Technology considerations for your new startup business

If you’re thinking about starting a business (congratulations!!), then technology might be the very last consideration on your mind.  With a long list of tasks in front of you (like getting a logo and stationery designed, finding an office, and working out your marketing plan), you may just requisition your home computer to start running your new business.  Let’s look at some of your very first technology decisions.

New computer or your home PC? – For a while, your home computer may be adequate to handle the necessities of your business.  However, if your computer time is conflicting with the children’s need to surf the internet for their homework, it may be time to consider a dedicated business computer.  Study any system specifications carefully and check the manufacturer’s websites.  Many ‘cheap’ retail deals are superseded models, cannot be upgraded easily or may not connect to a bigger computer network, which will all be important as you grow.  Also, talk to your accountant about any tax benefits that may be gained from leasing instead of purchasing your IT assets.

Voice over IP – When considering a phone number for your business, take a look at your Voice over IP options.  The quality of this technology has improved significantly and it can provide great local, national and international phone rates.  Today’s systems can plug into a standard cordless phone and your internet connection, so your computer doesn’t have to be turned on for you to make and receive calls.  It makes a fantastic ‘second line’ for businesses that run from your home.  You can have your office phone answered outside of business hours and still receive personal calls on your standard home phone line. 

Internet domain name – Once you have decided on your business name, look at registering your internet domain name.  This will prevent someone else from registering it.  Having your own domain name (like marysmith.com) will give your emails a more professional look and enable you to have a simple webpage established.  Don’t think you have to spend a fortune on a comprehensive website before your first day of actually doing business.  As long as your contact details (phone number, email address, fax number, and location) are easy to find and you have some great information about why your business is different from your competitors, you will be giving the search engines something to find.  This is much better than an ‘under construction’ picture or no internet presence at all.  Use your domain name in your email address to look much more credible than someone operating from a free email account (like myname@gmail.com).  You can still use your internet provider for your email service.  Make certain to check what protection they have in place against email viruses and spam.  Remember to include your website and email address on all of your stationery and marketing materials.    

Email marketing – Investing in an email marketing program provides you with a great communication channel to keep your business in front of your future customers on a regular basis.  Supplement your email marketing with monthly newsletters and occasional special offers.  Get permission to store your customer’s email address from the day they start doing business with you and you’ll build up an impressive database.  

Talk to your local Computer Troubleshooters about how to make the right technology decisions that match the needs of your new business.

The 5 things YOU must know about your business’s computers

If someone else is responsible for the technology in your business, it can feel fantastic that you don’t have to worry about that part of your business operation.  But whether that person is an employee, a freelance computer guy or a larger I.T. support company, the responsibility for this part of your business still ultimately lies with you.  Here’s a list of what all business owners should know about their own computers: 1. Administrator passwords – ‘Local administrator accounts’ have full access to make changes to your computers.  If you have a server, there may also be a ‘domain administrator’ account.  Make sure you have a record of these account passwords in a safe place.  If your business provides laptops and mobile phones to your staff, also keep a record of any passwords or PIN numbers that are used to secure these mobile devices (e.g. are prompted for when the device is turned on).  This may seem a bit over the top, but it only takes a disgruntled employee or an issue with your support provider and you can find yourself locked out of your own systems, at the mercy of someone else who knows the passwords when you don’t.  I’ve actually seen I.T. companies refuse to release administrator passwords.  Remember, your information is your property, not theirs. 2. Domain name details – If you have your company name registered as a domain on the internet (e.g. for your website or email addresses), make sure you know when your domain is due to expire.  Domain name registration only lasts for a certain period (commonly 1, 2 or 5 years) and must be renewed.  We’ve seen websites and emails stop in their tracks because the domain name registration company couldn’t (or didn’t) contact the business owner to process the domain name renewal.  Also associated with your domain name is a password or PIN number (sometimes known as a registry key).  This proves you are the rightful owner of the domain and is required for making any changes.  It’s a long process if you need to get this password reset because it’s been forgotten, so make sure it’s stored in a safe place. 3. Internet connection details – The modem that connects your computers to the internet is configured with some details that are specific to your account with your internet provider.  This may be as simple as a username and password, but may also include security settings or even ‘port numbers’ for allowing or denying internet access to some software programs.  If you have internet connection problems and the modem needs to be reset back to the factory defaults, this information will be lost.  It can also happen due to a power failure or if the modem is faulty.  Once again, this only takes a few minutes to document, but can save you a huge amount of time when you need it. 4. Last successful backup test – Your backups are only as good as your last successful ‘test restoration’.  If someone else manages your backups, ask them to test that they can restore the data and provide you with a monthly report so you know it’s been done.  If you look after your own backups, make sure this testing is performed by someone in your company and that you receive a report from them to show when it happened.  5. Software licensing proof – Like the financial and taxation side of your business, the responsibility for legal software ownership rests with the business owner.  Don’t think that you’re only a small business so no-one would audit you.  Keep a safe record of your software license keys and proof of ownership (e.g. purchase receipts).  This also makes license numbers easy to find if your computer software needs to be re-installed or moved to a different computer. Please make it your ‘New Financial Year’s Resolution’ to obtain this important information and store it safely.

