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Know When Your Business Needs IT Consulting Services

Businesses must ensure that only the latest technologies and software are deployed at the workplace, in order to provide quality solutions to their clients, and to be ahead of the competition. With the ever-changing technological trends in the industry, businesses find it cumbersome to adopt these technologies. Instead they can hand the entire function over to a sound IT consulting services company – who in turn will tap into their global pool of highly skilled IT professionals, who have the advantage of working in various IT environments, and have extensive experience across sectors. By providing assistance to business, IT consulting services providers free up existing resources; ensure IT transitions are smooth and problem-free; optimise key business processes; identify areas that benefit with further cost saving; build competitive advantage through IT; reduce IT complexities; provide IT strategy consultancy services, IT project management services and provide specialised programme management solutions – all of which, help the organisation achieve significant business efficiencies and cost benefits.

Choosing to work with an IT firm definitely boosts a company’s overall efficiency, which in turn decreases costs. Firms tend to look for a flexible and bespoke solution to address the client’s IT needs, thereby delivering solutions that are in tandem with the client’s goals.

The advantages listed above necessitate hiring an IT company. But how will a business know that it needs IT consultancy services?

A business may function with its existing IT architecture without knowing the benefits of such services. In order to discern the need for IT consulting services, businesses must first understand the details of their services. According to Wikipedia, ‘IT consulting is a field that focuses on advising businesses on how best to use IT to meet their business objectives. In addition to providing advice, IT consultancies often estimate, manage, implement, deploy, and administer IT systems on businesses’ behalf, known as Outsourcing’. IT consulting services firms thereby help businesses strategise and evaluate their IT functions as a whole and take the necessary steps to implement and/or deploy and then administer effective and robust IT systems in place. Businesses can seek the services of an IT firm when:

  1. IT investments regularly overshoot the set budget. Fast-paced technologies and trends warrant proper planning. When making strategic use of the allocated budget seems difficult, seeking the advice of IT consultancy services providers is imperative.
  2. A business decides to relocate or reduce staff.
  3. Projects regularly miss deadlines. Lack of specialists, complex projects and shoestring budgets lead to inefficient project management. A sound IT consulting services company designs bespoke, safe and cost-effective solutions, either full time or part time.
  4. Challenges of globalization, technical and regulatory changes arise. Business and technology management when integrated help the business survive, and therefore IT strategy consultancy is important.
  5. Programmes and projects eat into the budget. A business needs specialised programme management solutions to achieve significant cost savings. A robust IT services company provides either the co-sourcing or the outsourcing model to help businesses remain ahead of the competition, by providing tailored solutions.
  6. There is a need to change networks or when the need to shift to a new IT architecture arises.
  7. The company is in need of a robust disaster recovery plan.
  8. There are no data storage systems in place.

Availing the services of the right IT consulting services company may be a challenge. A business must choose a provider before the problems stated above get worse – and must choose a provider who is able to set in place a sound IT system in place. Therefore, a business must choose a provider who provides flexible solutions. Businesses must also remember that though they think they are able to fix small issues, the reality is that these issues must be treated at the root, and they can be properly tackled only with strategic IT solutions – only provided by an effective IT consulting services company.

Source by Ramy Krish

Blue Screen Errors – How to Get Rid of Blue Screen Errors

We have all been there. You are minding your own business, browsing around on your computer. Suddenly your computer freezes up. The Windows blue screen (aka blue screen of death or BSOD) brings up a list of blue screen errors and your computer crashes. Because this happens at random times, it can be pain when your computer restarts and whatever you were doing was not saved.

Now there are a few things that can cause blue screen errors. If you had been running ten different programs at once then that could be a cause. Your computer’s RAM can only handle so many programs running at once. But if the blue screen errors happen semi-frequently even when your are not running a ton of programs, then there is probably a problem in your Windows registry.

The Windows registry is the most important folder in your computer. It contains sensitive information that runs all software and hardware. And unfortunately the directory cannot clean itself and is very often filled with useless and corruptible information.

