SPEC (strictly productive & efficient computing)

Free Online Google Apps Classes - via Google Plus Hangouts

2012-01-25T17:39:00.001-08:00

SPEC #10 - Google Plus Search (GPS)

2011-07-29T08:14:00.000-07:00

Google Plus is a wonderful new Social Media platform, actually it's a lot more than that (I'll review it here soon), but since it's launch a few weeks ago one thing it lacked - Google's famously useful search bar for posts. They have one for finding people, but not yet for posts.

Someone came up with a way to add a new search engine in a browser and then, one can search in posts via a special keyword in browser's search bar, but the setup & use left me thinking that for many people it'd be a bit too much hassle... so I put together this little bookmarklet, which makes the job of searching for content on Google Plus as simple as a single click.

Here's how to get this going:

Open your browser (I recommend Google's Chrome) and add a new bookmark
Edit the bookmark and change the name to something simple like 'G+ Search' perhaps or 'Google Plus Search' or 'G+S' or whatever you like
In the URL field for the bookmark copy the following code exactly as shown, without any line breaks (it should all be on a single line):
javascript: var s=prompt('Google Plus Search',''); if (s.length > 0) document.location="http://www.google.com/search?q=site:plus.google.com inurl:posts/* " + s;
Click on the bookmark, enter your search string in the pop-up window that comes up and after about 3-5 seconds you should see the results

To make it super simple & accessible with a single click - put the bookmark on your Bookmarks bar. The search string you enter can use any of the standard Google search parameters, like doing exact searches with double quotes, negative words etc.

I've tested this in Chrome, Firefox, IE & Opera - all worked fine.

Enjoy a simpler Google Plus search!

If you have any questions - please don't hesitate to contact me.

P.S. If you haven't received an invite to Google Plus and would like to use this excellent new service - contact me and I'll send you an invite.

MS Office365 - Initial Look After a Microsoft Presentation

2011-07-27T13:31:00.000-07:00

Just got back from Microsoft's Office365 demo. Has some nice features, but they certainly didn't convince me to shelve my Google Apps, not by a long shot. There are some negatives that were 'leaked', enough so that if I was a brand new user (which I'm not) - I don't think I'd consider going for it.

They made a big deal about documents looking the same, yet they said that if you need to do some serious layout changes, editing etc. - stick to the Office itself, online version won't be able to. Sure, storing info in the cloud is cool, but keep your legacy data where it is. If you want Exchange in the cloud - it's there, but if you have Exchange infrastructure in place - keeping them separate & doing lots of 'planning' is advisable. One of the 'cool' features was the fact that if you want to do certain things in the spreadsheet component online & you're on a 64-bit box - you better be running Excel 2007, 32-bit edition or... it just won't work.

I was late to this presentation and still heard all of the above. The people, who weren't Microsofties, but people who wrote a book on the subject, clearly eluded to having a number of various issues that they had to overcome. They said that Microsoft support was able to help them, but when asked if it's phone-based support - the answer was that there were incidences where phone-based was available, but that's something Microsoft decides, i.e. you deal with web-based ticketing system for support and if MS deems your problem being serious enough - they will call you. One of those - don't call us - we'll call you scenarios.

One guy asked about mobile integration and the answer from the non-MS guys was that they don't use mobile (i.e. IMHO that alone should've disqualified them from doing this presentation), but MS folks chimed in and said that they certainly are building it to use various browsers and whether you're using MS tablets or new MS phones or even iPads - the stuff should work. I noticed that in all of the answers the word Google or Google Apps must've been prohibited from uttering. They were gracious enough to include the words iPhone & iPad though here and there, to show their 'openness'.

The speaker showed his extreme pleasure at being able to edit documents at the same time with another collaborator, a feature that they had no idea even existed until they accidentally stumbled into it... (and these people wrote the book on the subject? Unreal. )

And, to top it off - they can go to any version of the doc and see what changes have been made. They've never been able to do so before... according to them, which clearly shows how much they 'know' and the fact that they write books, apparently being unable to spell 'Google Apps', much less using such in the past.

One guy asked a question about Google Apps specifically and was told by the non-MS person that "it doesn't really work that well" and "there are different interfaces" and if you want to write a "message in Google+ it's different from email", or some such non-sense.

Anyway, the bottom line is that as much as I did have respect for Microsoft in the past - they continue to insist in going in the wrong direction, lacking innovation and shoving great-less stuff down people's necks, all the while saying how great it is.

I've been a long time Google Apps user, still am, and after today's meeting will even more staunchly recommend those to my clients. Currently it's definitely a significantly superior platform, on many levels, and even though Microsoft is attempting to catch up with Google when it comes to cloud & apps, but they aren't succeeding much yet.

As the guy stated in the end - for only $6/mo/user you can try it. Of course you have to have MS Office to really do anything useful. Not bad,right? Well, I have another suggestion for those reading - why don't you try Google Apps at NO Cost, without the need for any additional software, and see what you think.

Have questions? - grab me here or via www.pcs-works.com/contact.php - I'll be happy to help.

SPEC #9: Get Your IP Address Quickly & Easily

2011-01-12T11:31:00.000-08:00

So, you're a Gmail user and you need tech support and someone calls and says 'Hey, give me your IP' and you're like "give you my what 'p'?" The IP address is something that every computer on the Internet has and it's unique. Nobody else has your IP address, although that address can change and does change. So where can you get it?

It's pretty easy. You can use a service like www.whatismyip.com and there are others similar ones, but that requires pulling up another browsers page/tab and typing the URL (since this isn't something you'd do often - I wouldn't waste a bookmark on it).

But there's an easier approach, available directly from Gmail. All you have to do is scroll to the bottom of your Gmail display and there you'll find your IP address. In addition to that you can click on the Details link next to it and find out if anyone else has been accessing your Gmail account without your knowledge or consent.

Simple & slick, as the video below shows. So next time someone asks for your IP address - simply scroll to the bottom of your Gmail screen and give it to them.

SPEC #8: Quickly identify invalid e-mail addresses in a list

2010-06-28T11:01:00.000-07:00

While working on an e-mail broadcast for a client, using their list of e-mail addresses I came upon all too usual problem - invalid e-mail addresses. Gmail doesn't like those and just stops the sending cold if it sees even one of them.

I solved the problem by writing a script in Google Apps Script to show me just which e-mails are invalid (another screencast on this coming soon, with a full solution for you to use)...

... but as I was working on it - I discovered a very simple way to at least identify the basic problems with e-mail addresses, which are also most typical, like the '@' missing or number '2' instead of the '@' (user didn't press the Shift key hard enough).

Apparently Google Spreadsheets automatically changes text to links if they look like web addresses. Makes perfect sense & convenient. In my case - I pasted 100 e-mail addresses into a column and since most of these invalid e-mail addresses do look like URLs - Google Spreadsheets conveniently made them all look like links, i.e. blue and underlined, making it super ease to spot visually and fix accordingly.

