Category Cloud Hosting Updates

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

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:

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.

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:

So we chose “Old computer”.

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

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

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:

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

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

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

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

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

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

When you want to reset your computer modifications to the factory default or remove trail versions but face the problem of “Bootstrapper has stopped working” or “Error 40” then here are the possible solutions to fix it.

If “Data Execution Prevention” (DEP) is turned on for all program and services with Windows Vista or Windows 2003, that might be the cause of the problem. If you check your DEP settings to make it turned on for the selected programs and services, that might help you to resolve this problem.

In order to change the settings for DEP, you have to follow the following steps. Go to the control panel and click on the system icon. In the left pane click Advance system settings; you will get a popup window, prompting you to verify that you want to continue, click on yes. Then go to the settings, a button under performance on the advanced tab of the system properties screen that is displayed.

Check if the box is selected for “turn on DEP for all programs and services except those I select”, then you need to change the setting to “turn on DEP for essential Windows programs and services”. If that does not work then go to the same properties again and add “autorun.exe” to the exception list. To add “autorun.exe” to the list, you have to click add button at the bottom of the screen. You will find an Open dialogue where you have to navigate to the folder that has “autosun.exe” and select the program.

Once you have either selected the different box for DEP or added “autorun.exe” to the list click OK button. You will have to restart Windows to let the changes takes effect. These steps should allow the installation to run the boot system software. After doing these steps and installation is complete, don’t forget to remove the “autorun.exe” from the list, added to the list above, as it creates a security hazard.

Source by Celly Kayser

The Cloud means different things to different people.  Everyone has their own views of the Cloud and myriad usage patterns have evolved, even while new and innovative options are emerging everyday.

So in essence, the Cloud is an environment where all aspects of computing are availed of as a service and consumers, be they individuals or business entities, do not own any part of it.  To host and run a small application, all areas of the computing infrastructure come into play, such as the infrastructure in terms of the server and storage; the application components, including the web/application server; and the actual application, which either has to be built in-house or purchased from a vendor and customized if necessary.  After the initial application is built and hosted, then other aspects come into play, such as ongoing maintenance in terms of bug fixes, upgrades, maintenance etc.

The Cloud offers three primary service options, which can be mixed and matched as per your unique requirements:

–          SaaS:  Software as a Service

–          PaaS:  Platform as a Service

–          IaaS:  Infrastructure as a Service.

Today, all of these aspects are available off premises via the Cloud. There are options to avail of pre-built solutions that are hosted on platforms from SaaS providers.  Or, if you want to customize and/or build your own application then PaaS platforms are available, in which case capital costs in terms of server, storage, and application license costs are totally eliminated and the same application is provided as a service either on a per transaction, pay per use or subscription basis.  Many larger organizations are leveraging the third option—IaaS—in order to incorporate virtualized scalability and availability into their core business applications without having to utilize their whole IT budget and server storage space just to manage peak loads.

Now let us study how different users avail the Cloud and what benefits they derive out of it.

a.        End Users: The end user is an individual who is availing the Cloud for his own personal use.  Most end users probably don’t even realize they are using Cloud-based applications.  A typical usage scenario could be doing a Google search to find out Thai Restaurants in your neighborhood or availing of an online application to have your taxes done.  In both cases, the application is hosted in a Cloud environment, and, in the former, the service is free, while in the latter, there may be a per-use charge or a subscription.

The key driving factors for end users to use the Cloud are:

–          Location independent access to application functionality

–          Cost effective and innovative payment models

–          Low barriers for entry

b.       Developers: This community will typically look for platforms that will provide the entire infrastructure needed for off premises product development—or the typical PaaS environment where complete platforms including the tools and APIs needed to build applications from scratch are available.

c.       CIO/IT: IT Organizations, depending on their size and budgets can run the gamut in terms of Cloud consumption, deployment and service models.   There are organizations that can consume as well as provide all the types of Cloud patterns such as SaaS, IaaS and PaaS.

d. Cloud Service Providers: The early adopters of these various strategies of SaaS, IaaS and PaaS are now leaders in their respective spaces, but there are a lot of new entrants and there is still a lot of scope in all areas—especially Cloud Services Aggregation.

e.      Cloud Integrators: With myriad options presented to users and CIOs everyday and the rate at which the Cloud space is growing and evolving, it is no longer an easy decision when it comes to determining the most leveraged short-term and best long-term approach to the Cloud.

