All posts by DigitalNetHosting

Deploying Google’s Gmail for my internet marketing business has allowed minimal and secure IT administration of my 8 websites (28+ email accounts). Supporting a mixed operating environment which includes Microsoft, Ubuntu and MacOS, multiple browsers, and document file formats from Microsoft Office, Open Office is made possible and easier with an in-the-cloud computing environment like Gmail.

So why would you consider cloud computing like Google Mail for your business, especially an SME (small medium enterprise)?

In a two words – security and compliance. E-mail security, web security and message compliance are the underlying benefits to solid business reasons to have your mail and office documents served through Gmail.

Compliance to Security and Retention Requirements

Whether your organization is 1 person or thousands of people in size, you are faced with accounting, legal and government regulations and standards that dictate acceptable levels of IT security and records retention for all electronic files and e-mails. Gmail can help ensure compliancy plus provide you with real business benefits in streamlining your document and email management. Deploying Google Mail is just smart business. Some benefits include:

1) Organizing and Filing (Archiving) your email the anyway you want it.

Google uses labeling as a way to file and organize your emails. You can tag an email with multiple labels. For example, an email from your accountant with tax information could be label as “Corporate Taxes”, “Accountant”, “IRS”, “Revenue Canada”. Gone is the restriction of having to choose only one file folder to which you move an email.

2) Keeping Email conversations or threads linked together.

Appearing like cascading file folders, emails on the same topic (subject) will be kept together in your inbox or to the multiple archived labels you have assigned. No searching for the email trail or thread of emails about a particular subject. They are visually represented like a group of stacked file folders.

3) A free unlimited storage repository for all your email and messages forever!
At 7 gigabytes per gmail user account and growing as of August 2008, the Google mail tagline is ‘ you’ll never need to delete another message’.

Takin’ Care of Business, instead of computer or IT Administration

Reducing the time spent on administration of your computer storage, security, backup and recovery allows you to spend more time building your business. Manage all your email accounts entirely from within one or two Gmail addresses. Once set-up, Gmail offers this low administration environment.

4) No Mail is downloaded or stored on your server, desktop, laptop or PDA. This eliminates any stress or administration angst associated with:

– searching for emails stored and scattered across multiple client devices – some emails on your PC , some on your laptop, some on your PDA

– scheduling backups of your email, contact list and documents

– recovery (and loss) of email & documents due to client device loss, failure or theft
– expanding storage capacity due to continuing email and document growth and retention
– remote or mobile access for all your email, attachments and documents

– managing, consolidating and keeping intact multiple email addresses and personalities
– off-site backup of select files for SOHO or Small Businesses

Document creation, management and simple online collaboration

5) Use Gmail online Office Suite to create, manage, store your business documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Read and write Microsoft Office formatted documents as well as all the open document variants. Securely stored at Google, eliminate HDD file storage and backup. No more MS Office licensing fees to Microsoft.

6) Store images and pictures using Picasa Web Albums. Manage your images on your PC using FREE Picasa Software – crop, adjust, special effects.

7) online chat and messaging integrated, stored and managed just like your email.

Reducing the complex e-mail security threats to your corporate data

8) Google yet again has an very intelligent SPAM filter that checks each message content and therefore does not arbitrarily blacklist the email address, just the specific email due to content. No emails are downloaded to your PC or an office application; therefore, no waste of bandwidth or risk of infected emails on your hard drive.

9) Google’s anti-virus checking is also performed away from your computer. All attachments are checked at the Google server for viruses and, if infected, flagged/moved to SPAM right away. No infected e-mail ever arrives on your computer’s hard drive.

Traditional server or computer-based email systems download ALL your email, passing it through a spam/anti-virus filter on your computer. This is a waste of bandwidth usage (downloading spam email) and, even worse, exposes you to the additional risk of having spam and virus-infested e-mails get closer to your data files on your computer hard drives?

So why you need to seriously consider using Google Mail for all your office needs?

– Complete office mobility – via any browser, access to your email, documents, images, chat

– Access anywhere, anytime through any browser

– No backups required of email, office documents or contacts

– Manage multiple user profiles and email accounts in one convenient place

– Includes Anti-Spam and Anti-virus checking away from your PC, Laptop or Server

– Gmail Free Unlimited file space

– Next to No Mail Administration.