Here's a short screencast on the subject. More comprehensive solution (and Google Apps Script tutorial) coming very soon. Hope you find this simple trick helpful, I certainly did.

SPEC #7 - Annotating Gmail

2010-05-12T12:09:00.000-07:00

For a while I've had the desire, and quite frankly the need, to add commentary of my own to various e-mails that I get. Call them notes, annotations etc., but I always thought it would be useful to add additional info to an existing e-mail & Gmail didn't have such feature... until now!

Well, they still don't have the feature, but using their reply & drafts capability - I figured it would be pretty easy to mimic it.

The concept is very simple - when you get an e-mail that you want to annotate - follow these steps:

Hit the Reply button
Enter your annotated text in the reply area
Hit the Save Now button (or just let it be and it'll save it automatically)

Now you can easily find and/or edit your annotations by clicking on the Drafts link (main Gmail options on the left). Alternatively they'll also come up via regular searches. And you can easily see which messages have annotations, because red 'Drafts' will be shown in every message that has annotations.

This is a very simple technique to execute, convenient to use and could be very useful to provide e-mail annotations using Gmail.

The video shows an example of how to do it. Please comment if you have questions or other ideas on the subject.

SPEC #6 - Exclusive Interview with Email Broadcast

2010-01-28T16:37:00.000-08:00

Last week I had a privilege of discussing e-mail based marketing and broadcasting with Ken Mahar, Found & CEO of EmailBroadcast.com.

click here to hear/see the interview

It was great to pick his brain and ask him some key questions that would be of use for any businessman. Marketing on the Internet isn't an option - it's a must these days, due to increasing number of people tuning out Yellow Pages and tuning in Google, when they need to find anything... and everything. Email Marketing, when done right, can have enormous benefits for any size business, because any message can be sent to potentially huge number of people, for very little cost (when comparing sending the same kind of message via any other medium).

Unfortunately there are many ways to do it wrong (and apparently many do get it wrong) and only waste their time, effort & money, burning through their valuable email lists (or not knowing how to get their list built) and getting dismal results, thinking this just doesn't work.

However, for a lot of people who know how to do it right - it does work and works very well. Ken shared with me how his organization approaches Email Marketing/Broadcast, why they're different from various DIY services and how a small investment can potentially turn into a huge ROI, if done correctly.

The interview is about 40 minutes long. It was an audio interview, but I've added some of EmailBroadcast's clients & portfolio samples, so there's some video there as well.

I certainly recommend any business owner to listen to what Mr. Mahar has to say and take him up on his generous offer (available at the end of the interview).

P.S. If you're interested in getting more information or discussing your marketing needs with EmailBroadcast.com - simply fill out a short form above the video.

P.P.S. If you like the interview - please RT it on Twitter.

Paypal Shipping - After all this time

2009-11-24T23:19:00.000-08:00

So a client of mine wanted to get Paypal to process his online purchases. His situation was somewhat unique and I had the site done with custom shopping cart just for the site, all that was needed to be done is the info passed to Paypal for processing. Simple, no?

The passing of individual items purchased worked as described in Paypal's docs, but when it came to shipping - things didn't quite work as stated. According to them if one wants to pass the shipping amount for the entire order - the 'shipping' hidden field must be passed and it'll override anything else, or so it stated. Well, it didn't and calling their tech support only resulted in them indicating there's a problem and they'll fix it.

I thought it was strange how a company of size of Paypal, number of people using it and for so long - you'd think they'd have the shipping part handled... but apparently not.

Few hours (and days) later, it was still not working. That prompted another call, another number of transfers between extensions, people who have no clue... eventually getting me to a guy who listened to me for 10 seconds and immediately cut me off with precise and proper solution, which was to NOT use the 'shipping' field and instead use 'handling_cart' field.

Quick test proved that he's right, although custom shipping I messed with in Paypal needed to be deleted for it to work correctly. And that did work, so for anyone trying to implement Paypal processing - use 'handling_cart' variable to pass your order's shipping total and you'll be a happy camper, as I am now. Unfortunately took a few hours of calling & frustration, but as they say 'no pain - no gain'.

Paperless Office - Why it's still an important goal

2009-11-06T09:13:00.000-08:00

Many small businesses drown in paperwork. We're currently working on a project for a small janitorial agency and it's absolutely astonishing how much paper these people use (abuse, in our view) on an every day basis.

There are plenty of computer and now web-based (cloud) solutions that can either substantially reduce the use of paper, or if one tried substantially enough - completely eliminate it; at least from an internal standpoint.

PCS has been championing the effort of paperless approach to business for many years. Web-based solutions like Google Apps bring many business benefits, including creation of paperless documents, collaboration with others, as well as dissemination in the form of PDF files, that are universally compatible, searchable, and much more efficient to utilize than any paper system.

There are solutions for online-based invoicing, prospect/client management (CRM), time tracking, document creation, manipulation & distribution, even databases that enable one to set up their own tracking for just about any kind of data. With ubiquitous & inexpensive Internet access, cheap hardware and very reasonably priced (many times FREE) software - the only barrier to significantly reducing waste, improving efficiency & reducing expenses, and even improving productivity is not the inherent lack of technological solution, but the old approach of a) "we've always done it this way" or b) "change is hard".

Some businesses do realize the importance and possibilities of paperless approach, especially lately with the 'green' initiatives become such a popular concept, even though in reality one doesn't need to debate 'global warming' or philosophize on its causes, to embrace the paperless approach to business. However what generally hinders such companies is the knowledge and guidance of precisely what tools to implement, that would specifically address the needs of their particular business. And that's a very valid barrier.

PCS provides IT/Internet consulting services, specifically dealing with our clients' needs and providing both custom-made as well as off-the-shelf (or off-the-web is the more likely approach, since more and more resources are available online) business solutions. If you are running a business and would like it to be more productive & efficient - contact PCS today for a no obligation complimentary discussion and see if there's something we can do to help your business, your customers, your bottom line, while at the same time helping the environment as a very positive side effect.

P.S. Watch is video to see what kind of havoc can happen when paperless hasn't been implemented :)

SPEC #5 - The Case for Google Applications

2009-09-11T13:19:00.000-07:00

I spend substantial amount of time dealing with a wide variety of business owners and employees, as well as involved in training them and provide appropriate tools and business solutions to address their needs.

Of course being an IT consultant for all these years requires one to know what one recommends and know it well. I use all kinds of software addressing a plethora of personal & business needs, and then translate my knowledge and time/effort spent learning the software into something more easily understood by people I consult & teach.

As with anything - there are good solutions, mediocre ones and downright lousy ones (which will never be a subject of my teaching, but I may point out something that you should definitely stay away from and not waste your time).