This is where registry repair software comes in. The first time you use registry cleaner software you may be shocked by all the fatal errors in your registry you had no idea about. I know I was the first time.

If you clean up registry errors you can significantly reduce the blue screen errors. Don’t let the windows blue screen of death ruin your computer’s performance. With a simple free scan below you can fix registry problems and get rid of those blue screen errors for good. Give it a try!

Source by Jim Marshall

Information Technology’s input on Software Outsourcing

It is also marked that in the last few years, graph of IT Outsourcing is on the rising way. Now IT Companies are sending work overseas to the countries like India and China to develop even smaller business applications. These countries possess most of the share for Software Outsourcing services. Along with these two countries other destinations like Russia, Philippines and many more are also emerging as a service provider for Offshore Development.

Software Outsourcing is concerned

Software Outsourcing to these destinations take place because the labor cost in such destinations is very low. IT Companies from the house of America and Australia are finding these destinations the most suitable for the development purposes. Though, Offshore Software Development might create some threats in the mind of the localized people from these countries. But at the end of the day IT Companies are finding this way of business the most convenient for many reasons apart from the cost benefit. As far as Software Outsourcing is concerned, fear is a reasonable enough response in the mind of these people, but not an effective survival tactic as the companies are now more and more evolving for such IT Outsourcing services. Though, these people thing that IT must take some different route than moving beyond the territory.

Keeping IT services inside the territory for these countries has been impossible as they are finding lots of benefits by shifting the jobs to the lower cost destinations with compared to their local development teams and companies. Along with Software Services, BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) in telecommunication sector and other sector is also on the boom in the current market scenario. By these processes IT companies can expand their business beyond the local territory without real investment. Flexibility and cost are the two most important factors that lead the IT Companies to move their jobs to the overseas destinations. You don’t have to put real efforts to expand your market by this way of the business process.

Source by Rajput Jitendra

Migration from XP to Windows 7 – Zinstall XP7 Review

Introduction

Looking to buy a brand new Windows 7 PC but don’t want to spend days copying files and reinstalling all your beloved applications with your custom settings? A new PC Migration suite – Zinstall XP7 – claims to provide a “breakthrough solution” – “fly” you from XP to 7 “business class”.

Migration is a term generally used to describe the act of moving applications, settings, files, etc. from an old Operating System (or computer) to a new one. It usually involves at least 3 steps:

  • Going over your system looking for installed applications and their settings and data, windows settings, important files, and anything else one might miss when it’s no longer there.
  • Backing up all the above to some temporary storage – such as a Removable Drive or a number of DVDs, depending on the amount of data. This may include copying all your favorite music and movies, your documents, exporting your Outlook’s PST files, browser favorites and more.
  • Restoring everything to the new system. This can be as easy as copying some documents, or as difficult as tracking down the installer and license info for some legacy application you bought a while ago…

Migration is, without a question, a daunting, tedious and time consuming task for most of us. This is true when moving to a new computer with the same OS, and even more so when one wishes to migrate from Windows XP to a brand new Windows 7.

Every time Microsoft launches a new OS, the problem of PC Migration emerges – and crowds of PC users start crying for help in hopes someone will hear them. Windows 7 is, of course, no different – especially since the majority of users still run Windows XP and Microsoft refrained from providing an upgrade path from XP to Win7. Moreover, a lot of incompatibilities between XP and 7 make this task almost “mission impossible”.

There is always the possibility to start anew on the new computer and only copy a handful of really important files, but this option is often not acceptable for those who use their PC for more than browsing the web, watching some videos and sending an occasional email.

Wouldn’t it be great if an automatic tool existed that could just solve this problem once and for all?

Zinstall XP7 vs. Windows Easy Transfer vs. Laplink PCMover

Let’s see how Zinstall XP7 measures against two common alternatives – the free and built-in Windows 7 Easy Transfer, and Laplink’s veteran PCMover.
First, a dry comparison sheet:

Zinstall vs XP Mode vs PC Mover

So what do we get from all this?