Australian shops in spam subject

Recently my hotmail account junk e-mail filter has been catching some rather ‘Australian-targeted’ spam.

Often with a sender of ‘Thanks for participating!’, ’Much Thanks!’, the subject lines claim to have a voucher pending for me from an Australian store like Myer, Wollworths or JB-Hi Fi (though I’ve also seen an iPhone one too).  The company is MyGiftRewards, and they ask me to click on a very suspicious link to confirm my email address and claim my $500 voucher.

As my favourite Microsoft security guy says “If you don’t think it would happen in real life, why would you believe it in an email?”  Unless you have specifically entered a promotion/competition, do you think Woolworths would knock on your door and give you a $500 gift voucher? I don’t think so.

Leave these in the junk mail where they belong .. and don’t go clicking on anything!

P.S. Want to know one of the most obvious signs that these are fake?  None of them come from email addresses owned by the Australian companies, or even @mygiftrewards.com/.com.au

Managed services?

There’s a new phrase slowly rumbling through the computer support industry in Australia – managed services.  It’s being helped along by companies like Kaseya, who are trying to convince every one-man-band computer guy that they can earn truckloads by using the Kaseya product.  Problem is, your technology tool of choice is only one small piece of the puzzle to make you a successful managed service provider (MSP).  So, we now have another ‘book & webinar’ spawning industry, trying to each people the secrets of being an MSP, structuring contracts, pitching to customers etc etc.

And, if customers are confused now about choosing between computer support providers, wait until managed services hit them en masse.  Wikipedia translates the concept into “the practice of transferring day-to-day related management responsibility as a strategic method for improved effective and efficient operations”, and in the information services area it lists backups, storage, network, user and systems management.  However, nobody has told the service providers what the standard definition should be, so we’ve all made up our own variations.  Backup management may or may not be included, ‘request’ tasks (like adding new users) may or may not be included, support may be unlimited or still on the clock with a pool of pre-paid hours like traditional support contracts.  What a mess.

So, here are a few tips if your computer guys calls all enthusiatically about this new ‘managed services’ stuff he’s doing:

- Check the fine print and know what is/isn’t included

- Make sure that backup management is covered, unless you are prepared to monitor your own backup results daily and perform test restorations weekly

- See if you are getting a good deal re the included support time or results

- See who he has to back him up if you are on this fantastic plan and his wife gets sick or he wants to take a holiday

- Make sure you get some sort of a regular report that proves they are actually doing something for your money, cause with remote capabilities you may not see them onsite as much

Managed services should be all about preventing problems from happening in the first place, and letting your computer guy handle easy stuff that you don’t need to worry about.  If it doesn’t do that, then what’s the point.

If you are in I.T and are contemplating moving into managed services (especially in the small business market), good luck with putting together your offer, costings/pricing, advertising, sales pitches & marketing materials, operational processes etc etc.  Or you could just join a franchise  
http://www.ctaspley.com.au/joinus.htm

-SCuff

A rebuild is a beautiful thing

How long do you put up with a problem before you fix it? Especially if it’s one of those ‘slightly annoying but I can work around it’ type computer problems?  Do you wait for a quiet moment at work (yeah, right), or for a time when you are feeling particularly unproductive or are avoiding another task that would be more unpleasant?  Or do you wait until another one .. or two .. or many other little problems join in the party and gang up on you?

