Adobe Acrobat Reader is a common, free download that allows you to open, read, and make comments on any Portable Document Format (PDF) documents you receive. But there are some limitations.
1. It doesn’t allow editing
2. It won’t convert your documents to PDF.
For those functions, there’s Acrobat Pro. It creates PDF’s, organizes them for easy searching, allows multiple people to simultaneously make comments and place sticky notes or highlights on a PDF, and can password protect it so only a select few can edit the actual document.
Don’t need all the bells and whistles? Nitro PDF (www.nitropdf.com) will edit PDF documents and costs about $100. Or, for FREE, you can download PDF995 Suite (www.pdf995.com) to read, edit & create PDF’s. The downside of FREE? With PDF995 you can only read and create PDF’s not edit existing ones. On that same site you can download PDFedit995 that will allow you to edit.
Showing posts with label free support. Show all posts
Showing posts with label free support. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
There’s A Good Chance Over HALF Your Employees Are Wasting 3 Hours A Day On THIS...
A survey of over 2,500 employees found nearly half of the group admitted to wasting 1-3 hours every day on the web doing non-business related activities. Pretty scary, huh?
Just ONE employee in your company spending ONE hour surfing the web instead of doing what they should be doing is impacting your bottom line. Plus, this idle surfing doesn’t just affect that one employee; it could impact the whole team. If your Internet all of a sudden slows to a halt…a time-wasting employee may be the cause.
Watching a YouTube video, for example, can hog up your bandwidth and slow your entire company’s Internet speed way down, including e-mail and online applications.
No business owner has time to look over their employees’ shoulders every hour of every day...and if Internet usage abuse is going on, how do you stop it? Look to these two tips for help:
1. Determine Your Rules. Unless your admin places company job postings online, you wouldn’t want to give her the opportunity to job search on your dime. So, you’d block career sites. Social media is another example. Typically, you’d block Twitter. But if you use it for marketing, your employees need access to it.
2. Get An Internet Filter. Basically, a piece of hardware is installed on your network and its job is to block any specific websites or categories of websites, like shopping sites. Some of these devices even allow you to assign a hierarchy to your Internet speed, ensuring that your payroll software gets all the Internet juice before the NFL replay does.
As a way to introduce our services in March, we’re offering a FREE Internet Usage Audit that will reveal:
- What impact employee web browsing is having on your Internet speed
- How to stop any bad web behaviors without being “Big Brother”
Just ONE employee in your company spending ONE hour surfing the web instead of doing what they should be doing is impacting your bottom line. Plus, this idle surfing doesn’t just affect that one employee; it could impact the whole team. If your Internet all of a sudden slows to a halt…a time-wasting employee may be the cause.
Watching a YouTube video, for example, can hog up your bandwidth and slow your entire company’s Internet speed way down, including e-mail and online applications.
How To Find Out If This Is Happening In Your Business
No business owner has time to look over their employees’ shoulders every hour of every day...and if Internet usage abuse is going on, how do you stop it? Look to these two tips for help:
1. Determine Your Rules. Unless your admin places company job postings online, you wouldn’t want to give her the opportunity to job search on your dime. So, you’d block career sites. Social media is another example. Typically, you’d block Twitter. But if you use it for marketing, your employees need access to it.
2. Get An Internet Filter. Basically, a piece of hardware is installed on your network and its job is to block any specific websites or categories of websites, like shopping sites. Some of these devices even allow you to assign a hierarchy to your Internet speed, ensuring that your payroll software gets all the Internet juice before the NFL replay does.
FREE Internet Usage Audit (A $297 Value)
As a way to introduce our services in March, we’re offering a FREE Internet Usage Audit that will reveal:
- What impact employee web browsing is having on your Internet speed
- How to stop any bad web behaviors without being “Big Brother”
To schedule your FREE Audit NOW, call us at :
508-992-2541
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The Shocking Misunderstanding Most Business Owners Have About Their Backup System
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know you should be backing up your computers and server. But here’s something you probably DON’T know that will come back and bite you: simply having a backup of your data is NOT ENOUGH to guarantee you could be back up and running fast in the event of a disaster.
Having a data backup merely means that you have a copy of your company’s data stored somewhere; it does NOT mean you have a way to instantly restore your network back to normal.
For example, if your network crashed because of a hardware failure, your entire company is down, period. No e-mail, printing, accessing the database, customer records, and more. Until whatever caused the problem can be fixed (which might involve ordering replacement parts), your business is closed.
Your information is there, but without a server, you have nowhere to load that information, and no way to access it. On top of that, a backup only holds your data, not your operating system, settings, or software applications. So even if you can load the data, you can’t actually use it without re-loading all the software applications—no small feat. Even IF you have all the software disks and key codes (most people don’t), it could still take days — possibly weeks— to rebuild, and the costs can run into the thousands.
The three most common causes of server downtime are hardware failure, software corruption and human error. But nearly 20% of businesses suffer damaging downtime from fire, flood, theft, or other natural disasters, and 44% of them never recover—and that’s mostly because they didn’t have a disaster recovery plan in place.
