Posts Tagged ‘Business’
Tuesday, August 24th, 2010
Earlier today I received an email from a local company. The email had a Word document attached, labeled flyer. It was from a local business trying to generate additional sales. While creating sales is certainly very legitimate, the approach the sender took was not.
As I never gave my permission for this company to send me an email, this could be considered spam. Second, instead of using an email system such as Constant Contact, they simply entered everyone’s names from their address book. And they used the To: field, further exposing everyone’s email addresses.
It is perplexing that in this day and age, people still don’t know how to properly use email for legitimate, responsible marketing purposes.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be so astonished, as just the other day I saw several Facebook posts using a combination of text language, and a bad case of grammar, making the post unpleasant to read.
Tags: Business, Constant Contact, E-mail address, E-mail spam, email, Marketing, Online Tools, Spam
Posted in Technology | No Comments »
Monday, August 16th, 2010
EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) is again in the news, but not the old-world news. For those who aren’t familiar with what an EMP is, I will explain. An electromagnetic pulse is a natural occurring event caused by solar storms. The can also be generated by nuclear explosions above the earth’s atmosphere and by EMP weapons.
While an EMP event, weather man-made or from nature is not deadly to people, the long term affects caused by the aftermath certainly can be. An EMP wave basically fries all electronic equipment. Our power grid would be shut down, along with our water filtration and sewage systems. Transportation of all sorts with the exception of the four legged kind would come to a halt. Food processing would stop. There would be no calling 911, FEMA, SEMO, or any other disaster relief organization because the phones would not work.
During last year’s EMP summit, I learned that it would take ten years to rebuild the power grid in the US in the event of an EMP disturbance. One of the reasons it would take so long is we no longer manufacture the transformers. The manufacturing has been out-sourced to China.
It has been predicted if a major EMP wave hit the United States, we could easily lose one third of our population. Our society as we have come to know it would cease to exist, and the picture would not be pretty. William Forstchen wrote a very good novel called One Second After, which describes one community’s life after such a mishap.
Last week the Senate dropped a plan by Congress which would have prepared the US in the event of an EMP attack. For more, see www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=188605.
Last year I had the opportunity to participate in the first EMP conference which was held in Buffalo New York. I am bringing this up now because
Information provided by: HITman Services, a computer and IT services company located in Clifton Park, New York.
Tags: Business, China, Electrical grid, Electromagnetic pulse, Electronics, One Second After, United States, William R. Forstchen
Posted in Life Management, Technology | No Comments »
Thursday, July 29th, 2010
In May we had decided to try a new software program and contracted with a well know, and well established company as we thought it would be quicker to deploy than take time from client projects to update the system we were currently using.
Within a week of making the decision and attempting to work with the company, it became apparent that this would not be a good fit as it took quite a while to get questions answered. And we were just at the beginning of the implementation phase. So I contacted the company to let them know we would not be proceeding.
I had put their system out of my mind until yesterday. That is when we received a call from the company regarding us terminating the relationship. This morning I returned the call and spoke with one of their representatives. She asked why we decided not to continue with the software. I said this is a perfect example of why we stopped; we canceled in May and it is now almost August and we are just receiving a call asking us why.
I then stated if we were in a situation where a client no longer wished to do business with us we would be on the phone with them in the afternoon, or tomorrow at the latest.
Exceptional customer service needs to be a core believe from the top down and permeate throughout the organization. Everyone who comes into contact with clients or customers needs to be empowered to do whatever is necessary to make sure that clients and customers are completely satisfied.
This latest interaction with such a large company provides our computer networking and repair; and website development companies, with a good example of what not to emulate. We can always learn.
Tags: Business, Business Services, Clifton Park, Clifton Park computer repair, Clifton Park New York, Consulting, Customer Management, Customer service, Education and Training, Environmental Working Group, Industry-Specific, OpenSource, Question, Retailers, Small business, United States, Website
Posted in Business | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
For quite, BlackBerrys and the BlackBerry Enterprise server has been a hard combination to beat because of RIM’s (Research In Motion) push technology.
Setup a Microsoft Exchange account on a BlackBerry and you have a very powerful combination. Email is sent both inbound and outbound with almost no delay. Additionally, the calendar, contacts, notes and tasks are also synced wirelessly.
Companies such as Fox News have created apps which take advantage of the push technology and send news alerts as they happen.
All of this is great, but there is one exception, Microsoft Sync. Microsoft Sync offers many of the same features as the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, but with less cost. RIM has recently tried to remedy this by providing small businesses with a slimmed down version of the server software, and at zero cost.
