Web Browsers – What’s Your Choice

I’ve been noticing some amongst my clients about the web browser they’re using.  Long established as the predominant browser in the market, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) is experiencing more competition than ever these days.  As a long time fan of Internet Explorer I recently switched due to some frustrations with performance – specifically with the newest iteration, IE 8.  Mostly my problems revolved around the way IE 8 presented text (often so small that it was unreadable) and errors experienced with certain java functions certain sites required.  This isn’t to say that other browsers don’t have problems – quite the opposite, actually – but I found I didn’t mind the problems other browsers had as much.  Anyhow, the three most popular browsers today (in my opinion) are IE, Google’s Chrome, and, Mozilla’s Firefox.  I’ve decided Google Chrome works best for me.  So what do you think?  What browser to you use and why?

The Best IT Firms…

At ITP we focus on delivering our services in a manner that rises above our competition.   Which got me thinking…the best IT firms do certain things well.  Among the most common are:

1. They have skilled, experienced engineers
2. They explain things clearly to you
3. They are efficient and reliable
4. They help you drive efficiency through your technology
5. They are an asset to your business

I’ve seen many IT firms to some of these things well, but few do all of them well.  What are the most important things your IT firm does for you?

Virtualization. Simplified.

There’s no doubt that virtualization is becoming more and more prevalent for small businesses of all sizes.  There are lots of reasons for this including:

• Reduced downtime
• Increased performance
• Strong disaster recovery
• Scalability
• Excellent business flexibility

But I find it curious that many companies I meet with are initially confused by the concept.  So…here’s my attempt to simplify virtualization.

At its most basic level, virtualization for small businesses generally involves running multiple server operating systems on one physical server.  That’s it.  Oh sure, more than one physical server can be deployed to create better redundancy, less downtime, etc.  But just knowing that simple concept – multiple server systems running on a single piece of hardware (server) – puts you way ahead of many small businesses.

The iPad – Not Ready For Business…Yet

I’ve been going through lots of the information on the iPad since its release and here’s my very simple take:  it’s really cool, possibly even groundbreaking, but it doesn’t have a place in the business world. Yet.  Here’s why…

1. No keyboard/mouse.  Touch screens are amazing multimedia devices.  But for typing documents, responding to e-mail, or working within your business application they’re not nearly as productive as a good ol’ keyboard & mouse.  And really, what else do you use a computer for in business?
2. Integration.  Integration is powerful stuff for business these days.  Those that have it, love it.  Those who don’t are trying to get it.  Not enough integration on the iPad as it stands today.
3. Marketing.  I don’t think the iPad is really being sold as a business device.  Oh, I could be wrong (it wouldn’t be the first time), but other than being really cool, what business advantage does it provide?  Ease of use?  Probably, but what else?  Not much, I’m afraid.

Okay, so let’s be clear about something – I’m not knocking the iPad.  I think it’s innovative and well designed.  And for personal use, I think it’s fantastic.  In the business world, however, it doesn’t provide any real advantage over the existing toolset.  I will say this though, I once said the same thing about the iPhone and over time the folks at Apple proved me wrong.  If I were to be completely honest here, I guess I wouldn’t mind being proved wrong again.

The World of Mobile Phones – One Man’s Predictions

Let’s face it – for most business professionals, their phone is no longer just a phone.  In fact the “phone” functionality is, oddly enough, becoming less and less important as a feature.  More important to business users now is integration with business applications, ease of use, e-mail compatibility, and wireless synchronization.  Take the iPhone for example.  Through the multiple iterations of the OS, users have remained stubbornly loyal even though the phone service itself was quite poor (a result of AT&T’s service in my opinion).  With the pending release of OS 4.0 for the iPhone, there’s no doubt that Apple will once again make significant improvements on an already excellent product.  Now that the Droid has been released and appears to be holding its own within the market, the market has gotten even tighter for all competitors.  Add to the mix the new Windows Series 7 phone slated for release near the end of the year and the world of phones has clearly grown far more complicated (and interesting) than it was just a few years ago.  So, what does this all mean to us, the business professionals, and moreover, what does this mean for Blackberry (RIM), the once “default” phone for business people? Of course, no one knows for sure, but I’ve got a few predictions…