Windows Easy Transfer, being free, provides a good bang for the buck – It will move the “My Documents” folder, Internet Explorer Favorites, some windows settings and any other folders a user might select manually to be transferred. No applications will be transferred, just the data.

PCMover makes a courageous attempt to migrate all the user applications as well as the user files. The results, supported by several forums and blogs, are mixed: some users report it successfully migrated most of their applications, while many others complain that some applications failed to migrate or worse – were migrated in such a way that they fail to run and are very difficult to remove.  Some notable examples of such disasters include Microsoft Outlook, Adobe products, several components of Norton Security Suite and McAfee Antivirus/Firewall. This is not a surprise, since there really is no way to know for sure where an application installed all of its components, not to mention the wide variety of application add-ons.

Moreover, many applications built for Windows XP wouldn’t work at all on Windows 7 by any means because of inherent incompatibility.

Zinstall XP7 approaches the migration challenge in a completely different way – it takes the entire, all-inclusive old Windows XP System and encapsulates it, in its whole, into a special isolated container on Windows 7, together with an application that is able to run a sort of a Virtual Machine with the Old Windows XP.

The end result is fairly surprising.

From the user experience point of view, the result is quite similar to having a PC with a “dual boot” configuration of Windows XP and Windows 7. There is just one “slight” difference: you can switch between XP and 7 instantaneously with a click on the tray icon, without being annoyed by constantly having to reboot your PC.

What I like most about this concept is that you basically get a solid guarantee that nothing is left behind – and all the stuff from your old Windows XP is with you and working.

Interested to see how it all looks?  Read on.

Test Setup

In order to give Zinstall XP7 a test ride, I used my 6 year old Athlon XP 1700+ based Windows XP as a guinea pig. The new computer is well-rounded Intel Core 2 Duo 7300 with Windows 7 installed.

Test setup

The Migration Process

In order to do a migration I got a Zinstall XP7 license from Zinstall’s website (www.zinstall.com). It‘s worth noting that Zinstall promise that they will only charge you if you are satisfied with the migration result. In any case, after the purchase, I received an email with the license info and some basic instructions, which I started following right away.

I tried migrating Windows XP to Windows 7 in the most complicated scenario – an XP is installed on the old computer and the new one equipped with a pre-installed Windows 7 Home Premium.

I connected the old and new computers with a network cable and started Zinstall on the old computer.  It prompted me to enter the serial number and email. After that, it tried doing an “online activation” which couldn’t have possibly worked, since I disconnected the computer from the internet in order to connect it to the new computer. So, instead, Zinstall proposed to do a web activation – i.e. go to a page on zinstall.com, enter an activation id on a computer that IS connected to the internet and receive a confirmation id in return, to be entered into Zinstall running on the old computer. At this stage I decided to just connect both the old and new computer to our DSL router and start over.

This time everything went smoothly – the old computer remembered the license info and Zinstall launched, asking us whether we are currently on the old or the new computer:

Which computer is this?

So we chose “Old computer”.

Next, Zinstall asked us to run it on the new computer as well:

Zinstall seaching...

So, we ran Zinstall on our Win7, chose “New Computer” and got the main screen:

Zinstall main screen

As you can see, Zinstall correctly identified the old computer, so I pressed the big “Go” button.

The “Zinstall Migration Progress” dialog appeared and the migration started up.

I had 65 GB of data to copy, so I opened up a calculator and tried to estimate how long a coffee break I can take while the migration is running. Some simple math showed that copying 65GB over a 100MBit network in full capacity should take about an hour and a half. So I set my stopper and the PCs alone. About an hour later I came back to see that there are just 15 minutes left, and indeed – 10 minutes later the migration completed successfully.

Zinstall - Migration complete

Total time of migration: 1 hour 17 minutes.