The famed Christmas/New Year break is a great time to tackle problems such as these (and major website revamps) whilst the answer phone is on and the office is officially closed.  Yes, all of you small business owners out there are nodding in sympathy – what else do you do when it’s too wet to actually enjoy warm Queensland weather and no committments?  You work on your business.  On, not in.  There’s a big distinction.

So, with my list of Vista problems mounting … sorry ‘applications related to Vista’ problems, except for a weird ‘double paste’ thing in file explorer … out came the trusty Acronis True Image for a full pre-format snapshot.  Even though the current installation was riddled with errors like swiss cheese, a full image is a must for preventing that ’bugger I forgot that file hides in C:\somwherecompletelyobscure and I only backed up My Documents’.

Trick for young players that use the online service from the Australian Taxation Office for submitting your BAS – your digital certificate file (something.p12) does hide in a very obscure place on your C:, so make sure you have a recent backup of it.  It’s a pain to go through the revokation/new issue process when you find your only backup certificate was the originally issued file that has now expired.

Next step, make a nice little list from your ‘Add/Remove Programs’ or ‘Programs and Features’ in Control Panel, to figure out what you will need to reinstall - making sure you have the relevant installation files/CDs/license or serial numbers.

Then, take a deep breath, and start a new Vista installation, choosing to delete the existing partition and create a new one from scratch.  I must admit it was very weird to find that it took me longer to install all of my applications than it did to install Vista itself.  Gotta love Microsoft for getting with the imaging program for their software installs.

So far so good.  All of my little annoying problems have gone, my Samsung laser printer now wants to print in colour AND double-sided again.  Also, no more annoying ‘double paste’ thing (where file explorer refused to believe I’d chosen the paste command until I did it a second time).   

However, I have yet to reinstall iTunes and my iPod shuffle (sigh).  Fingers crossed it will be OK this time!

And I work in I.T.!!!

I’m afraid I’m starting this blog with a technology drama, involving my shiny new iPod Shuffle (2nd generation) and Windows Vista.  “Ah yes, Vista” you say knowingly.  But at Microsoft’s defence leaps the voice of my dear friend who pointed out that the vendors had the Vista code for 2 years prior to the release, so surely they could have sorted out their device drivers by now and what more does Microsoft have to do?

Anyway, following the somewhat limited instructions that came with my birthday present, I downloaded and installed iTunes 7.5.something (the latest and greatest).  Only problem was, after running the installation I was presented with a “Please wait while Windows configures iTunes” message .. and finally an error stating it couldn’t stop the iPod Services service.  Yuck.  No help from the Apple support site either.

OK, I’m in I.T., I can figure this out.  Everyday, millions of people buy these things and get them working. OK, maybe not millions. 

Google at the ready, it’s becoming more apparent that what seems like a problem with iTunes may in fact be a problem with Quicktime.  Enter Gerger’s suggestion re a handy dandy tool for fixing associated registry entries (
http://research.gerger.com/?view=lab&aID=1006#h2:4
) – didn’t work for me but I sensed it was on the right path.  Delved into regedit myself, reset the permissions under HKEY Local Machine / Software / Classes and added my user name with full control (even though it was already a member of the listed Administrators group). Tried the reset.cmd tool again and this got Quicktime working!  Victory 1!

Now, back to iTunes 7.5, which will now start but is displaying rather weirdly and gives up (freezes) whenever it feels like it.  Trying to sync one song, I get a lock up when I try and eject the iPod (after a sync completed message), and no songs on the iPod to play

At this point in the story I must confess to my husbands helpfulness when installing Vista.  I inherited his laptop, which had a dual-boot XP and Vista partition (of which the XP partition was subsequently removed).  This has left Vista as V:, which causes a lovely driver installation issue with anything you install (as it’s not finding the operating system on the C:).  It’s been one of those things which is annoying but not annoying enough to completely wipe the thing and start with a fresh install.  Only, my new iPod has come along and grabbed the first available drive letter .. so it wants to be C:.  Thinking this is not such a good idea, I change it to Y (as in Y am I having so many problems with this damn thing).  And hey presto, all is well in the world!  iTunes is playing happily, syncing etc, no problems.  Also, the high disk and CPU usage I was seeing since the start of this epic journey have miraculously settled down.

Case closed.  What a mission.  It’s midnight and I have one song on my Shuffle.