Google’s Chrome browser has special commands that can show you basic browser settings and info from within the browser’s main window. This can be helpful since it presents browser information in one neat page that can easily be searched. For example, to view bookmarks, type “chrome://bookmarks” in the search or URL box. To view downloads, type “chrome://downloads”, and to view your history, type “chrome://history”.
Cost savings are always important to small businesses — but that doesn’t mean you should skimp on technology. New technology may be necessary for the survival and growth of your business, and may not be as expensive as you think when you consider its return on investment (ROI). In this four-part series, we’ll explain what ROI is, help you understand the types of ROI, and provide guidelines for predicting and measuring the ROI of a technology investment. PART 1: ROI Basics There are two ways to look at the value of technology: total cost of ownership (TCO), which quantifies only the cost of a project, and return on investment (ROI), which quantifies both the cost and expected benefit of the project over a specific timeframe. Traditionally, businesses have used TCO when analyzing the cost of internal infrastructure projects such as upgrading an e-mail system. But even with internal systems, ROI can be a better method. If your old e-mail system goes down, for example, your sales team can’t contact customers electronically and must spend more time making phone calls. If your employees spend two more hours on calls than they would on e-mails, you’ve actually lost money by not upgrading your e-mail system. As an example of how ROI works, consider the case of a small, high-end electronics boutique. The current point-of-sale (POS) software is beginning to show strains from the company’s expansion and increasing inventory, and customer service issues are arising — a problem since the company’s mission is to provide exceptional service. The company’s owner believes implementing a new POS software program will help address these issues, but deploying it will be costly. The key question is which will cost more in the long term: spending the money to provide a solution, or the losses the boutique will incur by not doing so? That question may be easier to ask than to answer. As important as determining ROI is, there is still little consensus about how to measure it accurately. That’s because ROI has many intangibles — things that don’t show up in traditional cost-accounting methods but still maximize the economic potential of the organization, such as brand value, customer satisfaction, and patents. In the next part of this series we’ll discuss these intangibles
We are seeing Macs and PCs together in more and more offices. Here are some tips to make sure these devices can get along with each other — whether it be sharing files between the two systems, sharing printers, having them talk to each other on the same network, and even running apps on both systems. Unlike a few years ago when Microsoft’s Windows operating system virtually dominated office desktops everywhere, today we are increasingly seeing the use of other operating systems in the office. Typically these other systems are some model of Apple’s Macintosh running its own operating system called the OS X. The OS X, known for its sleek graphics, great multimedia handling capabilities, and easy-to-learn user interface, has gained favor among many users and businesses. Sometimes, however, problems arise when having to use different systems in the same office or network environment. Here are some tips to eliminate common issues your users might face when working with others on a different system: File Sharing . There was a time when transferring files between a Mac and a PC was a painful process requiring understanding different file system structures, resource forks, file name limits, and other such nonsense. Thankfully those days are over. Many Mac applications today can open files created on a PC and vice versa — such as office documents, images, video, and more. Getting files from one system to another is also easy as you can transfer via a removable drive. Both systems should recognize the file system on the drive — especially if it was formatted using Window’s file system (doing it the other way around might be a bit more difficult). OS X “Leopard” Macs can also read or write to drives that have been formatted using a special format from Microsoft called NTFS, and other freely downloadable utilities can also help. If this sounds like too much work to understand, you can also simply burn a CD or email files from one system to another — or better yet, set up a network for file sharing. Making Macs and PCs talk on the same network . If you’re a little more tech savvy, you can connect your Macs to your PCs directly or via a network. Typically this requires a network cable connected to both devices and having network sharing turned on. Enabling network sharing is outside the scope of this tip, but many online resources are available to help you connect a PC to a Mac or a Mac to a PC. Running the same desktop applications on both a Mac and a PC . For really advanced users, did you know that you can run Windows on a Mac or OS X on a PC? The former is bit easier and more common, thanks to techniques such as dual booting or virtualization. In dual booting (what Apple calls “Boot Camp”), you essentially install both operating systems on a Mac and on power up, you can choose which operating system to boot. Virtualization on the other hand is way slicker as you can run both operating systems at the same time. In virtualization, you boot Windows in a window within OS X, allowing you to effectively run Windows applications on a Mac. There are also many commercial applications that can help with this. The future: Cloud Applications. As we all start to access more cloud-based applications, the operating system you use is no longer as critical. As long as your systems have an Internet connection and a browser, then you can use different systems and it doesn’t matter what operating system or hardware is being used. So running both Macs and PCs in the same office is not necessarily a bad thing, as it has been in the past. Dozens of options exist today to make the situation manageable, if not downright easy. If you need help, don’t worry — we’re here to assist. Call us today to find out how you can get Macs and PCs to work together for your business today.
One of the world’s leading email service providers, Epsilon, found itself the victim of a phishing attack that saw a significant amount of data lost to cyber-thieves. It’s important to learn from mistakes like these and make sure that both your own and you clients’ data is kept secure and safe from thieves. There’s been a lot of buzz recently about Epsilon, one of the biggest email service providers in the world, as it suffers from the backlash of allowing itself to be a victim of phishing efforts – which has affected the business data of as many as 50 major companies who are clients of theirs. Reports are also citing Epsilon’s failure to heed an alert from a business partner which advised the provider to be on its toes against potential attacks from cyber-criminals targeted towards email service providers. The damage estimates vary, with Epsilon citing only about 2% of their data being stolen, but the impact is undeniable. Cyber-criminals now have access to a sizable number of personal data stored through Epsilon – passwords, account numbers, and even the purchasing / buying habits of the customers of Epsilonงs clients. Many of Epsilon’s clients are now sending out messages to their own customers, warning them that their email addresses may have been compromised. It’s a lesson to companies, big and small, to pay more attention to beefing up their security protocols, since all it takes is one breach to endanger all of your data. In addition to having the right security software, it also helps if you require your employees undergo proper user training to make sure that they won’t be easily baited by scams like phishing, and will be more aware of how to contribute to the safety of your business data. Failing to do so puts not only your company, but also your clients, at risk. If you’d like to make sure your systems are safe, call us and we’ll evaluate your current security measures and suggest ways to make critical improvements.
