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August 22, 2008

Web Based CRM Software: Hype Or Reality?

Filed under: Information Technology — cedricl @ 12:00 am

Web Based CRM is Software as a Service (SaaS) providing Customer Relationship Management functionality on the internet. Instead of buying the software licenses and installing the application on the company infrastructure, customers acquire a subscription to a system which can be accessed via the World Wide Web. Once the subscription fee is paid, customers can directly log into the web based CRM solution.

The crucial benefit of this software delivery model is the fast deployment of the application without having to go go through a costly and lengthy installation process. The absence of company-owned hardware also leads to lower capital investments and reduced operational costs (no need to hire costly system engineers to maintain the hardware infrastructure).

Finally, the cost of the implementation project will also typically be lower. However, this statement must be taken with a grain of salt. In the majority of cases, the business requirements are the most important drivers of the IT project cost. Web Based CRM software allows for fast access to the standard solution provided by the vendor. In many cases (and depending on your business), the standard implementation will not be able to fulfill all business needs.

In this case, additional customization of the On Demand CRM will be required. The more customization, the higher the project budget. So, take this into account when writing the business case.

Web Based CRM software supports many functionalities. The most common ones are SFA, lead management, opportunity management, partner management, customer service and support, contact center management, performance management and e-commerce. Additional more niche functionalities are E-Learning, Quality management and self-service vendors.

The last trends indicate a growing interest in Analytics and extensive integration of internet marketing services. The increasing interest in analytics, by the way, is not limited to web based CRM. The rise of analytics is a general trend in business software where higher levels of transparency are demanded by management on every level: strategic, tactical and operational.

The integration of internet marketing services such as Google’s advertising service Adwords cannot be seen as a surprise. E-commerce and internet advertising are growing year by year. Google has become the number one place where customers go to find information to satisfy their needs and desires. This reality opens a lot of perspective for business. That is why the integration of internet sales and marketing services into web based CRM software is crucial.

The most important web CRM vendors are SalesForce, RightNow and NetSuite. These vendors have designed and implemented their online solutions with the internet in mind. Industry behemoths like Microsoft, SAP and Oracle (with Siebel) fairly recently added an On Demand offering to their portfolio, which in some cases is a web port of their traditional CRM suite.

Now, how to choose the right web based CRM software? The answer to this question depends on a number of criteria: what functionalities are required by your organization? How many users need access to the application? How mature is your IT organization? What is your back office system? How critical is the application? And many more …

Before selecting a customer relationship management solution I would definitely recommend to start with a free trial, which will allow you to try the service before signing-up.

Cedric Rinolda is IT Project Manager and Architect specialized in the implementation of business software. He writes opinions on the evolutions in the world of Software as a Service. Learn more about web based CRM software and choosing the right CRM vendor at his blog.

August 21, 2008

Blue Screen of Death - Diagnose and Repair the Infamous Windows Blue Screen

Filed under: Software — pmcdonald @ 12:00 am

At some point or another, we’ll all probably experience it - the dreaded “Blue Screen of Death.” Unfortunately, most of the time we have no idea why it rears its ugly head. Luckily, there are now some great tools available that can diagnose and repair the infamous Windows Blue Screen.

It happens to the best of us. We’re chugging along on our computer and things are running great and them BAM! - the “Blue Screen of Death” appears. You frantically try to hit keys or a combination of keys, any keys really, trying to get back to your normal windows desktop but ultimately you are left to simply turn off the computer, reboot, and hope that it doesn’t come back.

The problem is that if it rears its ugly head once, it is almost certain to come back again and come back with a vengeance.

So what are you to do? How are you supposed to decipher the nonsense contained within the error message that usually appears - something along the lines of “Fatal Exception - 09F809900D897, blah, blah?”

Well the first thing I can tell you is that 9 times out of 10 the problem is related to your operating system’s registry. The registry is essentially the blueprint of your computer’s programs, files, and configuration, and it can become corrupt over time as you uninstall programs, add new ones, delete files, or run updates. It basically is inevitable that our computer’s registry will get out of whack over time as our computer’s never stay the same as when we got them.

And seeing as the only people who should ever manually edit your registry is a trained professional, you are left with two choices - you can either pay a hefty price to call in a computer technician to repair your computer’s registry or you can invest $30 in a registry cleaning software that you can very easily install yourself and run whenever you need it.