This raised my suspicion. How could it possibly copy 65GB at better than channel capacity?!

So I decided to contact Zinstall support and ask them just that. The reply was quick to follow:

“Dear Richard,

The phenomenon you described is completely normal.

When Zinstall performs a migration over a slow network connection, it compresses the data before transmitting it over the network, which can result in an effective migration speed that is higher than channel capacity.

Best Regards,
Zinstall Support Team”

So, the migration completed successfully. The next question is, obviously, what did we get?

Migration Results

The migration had little visible effect on our test Windows 7 – a Zinstall icon appeared on the desktop, and also in the system tray. Right click on the tray icon and a menu appeared:

Zinstall - switching desktops

A click on “Switch to Old Desktop” made the old Windows XP to appear instead of Windows 7! My first thought was – “Hey, those guys are fooling me! They’re just doing some sort of a Remote Desktop connection to the old Windows XP”. My second thought was – “But I’ve already powered off the old computer”. And, not surprisingly, Zinstall’s tray icon was present on the Windows XP desktop as well, so I used it to switch back to the Win7 desktop.

Next, it was time to check that all the apps and files were indeed there. Double-click, and I’m in Windows XP again. Go to Start menu and it looks just like the original XP – three columns full of too many programs. I ran Word & Outlook from the start menu (Outlook showed up with all my mail in the inbox), double-clicked a PDF from the desktop (Adobe reader popped up), started Winamp from the quick launch menu, and finally entered www.google.com in Start->Run to have it opened using the default Firefox 3.5 in a colorful tab.

A more thorough examination showed that drive C: had 15GB of free space and that an extra network drive Z: was added that contained a folder named “C” which itself pointed to Win7’s C: drive.
At this stage I also noticed that Norton started a scheduled system scan.

In short – I had my good old Windows XP right in front of me.

Performance wise – I didn’t feel a difference on Win7 whether the “Zinstalled” Windows XP was running or not, but a more thorough benchmark is surely in order. According to Task Manager – Zinstall runs a couple of processes in the background that take up to 90MB of RAM when the old Windows XP is being used, and their CPU usage varies, depending on the workload of the Windows XP.

I also tried some of the more esoteric features – copy pasted some text from XP’s Word 2003 into a newly opened Wordpad on Win7, saved it to an RTF file on the desktop and copied the file to “My Documents” on XP. Switch back to Win7, right click on Zinstall and “Show Old Desktop files” opened Windows Explorer on a folder containing a subfolder “C” which pointed to the old OS, so I used it to find the aforementioned RTF file inside “Documents and Settings” and copy it back to Win7.

I must say that the concept of having the old and new desktops at the same time seemed confusing when I first read about it in on Zinstall’s web site, but after getting directly acquainted with it – it was very intuitive thanks to the clear distinction between the “Old” and “New” environments.

Conclusion

In the dark and miserable world of PC Migration – Zinstall is a ray of hope shining bright above the rest.

It is extremely easy to use – all we had to do, literally, was to run Zinstall and press the big “GO” button. The end result is no less than stunning – you boot into your new Windows 7… click! You’re on your old Windows XP with all your apps, settings, files and what not… click! You’re back on your new Windows 7.

And the cherry on top – you can share files and use copy-paste between the old and new systems.

The only entry in the cons column is the price of the software. $89 is not cheap, but from my experience – Zinstall is worth every penny.