Here I'd like to address an issue of typical, every day software uses for business (and personal) purposes. Historically such software started with Word Processing, later Spreadsheets were added, then Presentation programs. This isn't a complete list of what everyone is using, but this is typically what small businesses use and that's why they start with Microsoft Office package, which contains all of the above categories of software.

Let's not forget another important category, likely overshadowing all of the above in terms of frequency of use and that would be personal and professional communications. E-mail, Instant Messaging, Collaboration Software, and lately Audio & Video Communications.

Microsoft Office provides some of these functions via their Outlook program, as well as MS Messenger.

Google is another company providing a similar set of software, including Gmail (Google's e-mail service), Google Docs (Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Presentations with collaboration) and Google Talk (for Instant Messaging, including Audio & Video), later referred to as Google Apps.

There are 2 major differences between Microsoft Office & Google Apps - Google Apps are FREE and MS Office isn't and Google Apps are web-based and Microsoft Office isn't (although a version is planned that will be, but it remains to be seen how it will compare).

With extensive usage of both software packages, weighing the pros and cons not in terms of features, but in terms of usefulness and capabilities - right now the winner is Google Apps and here are some of the reasons why:

Gmail is accessible quickly and easily from any computer on the planet, which is connected to the Internet
Gmail is fast, reasonably intuitive and provides a vast and growing amount of capabilities out of the box and using their simple Labs feature
Google Docs allows for simple, yet effective collaboration without the need for expensive servers and server software
Google Calendar is easily integrated with cell phones, it's embeddable with numerous calendars, sharing and display options
Google Apps are tightly integrated with each other (for example if someone sends an e-mail with an event info in the content - Gmail will provide a single-click option to add the event to your calendar; any e-mail can be easily converted to a Word Processing document in Google Docs, with a single click; any e-mail can be tied to a task, with due date visible in the calendar and accessible via a single click)
One can have an environment where a single screen provides the view of e-mail, calendar with upcoming agenda, chat for instant messaging, buddy list for instant messaging, and even ability to do a quick video/audio call - all from the same screen, without switching tabs or windows... and you can even see and access few of your latest Google Docs documents - all on a single screen (add up all of the time you spend switching windows and opening/closing tabs and you'll see just how much more efficient this approach is)
E-mail messages (and documents) can be easily associated with multiple labels (similar to folders), providing a simple, yet far superior method of organizing information than the old folder model
E-mails and chats are easily searchable regardless of labels use, using Google's simple search box, including web search initiated on the same screen
Canned messages can be set up (aka auto-responders), based on custom filters, with relative ease, as well as vacation messages and planning
Excellent SPAM filtering, using a global architecture far superior to anything anyone else offers

This is by no means an exhaustive list, and even though many features Google Docs provides are available in MS Office - one can't help but compare the price difference. FREE is a compelling argument for any business, with any budget. However, FREE means nothing if it means constant hassles, bugs, frustration, lack of speed & efficiency - that's too high a price to pay for FREE. Google Apps are very robust and do have the set of features that will satisfy the needs of any small business.

Is Excel more feature-full and capable of handling much larger spreadsheets? Yes, it is. However, the more relevant question, which nobody seems to ask when making such comparison, would be "Is Google Spreadsheet perfectly adequate for all my needs?" and the answer for 99.99%+ of you will be 'Yes'. Vast majority of small business users use nothing but a small subset of all of features available in MS Office.

Last, but not least there's the Going Green consideration. If your small business is running MS Exchange server, perhaps Small Biz or Windows Server - if you switch to Google Apps you'll be able to eliminate all of them. That's another substantial cost savings, in terms of buying and upgrading servers, both on the software and the hardware side. Also, there's less energy needed to run the servers, fewer UPS devices, and potentially savings in having smaller support staff and support expenditures. For some businesses this savings could be very significant.

Now that I've touched the surface of this comparison and my recommendation to use Google Apps - I'll also state that there are two main drawbacks that should be considered:

Internet Connectivity (lack thereof actually)
Change

With Google Apps being a web-based environment, you lose access to all your data and functionality if the Internet isn't available. Is that a big deal? If you lose Internet access frequently - it would be a deal breaker, in my opinion. Luckily, in most parts of the country this isn't an issue. Internet goes down infrequently and even when it does - it comes back to life relatively quickly. Google addresses such times with Google Gears - a special application that allows running some of its applications offline. This allows you to take Gmail or Google Reader (RSS feed reader) and others offline, with a single click, and then all of the latest content will be downloaded to your computer, allowing you to simply take it with you (on an airplane, for example) and consume content, write e-mails etc. When you get back online - all of the information will be syncronized and thus ensure that both offline and online content are the same. This isn't a perfected solution, but it does help when the Internet isn't available.

Change, in my experience, has always been a dirty word. People resist it, some actively fight it. If I had a dime for every person that mentioned something like "we've always done it this way" - I'd be a rich man (well, richer anyway). People seem to like new things, and prefer buying & using new things, but they don't like making changes to what they "know". With 80%+ of world market using MS Office applications, and for years, Google has a major challenge trying to change the status quo, but they are making some inroads in some academic institutions, businesses of various sizes, and even some governments around the world. So even though people resist change - they also know that it's inevitable and learn to adopt new things over time. After all, we're not doing much with horse buggies these days.

If you have any questions regarding your specific business and whether it makes sense for you to move to Google Apps and want to know the what's, the how-to's and probably more importantly - the why's - definitely contact us and we'll be happy to help.

I'm not an anti-Microsoft person at all and have a lot of respect for what they've done over the years and being in their back yard actually increases the respect. But I have to call things as they are and in my experience (and it's substantial at this point with both packages) - I recommend Google Apps for any small business, and without any reservations.

As always - your comments are certainly welcome.

HTML - HTM what?

2009-09-04T13:50:00.001-07:00

Now that vacation is over, time to get back to business again. Although after visiting beautiful Lk. Chelan it's not easy.

Speaking of something that is easy - it's HTML, the languages of every single page found on the Internet today. All of the web efforts demand it, but many people who aren't in the business of making web sites simply don't know it. We're introducing a simple tool on PCS' web site that allows one to create HTML without knowing it. It's a Text Editor & HTML Generator.

It works like a Word Processor, i.e. you just type your text, format it using nifty set of toolbar icons, you can easily style text, position it, adjust fonts, colors etc.

And it works with images as well.

Once you created visually what you want the end result to look like - simply click on the Source button (in the top left corner of the toolbar) and BAM! (sorry Emeril, I was saying this in school, before you were on any TV channels) instant HTML without any of the hassles or knowledge.

Then it's a simple task of copying and pasting the shown results (aka the HTML source code) into your web page or blog.

It's pretty simple, but if you need further clarification or help - always feel free to contact PCS and we'll take care of you.

In the meantime - play with the new Text Editor & HTML Generator from PCS.