Registry repair has come a long way in the past few years, with software becoming much more effective at finding and repairing all kinds of errors within your computer’s registry. And not only will the software simply find and repair the errors, but in doing so it will speed up your computer immensely. I am talking about cutting the amount of time it takes to boot up your computer or load programs and applications in half.

So if you ever experienced the infamous “Blue Screen of Death”, you’ll definitely want to go out and get yourself the best registry cleaner that will not only fix your computer’s errors, but will also speed it up almost to the point as if it were new again.

Get rid of your Blue Screen of Death today! Visit the Best Registry Cleaners to find out what the absolute best registry cleaning sofware is.

Registry Cleaning Software - 3 Secrets to Finding the Best Registry Cleaner

Filed under: Software — pmcdonald @ 12:00 am

When the time comes when your computer is on the fritz and you are looking for registry cleaning software to fix your computer’s errors, there are 3 secrets you need to now in order to find the absolute best registry cleaning software available:

1. You should look for a cleaner that can defragment and optimize your registry.

Outside of pure effectiveness with regards to detecting and cleaning errors within your computer’s registry, this is the most important feature that you should look for when deciding what cleaning software to use.

Over time your computer’s registry, or system blueprint, will become fragmented and corrupt due to the uninstallation of old programs, installation of new ones, updates, etc. This will result in a significant decrease in performance to the point where it may seem like it takes forever for your computer to boot and load applications and programs.

Using a registry cleaner that can clean out unnecessary entries and reorder and compact everything else will allow your computer to access what it needs much more quickly and can speed up your boot time and application startup time by over 50%.

2. Find a registry cleaning program that can backup and restore your registry.

This is absolutely vital. If, in the rare occurrence that the software deletes or cleans out something that is still needed, you are unable to restore your registry from a backup you will be left in a pretty bad situation.

Keep in mind that this rarely, if ever happens with the best registry cleaners, however we all should be aware of how important backups are all of our important data and your registry should be no exception. So make sure the cleaner you are looking at has backup and restore capability.

3. Use a cleaner in which you can schedule scans.

Having the ability to schedule registry scans is kind of like the equivalent of having real time protection enabled within your antispyware or antivirus software. Essentially you will be able to take a proactive approach to keeping your registry clean which will result in maintaining optimal system performance as well as preventing any errors or crashes from sneaking up on you.

As for the time frame, I would recommend scheduling a weekly scan. This will go a long way to keeping your computer running optimally.

So when the time comes when you are searching for registry cleaner reviews trying to figure which is the best registry cleaner available, remember to look for the above 3 features and you’ll be ensured to make a great decision and one what will help your computer to run as if it were almost new again.

Want to speed up your computer by 50% or more? Visit the Best Registry Cleaners to find out what the absolute best registry cleaning sofware is and get your computer running like new again.

How Much Memory Do You Need

Filed under: Computers — vgevge @ 12:00 am

With the way technology is headed, how do you know what size memory is needed for your computer? For example, if you use your computer quite often then chances are that you will need a memory upgrade. One way to determine this would be if your computer is running slower than it used to, or two programs cannot run at the same time without trouble. It is possible that your memory has come close to full capacity. The more programs that you install and run, along with the files and photos that are stored on your computer, the less memory is available for use. This causes a lot of frustration due to computer crashing, slower performance and difficulty installing new programs.

Before buying more memory for your computer, you might consider making some changes. You can put files on a disc and free up that room by deleting the files that are now stored on a disc. Now that space is available for programs or new files that you need. Another option is to go to the start menu on your desktop and click control panel, and click uninstall programs. You can view which programs that you do not use and remove them, this will also free up some memory. You may have a lot of temporary files that are interfering with computer performance and delete these. This will also free up space that you need.

If you don’t want to delete unused programs or burn files to a disc, there are other options such as review how much memory is available for your computer. Another way is find out if all memory slots are in use already, if not then you could buy more memory and install into the slots for memory. For example if your computer has the slots for 2GB of memory but you only have 1GB installed then you can upgrade to gain 50% more memory on your computer. When you are ready to purchase memory it is best to go to a certified computer supply center and ask for the memory upgrade for your specific computer make and model.

If you have basic knowledge of how a computer works then chances are that you can install memory upgrade yourself. Let’s say for example that you want to buy memory to expand to 3 or 4GB, you may want to call a specialist to install or if you just don’t feel comfortable trying to install yourself, it may be best to have a specialist install the memory upgrade.