The problem is, the overhead is still there and owners of BlackBerrys are required to pay a higher fee to their wireless phone provider.
Recently I had a conversation with an insider from a Fortune 100 company who stated they have more issues with syncing BlackBerrys than other devices by a very wide margin.
Time will tell which system offers the best business solution.
Tags: BlackBerry, BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Business, Microsoft, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Sync, Research In Motion, RIM
Posted in BlackBerry, Business, email | No Comments »
Monday, June 14th, 2010
Recently I had a conversation with an executive from Clifton Park, NY. She was relating her frustrations about how there were so many obligations vying for her time. She then went on to say how much time she was spending on email.
This business owner spends a substantial amount of time out of the office and communication with her staff is vitally important.
After listening for a while I suggested a solution which would save her about 30 minutes per day. I informed her the change would be seamless and would not require any additional technical time per month.
At first she didn’t want to increase her monthly costs and was reluctant to make the move. When she realized it amounted to only a few dollars per day, she decided to go ahead.
I spoke with her recently and she is very happy with her decision. While it hasn’t eliminated all her frustrations, it has dramatically reduced them.
Tags: Business, Business Services, Clifton Park, Clifton Park New York, Communication, Corporation, email, Managing email, New York, Shareware, Supplies and Equipment, Time, Windows
Posted in Business, Life Management, email | No Comments »
Friday, May 28th, 2010
This morning I had the opportunity to visit with another long term client. We have been providing IT and computer support to this Upstate New York company for well over ten years and it has been very interesting to be a part of the business as they transformed.
Many changes have taken place from when the business was locally owned to now being part of a large national firm. General managers have come and gone, some business functions have been moved to corporate headquarters. Business focus has been massaged and tweaked.
What hasn’t changed is the loyalty and dedication of the staff. It was wonderful to see that despite the turbulent times we live in, the attitude of many of the people I have known for so many years remains positive and upbeat.
It was a nice start to the day.
Tags: Business, Business and Economy, Clifton Park computer repair, Corporate headquarters, Financial services, General manager, Ghost town, Google, Health, IT Services, Metro Areas, New York, New York City Metro, Small business, United States, Upstate New York
Posted in BlackBerry | No Comments »
Thursday, May 27th, 2010
Earlier this week I had the opportunity to re-connect with a client whom I haven’t spoken to in several months.
Because we are located in Clifton Park, NY and they are in Syracuse, NY, the majority of the computer and network support we do for them is via our remote systems.
It must be over 15 years ago when I met these people. They are two brothers who own a large repair facility. We installed a program called GarageKeeper to help them run their business.
While we have upgraded equipment for them several times, the software hasn’t been changed since 2000. Many would think they are using an out dated program, but the reliability of the system is incredible. As the Timex commercial use to say, “it takes a licking and keeps on ticking”. So it is with the GarageKeeper program.
One of the owners is retired and the owner of daughter has taken her uncle’s place. They are some of the nicest people you would ever want to meet.
I feel very fortunate that many of the people who I met many years ago, I still serve.
Tags: Business, Clifton Park, Clifton Park computer repair, Clifton Park New York, Computer, Environment, Garage Keeper, GarageKeeper, New York, Syracuse New York, United States, Waterford
Posted in Business | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010
Thinking about how people use their smartphones and the associated applications led me to thinking if we are giving away much of our freedom and anonymity which we will be sorry for later. According to JWire, 76% of smartphone users prefer free apps with location based ads rather than paying for apps.
While location based services can certainly be very helpful, is it really good to have many people know where you are at every given moment?
Could hackers exploit these apps and gain knowledge of our daily habits?
While it may be too soon to know all the implications with which new technologies bring with them, it might be wise to err on the side of caution.
Tags: Android, BlackBerry, Business, Handhelds, iPhone, Location and Tracking, Location-based service, Smartphone, Technology, Telecommunications, Windows Mobile
Posted in Life Management, Privacy | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 28th, 2010
The firewall and security tools provided in the Microsoft Operating System are all the maintenance and protection I need.
Again, this is a terrible misconception. Microsoft does NOT include ALL of the security features to protect your data from viruses, hackers, and data loss or prevent your PC from running slowly.
As a matter of fact, there is no one single vendor that provides ALL of the system security features you need to keep your computer and files safe from harm.
Security and protection from these malicious attacks takes a multi-faceted, layered approach.
Tags: Business, Consultants, Data, Data loss, Firewall, Microsoft, Personal computer, Security, Virus
Posted in Privacy, Security | 1 Comment »