P.S. To give credit where it's due - the editor we implemented on the site is an Open Source editor called CKEditor from Frederico Knabben.

Simple Gmail e-mail

2009-07-27T13:54:00.000-07:00

Some people refrain from using web-based e-mail services because they're slow (which most of them are, and painfully so in many cases) and they don't want another new thing to learn, which I can certainly appreciate.

Gmail, Google's excellent e-mail service, which is very fast and capable and we'll be discussing Google's Applications (aka Google Apps) in more detail later.

In the meantime - check out the video on how to create an e-mail using Gmail on our Video page.

SPEC #4 - How to set up a Gmail Account

2009-07-23T16:10:00.000-07:00

E-mail is still the most widely used communications tool in business. There are a number of programs available. We recommend Gmail. It's web-based, which makes access to e-mail extremely convenient, using anyone's computer, practically anywhere in the world, provided there's an Internet connection.

It's fast, faster than any other web-based e-mail out there. It's reasonably easy to use, yet provides a great number of very useful features, which are constantly growing, providing more and more functionality and value, but doing so without the typical expense of a learning curve (we'll be covering this in much more detail in future posts). Combine that with the fact that it works well, reliable & that it's also FREE and you have a very compelling case to use Gmail for all your e-mail needs.

So, the first step is to create a Gmail account, which is very simple. The video below shows how.

How To Get Flash Animations on Your Web Pages

2009-07-22T17:09:00.000-07:00

In the prior post I showed you how simple it is to create a Flash animation using Xara Xtreme 5.

As promised, in this post I'll show you how to incorporate your animation into your web page. Take a look at the screencast below for details.

Screencasts and videos online

Xara Xtreme 5 is a great graphics program, extremely capable in many graphics areas, including creation and editing of vector as well as bitmapped graphics, special effects, and even Flash animations, all in a software package costing less than $90.

You can get your own FREE 30-day trial of Xara Xtreme 5 by clicking here to see for yourself just how useful this piece of software is No obligation, of course.

Video comes to PCS web site

2009-07-17T22:57:00.000-07:00

We plan to unveil a new initiative soon, which will involve video on a much larger scale. Stay tuned for that, but in the meantime PCS web site now has a video page (www.pcs-works.com/video.php) which will have videos that are just examples and short reviews of various software packages and web services as well as 'how-to' videos dealing with specific topics.

All videos will be relatively short & thus manageable in terms of time and comprehension.

As always we welcome your feedback and if you have any requests that would be of help to you and your business - feel free to send them to us and we'll do our best to provide a response (in video format wherever possible).

The first video is an example of one of the features of Xara Xtreme 5 graphical editing/creation software, which we like immensely due to its amazing capabilities, speed of operation and affordability. The video showcases just one of many features of Xtreme 5 - creation of Flash animations. It quick, reasonably simple and you too can have nice Flash animated enhancement on your site, without spending a bundle on Adobe Flash itself.

Here's the video of how you can create a Flash animation for your web site in minutes using Xara Xtreme 5:

Seeing is Believing!

click here to try Xara Xtreme 5 for 30 days for FREE

Overheating Laptop - the 'GregVac' solution

2009-05-21T01:50:00.000-07:00

My Sony laptop has been working relatively well for the past 2 years, but recently I've noticed that it's been getting pretty hot. Some may think it's because I have the longest bottom right tray of apps they've ever seen, others perhaps thinking that it's due to my desktop having so many icons that the gorgeous background I use is virtually invisible. No, the problem was elsewhere.

A few days ago I noticed it was really getting hot on the bottom left side of the unit and I had some keyboard issues on that side, where certain palm push would cause the cursor to jump, as if it was feeling the heat. Yesterday the stuff hit the fan when the laptop froze several times and it was clearly moving slower than before (even when it didn't freeze).

Gregory, a friend of mine, is a hardware/networking/OS guru and so I thought that perhaps he can open up the laptop and see what the deal is. He was willing to help but indicated that opening laptops these days can be tricky. So while the backup was going on (remember, BACKUP!) - he simply put the nozzle from a vacuum cleaner to the side vent and then keyboard and bottom vents and we saw something remarkable. First, the transfer speed went from 4.3mb/sec to more than double that in a matter of minutes. Second, the heat under the machine was no longer there and it was warm, but nothing extraordinary like before, where it felt that there was inferno inside.

By the time backups were done - we were pretty convinced that whatever this external vacuuming did (since we never did open the laptop, just vacuumed on the outside, near the vents) - it resolved this entire issue completely. Even after another 15 minutes or so - the temperature of the laptop didn't increase and it was performing great.

Today was another full day, doing the usual multitasking, pushing the laptop to its limits, as I like to do as much as possible, and yet after 10 hours being on - the bottom barely feels warm. It's going at a full clip and not a single freeze or issue.

So, obviously the problem had to do with the fan inside not doing its job because it must've had too much dust there, but remarkably enough all one needed to do is do some sucking with a vacuum on the outside of the computer and that fixed the problem. Hard to believe, but totally true. Next time your laptop gets a little hot under the ... plastic - try the 'GregVac' technique described here - it just may fix your problem in a few minutes, like it did mine.

Thank you, Gregory!

Twitter Power Tools with Twitter Power System

2009-05-21T00:52:00.000-07:00

The Twitter Power System provides a complete set of information, tools and resources that will allow you to harness the enormous reach of Twitter to build your business.

Contents of Twitter Power System

The package is divided into serveral different elements, including a quick start guide and videos showing you the basics of Twitter, and the main Twitter business strategy manual showing you how to build up your Twitter account to achieve various business objectives.

The best Twitter tools (over 90 by my reckoning) are then outlined in the Twitter Tools guide, allowing you to find the right tools according to the results that you want to achieve.

Finally, the package is completed by a selection of resources to accelerate your Twitter business success.

Mindmaps provide you with a visual reminder of the main techniques and a viral tweets tool allows you to create messages that other Twitter users can retweet at the click of a button.

A selection of follow lists provide you with information about the best people to follow in a variety of the most popular subject areas.

Conclusion

Overall, the Twitter Power System is an extremely impressive package that will allow you to supercharge the growth of your business. It contains several powerful techniques that will benefit both new and experienced Twitter users alike.

The only potential drawback is the speed at which the Twitter network is developing. Techniques, attitudes and tools alter, appear, disappear, improve and deteriorate on a daily basis.

However, this situation has also been taken into account, as the secure members' area will be updated to take account of these changes on a regular basis.

Highly recommended.

Definitely Check it out!

How to Sell Your Products Online - eBook out!

2009-05-18T00:46:00.000-07:00

The e-book on 'How to Sell Online 4 FREE' has been published and immediately available for purchase at http://www.pcs-works.com/sellonline4free/

Introductory Newsflash: 50% OFF Through the end of May, 2009

The e-book is a step-by-step guide on precisely how anyone can get their products online, visible in Google within minutes of publishing, including complete e-commerce capability (where people can pay securely via a credit card), all at NO cost to you, the seller. It's a completely Risk-FREE approach to selling online.