Another tip would be if you started to do the task yourself, but found that the installation is more involved than you anticipated, it is a good practice to call a specialist. It is better to be safe than sorry, such as you continue to try to install and find that now the computer will not turn on, chances are something was not installed correctly, or possibly you disconnected something that shouldn’t have been disconnected. If in doubt, call a specialist.

Victor Epand is an expert consultant for computer memory, PC supplies, and computer games. When shopping, we recommend the best online stores for PC supplies, computer accessories, computer memory, and used computer games.

August 20, 2008

Best Spyware Removal Tool - 3 Secrets to Help You Choose the Best Spyware Remover

Filed under: Spyware and Viruses — pmcdonald @ 12:00 am

If you are one of the 90% of Internet users that are infected with spyware and you are looking for advice on what the best spyware removal tool is, here are 3 secrets to finding and selecting the most effective and proven spyware remover.

1. Spyware Database - make sure that the antispyware software you choose scans your computer against a spyware database. This basically means that every file on your computer is compared to a database of known spyware files to determine if that file is spyware or not. Most free spyware removal tools do not use a spyware database but rather they depend on observation of your files and registry to look for strange or unknown files. This can lead to false positives and the antispyware software might also end up deleting a legitimate file. You’ll also want to check the size of the database that the software uses with obviously the larger databases being the ones that will detect and clean the most spyware.

2. Real Time Protection - unfortunately most Internet users wait until after they already have an infection before looking for an antispyware program that can clean it. However, what is as important, if not more important is finding a program that scans your computer in real time. In other words, the software runs continuously in the background while your computer is on and it constantly checks the files and websites that you access for spyware. This is far superior to simple detection and removal because it will stop spyware before it has a chance to infect your computer.

3. Reputation - this is something that can be overlooked but is vital when looking for the best spyware removal tool. There are a large number of rogue antispyware programs out there which disguise themselves as being legitimate, but which actually further infect your computer. So you’ll want to do research on whatever software and company you are looking at to ensure that they have a solid reputation within the industry and also check to see if the company has won any awards or received recognition for their product as many technical publications hand out “best of” software awards each year.

Unfortunately, spyware has become a common occurrence for a large majority of Internet users, but if you follow these 3 simple rules when researching the best spyware removers, you’ll stand a much better chance of finding a proven and effective spyware removal tool that will keep your computer clean for years to come.

End your spyware frustrations forever! Find out what the best spyware removal tool is by visiting the Best Spyware Removers website. For a limited time you can also download a free report entitled- “PC Protection - Keeping Your Computer Clean and Your Identity Safe”.

Use a Proxy Site for Anonymous Browsing

Filed under: Networks — bennyzebra12 @ 12:00 am

What is a free proxy? A free proxy is basically a piece of hardware or software that sits in between your computer and the Internet. It handles all communications on your behalf, allowing you to remain anonymous to the outside world. You can easily find a proxy online by using Google or another search engine.

If you can, use a secure proxy that is hosted outside of the US and EU. This is because both jurisdictions have seriously compromised your privacy and can easily compel ISPs to release information about your surfing habits. This would defeat the whole object of anonymous surfing. Proxies that are hosted in places like Panama, Costa Rica, are a good bet. These countries tend to have tight privacy laws making it more difficult to get at Internet records.

Using a secure proxy website also allows you to have an extra layer of protection against hackers. Because you are surfing behind a third party website, the hacker would only see the proxy details, not yours. As you can see, using free proxies are advantageous for sensitive matters like Internet banking, for example. Make sure you also take other precautions. Always make sure you have a good anti-virus package installed on your computer when browsing the Internet.

There are so many variations of viruses so it is not always easy to keep up. Make sure that you get regular updates too. This way, any threat is at a minimal. If a free secure proxy is not enough, you could always parting with your cash. They basically provide the precise same thing but will have you believe otherwise. In my experience most of these products are a waste of money.

Remember, a free proxies provides you with anonymous surfing. Please do not think that this is a means of evading the law. Do not use proxies for anything dodgy. Always respect your local, national, and international laws when you are surfing the Internet.
Free proxies are also useful if you want to get around network blocks. Network blocks are usually installed on school networks or at a place of work to stop people accessing certain websites.

Using free proxies can sometimes solve this problem, although once the proxy becomes popular it is likely to get blocked by the network. Try and find a relatively new secure proxy so that you can be fairly sure that is has not been blocked yet. If it has, just keep looking at more until you find one that has not been blocked by the network.

