop or server, what about your invoices, sales records, inventory or other client/customers records/data. Do you use email, online ‘Cloud’ based applications, other databases or is there data on your smart-phone? Ideally data should never be stored on Laptops or smart-phones, but in today’s fast paced mobile life, invariably it is.

How often does your data change? You possibly don’t have to backup 100% of all your data every day, but the trade-off is, that the more that you backup, the more secure your data is, but the cost of storing your backups increases.

The type of backup solution you choose to implement depends on how much data you need to backup, how often it changes, what your budget is and if you need to comply with any data retention laws. Backups can be fully automatic, semi-automatic or manual and can include a variety of software and hardware solutions including tape, CD/DVD, NAS, servers, On-line (‘Cloud’) or even USB drives. No matter what solution you choose make sure that your data is encrypted, the backups are stored securely off-site and that the process is monitored to ensure that the backups are actually working.

And don’t forget as you add new data repositories or stop using one then to revisit your backup plan.

Please download our Small Business Backup Checklist to help you ensure that you have everything important backed up and secure to keep your business running.

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Recently Lab42 asked 500 users what they are using Linkedin for and they have produced an info-graphic of the results (see below)

What are you using Linkedin for?

See larger image The Power Formula for Linkedin Success: Kick-start Your Business, Brand, and Job Search (Paperback) By (author) Wayne Breitbarth List Price: $16.95 USD New From: $10.26 In Stock Used from: $10.11 In Stock

Google +1 Adoption

With the news this week that the Google +1 (plus one) button has now overtaking the Twitter button on the number of websites it appears on, it looks like the Great Internet Popularity Contest is starting to heat up. Though the Facebook Like button is still on more websites at the moment, Google’s masterstroke of having their button appear inside of their search results will mean that once Google+ (their answer to Facebook) takes off, they will be in a better position to dominate. It has also been discussed that Google +1 will become more important than PageRank, because it will be using people rather than algorithms to determine the popularity of a website.

How to add Google+1, Facebook Like and the Tweet button to your website

Google +1

Google +1

1. Goto http://www.google.com/intl/en/webmasters/+1/button/index.html
2. Choose the size, the Language, advance options, etc
3. Copy the code and paste it into your website, where you want it to appear

Facebook Like

Facebook Like

Facebook isn’t quite as easy as Google+ to set-up as lots of people are having problems getting the button wizard to work

The simplest method

1. http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/
2. Unfortunately for this method you have to set the URL of each page you want the button to appear on
3. Choose the style, width, show faces, verb to use, colour scheme, font, etc
4. Press Get Code and Copy and paste it into your website, where you want it to appear

One of the major problems people seem to be having is that if you are logged into Facebook when trying to do this you may get an error saying that you have to be a registered developer to get this code. By logging out of Facebook and then trying this again, it should work.

For the other Facebook Like method you will have to register for a Facebook application ID, and there is more code to integrate into your website. For this it maybe worth speaking to your web developer.

Tweet Button

Tweet Button

1. Goto http://twitter.com/goodies/tweetbutton
2. Choose the Button style
3. Enter your Twitter ID
4. Copy the code and paste it into your website, where you want it to appear

See larger image The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success (Paperback) By (author) Lon Safko List Price: $29.95 USD New From: $17.00 In Stock Used from: $10.55 In Stock

What the small business owner need to know about I.T

In the diagram you can see that the role of I.T. in your business is driven by the needs of your business, but in turn it supports it. If something goes wrong with I.T., it can have a dramatic effect on your business’s ability to function.

As a small business owner, your main role is to develop and expand your business, but at the same time you are responsible to make sure that your business is stable and running smoothly. These series of articles isn’t to teach you how to technically manage the I.T. Infrastructure, but to give you a baseline knowledge so that you can speak with I.T. professionals and understand the implications of any decisions.

In this example, the term ‘I.T. Infrastructure’ is used to describe everything related to I.T. that ‘keeps the lights on’. For example it includes desktops, laptops, operating systems, office suite software, Internet Browsers, Internet connectivity, anti-virus, support, backup, data storage, passwords, security, software licensing, software updates, user policies, compliance, disaster recovery, etc, etc.

Even if you are the sole employee of your business, working from home on a laptop or just using Internet cloud based services there are basics that about the technology in your business that need to be understood so that in the case of a disaster, you can recover quickly and keep your business going.

Over the course of this series, we will be providing simple checklists that you can use to ensure that everything within your I.T Infrastructure is covered and give you enough background information to help you make informed decisions.

• Disaster Recovery Plan for Small Business
• Free Disaster Recovery Plan Check-list
• Small Business Backup Checklist
• Free Small Business Backup Checklist

See larger image Home and Small Business Guide to Protecting Your Computer Network, Electronic Assets, and Privacy (Hardcover) By (author) Philip Alexander List Price: $39.95 USD New From: $26.56 In Stock Used from: $11.22 In Stock

Improve your Website Conversion

The old way of doing this was to have a toll-free number re-directed to your land-line, but a lot of small businesses don’t always have someone in the office, but still would like to offer a way to contact them. Nowadays there are lots of Internet Services that can provide a similar service, often for free and with many more features.

Two of the most popular are Google Voice and Skype. With Google Voice, you place a button on your website, that a customer enters their phone number, which then calls your selected phone (or voice-mail) and the customers phone. Once you pick-up you are then connected to your customer. With Skype, you  place a button on your website, that a customer can see if you are available on Skype and will start a Skype call with you when pressed.