Gmail is the perfect Mobile Office Utility for Small Medium and Enterprise businesses. Google Mail Cloud Computing environment will allow you to focus on your business operations and growth. Implementing the Gmail in-the-cloud computing model for your email security and compliance makes a whole lot of sense.

Keep your head in the clouds!

Source by Carl Chesal

The Cloud. Originally, it was just a metaphor for the internet, the area outside of your own network. That was how it appeared on the network diagram during college (and probably still appears, if Cisco has anything to do with it.). The past few years have brought new meaning to “the cloud”. It has gone from being a way to represent unknown complexity, to the buzzword for every information/application programmer in the known world.

The promise of “The Cloud” goes something like this: You will be able to access all your information simply by using your internet connection. All the processing and “grunt work” will be done by other computers(usually servers) located elsewhere. The data will be stored there as well, along with your user privileges. You will pay, based only on the amount of data/processing time that you use.

This is great, considering the fact that you could buy a very cheap netbook, for around $300 or so, and run all the apps that you are having. It is basically a thin client/server model that banks have been using for years, extrapolated over a huge network. One of the many purported advantages is the lack of hardware obsolescence. Right now, when a game with extremely high graphical requirements shows up on the horizon, gamers have to go upgrade their graphics card/physics processor and RAM to keep up.

If the game is being run over the cloud, via a high speed internet connection, and a game server is handling processing, then there would be no need to run anything but a low power pc,(it might even be running my beloved Ubuntu, as it would be platform agnostic). The server would simply translate the game into vectors. Essentially, you would be working with an interactive video of the game, rather than playing a video game. It’s a subtle difference, but one that would forever alter the gaming landscape. For one thing, you would no longer own a physical copy of the game. Rather, you would pay for a subscription for the game, and then unsubcribe once you lost interest.

This sounds like an ideal situation, but there are some very real problems with the model. Consider the fact that your gaming subscription, is say, $9.95 a month. You beat the game in the average of 8-13 hours that it takes to play the game through. It costs you $1 or so an hour for your experience. That’s not bad, for a pretty decent game. That’s cheaper than the $45-$50 you would currently pay for a new release on the PC platform. From a cost/benefit perspective, you win, at least in this situation. Now, let’s talk about the games that people play on a regular, shall we say, compulsive basis: Titles like Call of Duty 4, Starcraft II, HALO, any of the titles that have made loads of money at $50 a pop.

In many places, you buy these for the multiplayer experience, rather than the single-player, story mode. Now, let’s revisit the $9.95 a month subscription fee. Many people play these games each and every day, over servers hosted by the game manufacturers. The costs of hosting these games is built into the purchase price of the game. Under the subscription model, you will pay $120 for this game, over the course of a year, rather than $50 for a lifetime of play. Under the subscription model, you don’t own the game.

Now, let’s imagine you really like this game. The subscribers keep falling on this particular game. In fact, subscription levels are so low, that they have decided to drop this game altogether. Your favorite game has now vanished, and you don’t have a physical copy. Now, there’s always that whole “contact the developers, and pray they let you pay for a downloadable version”, but what would you do with it. Your hardware no longer has the specs to run it. Now, you have to go buy a $2000 machine, to run a game, that by this point would be in the bargain bin at $14.95 . You have been owned, to the tune of several hundred dollars.

That’s from a gameplay perspective. What about a business perspective? To a certain extent, most of us are already “cloud” reliant. We all use webmail, and our email is stored remotely. A recent outage of Gmail in Europe showed the vulnerability of this model. You’ve got your data stored next to your competitors data, and managed by someone else entirely. You are no longer managing the security of your organization. They take no responsibility in their terms of service for downtime, or lost business. In fact, this outage was caused by a minor software upgrade, rolled out across thousands of servers, worldwide. Imagine the profits lost, and problem caused by email being out for a couple of hours. What if you are using hosted documents, or your calendar is out? Think about the mass confusion that this would create in a large organization.

What if you are a graphic designer, using Photoshop CS7 over the cloud? This is your bread and butter. During a crucial project, the servers grind to a halt. You miss your deadline. Again, it’s out of your hands, but business still needs to be done. You could run an older local version, but the file format of the new version is not backwards compatible. Oh, and you pay $65 a month for this.