I hope this brief article has helped you gain the basic knowledge of how you can use a free proxy for anonymous browsing and so you can protect your privacy. Proxies are useful if you want to protect you identity and to get past network blocks.

Wayne Cutforth is 23 and from England. He enjoys promoting free proxies and also owns an anonymous proxy site.He hopes that this article is useful and that you can use proxies to enhance your privacy.

What is SAS 70 Certified and what is the Difference between Type I and Type II?

Filed under: Information Technology — anutt @ 12:00 am

SAS 70 stands for Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70. It is an auditing standard that was adopted by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and is widely recognized in the auditing of service organizations. An auditor performs an audit on a service organization and that audit is conducted in a way that is compliant with SAS 70. It is that standard statement that says a service organization has been through an extensive audit

This extensive audit measures is that the organization has total control and has safeguards in place that does not compromise any data that they process for their customers. In other words, the job of the audit is to evaluate every aspect of the service organization that handles customer data or could result in a possible leak of customer data.

SAS 70 is necessary for the following reasons:

- It serves as a guide to service organizations when disclosing to their customers how it is they protect their information and how well they do it. The audit results are organized in a report that is easy to follow.

- It is not a checklist audit, but serves as a guide to independent auditors to form an opinion on how well the organization is utilizing their internal controls. There are certain standards that must be met during the audit.

- Provides a set of standards in which the auditor can perform a financial statement audit.

All of the information that is gathered is compiled into two types of reports. These reports are called Type I and Type II.

Type I report

A type I report takes the organizations description of their own controls at a certain point in time and describes those descriptions. The report includes the report by the independent auditor, which is simply the auditor’s opinion, and it includes the organization’s descriptions of their internal controls. There are parts of the report that are optional such as tests that are performed by the auditor and the auditor recording the results of those tests. Another optional area is the inclusion of any other information that the organization provides the auditor about its controls.

Type II report

The type II report is similar to the type I report in a lot of ways. The main difference is that it is mandatory for the auditor to perform tests and record the results of those tests. This is optional with type I. All of the other areas of evaluation remain the same and the inclusion of additional data by the organization is still optional.

How the organization benefits

The organization benefits from SAS 70 because it is receiving an unbiased opinion from the outside regarding the security and the effectiveness of its financial and customer-related controls. In turn, the organization can then work on any areas of weakness, which means that the customers can feel more secure about who they are doing business with. This builds a trust with customers when they know that their financial and/or personal information with the organization are secure. It lets them know who they can turn to when they need what the service organization has to offer.

Also, a service organization that has regular audits performed is an organization that has a long business life ahead of it. As stated before, customers will turn to a secure organization to do business. That means the organization is ensuring itself a long life as long as regular audits are performed to ensure the security of their internal controls. Keeping up with their controls can also save them money from having to eventually bring their controls up-to-date.

Managed Hosting Provider providing state-of-the-art data centre offices. We are SAS 70 and CICA 5970 and Certified, which is the highest available standards for measuring and improving data center operations and management.

A Guide To The Latest Photo Printer Technology

Filed under: Hardware — Galway @ 12:00 am

Whether buying for photo printing, home office or photocopying your extremities, the latest wave all in one photo printers claim to have revolutionised domestic photo print technology. This article objectively examines some of the latest market leaders in printer technology to evaluate what you are getting for your money.

This first up is the modestly priced Epson Stylus SX400 all-in-one photo printer. This comes under the Epson tag of cost-effective so is quite no thrills in certain areas. It does have an acceptable array of features and is pleasing to the eye with a sleek grey and black body. The aesthetic value does supersede the print quality however you expect that for around 70GBP. It has a relatively decent photo print quality, text output and scan capability and is perfect for those on limited budget. It is however a slow set-up process and has a slow print speed for a recent photo printer.

Next is a slight jump in price to 130GBP for the Lexmark X4650 all-in-one photo printer. This has many more features such as Wi-Fi, borderless printing and scan to memory card feature. All these are practical features that make life easier however there are some problems. The installation took an inordinate amount of attempts and the printing from memory card features are quite limited. The print quality does supersede that of the Epson and the overall performance was impressive, however the installation process can be a real pain.

The HP Photosmart C6280 all-in-one photo printer sits at the highest end of our price range at 250GBP. It has an excellent print quality and memory card reader whilst boasting six separate inks. All the focus has gone into improving the print quality of the photo printer and other features have been neglected. There is no Wi-Fi accessibility and the scanner flatbed is difficult to use. The previous HP photo printer flagship model C6280, came with more features and was cheaper, however the current model provides superlative print quality.