Source by tajinder

Drake tax software is one of the most affordable and features rich tax return filing application available for tax planners. But most importantly drake tax software offers full financial management options with its vast number of add-ons, diverse forms and import/export features compatible with large number of accounting and CRM applications.

Many tax preparers have realized the benefits of having tax preparation software hosted in the cloud environment with benefits such as anytime anywhere data accessibility, collaboration and security of the data. Before going into the details of benefits of Drake tax software hosting here are the list of some Drake features that are very useful for the tax preparers.

• Diverse number of forms:  Drake tax software includes the most comprehensive list of tax forms and state specific forms to help tax preparers. Further the tax software offers comprehensive tax research features for tax planning for the clients.

• Easy Export and import of data: Of all the tax software, Drake tax application is the most comprehensive in terms of import and export of data from diverse application be it they accounting or  CRM application and in the process saving data entry time and costs. Not only excel import bust also scanned document data can be imported to the Drake tax application.

• Drake Add-ons: Drake provides a large number of Add-ons to make the tax practice both faster and to offer diverse range of services for their clients. The add-ons include drake tax planner, Drake document management systems, client write ups and payroll applications.

Drake Tax preparation in the cloud environment

The efficiency of tax return filing process and use of the other features of the Drake Tax program can be considerably enhanced if the Tax application is accessed through third party terminal servers or cloud servers. This means hosting the database on third party terminal servers and accessing the application as a local desktop interface instead of that on Local LAN. The benefits of Drake tax Application hosting are:

Cost Reduction: Application lifetime costs may involve software licenses, servers installations, occasional upgrades and technical support costs. With Drake accessed on a  terminal server there is no need to install local network, neither there is any requirement of dedicated technical support professional as IT help desk is provided by the service provider.

No IT obsoleteness: Since the local IT infrastructure needs are considerably reduced, Drake Tax software hosting also means that obsoleteness of the IT infrastructure is a thing of the past. With the application installed and run on the latest terminal server, users have the advantage of access to most advanced technology without any upfront costs involved.

Reacting to the market forces swiftly: Since the cloud hosting services are available on demand and the infrastructure bought at a short notice the tax preparers are able to cater well to the increased demand during the tax preparation season without any additional IT costs involved. Further they have to buy the services only when they need and hence further save IT costs for unutilized IT Infrastructure.

Collaboration and sharing with Drake Tax software hosting

A major handicap for the mobile tax professional is the inability to access the tax application beyond the LAN or the office premises. With Drake tax software hosting not only they can share and collaborate with other users in real time but also share, review and oversee what changes are made to the files by different users.

Collaboration feature allow the tax professional to:

• Have better clients interaction and available to troubleshoot clients issues  or share files with them from anywhere remotely not necessitating one to one physical interaction and thus saving both time and transportation costs.
• Use outsourced cheap labour for tax season and still being able to keep a tab on the quality of work done or the progress of the tax preparation process through real time collaboration.

Drake Tax application hosting and financial data security

Remote data backup is more secure than the local back up as:

• Data is stored in multiple locations automatically on a daily basis in case of remote backup which may not be possible in case of locally backed data due to unavailability of technical professionals.
• Monitoring of the local network for security threats may involve dedicated IT professionals and thus involving recurring costs which can be easily possible and in more comprehensive ways in a hosted environment.

Multiple Applications hosting in an integrated manner with Drake Tax software

Drake tax software not only comes with most comprehensive list of Add-ons bust is also easily integrated with many other applications in comprehensive manner for easy import and export of data to enable financial consultants to offer diverse solution to their clients and thereby increasing business profitability. Drake tax software can be integrated with accounting software such as QuickBooks and Peachtree as well as CRM software such as ACT! By sage.

Source by williamsmith