In addition to the e-book being 50% off, you will also get a Bonus - access to automation software to make your selling life even easier. And you'll be able to participate in an optional affiliate program, where with just a single sale using your personal linke - you'll make back all the money you spent on the book and even have some left for Starbucks :)

Here's the bottom line - if you or someone you know has products to sell online, but were always shying away from online sales due to high cost of web development, e-commerce, SEO - this e-book will show you how to accomplish what you want without spending any money to get your products online. You'll be saving thousands of dollars and if you take advantage of the affiliate program - you can even turn this into additional revenue stream easily.

The approach is simple, straight-forward and learnable by anyone... I'm confident you'll be able to get it working for you quickly, but if for any reason you don't - you'll have access to me for 30 days to personally help you get everything set up and working. That's the guarantee that you'll absolutely be able to get your products online to sell.

CLICK HERE for more details.

Support Experiment

2009-05-05T12:49:00.000-07:00

Came across this site today. It'll be interesting to see if people actually use something like that.

TUSH - upgraded

2009-05-03T03:59:00.000-07:00

After playing with it a little bit, even though it was only 2 clicks on buttons, I still wanted to make the whole copy/paste of long URL easier... and thus the new fresh copy of TUSH is out :)

Now you can have a handy bookmarklet, which will automagically 'feed' the URL field with the URL of the page you're currently on. Simply go to whatever URL you'd like and when you're ready to get a shortened version of that URL - just hit the TUSH bookmarklet and you'll be taken to the TUSH page, with that URL conveniently in place. Then proceed with clicking on 'shorten' etc. as mentioned in the prior post.

So, to recap - the new, enhanced (read: simpler) process is as follows (after you drag the TUSH bookmarklet to your Bookmarks/Favorites), once you're on the site of your choice:

Click on the TUSH bookmarklet
Click on the 'shorten' button
Click on the 'tweet' button

Yes, in just 3 clicks - you're done. I realize the prior process involved 2 clicks, but it also involved copying and pasting a URL. A single click is certainly a much easier endeavor.

Testing Short Links

One more enhancement - ability to test the short link easily. Simply click on it when it appears to view the resulting page in another tab/window. Totally optional, but if you absolutely must - you now can :)

TUSH - Twitter Url Shortening Helper

2009-05-03T02:09:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the name TUSH isn't most descriptive or too cute, depending who you talk to, but it is a very handy little utility for Twitter users.

There are many URL shortening services, which are a must for Twitter, due to its famous 140 character posting limit. The recent one I came across was Tini.us, I liked it immediately due to some nice options, like tracking ability as well as built-in review ability for the visitors to the link, very creative approach.

But using it requires filling out a short form to specify preferences. Nothing wrong with that, but a lot of times I just want a very quick way to shorten the URL without any additional functionality and thus TUSH (Twitter Url Shortening Helper) was born.

If you goto http://www.pcs-works.com/twitter.php - you'll see it on the right side, right next to TwiST (Twitter Search Tool), and above TWiiNK (it's coming, I promise, just need a bit more time). To make things as simple as possible, when you get to that page - the cursor will automatically be positioned in the URL entry field. Enter your URL there, click on the 'shorten' button next to it, then you'll see the short URL displayed next to that (incredibly quickly, thanks to little Ajax magic) and then you click 'tweet' button next to the short URL to actually send it to a new Twitter post. Very simple.

Keep in mind that even though the short URL will be placed in the new post area on Twitter - you'll still be able to augment it with any additional content you choose and finally when you click 'update' in Twitter - only then the post with the short URL be officially entered as a post. So, you can't accidentally get this URL into your stream.

So, here are the typical steps to get any long URL shortened and placed into Twitter post entry window with just 2 clicks of a mouse:

Place the long URL of choice into the clipboard
Go to http://www.pcs-works.com/twitter.php
Hit Ctrl-V (for paste; the URL field would already be selected, so you won't need to click in the URL field, just select paste), or type in the long URL into the URL field manually
Click on 'shorten' button next to the URL (don't worry that you can't see the entire URL, it's all there)
You should see the short URL displayed next to the 'shorten' button
Now 'tweet' button will become active, click on the 'tweet' button next to the short URL
You'll be taken to Twitter & you should see the short URL in your post entry area

Let me know how you like this little tool, I hope you find it useful.

How To Sell Your Products Online, for FREE!

2009-03-23T03:14:00.000-07:00

I've come across numerous people in my consulting and development endeavors for small businesses and when it comes to selling products online - many follow the same formula, mostly because their consultants told them so.

And that formula is pretty simple, to sell products online one needs to get a web site, not just any site, but the kind that will be SEO (search engine optimized) and e-commerce enabled (people can pay right there online with their credit cards), it needs to be submitted to search engines and since being at the top of Google isn't an option for most new sites - it needs to be promoted. What these consultants state isn't necessarily wrong or inaccurate, but it all costs money and potentially quite a bit of it.

I just had a client (eSBe Jewelry), which doesn't have that many products, and is a pretty small company, actually it's a side business and spending a lot of money just isn't an option. I'm sure there are plenty of small businesses that fall into a similar category. They could definitely benefit from an alternative (read: no cost) approach.

There is an alternative, which allows to sell products online, without spending a cent! No, this isn't a misprint nor an exaggeration (well, perhaps a tiny bit, since there is no magical or otherwise way to ask credit card companies to stop charging their fee for processing credit card transactions, which is about 3%, which only happens when someone actually buys), but there's a way to sell your products and/or services online for FREE!

You can get the background story on this topic on PCS web site, or to be more SPECific - http://www.pcs-works.com/sellonline4free.php.

If you would like to sell your products/services online for FREE - check it out. It's a very simple, totally legitimate (we wouldn't even consider it otherwise) approach and our new e-book on the subject will describe it via step-by-step directions and illustrations as to precisely what to do.

If you know someone else who may benefit by selling online for FREE - please send them to this page as well.

Note: To ensure that everyone can benefit from this approach, regardless of their computer skills, knowledge or experience - there's a SPECial & unique guarantee.

Internet Marketing, Honesty & Twitter

2009-03-19T11:15:00.000-07:00

Kind of a strange topic header, but this post is a slight departure from the SPEC initiative, although certainly relevant to it from a different perspective.

We've all seen an ocean of people doing Internet Marketing, seems like 99% of them are all self-described gurus and have training videos, products etc., all trying to show you and me how to make money on the Internet. It appears that mostly they sell the concept of how to sell the concept, which is a perpetual nothing really.