Zinstall’s website: http://www.zinstall.com

Source by Richard Foreman

IvyBot – A Truthful Review On IvyBot

Software like Ivybot and technology have made significant strides over the years and is making it a whole lot easier for forex traders to play and analyze the market. Just the fact that people know there are things out there to help make it a lot easier for people to understand how to invest their money the right way. Over the years as I have been trading, I have found quite a few different strategies that can give you a decent ROI. However, just by following a few tips that I have learned from very successful forex traders I have been able to get a much larger ROI. Emotional trading is not a good way to trade. This is another thing that the Ivybot software has helped people do is to take the emotion out of their trades, so that there is not a biased opinion. This is a huge benefit for people who are new to the market and have problems controlling emotion trades. One of the best advantages to currency trading software like Ivybot is the incontrovertible fact that it takes emotional trading just about completely out of the picture. Currency trading is a massive market but a large amount of folks have lost giant quantities of money based entirely on the indisputable fact that they were making emotional trades. A great benefit to using automatic Foreign exchange software like Ivybot is the undeniable fact that it essentially can limit any losses that you will have. When you are trading by hand if you do not know what you are doing, all your funds may be lost from your account overnite. A pal of mine that sure is a Currency exchange trader claimed it better than I am able to say it. He announced that having the ability to use automated trading software like Ivybot let him to make moneymaking trades while not having to learn each single technical facet of currency trading.

Source by jamiehanson

How to Remove Security from PDF without Password?

Security Types in PDF– Nowadays, many business organizations publish their useful information for users in PDF file formats because provision of security and applying proprietary comes in these documents. These documents can get secured with the help of two types of security passwords; one is owner password security and other is user’s password security. Both these types of securities are different from each other in their own ways. If the discussion goes on Owner Password Security of PDF files then, it is applied to secure the PDF documents from few operations and if we discuss about User Password Security of PDF document then, it is applied to restrict the PDF files from almost all operations. Know how to unsecure a secured PDF files in this article.

Owner Password Security in PDF Files – Security measures like; restricting printing of PDF information, restricting extracting of PDF information, restricting editing of PDF information and restricting copying of PDF information come in Owner Password Security of PDF files. You can only view the information of PDF files, which are restricted by owner password security. This type of security is applied mostly on those PDF files, which gets published on different Websites.

User Password Security in PDF files – By applying this type of security, the PDF files get restricted from all operations; a person cannot view their information, a person cannot edit their information and a person can also not copy their information without entering the user password. This type of security is applied mostly on those PDF files, on which, the user doesn’t want any unauthorized access.

During unpleasant issues like lost owner password, forgotten owner password, etc, the need to remove owner security password comes up. How to remove security from PDF without password? (Owner Password)- By using PDF Unlocker third party tool, you can easily remove owner password security without entering owner password. This tool gives the ability to remove complete owner password security from PDF file. After using it, you can edit the information of PDF files, you can print the information of PDF files, you can copy the information of PDF files and you can also extract the information of PDF files. The information of PDF files also remains accurate while performing PDF Security Removal process by this tool. If you don’t want to buy this tool due to some reasons, then you can take a look at PDF Unlocker Services. Services are affordable for resolving the issue, “How to remove Security from PDF without password?”

Source by Aaron Hank

10 Things You Could be Using Photoshop for But Probably Aren’t

Most people don’t use Photoshop to its fullest capabilities. Here are just ten uses to which you could put this highly versatile software.

1. Restoring Old Photographs. Have a look through that old family photo album – the really old one from up in Grandma’s attic. Inside there are probably a few photos from way back when that haven’t stood the test of time so well. They’ve got cracks and tears that really spoil their appearance. Scan them into Photoshop, and then set to work with the Clone Stamp, Healing Brush, and Patch tools. The Healing Brush in particular is a great tool for this purpose as it samples data from one part of the picture and blends it in with what’s already there.

2. Correcting Mistakes. We’ve all done it: Had an attack of “finger over the lens syndrome,” or got too close with the flash, so our subjects suffer from “red eye” and look like extras from a horror movie. Use the crop tool to salvage something usable from your obscured photo, and the enlarge wizard to blow it up to a reasonable size. For “red eye” and “pet eye,” use the eyedropper tool to sample color from around the iris, and a brush to paint away the red.

3. Adding Graphics to Videos. It’s a little known fact, but many domestic and professional nonlinear editing systems (especially the Mac based ones like Avid or Final Cut) enable you to import Photoshop .psd files directly into the timeline.