1. Blackberry’s antiquated pricing model and architecture that requires server software be installed on your network will be a thing of the past. With all the other manufacturers providing functionality without the extra piece of software (or cost) this whole “Blackberry Enterprise Server” nonsense has to go away, doesn’t it?  I say it does – at least for small and medium businesses.
2. The iPhone will continue to gain market share.  Apple just has too big of a lead on some of the other competitors and the “brains” at Apple have been exceptionally successful at addressing the business world’s needs.  The only thing that will hold Apple back will be AT&T.  Anyone hear rumors of a deal with Verizon?  Anyone?
3. The Windows phone will do well, but feel some of the pain any new system/software does. Be prepared for very cool, yet sometimes irritating, and an overall lukewarm experience.
4. The Droid will hang tough, but find it becomes old news very quickly in this ever changing market.  Speed is the need in this fickle market.

Ultimately, I think the innovation within the market will continue to grow – possibly far beyond the true needs of users today (in case we aren’t already there).  I think the differences between the platforms, however, that will begin to dwindle, with each manufacturer stealing the others quality concepts and good ideas.  At the end of the day, I think it will be a benefit to all, providing us with better, more adaptable phones – and we’ll enjoy more choices than ever before.

Online backup – An Abbreviated Overview

I’ve gotten quite a few questions lately on the value/pros/cons of online backup.  So here’s just a quick overview of the world of online backup…

Online backup technology, when deployed correctly, is well established, both in terms of reliability and security.  It is traditionally sold through VARs (like us) or directly through online backup companies themselves.   In our case, we resell an established online providers service, but I know some VARs have developed their own online backup service.  Things to look for in an online provider are:

• Encrypted communications
• Multiple, geographically-separated backup locations
• Data backed up to SAS 70 compliant data centers (there are different tiers)
• Agent-less client (meaning you can install it on your server and backup a workstation/laptop without installing the software on that device, as well)
• Type of backup (full, incremental, or differential)
• Ability to backup application data (Exchange, SQL, etc.) and how “granular” the backup is.  For example, can you restore just one e-mail or is your only option restoring all your e-mail?
• Good user interface
• Number of “generations” backed up (how far back can you restore from?  One day, ten days? More?)

Additionally, pricing tends to be all over the place with online providers mostly because they often price out “storage” differently.  The two most common pricing models are:

Protected – this means you will get X amount of data backed up with the ability to restore from X days back.  In this pricing model you purchase 10 GB of space at say, $5 per GB per month and can go back 30 generations.  It costs you $50 per month, but in essence you’re getting 300 TOTAL GBs of backup space (10 GB X 30 generations).

Unprotected – this is just straight data storage.  Often vendors using this pricing model will give you a “block” of backup space to use as you see fit (100 GB, 200 GB, or more).  This model will be far less expensive than the protected pricing model, but each generation of backup will count against your total space.  So if you’re backing up 10 GB of data and you purchase a 100 GB block of space, you’ll get 10 generations from it.

A couple important additional pricing considerations:

• All pricing should be based on the compressed data size.
• Very rough estimates for pricing would be $2 per GB for unprotected and $5 per GB for protected.
• Backup software should be included at no additional cost

Our recommendations when it comes to backup:

1. Do a combination of online and onsite backup.  Often you can do one or the other “inexpensively” because you’re fully invested in a quality solution for the other.  An example of this would be to back everything up online and then just use inexpensive portable drives or a cheap attached storage unit for onsite backup.
2. Archive.  I know this is a dirty word for many companies, but archiving keeps the online costs down considerably and there are ways to ensure the data is available quickly should anyone need it.

If you have a quality onsite solution now, consider just backing up your firm’s critical data online (accounting, HR, forms, and possibly e-mail) to save money.