Some of these people are genuinely good & provide a quality message, but vast majority, from what I've seen, are nothing but peddlers, many times not even knowing what they peddle. Every one of them wants to get your e-mail, so all ask for your e-mail and name to get some sort of 'bonus' in your hands. Some do contain helpful and/or useful info, but vast majority are a waste of time.

And so when one's drowning in the sea of these - one tends to get sour on everything or get taken time and time again.

It's amazing to see how many of these people, yes, even the better ones, talk about insane riches they were able to acquire, including reports showing their daily intake etc. and yet the number of screwups these people have. Constantly you read things like, 'my server died, I'm sorry', or 'I screwed up and mailed the wrong e-mai' and on and on. You'd think people who make that kind of cash could find a decent IT guy or two... heck, with this kind of money - they should be able to hire their own 24x7 IT department, people who know what they're doing, and thus prevent looking stupid. That's right, if you're telling me that you're making $10k each day and then telling me you hit the wrong button - there are 2 possible scenarios running through my head. 1) This guy is so unbelievably greedy that he doesn't hire IT talent to handle his needs (i.e. stupid) and 2) This guy is lying through his teeth about being just a guy like everyone else and is specifically sending out this bogus info to play the victim, thus to create the bond and endear me to buy from him (which is BS in my book and also stupid), just sell me on the merits of your product/service. Being inept or dishonest doesn't qualify you for anything in my eyes. You lost the sale, bud, period.

It seems like honesty and customer service are talked about but few actually deliver.

There's another very famous (in the Internet Marketing circles) gentleman who is releasing a new product and he's all excited, has a fancy logo on his site, site's nicely done actually (which isn't something I could say about a lot of these folks), and he talks about it, using techniques of another gentleman that I do respect in this space & I can see what he's doing etc. Anyway, one of the main points he's trying to make in this intro video is the date of the launch and he gives a specific date. Clearly this video was shot in multiple chunks, perhaps on different days. But in this video the date in one segment is different than the date in another. This is the big date, big launch... you'd think someone would've caught it. But no, it's been like that for many days now. The guy claims that one of his products sold for over $1million in 5 days in the past. And now this guy's trying to sell me something (although it's promoted as free) and in 10-min video can't even get the date right, and I should buy something from this guy after showing the level of ineptitude? Not me.

And the common wisdom would say - you're too harsh on the man, everyone makes mistakes, didn't you make any? Of course they do and of course I've done. But if I did embark on a project like he's doing, I can guarantee you this error would've been caught and fixed pronto, regardless of the cost involved. Why? Because I made $1million in 5 days, I sure the heck can afford it. He clearly believes otherwise and again, and either totally inept in not catching it or blatantly ignoring it, figuring most won't catch it (although I did and I'm sure I'm not the only one). But again, let's give the man a break here... and I would if it wasn't for this...

This brings us to Twitter, one of my favorite hangouts lately. This same guy followed me, which you'd think was a good thing. Someone of his fame etc., I feel honored (not really, it's not like Tony Robbins following me, but still). But then I see him following me again and then again and I quickly realized - he's playing a game here. What happens is when someone follows you - they go to the top of your followers list. So, if he unfollows me and then refollows me - he keeps being at the top of my list of followers. Is it illegal? No. Is it immoral? Not really. Is it ethical? Not in my book. And based on these 'techniques', instead of being a straightforward and honest individual, would I ever buy ANYTHING from this guy? NEVER! is my answer.

I have no problems with people being competitive, running businesses, using certain selling techniques even to make their point, but doing this kind of kids stuff, combined with problems described above - he lost me... and he isn't getting me back.

I won't named the individual here, although many who look at this market would know who it is.

Someone I will name as someone I do respect and think is a quality guy, even though he certainly isn't perfect, is gentleman by the name of Frank Kern. I actually am trying his product, even with some imperfections - he is a genuine guy, doesn't fall for this kids non-sense and has been endorsed by none other than Tony Robbins, whom I respect beyond definition. Mainly I appreciate the fact that Frank is honest, can't stress this enough. In his mentoring - he teaches others how they can make money using a variety of marketing methods, but whatever they are - they're always backed up with commentary about using these techniques with honesty & integrity, not misrepresenting things, not pitching something that isn't, taking care of customers and establishing a good relationship with them. His concept revolves around good customers who are taken care of, which in the end continue to buy more stuff from him due to such relationship... and he's absolutely right. Not a novel concept - but very much appreciated, especially considering lack of such in way too many businesses of today. The reason I bring this up is that there are some (very few in my experience, but some) individuals that provide products & services worth of consumption, so all hope isn't lost.

This post is already too long, so we'll leave a good Twitter recommendation for the next one.

SPEC #3: Backups again!

2009-03-01T11:47:00.001-08:00

Now that we know BACKUPS are of MOST IMPORTANCE - let's talk SPECifically. You could do a backup using an external device of some sort. For example an external USB hard disk can be purchased, which can store a terabyte (i.e. 1000 megabytes of info). You can easily disconnect it and relocate to any other location/computer and some have a single button backup process. Simple and affordable.

If you're looking at more portable solution, perhaps a few hundred megabytes in capaci ty - here's a drive that can easily fit in your purse or large pocket even. It's slim, connects via USB port and is similar in price (here you get less storage, but pay more for portability).

Going even smaller in size - you can backup your valua ble data via a USB flash drive (aka thumb drive, USB stick). This kind of drive has the smallest capacity (8gb shown here, although larger capacities are becoming available), but it's extremely cheap and for many people would be totally sufficient. It can literally hang on your key chain. Main attraction here - they're extremely affordable and tiny in size. You need to look at the amount of storage you will need for your backups to determine what the best option would be.

In addition to picking the type of storage - it's also important to remember to have multiple copies and store them in multiple locations. Why? Because anything can (and WILL) break at some point in time and having 2 backup copies instead of one increases your chances of having a good copy astronomically. Don't need to go paranoic and have 10, but 2 copies is a good number of backups to have. Also, the location is important because if a disaster strikes and you have your shiny little computer engulfed in fire, having a shiny external drive hooked up to it won't do you much good, since it'll be just as engulfed, unfortunately. So, storing copies of backups in multiple locations is highly recommended and will give you a piece of mind.

Speaking of ease and alternate locations - you now have another option for backups - online backups. There are several vendors that offer similarly priced solutions, with similar service.

Here are the reasons this would be our recommended solution:

Unlimited Storage Capacity
Alternate Location
Unattended & Automated Backups

Essentially - you set it and forget it... until you need it and then you can retrieve it from any location to your new computer. As long as you have an Internet connection - you can get your data saved and retrieved when needed. Here are some of the companies provide online-based automated unattended backups:

To summarize - BACKUP often, BACKUP elsewhere... just BACKUP!

SPEC #3: Backup, as in BACKUPS!