4. Creating Text Effects for Print and Web. There’s an almost unlimited amount of things you can do with text in Photoshop. Use the Type Mask Tools to create picture filled text, then upload the results to your web page – or print them out for a one of a kind T-shirt.

5. Turning a Photo Into a Work of Art. Everyone likes to have nice things to look at. Most of us like to have pictures on the wall, and something that looks different from what other people have on their walls is a definite plus. Unless you’re blessed with artistic talent, though, this can be very expensive – until now. Use one of Photoshop’s many Artistic or Brush Stroke filters to turn your photos into “new masters,” then print them out on quality art paper.

6. Designing Web Banners and Buttons. Photoshop comes with a predefined web banner sized canvas. Photoshop’s sister application, Image Ready, comes with several – and lots of tools for animating text and pictures. You can also create interactive buttons that enhance a web browsing experience.

7. Adding Text to Photographs. Impress your boss by putting the company name on the side of an airliner, building, or racing car. Use the Move Tool to skew the text to fit the contours of the picture, adjust the opacity a little, and hey presto! The text will look like it’s always been part of the photo.

8. Combining Pictures, Text, and Graphics to Make Covers for Books, Reports and CDs. Photoshop contains many of the image manipulation capabilities of high-end DTP applications that cost thousands. Use the “Layer via Cut” command to make your title text go behind part of the picture – just like on the cover of “Rolling Stone.”

9. Designing Web Pages. Did you know that Photoshop and Image Ready can turn your photograph or artwork into a web page? Use the slice tool to cut your work into easily downloadable pieces, then the rollover function to embed website URLs.

10. Combining Pictures to Make the Impossible Possible. Come on! You didn’t seriously think that Michael Moore and President George W. Bush really stood hand in hand on the White House lawn for the Fahrenheit 9/11 poster, did you? I don’t know for certain that they used Photoshop to fake that picture, but they certainly could have done. With Photoshop you can remove the background from one picture, take some elements from another, and combine them with the background from a third to create a picture that could never have been taken for real. Who says the camera can’t lie!

Source by Shaun Pearce

SaaS Vs Custom Website: You Get What You Pay For

If you are a modestly funded new business startup or a smaller business with not much marketing experience in-house, you are most vulnerable to falling into the trap of thinking that a shiny new website will get your business branded, noticed, and buzzing. It’s tempting to believe that you can just sit back and let the website do its magic, and then presto, the phone rings! But then it doesn’t.

Consider this: A shiny new website with no other marketing efforts is not much different than a shiny new business card that you never give to anyone. That’s right… you keep that box of 500 cards on the shelf just in case you need them. And when you do need one-you cannot find them! This is where most businesses fail to achieve a successful website or e-commerce strategy. They fail to grasp that a shiny new website is only the first step of many that lead to online success.

Let’s dive below the surface and look at the differences that are not so obvious but most likely will have a significant impact on the success of your website, and yes, your businesses go-to-market strategy.

First of all, I totally get the lure of “free” and the appeal of paying “only” $$/mo for a website that gets your business up and running online. These kinds of SaaS website companies have their place in the world. Yes, there are times when I recommend these services to clients.

I noticed recently that a typical marketing message of most SaaS website builders focus around the entrepreneur, characterized as the “get ‘r done” types that pull up their sleeves and chart the waters of website design with a pure passion for their business. Apparently, all these determined entrepreneurs need are some useful online tools that are seemingly smarter than they are, and the Internet is theirs for the taking. No doubt, it’s an appealing message to all those Type-A’s, but unfortunately, it’s not that simple or easy to be successful online for most businesses-small or large.

As a marketing director for 16 years in the high-tech industry, where I helped develop new B2B services designed and implemented as software-as-a-service, I have experience on both sides of the fence. That said, this article is not a rant but an explanation of what separates a reputable digital agency from an online service provider. It’s these differences that can make a difference for your business, and once you know what they are, it will give your fledgling business website a fighting chance for success.

