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Why Should a Small Business Spend Time and Money on Data Backups?

August 24, 2009 — 1:00 pm

Written by Andrew Whitehead

What is a Data Backup and Why is It Necessary?

Data backup is as important as the data you store on your system; if that holds valuable information critical to the daily operation of your business, then making a backup of it is also critical. Think about the customer information, supplier details, debtors & creditors, etc. stored on your hard drive, and then imagine that one morning you can no longer find them.

Backups are for your peace of mind, and to save you a lot of time and money if anything terminal happens to your data files. Your data is fundamental to the operation of your business, and should be valued as an important asset.

Any backup is basically copying your data files to disk or some other storage device, to provide a working copy of your data ready to be restored if the original copy is lost, damaged, or corrupted. This can can occur in a surprising number of ways – viruses, power failures, power spikes (these may not even be noticed! ), system crashes, external events such as flood, fire, theft, or vandalism , or even a simple user error.

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IT Security, Small Business Tips
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David Thomas

How do you deal with email spam (Part 3 of 10)?

April 25, 2009 — 12:11 pm

We all receive irritating spam emails but did you know that there are billions of spam emails sent every day?  Not only are they irritating but they also potentially carry damaging attachments that can cause problems for your business.

There is also another aspect that’s an issue for small businesses and that’s the amount of time wasted dealing with spam.  Have you ever considered how the minutes add up and cost your business?

By way of an example we were talking to one client about the amount of spam they received.  When the client had considered the interruption time, opening the email, briefly reading it, deleting the email and moving on to the next one they estimated that on average an employee spent 15 minutes spread throughout the day dealing with spam emails.

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Business, Computer Support, IT Security, Small Business Tips
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Tom Lord

Buying The Right Notebook Computer

April 23, 2009 — 2:15 pm

The single most important reason anyone buys a notebook is for portability.  This is something that you can take anywhere.  If you frequently travel in your work, you need a notebook. I f you are a student going back and forth to the university, you need a notebook.  If you are journalist traveling the world and submitting articles, you need a notebook.  And today’s notebooks can be as powerful as most desktops with dual processors, large capacity internal drives, and other attractive features.

But which one is right for you?  How do you determine what type of notebook will fit your current needs plus allow you to expand for the future?

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Small Business Tips, Technology, Tips and Tricks
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David Thomas

How Necessary Is a Website?

— 11:25 am

By Paul Selibio

A website, interchangeably referred to as “online business card” or “web address”, has tremendous potential in getting your message and idea across global communities, which other promotional media may be found wanting.  Today, it has catapulted marketing into the realm of content, audio and video plus person to person interaction carried over chat rooms still made possible by an accessible online address, transcending time and space.

With no territorial boundaries, having a website is an indispensable tool for an entrepreneur who wishes to bring his products or service to global attention.

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Business, Internet Explorer, Small Business Tips
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David Thomas

Jump Starting a Small Business Presence Online

April 22, 2009 — 11:10 am

Author: Wendy Maki

The traffic statistics page for Robert’s new small business web site starts to load.  He scrolls down the page, dismayed.  Just one or two visitors daily. Robert sits back and sighs. Most were probably curious friends and family.

When his internet-savvy nephew suggested promoting his small business on the Internet, Robert designed a simple but attractive five-page small business web site.  He added meta-tags and keywords, and waited for the search engines.

Robert wonders, “What now?”

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Business, Small Business Tips, Tips and Tricks, Uncategorized
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David Thomas

An Alternative to Microsoft Office – save £200 per user

April 20, 2009 — 8:58 am

A new small business faces a many spending decisions around infrastructure, facilities and professional services.   Of these the IT setup costs can be a significant portion.   One area of expense is software and in particular licensing each employees PC with the Micorosft Office suite of applications (including Word, Excel and PowerPoint).  It’s important for most businesses to be able to create and exchange Word and Excel documents and so this may seem like a spending area that has no other choice.

However an “Open Source” alternative exists that can be downloaded called OpenOffice.org and is available from here:

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Business, Small Business Tips, Software
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David Thomas

Backup Solutions (Part 1 of 10)

April 14, 2009 — 7:00 am

OK to start off with, NO business should be without a backup solution!  That’s right, EVERYONE should have a backup of their valuable data.

So let’s look at 2 questions:

  1. Imagine what would happen if your office burned down and all your data was destroyed, how would you cope?
  2. Let’s make it even simpler, what if you accidentally spilt a cup of coffee on your laptop?

Maybe you’ve already guessed the answers, but if you haven’t try the following:

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IT Security, Small Business Tips, Technology, Tips and Tricks
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Tom Lord
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