2009-02-16T13:08:00.001-08:00

There are tremendous number of things you could do with technology to better your business. Countless applications, computers, peripherals, accessories and there's more and more added daily. We will deal in SPEC with what makes sense and make it simple(r) for you to deal with all of this, but before we embark on any hardware or software - you need to remember the golden rule of any computing - YOU HAVE TO HAVE BACKUPS!

I realize that shouting is impolite, but I still deal with plenty of clients who are just too busy, ignorant, apathetic... whatever, and they don't do backups. Of course they quickly get religious on the subject as soon as their hard drive goes belly up. Now why would hard drive fail? I could get into a separate post describing what and why, but your feeling in such a situation is the same as everyone else's - WHO CARES? MY DATA IS GONE! OMG! etc.

Once the catastrophy hits - then you try to do what you can, even spend obscene amounts of money, talk to all kinds of people, hire anyone and everyone who could please... PLEASE GET THE DATA BACK. Right?

Well, unfortunate reality is that even though sometimes data is retrievable, it's highly dependent on the state of the failed storage device. There are companies that can do magic almost, recovering some (sometimes all) content of a drive after a house burned down, but we are talking thousands of dollars and no guarantee of success. That's all true and happens, but extremely unlikely. And the likelihood of the story ending well for you in such instance is even less remote.

Then you're forced to go back to some prior version of your data, if it exists somewhere. What? You haven't done backups for a while (or ever) and it doesn't exist? That means you'll have to recreate all of this data from scratch! What? You think I can't possibly be serious and there has to be a way? Well, there is NOT!!!

To sum it up - regardless of how painful the data loss will be to your company - things will be as they are and yes, there have been some companies that have gone out of business due to devastation associated with data loss.

So, does that mean that you should keep your trusty old paper copies of everything? Most definitely - NOT!

I hope I painted enough of pain and suffering in you and your business for you to make the right call NOW, not when it's too late. And since it's so simple (and these days - cheap) - there's absolutely NO reason why you shouldn't adopt a solution NOW! That's right NOW!!! so you won't be sorry later.

Modern computers are much, much more reliable and capable than ever before... and it's possible you'll meet people who have had theirs for years and don't know how to spell the word 'backup' and have had zero problems. Absolutely, there are plenty of those around. However, considering the down side - are you willing to let your business suffer, potentially catastrophically, because of a small and simple thing, called 'backup', that you neglected to implement? I sincerely hope NOT and urge you to implement a backup procedures NOW! Not tomorrow, not later, but NOW!

For SPECific solutions - please read the next post.

So much for Squidoo

2009-02-09T10:53:00.000-08:00

I hate to rain on Seth Godin's parade, since he's considered to be a well-respected gentleman, but nobody is immune from criticism, especially if it's the truth. To be fair, this isn't really about him as it is about his service Squidoo.

After reading a number of praises regarding Squidoo and their great & efficient placement on Google - I thought I'd give it a shot. After all, I did want to have SPEC articles in as wide distribution as possible, so if people stated it worked so great - let it be, another resource to use. I entered a couple of lenses and was still going through a learning curve using their functionality, but understood why people said constantly that they made changes to their lens... because the software kind of forces that kind of functionality. It's not the most intuitive web page builder I've seen, but certainly learnable. Anyway, my personal questions on various subjects related to how to incorporate 'what' & 'where' I put on the back burner, blaming it on my lack of knowledge, not lack of their functionality.

Then I did a 3rd lens and gave it a name Squidoo didn't like. I figured ok, perhaps something else is in order, it didn't like that either. On the 3rd attempt, with a name having 'SPEC' as part of the name - it still didn't like it and then I realized that it won't like anything - I was caught by the Squid wih no way out. Eventually I wound up closing the browser window to restart and try again. Mind you - this was after thousands of words that have been already entrusted to the Squid to keep & disseminate on demand.

When I tried to get back into it - I was told not to worry and an error that popped up indicated that someone was still editing it, but it'll be up and running before you know it. The only problem was - they were telling me that I was still the one editing it (and of course I wasn't). I figured Ok, the lens got locked, they'll unlock it after a certain period of time and... but no such luck, a few hours later, with the same error screen burning my eyes - I sent an e-mail to support to try and resolve this. Immediately I got a response indicating that I'll be assisted as quickly as possible (so at least I knew their auto-responder system was functional), and then the message indicated that I'd need to be patient, since they have 'limited resources' and they may not be able to get to me immediately, although they would when they could. This last part was very irritating... one would think that Seth & Co., having all this clout and all this AdSense revenue from these lenses would have sufficient support in place, but apparently not so. I sincerely appreciate their humanitarian efforts, but if you're going to run a site, a service, you better take care of the basics that bring you the revenue...

Well, it's been about a week - not a peep from the little or Giant Squidoo people. My lens is still unreachable and buried in their ink somewhere, never to be seen again (or something like that). Well, to make a long story short - the hype behind Squidoo isn't justified in my view. I'm sure it works for some, or so they say anyway, but I'm done with them.

So, please look for all SPEC-related information here and reminders on Twitter.

SPEC #2: New Computer Musts cont...

2009-01-28T17:25:00.000-08:00

Anti-Spyware

Once you're set with antivirus, you also need to protect your computer from other kinds of intruders, the kind that spy on you, steal your information or provide back doors to your system from the outside.

There are a number of programs that handle anti-spyware, including anti-malware, anti-adware... both commercial and free. We have used Spybot Search & Destroy and it has done a decent job over the years (and it has a great name too). It can be downloaded from Spybot's web site (available in many languages), as well as download.com.

Once you download and install it (using the process identical to the one described in the antivirus post), you need to follow the steps below. It's a little confusing at first and it's not an automated process, like anti-virus is, but it's relatively quick and comprehensive and should be run at least once a month. All main options are located on the top left hand side.

So, here's the process:

Start Spybot Search & Destroy.
Click on Update link.
You'll be shown a list of download sites, pick something in your country.
You'll be shown a list of updates, ignore it, just make sure every checkbox shown is checked and click Download.
Once update downloads complete - click Exit to get back to the main program.
Click Immunize and let it do that (it shows progress, at the end it should show x number of files protected and zero unprotected).
Finally click on Search & Destroy to have it find all of the offenders and present those to you in the main window - this might take a while.
When it gets completely done - the Cancel option at the top will be replaced with Fix Selected Problems - click on it.
Within just a few seconds you'll see green checkmarks next to each problem shown.

The only thing that may happen is some files are in use and can't be fixed. In such a case - it'll ask you if it's ok to run the process on the next bootup, allow it to do so.

That's it - you're protected.

SPEC #2: New Computer Musts

2009-01-26T10:29:00.000-08:00

So now you have the new computer. What are the next important steps to do before putting any of your valuable data and software? The first must is to protect the computer from unwanted, invisible and in many cases lethal intruders.