Now, let’s talk about something that is even more frustrating, and glaringly obvious: Your internet access goes out. Welcome to a serious problem. Now, you have zero access to your data, apps, and the like. This is not to say that there will not be any contingencies thought up. They will just be insufficient, and inevitably fail. Even if they don’t, however, remember this: The company that you pay the subscription to has your stuff. They can now hold it for ransom, should you forget to pay.

Even worse, they are only responsible for keeping copies of your work while you are a paying customer. Yahoo already deletes the data in accounts that haven’t been accessed in more than 6 months. While it is to the company’s advantage to keep an archived copy, in case you want to resubscribe, they are not usually under obligation to do so, and can change their terms of service at any time, just by sending you an email notification. There are inevitably hiccups along the way, and while these situations are far-fetched, they have to happen to someone. Are you willing to take the risk that it will be you?

While there are plenty of advantages to the cloud model, the disadvantages need to be weighed before subscribing to any such service. In terms of privacy, ownership, and reliability, the cloud model leaves plenty to be desired. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go upgrade my video card, and pay an outrageous price for a game.

Source by Kurt Hartman

QuickBooks hosting in a cloud environment is on e of the better ways in which small and medium business can deploy the Accounting application to impart greater flexibility of accessing the application anytime anywhere and in a collaborative environment. Further the security of QuickBooks database access and assured data backup that comes with QuickBooks hosting services is another plus point of the QuickBooks cloud based access.

QuickBooks Hosting , on comparison with desktop based access, has following advantages, which stands true for any Cloud based application hosting and not just QuickBooks Cloud.

QuickBooks Cloud is scalable: As against the desktop environment where the small business has to establish the complete IT infrastructure including well configured individual systems, Database backup facilities and online monitoring tools as well as dedicated IT infrastructure management professionals in place, QuickBooks hosting allows the software to be installed on central cloud servers and accessed by individual users as a desktop interface. The advantages are:

1. System up-gradation costs: For each software up gradation systems need not be reconfigured to meet the application requirement as the actual processing is anyway done on the latest cloud servers, thus saving costs and at the same time boosting network performance.

2. Provisioning free: Since any amount of users can be added quickly for the QuickBooks cloud Hosting service, there is no need to invest in idle IT and hence capital resources are saved.

Application Access flexibility: Rather than being bound to the office premises for accessing the QuickBooks application, QuickBooks hosting enables always on access through any online connection. Thus the internet becomes the LAN and turns the setting of local network for enterprise access obsolete. For business spread geographically this also means that they do not have to buy multiple licenses.

QuickBooks hosting besides providing anytime anywhere access also enables:

1. Platform Independence: QuickBooks hosting enables the application to be accessed across many browsers and platform thus enhancing the ways in which application can be accessed.

2. No need of Local network: Since the local network becomes obsolete, the small business saves costs on not only setting up the LAN but also saves on the costs involved in maintaining the network.

QuickBooks Hosting enables better security and backup: Data security in today’s  IT scenario needs proactive security management tools and QuickBooks cloud hosting enables best online security for small business through better monitoring and data backup features.

1. Multiple data backup: most small business lacks technical expertise for proactive data backup facilities and constantly monitoring them for threats. QuickBooks host have the elaborate mechanism in place for multiple data backup geographically spread over many locations for data security.

2. Online Network monitoring: The network is most proactively monitored by the QuickBooks Cloud Host for security using latest tools which may be out of reach for small business.

Collaboration with QuickBooks Hosting Services: QuickBooks hosting in the cloud enables collaboration among different users which naturally saves a lot of time and boosts efficiency of the small business and also saves on the precious scarce human resources.

1. The collaboration in the QuickBooks cloud environment is real time wherein different users simultaneously access their designated files and work upon it.

2. Users, if permitted, can work upon the files of others and make changes so that the face to face interaction is replaced by real time online collaboration and hence saving time.

Cost saving: Ultimately it is the Cost saving nature of QuickBooks Cloud Hosting that is of utmost concern for small business. QuickBooks Hosting services leads to costs saving as many functions involved in desktop based deployment are overtaken by the QuickBooks Host. :

1. No installation and up-gradations costs involved for the small business

2. Technical support are available as part of the QuickBooks Hosing package and hence it means no additional cost for the small business.