Here’s my message-in-the-bottle to those that have been marooned on a deserted website island, unable to make their SaaS (or template) website successful by any measure, much less turn it into a thriving place to generate sales leads as most business owners want.

The first lesson business owners need to learn about the Internet is that just having a “cool” website design (however you want to define that) is not really going to get you where you want to go. Fortunately, a fumbled website strategy will cost you a lot less than this colossal mistake: Imagine building a beautiful store where no one goes because there are not any roads.

“Preposterous!” you say? Yes indeed, and this is the essence of what is going wrong when you only have a cool website and nothing else to support its purpose.

Of course, good website design is a skill that is an important part of your website strategy, but it’s just one part of a skill matrix that makes for an astounding website strategy. Here’s a sample of just some of the competencies a competent digital agency applies around a typical website project:

• Creative

• Graphic Design

• Logo Design

• Custom Programming

• Branding

• Marketing

• SEO

• Analytics

• Video Integration & Promotion

• Social Media Integration & Promotion

• Hosting, Testing & Troubleshooting

• Security

As you can see, when you hire a reputable website design company, you are in reality getting seasoned marketers, programmers, and creatives who partner with you to not just get you online-that’s the easy part-but to work with you to help build your website into a lead-generating machine, or whatever your purpose may be.

I think we all know the marketing hype around SaaS website services. Some of it is justified-much of it is not. Let’s flip the hype over on its backside and read the small print to learn what a business is not getting from an online website service:

• You are not getting a custom website that looks UNIQUE.

• You are not getting a custom website that DOES exactly what you want it to do.

• You are not getting any unique functions that may be CRITICAL to the success of your online business.

• You are not getting a website development team who has your best interest in mind by working with you as a PARTNER.

• You are not getting a uniquely branded and positioned website developed by MARKETING specialists.

• You are not getting top organic GOOGLE rankings because SaaS-based websites have less than average SEO capability.

On the other hand, with an online SaaS provider, here’s what you are getting:

• An amateurish, template-based website that you will pay on monthly FOREVER!

• A DO-IT-YOURSELF service that requires you to be the expert on everything. How much time do you have to devote to this endeavor?

• OK, since you are going to be the MARKETING EXPERT, who’s going to actually run the company?

• A SaaS website is a proprietary website (typically) STUCK on another host with no easy way to transfer. Professional websites use WordPress or other open-source platforms that give you unlimited hosting options.

• Unless you are paying BIG SaaS BUCKS for digital talent (real people not just algorithms), you will only get a slight amount of technical support and little marketing insight.

So by cutting through the marketing hype, some important questions any business owner needs to ask can be boiled down to… How much is my time worth? And… How much expertise do I have in the major website competencies that will be enough to set my business apart to reach brand objectives?

OK, maybe you are a jack-of-all-trades entrepreneur often portrayed in the SaaS website promotions, and you really do have multiple skills that will create new leads or sales for your business. We wish you only the best. However, before you journey to deeper waters and make hard-to-break commitments of a SaaS/template service, you might consider some additional facts of custom websites vs SaaS that you may not have thought of yet.

A digital agency that develops websites offers a lot more than a faceless DIY website builder service, which is the essence of what SaaS online builders are selling. For example, a digital agency provides expert branding, marketing, SEO, and programming expertise with on-going consulting that will craft the central message of your website into a unique, differentiated customer experience. Digital agencies are commonly found in your region, they understand your local culture, and they have an intrinsic interest in your community because it’s where they live and work, too. Bottom line: Your success is their success.

Source by David Little

How Long Does It Take Ophcrack to Recover Your Lost Windows Password?