I'm sure you've heard of viruses, and possibly of spyware, adware, malware and other horrible software written by losers who insist on misusing their talents (since writing a virus isn't that simple). If you haven't - that's ok, the main idea is to protect your computer from those.

Anti-virus - first and foremost!

Antivirus software is plentiful from a number of companies and it does one thing - protect your computer from viruses attacking it. SPECifically speaking - we recommend you download the latest version of AVG from download.com, install it and your computer will be protected from viruses (to a degree, please keep reading). AVG has a FREE version which does a good job, as well as paid for version that has a number of additional features. More prominent solutions, which cost around $30-40/year are Norton Antivirus and McAffee.

There's nothing wrong with the FREE AVG.

Many new computers come with pre-installed anti-virus software, free for 60-90 days typically, and then you need to upgrade and pay. We do NOT recommend using those, because they consume more system resources and after the trial period (which will expire before you know it) - you'll likely update by paying.

Instead follow the steps below once you get your new computer:

Go to www.Download.com.
In their search box type in 'avg free'.
The top entry shown in the search should be the one you want.
Click on Download Now button and select Save (not Open or Run)Once the download completes - go to Start/Control Panel/Add-Remove Programs and uninstall the trial version of antivirus.
You'll like be asked to restart the computer (aka reboot) - do so.
As soon as the Windows comes up - double-click on the downloaded file to install AVG.
Select all default prompts and finish the process.

You're done.

Clean Out Your Gmail Inbox

2009-01-06T19:36:00.000-08:00

Matt Cutts, one of the Google gurus, had a nice article today about starting the New Year with an empty InBox.

Most e-mail clients have folders, enabling a simple way to dump messages into a folder to empty InBox, but Gmail doesn't use folders, it uses labels. Luckily eliminating these e-mails is a simple task of selecting all of them and hitting Delete ;)

Obviously some (if not most) people don't want to simply eliminate the e-mail, they just don't want to see it in their InBox. Gmail has a handy little feature called 'Archive' that does precisely that. So, if you select all of the messages and click on the 'Archive' button - your InBox will be squeeky clean.

Now that you've archived the e-mail - you can still view it at any time by selecting 'All Mail' link from the main Gmail navigation pane.

Since most of us are creatures demanding organization - simply archiving e-mails year after year will not suffice, since there's no simple way to just look at particular year's e-mails. But wait, Gmail can do that as well. Remember the Labels in Gmail? They come in very handy for such a task. The solution here is to create a new label, simply call it with the year (eg 2008 in this case). Then get all of the mail assigned to that label single-click access in the future.

So, here's the process:

Create a new label and name it '2008'
Click on Select All link (this will only select the entries on the current page and it'll tell you so)
Next to the info of what's selected there will be a link to select all entries. Click on that link
Pull down the More Actions menu and select your shiny new '2008' label, which thus will be assigned to all selected messages, all messages in the InBox in this instance
Finally, keeping all messages still selected - click on the 'Archive' button and you're done

That's it, your InBox is clean and ready for the new year. Next year follow the exact same process, only create the label for 2009 and assign it to the InBox messages prior to archiving.

To access messages for any given year - simply open your labels display and click on the year you'd like to see. Simple, slick & massively convenient.

SPEC #1 - Buying Computers (laptop)

2009-01-05T17:40:00.000-08:00

If you need to a computer that must travel with you, especially frequently - laptop is the solution.

Some of the same considerations that were mentioned in desktop buying post would apply here as well, but there are a number of other considerations & questions, including:

How often/far will you carry the laptop?
How big a screen do you want to have?
Do you plan to do video conferencing?
Do you plan to process photos and/or videos on your computer?
Do you plan to essentially use it for everything as your main computer?

Here are our SPECs of what you can get for general use:

Brand name laptop (we recommend Sony, Toshiba or Dell)
OS - Windows Vista
CPU - 1.5Ghz or better
RAM - 2Gb or better
Disk drive - 160Gb or better
Built-in DVD Burner (dual layer or better)
Screen Size - 15"
USB ports - 3 or more
Built-in Media Reader

You should be able to get such a laptop for about $600.

Sometimes it's actually less expensive to buy a laptop online, directly from the manufacturer than to buy in a store. Buying online also gives you a chance to pick and choose certain options, so you can customize it to best fit your needs.

If you have specific questions - feel free to e-mail us and take a look at the detailed supplement on this topic via Squidoo lens.

SPEC #1 - Buying Computers (desktop)

2009-01-05T15:18:00.000-08:00

Buying computers for business is simple, once you know precisely what to consider and where to look. This post will highlight the questions & considerations to ponder and you can read a more elaborate post on the same topic in our Squidoo lens.

The first decision you should make is whether you need a laptop or a desktop.

If you decide on a desktop - come up with answers for the following questions:

What do you plan to do on it?
Would it be using as a server or a workstation?
How powerful should it be?
How big a monitor would you need/like?
Would you need it to have wireless network access?
Should you buy it locally or order online?

Here are SPEC recommendations (later referred to as SPECs) for a desktop:

Get a generic (aka 'white box) PC (aka 'computer, 'machine', 'box') from a local computer store. It'll be less costly, provide you with local access for support and better warranty
OS (Operating System) - WindowsXP Home Edition or Windows Vista Home Premium
CPU - 2.5Ghz or better
RAM - 2Gb or better; for Vista get 3Gb or better
Disk drive - 160Gb or better
Graphics Card - 128Mb or better of graphics memory (shared is ok, onboard is ok)
Get a 19" LCD (aka 'flat-screen') monitor
Network - Fast Ethernet (100mbps or better)

You should be able to pick up a setup like that for around $600 these days.

This kind of computer could then be used as a workstation or a small server, it would also be peppy enough to handle most normal business needs. When we write 'or better' - that's because better is always... well, better. So, if you get something more capable than what you need now - you won't outgrow it so soon (and you WILL out grow it at some point).

If you have some specific questions - drop us an e-mail and ask. We'll be happy to respond.

Do read the detail supplement to this on Squidoo and good luck with your desktop computer shopping.

Welcome to SPEC for Small Business!

2008-12-31T01:27:00.000-08:00

Strictly Productive & Efficient Computing (SPEC) has a single, simple purpose - to provide relevant, concise & useful information about technology, its benefits for small business and best use practices.

Think of SPEC as your business' IT department, except you can afford this one, since it is FREE.

In addition - there will be separate resources available, including forums, with ability to ask SPECific questions and thus guide (to a degree) what aspects get addressed, to best support the audience at hand.

Feel free to keep tabs on SPEC via Twitter. Anyone who follows me on Twitter gets a shiny Bronze Level account on RecordSage.com, a simple online tool that's secure & anonymous for tracking all kinds of stuff important to you.

Finally, we're formulating a special offer for anyone in the US Armed Forces or veterans... details coming very soon.

Happy New Year to you and yours and let's get started in 2009!