3. Free data back up and security offered by the QuickBooks hosting service provider.

Source by David Ricklan

Salient Features of QuickBooks Hosting Services-

There are many salient features of QuickBooks Cloud Hosting Services and following are some of these features:

• Collaboration is the key to the existence of business, in today’s competitive world. Collaboration is accelerated with anytime accessibility, through the assured uptime of the server in QuickBooks Cloud Hosting services. There is an elimination of physical barriers, while integrating the mobile devices with applications.
• All changes made are updated real-time with QuickBooks in Cloud. This enables the necessity of sharing files with the clients and the colleagues. This in turn provides unlimited flexibility for your business.
• The QuickBooks Hosting services ensure immaculate levels of security and data protection. The data security is maintained in cloud, with such features such as fully-clustered multi-tier structure and round-the-clock monitoring of the data as well as 128-bit encryption of data, through highly secure, state-of-the-art data centres.
• QuickBooks hosting services allows the users to go with innumerable deployments, as needed by an individual.  One can pick the right size of the hosted server and get fitted with the add-on requirements, through the scalable plans and solutions.
• QuickBooks Hosting providers generally offer cost-effective services. These services are aimed at cutting down the network and other infrastructure costs. These service providers support 24 x 7, running the QuickBooks software.
• QuickBooks Hosting services allow you not to worry about your distributed data. These Cloud hosting services comes with automated backup recovery solutions. These backup services ensure that data is available, even for accidental file deletion or any disaster that is caused. 

QuickBooks Cloud Hosting for Mac

QuickBooks for Mac works well in cloud with the hosting service. A hosted version of QuickBooks in cloud resolves such issues such as sharing of company file and integration of data, between PC and a Mac. There is an increase in performance when QuickBooks for Mac is run on a hosted version. This service will eradicate such issues such as security updates and frequent data backup.

QuickBooks Cloud Hosting Companies and the Prices

There are various QuickBooks Hosting companies, who help to save time and money and lowers your expenses. They ensure that remote access is possible through the cloud.

QuickBooks Cloud Hosting prices generally do not have any hidden costs. QuickBooks hosting cost includes zero startup cost and zero maintenance charges. Sometimes, you get such services at minimal monthly fees per user. Get more information on the QuickBooks Hosting Services on Cloud from the following number: +1-844-763-5794.

Source by qboffers

QuickBooks cloud is simple accounting solution for all firms to help businesses of small, medium or startups establish the commerce. Moreover Self-employed professionals host their company with QuickBooks accounting solution. There are numerous features of accounting software QuickBooks which has made it most popular software in the industry. The application can integrate with any application in the industry such as Microsoft solutions, MAC, UNIX or Linux thus enabling easy data integration. The business gets faster processed with the quick and simple accounting by Intuit. QuickBooks is the core subtle need of trading and commerce. With the integration feature, the businesses can easily from any data management source as per defined by the user. All the applications have capability to integrate with QuickBooks accounting solution. The high compatibility of QuickBooks enables it to sync with any software solution which reduces manual task that reduces the productivity of the firm. The automated software performs most of the accounting software without requiring manual processing of the professionals. QuickBooks is simple and easy accounting although some new users may want to get the knowledge of the accounting. Henceforth for all such users, it is advisable to learn the accounting system. To learn the accounting, users should install the free trail of the software. The 30 day trial is the actual processing of the software for users to get a glance of the application.

Further, webinars and videos do explain more knowledge of the application learning. Users have freedom to download the app QuickBooks on any device they wish. Users can purchase the QuickBooks license form Intuit and get discounts to save some cash. QB online is cloud hosting of the application while desktop is local server hosted solution. Access on cloud is permissible to authorized number of users based on business requirements of the organization however the user access on cloud can be upgraded anytime by the organization. Only assigned users of the firm can access the QuickBooks cloud services anytime, anywhere. QuickBooks anytime is more productive for enterprises because access is universal. Users have flexibility of working according to convenience anytime they want. On cloud the QuickBooks works just the same as Google or Hotmail. Accountant professionals, CPAs or Bookkeepers can work from home, office or even during business travel. This superior flexibility makes businesses more proficient as they have opportunity to grow faster.