When deciding what photo printer you buy you have to weigh up your requirements against your budget. The all-in-one photo printer range offers a range of features and the best way to buy is match the features to your requirements. If you do not regularly need fantastic print quality then sacrifice it for price purposes, however the current range of all in one printers are providing cost effective quality photo printer solutions.

Shaun Parker is an expert on all models of Photo Printer and provides useful advice on all print technology.

Highest Rated SEO Software Banned By Google

Filed under: Software — Musa @ 12:00 am

Google has finally taken a step in controlling query spam, that is directed at the major search engine. They have banned keyword position tool Web Position Gold. Although Google had been threatening to stop this for years, nothing really came of there warnings. This is really no surprise to the SEO world as it clearly states in Googles guidelines “Google’s Terms of Service do not allow the sending of automated queries of any sort to our system without express permission in advance from Google. Sending automated queries absorbs resources and includes using any software (such as Web Position Gold) to send automated queries to Google to determine how a website or webpage ranks in Google search results for various queries.”

As you can see Google themselves have actually mentioned the software in question, and they have a genuine right too, I totally believe that this is the start of a major crackdown on query spamming. You ask why? Probably because people have abused a good system like they always do, I guarantee if this was used in moderation there would be no problem. Why on earth would Google want someone continuously spamming there servers with query after query costing Google more in the long run.

But what I also believe is that this is great for Google as it opens the door up for them to feed us this sort of data and further dominate a valuable niche. Maybe it was just a big ploy so that Google can eliminate the biggest competitions they face and snatch the market while it is collapsing. What I actually mean by this is that we all know that the overture keyword tool was a great way to do some market research. But when that stopped working there was no alternative for webmasters to use, and Google once again have come to the rescue with there new and improved keyword suggestion tool.

There are still various keyword ranking tools available but how long will they last? A day? Week? Month? Or year? Whichever way you look at it I believe that the developers of this kind of software are panicking at the moment, because yes Google has struck eliminating one of the top players and its only a matter of time until the smaller pieces of software suffer the same demise. This time next year we should have a valuable tool created by Google to check a websites natural rankings.

Bespoke and unique Intranet Software, Intranet and Extranet Software

How to Fix Computer Errors in One Super Easy Step

Filed under: Software — pmcdonald @ 12:00 am

Being a computer professional, I get asked all the time how to fix computer errors. Now I could get into a lengthy discussion about what type of errors they are seeing and what manual steps they can take, but that would be too much trouble. So my advice to them is to do something that is way simpler and far more effective, and that is to download and install a top notch registry cleaner.

I could probably write an entire book about the different types of computer errors that one could see pop up on their screen ranging from dll errors, to fatal exception errors, to general protection faults. All of them can pop up at any given time and can cause your computer to almost become completely unusable. The bad news is that you will almost inevitably see some type of pc error code at some point if you use a computer. The good news is that 99% of the time, there is a super easy way you can fix those errors, and that is to get a proven and effective registry cleaner.

You might not have ever heard of the term registry; however it plays a vital role in the functionality and performance of your computer. Basically, seeing as it is the blueprint of your computer, if your system’s registry is full of errors you are likely to at the very minimum suffer a decrease in performance and more likely at some point you’ll start to see errors popup as I have talked about earlier and when you do, your best bet is to run your registry cleaner software because you surely don’t want to fool around with your computer’s blueprint unless you are a trained computer professional.

That would be like performing brain surgery without having gone to medical school.

You can invest in registry cleaning software for around $30, and in doing so you are going to gain some additional benefits besides simply cleaning up and getting rid of those computer error messages.

One of the major features of the best registry cleaners is the ability to compact and optimize your computer’s registry. Over time, the registry becomes fragmented and corrupt due to new program installations, the uninstalling of old programs, updates, etc. What the software will do is remove unnecessary entries and compact everything else so that as your computer searches through the registry when booting or attempting to launch programs or perform any number of tasks, it will find what it needs much faster. This results in boot times and application startup times being reduced sometime by over 50%.

So if you ever need to install and run a registry cleaner, and most likely you will, not only will you fix computer errors that are causing you headaches, but you’ll also gain the added benefit of speeding up your computer to the point where it runs almost as if it were new again.

Fix all of your computer errors and speed up your computer today! Visit the Best Registry Cleaners to find out what the absolute best registry cleaning sofware is.

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