Summer vacation finally! I returned from college and enjoyed sweet family life. But there is a little trouble with my computer. Today when I attempted to logon my home computer, I found I could not remember the password (which was set almost one year ago) at all. I did have a Windows password reset disk with me when I bought the computer, but at this critical time, it could not be found anywhere. So I had to try several ways including the password hint, but this did not work. Then I tried using Ophcrack, which was recommended by my brother, to reset Windows 8 password.

My brother recommended it as “very easy to use”. He said he had used it before and it worked very well and effectively. He gave me an ISO image CD and my computer booted from this CD. Then the Ophcrack program started. It began recovering passwords after locating all Windows user accounts. Honestly, all work was completed automatically and very easy to use indeed.

I had hoped that I could get access to my computer after seconds or at most several minutes, because my brother said this program only took several seconds to recover his lost password. However, to my great disappointment, after more than 15 minutes, the password recovery work was still “in progress” and there was no sign of quick recovery soon. I felt very puzzled. Ophcrack did not seem to work very well with my Windows account.

Why? What could I do?

So I called the company’s consumer service hotline, and got the explanation. The consumers service staff told me how long it takes Ophcrack to reset Windows password depends on the complexity, i.e. the type and length of the password. For example, a password made up of 6 simple characters can be recovered very quickly while a 12-digit complicated one containing numbers and special symbols can take much longer. Although most users give back positive feedback of fast recovery, some very complicated Windows password recovery does take a very long time, maybe days or even weeks. He said that the software could not complete password recovery within a short time because of the nature of my password, maybe it was set too complicated or too long.

The consumer service staff also said that Ophcrack can’t be 100% successful at finding every password because some computer users tend to set their password too complicated or too long (just like me). He recommended that if this software did not work very well with my computer, maybe I could try out other password recovery tools because Ophcrack worked by actually “recovering” the password while there are other tools which “delete” the password and allow users to get access to the computer account without a password and then set their own password afterwards.

I thought about this and decided to give Ophcrack a little more time. So I went out shopping and when I come back for dinner after two hours, I found Ophcrack had got the password back for me. I looked at this recovered password. Admittedly, it was a complicated one. And I Wondered how I managed to find such a complicated password for my computer at that time.

Yes, just as one coin has two sides, having a complicated Windows password has two sides too. It can help prevent unauthorized users snoop into your computer, and become a big problem for yourself when you forget your Windows password. I guess maybe next time I should try to set my Windows password a little bit easier to remember. Although password recovery software is effective and convenient, I figure the best solution is to keep passwords well in my heart at any time.

Source by Walker Stewart

Cheap Sharepoint Services : An Innovation For The Effective Collaboration Within Sharepoint Hosting

With the advancement of the technology, the innovations have advanced as well and have been helping us in our day to day lives. Microsoft hosted SharePoint web site is one of the latest of these kinds of innovations. SharePoint workflow helps the workers to effectively collaborate on different tasks and projects. SharePoint 3.0 hosting includes a particular component known as ‘workflow foundation’ which is known for providing the backbone for all the applications it has. This appears in 3 distinct forms:

· Readymade SharePoint workflows which are built in the product (suitable for people those who have limited literacy in computer).

· Workflows which are open to customization by the use of SharePoint designer – it is similar to Microsoft FrontPage (suitable for those who have moderate computer literacy).

· Workflows having custom applications which are programmable using visual studio and the .NET framework. (Suitable only for advanced computer users).

The best part as evident is that it caters to all the levels of computer literacy, for instance, beginners, intermediate users and advanced users. This feature allows the organizations to customize the work flows according to the needs and competency of the workers and meet the ever changing needs of the work environment.

People who want to implement SharePoint WSS 3.0 hosting, they have two options open. They need to have a dedicated server, which can be housed within the organization or, outsourced to a SharePoint Server hosting provider. The basic essence of the SharePoint work flow is to increase the collaboration among the users. This is because of the fact that not all workers will have same competency level and they will need some way or the other to increase the efficiency of the workers with increased collaboration. For organizations, it is time to revamp the work space and enjoy more organized work than ever before.

Source by Adrian Gates