QB online is cloud based solution for which users need an internet enabled device, a web browser and login access to sign up. Customers can select any hosting method cloud or desktop to operate their enterprise. Hosting is easier on cloud and more efficient because it offers bundles of benefits and advantages to an organization. Desktop hosting can be accessed only from in-house premises so has limitations. QB online on cloud hosting is cost effective solution to SMEs as it cheaper to SMEs. Small and medium sized firms have seen revenue growth and development with this low cost cloud QB online service. Cloud hosting services are secure online with bank level protection and full time customer support.

I am John Cox, a professional web content writer in Sagenext Infotech LLC. I have panoptic experience in writing about QB Online, QuickBooks Hosting Provider and QuickBooks Host.

Source by John

Cloud computing is the new IT trend that is grabbing the industry magazine headlines, and although it is being positively embraced by many users, some are needlessly worried about security issues.

Bringing together the three major trends of virtualisation, utility computing and software as a service (SaaS), cloud computing is still regarded with a degree of suspicion by some. However, as both the US and UK governments utilise the technology they at least have no doubts over its use.

It is the combination of the three component parts of cloud computing that make it particularly appealing to users as they need little or no knowledge of the technology needed to operate it. First used to describe large ATM networks in the early 1990s, when used in the computing context ‘Cloud’ is describing the internet and the way that resources are used across its entirety. It involves the provision of services to users who don’t have to worry about any of the technical issues surrounding the service.

Because resources can be pulled from across the internet it means that cloud computing solutions are entirely scalable and peak loads are easily accommodated. That allows users to go about their business without having to worry about allocation of CPU, storage or network bandwidth.

The shared hosting infrastructure model in regular use today is limited by the physical constraints of the available hardware, usually at one bottleneck point, such as single server. However, cloud hosting has no such restrictions as it utilises the processing power of a series of servers in real time. A user of cloud hosting simply purchases as much processing capacity as they require from a resource that is virtually inexhaustible and therefore provides a seamless service regardless of peaks and troughs in visitor numbers.

Intelligent systems simply ensure that load-balancing is applied across a series of servers, adding or removing them from the cluster as required providing an invisible transition for customers. The technology underpinning the infrastructure enables small and medium–sized enterprises to utilise web hosting architecture in a way that was only available a large corporate IT department a few years ago.

Cloud technology is now utilised by major corporations and governments throughout the world. It is certainly no fad, and despite myths about its lack of security is almost as robust as any traditional system; it is dependent upon the quality of the software and operator. There are also varying types of cloud, such as an on-premise cloud or a virtual private cloud, which are as secure as the system operator wishes them to be as it is in a private environment. However you would be constrained to your pre-configured environment.

Source by Adam Singleton

The term ‘cloud hosting’ has caught the attention of web developers the world over. But while the underlying concepts of cloud technologies date back to the 1960s, and even with the term first coming into commercial use in the 1990s, there is still a great deal of uncertainty revolving around the capabilities and benefits of cloud hosting.

Cloud hosting (‘cloud’ being a metaphor for the internet) is a computation or storage service that’s supported by a pool of distributed computing resources. But before attempting to grasp the concept of cloud hosting, it first helps to know a bit about cloud computing. Cloud computing is a form of computing where resources are provided as a service over the internet. It enables the on-demand allocation or de-allocation of the central processing unit (CPU), as well as large-scale storage and network bandwidth.

Moreover, it can meet scalability requirements to cater to user demands quickly; however, it does not require users to be experts on the technology that supports them. Cloud computing entails three major elements: software as a service – where applications are available on demand and on a subscription basis; utility computing – where server capacity is accessed across a grid as a variably priced and shared service; and virtualisation – where applications are separated from infrastructure.

Derived from the principles of cloud computing, cloud hosting enables the sharing and management of large amounts of distributed data, representing the ultimate in scalability for unpredictable demands. It handles security, load balancing and server resources virtually, so users are not restricted to the limits of one physical piece of hardware or server. Instead, online operations have access not only to a number of servers distributed in real time, but to the heightened processing power that comes with them.

So who uses such services, and could they be right for you? Cloud hosting is ideal for web developers who need a reliable platform for applications, but who would rather not meddle in the technological aspect of the operations. Thus, the service gives developers more room and flexibility to practice innovation, rather than having to worry about web servers.

Indeed, there is much to take into consideration as to whether cloud hosting might be right for you and your web development services. Therefore, it is important that you understand as much as possible about such services; that way you can help determine if cloud hosting could be of benefit to you.

Source by Adam Singleton