A disaster recovery plan covers more than just backup. It maps out how to get your business restored and running again in every possible scenario. For example, if another company in your office building has a fire, the police may quarantine your building preventing you from even entering your office. Or if a major storm knocks out power, Internet or the phone lines, you need a plan “B” for servicing customers, taking orders and keeping things rolling.
1. Have One! As the old adage goes, “If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.” When it comes to disaster recovery, nothing could be more accurate.
If something happens to your office, will your employees be able to work from home? Do you have an alternate plan for your phones? Where would you temporarily set up shop? How quickly could you get technology equipment you need to function like computers, scanners, or printers? How will you access the Internet? Make a point to document the answers to these questions.
2. Onsite Server “Virtualization.” In a downtime situation, virtualization is basically a business owner’s lifeline to his business. Once only available to big businesses with deep pockets, this now affordable technology can literally get you back up and running just as you were before the disaster... in as little as 24 hours. If the disaster doesn’t take out your whole office, virtualization can have you back in business the same day. Here’s how it works. A second server makes exact copies of everything on your server—operating system, software applications and data—every 15-60 minutes.
This server replica, also known as an “image,” can take over if your main server fails or gets corrupted. No need to re-load software, reconfigure your network, or re-load your data. In as little as 30 minutes, everyone in your company can get back to work, just as they were before the downtime. Compare this to the days or WEEKS it could take without virtualization; the productivity and money savings is staggering. Side Note: If you are still using old tape backups, you NEED to throw them away and virtualize your server with an offsite backup!
3. Offsite Image of Your Server. Fire, flood, theft, natural disasters, or even faulty office sprinkler systems can physically damage your office equipment, including your server and your backup system.
Head this off by having an exact copy (an image) of your server’s operating system, settings, programs, and data sent daily to an offsite location. Also make sure this image can be quickly loaded on to a server and shipped to you. With this in your plan, a tornado could rip open your office and destroy everything, yet you could be back up and running within a few days.
Having a data backup merely means that you have a copy of your company’s data stored somewhere; it does NOT mean you have a way to instantly restore your network back to normal.
For example, if your network crashed because of a hardware failure, your entire company is down, period. No e-mail, printing, accessing the database, customer records, and more. Until whatever caused the problem can be fixed (which might involve ordering replacement parts), your business is closed.
So You Reach For Your Backup Only To Discover...
Your information is there, but without a server, you have nowhere to load that information, and no way to access it. On top of that, a backup only holds your data, not your operating system, settings, or software applications. So even if you can load the data, you can’t actually use it without re-loading all the software applications—no small feat. Even IF you have all the software disks and key codes (most people don’t), it could still take days — possibly weeks— to rebuild, and the costs can run into the thousands.
That’s Not The Half Of It
The three most common causes of server downtime are hardware failure, software corruption and human error. But nearly 20% of businesses suffer damaging downtime from fire, flood, theft, or other natural disasters, and 44% of them never recover—and that’s mostly because they didn’t have a disaster recovery plan in place.
A disaster recovery plan covers more than just backup. It maps out how to get your business restored and running again in every possible scenario. For example, if another company in your office building has a fire, the police may quarantine your building preventing you from even entering your office. Or if a major storm knocks out power, Internet or the phone lines, you need a plan “B” for servicing customers, taking orders and keeping things rolling.
3 Crucial Components To A Disaster Recovery Plan
1. Have One! As the old adage goes, “If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.” When it comes to disaster recovery, nothing could be more accurate.
If something happens to your office, will your employees be able to work from home? Do you have an alternate plan for your phones? Where would you temporarily set up shop? How quickly could you get technology equipment you need to function like computers, scanners, or printers? How will you access the Internet? Make a point to document the answers to these questions.
2. Onsite Server “Virtualization.” In a downtime situation, virtualization is basically a business owner’s lifeline to his business. Once only available to big businesses with deep pockets, this now affordable technology can literally get you back up and running just as you were before the disaster... in as little as 24 hours. If the disaster doesn’t take out your whole office, virtualization can have you back in business the same day. Here’s how it works. A second server makes exact copies of everything on your server—operating system, software applications and data—every 15-60 minutes.
This server replica, also known as an “image,” can take over if your main server fails or gets corrupted. No need to re-load software, reconfigure your network, or re-load your data. In as little as 30 minutes, everyone in your company can get back to work, just as they were before the downtime. Compare this to the days or WEEKS it could take without virtualization; the productivity and money savings is staggering. Side Note: If you are still using old tape backups, you NEED to throw them away and virtualize your server with an offsite backup!
3. Offsite Image of Your Server. Fire, flood, theft, natural disasters, or even faulty office sprinkler systems can physically damage your office equipment, including your server and your backup system.
Head this off by having an exact copy (an image) of your server’s operating system, settings, programs, and data sent daily to an offsite location. Also make sure this image can be quickly loaded on to a server and shipped to you. With this in your plan, a tornado could rip open your office and destroy everything, yet you could be back up and running within a few days.
Need Help In Writing Your Company’s Disaster Recovery Plan?
Call Today: 508-992-2541
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