Is the Microsoft Action Pack right for your small business?

A good number of small businesses who are a "Microsoft Shop" spend money on the Microsoft Action Pack subscription. What the Microsoft Action Pack provides is most of the Microsoft software catalog for your business to use, as long as you keep paying the yearly subscription fees. Some of the software you do receive (there is quite a bit and doesn't apply to most small businesses so i'll keep it short) is 10 licensed copies of Windows XP, 10 licensed copies of Office Enterprise edition, one copy of Microsoft Windows 2003 server, and others like a copy of SQL Server. For 400 bucks a year that sounds like a score right? You get all that software for a few hundred dollars per year. You could have 10 workstations with Windows XP and Office 2007. If you were to go out yourself and purchase all that software it would be double or triple that number right? Microsoft XP Pro alone is in the triple digits for each copy. You could be put back over a thousand dollars for 10 copies. This is a deal then right? Well it depends how you look at it. As soon as you stop subscribing to Microsoft Action Pack you are no longer allowed to legally use those software licenses. If you actually purchased 10 copies of Windows XP Pro and used them on PCs for 4 years it would be cheaper then buying the Microsoft Action Pack and renewing it for 3 years after. You are leasing the software, you do not own it. As soon as your subscription is gone, so is your legal right to run that software. You also would be a bit tied into Microsoft products as well if you wanted to get the most out of your subscription. Not that it is a bad thing for XP or Office but if there is a piece of software that your business needs that is of better quality from another company you would have to spend more money or miss out (For example the open source MySQL is better for databases then SQL Server a Microsoft Product)

If you need help on software purchase decision making or any implementation of new software packages you may already please contact Tech Guru Solutions at www.techgurusolutions.com for assistance! The experts at Tech Guru Solutions would love to help.

Sometimes spending a good amount of money up front is cheaper in the long run.

That USB drive might not be fully toast

Flash Drive Recovery

Awesome link explaining how you can use recovery software to pull off reports, pdfs, and spreadsheets you thought were toast when your USB thumb drive all the sudden went dead.

WebEx and the beauty of meeting via the Internet

Strengthen from being acquired by networking leader Cisco fairly recently WebEx has become the gold standard for providing online meeting services. They offer solutions for video conferencing, web conferencing, desktop support, online sales, and remote PC control for a month based fee. This entry is going to focus in on the individial/small business solution that WebEx dubbed 'MeetMeNow'.

"Perfect for individual business professionals that need an affordable and simple online meeting solution. Hold unlimited meetings with up to 10 attendees, share your desktop, grant control, annotate, chat and more - all from the comfort of your desktop, Outlook, or IM."

I am a paying WebEx MeetMeNow customer and I do have to say overall I am impressed with the product. Below are a few pros and cons I found when it comes to meeting online and sharing the desktop to look at issues and/or powerpoint slides.

Pros: The interface of the website itself is great. When it comes to online meetings they did an excellent job of including everything you can ask for. MeetMeNow Integrates with AIM Pro. This was a very big plus. Within a few clicks you can invite from inside a chat window, start the meeting, and pass control if needed. We use it at Tech Guru Solutions for small businesses to do meetings with branches or vendors. Saves travel time and there are many benefits. The speed in which a desktop is shared between two people was decent. Inviting via email is very easy as well. You have the flexibility to have a meeting with anyone on the Internet and having 5-10-20 people doesn't cripple the meeting. Meeting via the Internet is the most effiecent way to go when multiple sites, vendors, and teleworkers are concerned.

Cons: At 49.99 a month it is not really worth it for an individual in my opinion unless you do remote support. If you use it to have meetings with employees who work remotely or hold a lot of online meetings weekly then it would make sense. The packages also climb really high if you chose ones like the IT support package (which you do not need, please send me an email if you think you do) Connecting up first time users takes a bit of time. Anywhere from 3 to 7 minutes even if they have broadband. Once they have the software installed it only takes a few minutes to get into a meeting any times after.

For those of you who don't want to spend any money...yet you want to be able to share your desktop, spreadsheet, or powerpoint with another co worker inside of the company you can with a free build in tool called Windows NetMeeting (start-->run-->type conf hit enter). This works internally just fine but bogs down if more then 2-3 people join together at once.

Click for Free WebEx Trial to see for yourself

Hibernate vs Suspend on your PC

Most people, some tech guru's included, do not know the difference between letting your pc/laptop go into Standby mode and Hibernate mode.

Standby:

Bringing a machine back from Standby is much quicker as your information is stored in your RAM. What slows down the process is activating other devices that are connected. In Standby the power is cut to your hard drive and monitor but the PC still gets a small bit of power. Think of it as running your PC is a low power mode. Standby is useful for laptop computers that you want to stay on but know you will be away from for a while so you can to conserve the battery (ie at a meeting).

Hibernate:

Your PC actually shuts down when it goes in the 'hibernate' state. Your current session on the computer is saved onto the HD and it will pull that session back up once you take it out of hibernate mode. Since the PC shuts all the way down it takes longer to shut down and start up.

Not all PCs have the capability and are configured to Hibernate. Hold shift down when you click shutdown to see the option.

Really what is a computer virus?

Here is a simple youtube video from HowStuffWorks.com explaining what a virus is and how it can effect your business and personal computers. Simple visuals that give you a basic idea of what happens when a machine becomes 'infected'

Recover a deleted word document

Everyone has had this issue from time to time. You work really hard on a report for work only to have the computer crash or the window close itself making your work disappear. Here are a few sample tips and a link to the website the article originated from

10 ways to recover a word document

1. Send out a search party.
   In Windows, click Start, Search, All files and folders.
   Type what you remember of the name or simply *.doc to get all your Word documents.
   Select My Computer under Look in, and then under More advanced options, make sure Search hidden files and folders is checked.
   Then hit Search.
2. Still no luck? Check your Recycle Bin.
   Open it up and look through whatever files you’ve got. Did you find it? If so, right-click and choose Restore. Then if you’re not sure where it actually restored to, perform a search for it.
3. Or you can pray for AutoRecover.
   Sometimes if Word crashes or closes unexpectedly, it’ll still save what you had. Re-open Word. If a Document Recovery task pane comes up, double-click your document to open it and immediately Save As.