The advantage of Google Voice Call Me button is that it still uses standard phones, but you can choose the phone that rings and even set it depending on the time of day. The advantage of Skype Call Me button is that it can show if you are available, i.e. logged into Skype.

Google Call Me Button

Google Voice Call Me Button

1. Go-to http://www.google.com/voice/#webcall
2. Click on Add a new call widget
3. Give the Widget a name
4. Choose which phones to ring or send to voice-mail
5. Leave the Standard voice-mail greeting or record a new one
6. Choose the Calling Options
7. Save Changes
8. Your call widget will now appear in the list. Copy the code to your clipboard in the box marked Embed
9. Paste this code into your website, where you wish the Call Me button to appear

Skype Call Me Button

Skype Call Me Button

1. Go-to http://www.skype.com/intl/en/tell-a-friend/get-a-skype-button/
2. Enter your Skype log-in name
3. Choose the button style (note: the best buttons show if you are online)
4. Copy the Web HTML code to your clipboard
5. Paste this code into your website, where you wish the Call Me button to appear

There are many other on-line services to allow your customers to call you for free and even Facebook is rumored to be launching something soon.

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Disaster Recovery Plan for Small Business

Most large companies have a IT Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity plan which they revise regularly and test. For a small business, having a dedicated person or team maybe beyond your budget, but it is equally important that you have a contingency plan in place if the unexpected happens. Your Insurance will pay out for some capital items, but this will take time, how will you keep your customers, suppliers and employees in the meantime?

Even in the event of a small disaster such as a web server crashing, an key employee becoming sick or the loss of your invoicing system, a Disaster Recovery Plan will help in the quick recovery and continuation of your business without too much disruption.

The goals of your Disaster Recovery plan should be to;

• Establish a plan for business continuity in advance
• Identify the risks and limit the extent of disruption and damage to the business
• Minimize interruption to the normal business operations and minimize the economic impact
• Train key personnel with the emergency procedures

The most common disruption to business is data loss, which can result from computer system hardware failures, theft, human error, natural disasters, theft, malicious corruption, virus attacks, etc. The first step is to identify what data is important to your business, where it is stored, how it is accessed and how it is backed up. Your data maybe stored on a computer, an on-site server or on a Internet Server. In the case of an Internet Service, ensure you include in your plan, what would happen if a 3rd party had a disaster or if your Internet connection was lost. How would you continue to run your business?

Ensure that backups of all your key data is carried out regularly, stored off-site an available for recovery. Decide who will be responsible for managing the backups or if you choose to out-source this, then ensure that you are receiving reports. Test regularly that your data can be recovered and that your plan is reviewed to ensure that new data is being managed.

Please download our Free Disaster Recovery Plan Check-list to help you plan ahead to keep your business running in the event of a disaster.

See larger image Disaster Recovery Planning: Preparing for the Unthinkable (3rd Edition) (Hardcover) By (author) Jon William Toigo List Price: $69.99 USD New From: $36.00 In Stock Used from: $23.73 In Stock

Don’t get left behind. Talk to us today to help you promote your business on Twitter.

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows you answer the question, “What are you doing?”. You answer this question by sending a short text message 140 characters or less in length, called a “Tweet”, to your “followers”.

140 characters doesn’t seem like a lot to get your message across, but that is the beauty of Twitter. Short, concise and to the point. Twitter is unique in the world of Social Networking as it encourages conversation and since businesses typically get more than half of their customers through word of mouth Twitter is the modern digital manifestation of that.

Twitter by the Numbers

• There are over 100 Million Users, with nearly 300,000 new users a day
• There are over 50 Million Tweets a day. That’s over 600 a second!
• 180 Million Unique users visit Twitter each month
• 87% of the American public are aware of Twitter. Two years ago it was 5%
• Over 64% of Twitter users are in the age range 25 to 54
• 44% of users use Twitter nearly everyday. 21% nearly every other day
• 42% of Twitter users use Twitter to learn about products/services
• On other Social Networks 16% of users follow brands. On Twitter it is 51%
• Nearly 2/3 of active users access Twitter using their cell phone

(Sources: Twitter, Edison Research) 

Twitter users are very sensitive to direct advertising and businesses shouldn’t sell, sell, sell. Since you are in direct contact with your existing and potential new customers with Twitter you can develop conversations and understand what they want and you can use this feedback to help develop or improve your products or services.

Getting started with Twitter is easy, but how can Twitter help your business? Whether you use Twitter or not, your customers will be talking about your products or services and if you aren’t there to develop the relationships they move onto a competitor. Businesses use Twitter in a variety of ways including soliciting feedback, views and opinions from customers, sharing special offers and discounts,and many other creative ways of connecting with customers that email and the telephone weren’t able to do.

Whatever you want to do online to increase your Profits we can help or know someone that can.

Give us a call, email us or send us a Tweet to talk to us about increasing your Profits using Twitter

Thunderbird 5

No not that Thunderbird, but Mozilla Thunderbird 5, their desktop email application, has been released for Windows, Macintosh and Linux, with performance improvements, new features and security fixes.

Mozilla has added over 390 fixes to  improve performance, speed, security and stability. Including in the list of new features are tabbed message viewing and an new add-on manager.

To ensure your machines security, you should update to Thunderbird 5 as soon as possible.

Note: that certain Thunderbird extensions/add-ons may not work correctly after the update.