Useful Excel Shortcuts

At the speed in which business moves today, useful productivity enhancers can make the difference between getting work out the door on time and fighting with endless tight deadlines.  Certainly, we’ve all heard about software tools and programs that promise to make us twice as productive as we already are.  Oddly enough I’ve never really had one of those programs do anything but waste my time.  However, one timesaving tool I’ve never had fail me is learning how to use quick and simple keyboard shortcuts.  So, because I’m a big fan of Excel (and wanted to learn a few new keyboard shortcuts) I thought I’d share a few with you.

Another method I’ve used in the past to help me learn the “ins” and “outs” of a program is to use a quick reference guide.  For Microsoft Office programs, I’ve found the ones at Brainstorm.com to be quite good, however, you can find them at many different resellers.

Google & China – Ethical Business or Business Suicide?

I have to confess – I find the growing situation between Google and China to be very interesting both in terms of an ethical and business standpoint.  In short, the situation is this:

In the past, the Chinese government required Google to sensor search results on topics they find objectionable.  Last Monday, Google began sending Web searchers in mainland China from the China-based Google.cn to Google.com.hk based in Hong Kong where an “open” Internet is available. On Tuesday the Chinese government responded, using Internet filters to prevent results from being displayed for certain search topics.  For example, searches related to pro-democracy returned errors saying the page couldn’t be displayed and in certain cases, the web browser disconnected for a short time.  Clearly Google risks significant revenue by taking the stand they have, yet they’ve also likely gained quite a bit of respect from many users.  In my opinion the situation is a game of “chicken” presently.  The Chinese government hasn’t prohibited Google from doing business in China and Google hasn’t stopped censoring searches on the Google.cn domain.  Yet, the situation is definitely tenuous.  So what would you do if you were Google?  Their stock dropped 1.5% this week on news that they’re effectively “thumbing” their nose at potentially the largest market.  Interesting.  Very Interesting.

A ton of information exists about this topic.  I’ve included a few links below – silently glad that none of them are sensored…

Google services available in mainland China: http://www.google.com/prc/report.html#hl=en

General information: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100323/ap_on_hi_te/as_china_google

Google co-founder Sergey Brin urges US to act over China web censorship: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/24/google-china-sergey-brin-censorship

Keywords – A Key Component to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Part III

It has been estimated that 70% of all business transactions begin with a search.  Even if that is 50% correct, that means over a third of business transaction begin with some type of search function.  Clearly, coordinating all effort toward appealing to those searches is necessary to drive business to your website.  Logically then, it follows that doing so is a matter of knowing what people are searching for.  From my previous post we know that finding out what search terms (i.e. keywords) need to be targeted isn’t a matter of simply guessing.  So how do you employ them to get people to find your site?  Include them in the right areas of your site in the right proportions.  Here’s how:

Domain Name – admittedly using a keyword or a combination of keywords in your domain name is not often an option, however, doing so on landing sites IS almost always an option.  More about this in a later post.  Suffice it to say for now that this can make a huge difference in how search engines rank your site.

Metatags – “Meta” information is simply user-defined data that is added to your site specifically for the search engines.  It is, for the most part, unseen by visitors to your site and should be crafted using keywords.  It’s important to mention, however, that not all search engines even use metatags in their ranking algorithms.  So it’s still valuable to include your keywords in your metatags, just know that certain search engines – Google especially – will ignore the data.

Site Title – This is the name that appears in top of your browser.  Often you’ll see website titles like “home” or “welcome” or some other name that lacks keywords.  Including a keyword or multiple keywords in your site title can make a big difference in your site rankings.

Anchor text of Links – For sake of simplicity, let’s divide the links on your website into 3 parts: the name of the link, the string of characters that says where the text goes, and the tool tip for the link (the anchor text).  The tool tip is text that shows up when you hover your mouse pointer over the link.   Make sure your anchor text includes your keywords

H1 & H2 Headers – These are the titles of your articles and or sub-articles.  Resist the urge to title the different articles on your site with catchy or nifty titles – unless they include your keywords.

Content – I talked about how keywords should be used in your content in a few of my previous posts, but for the most part using your keywords 2 to 3 times within the first 150 words is a good starting point.  Additionally, keeping your keyword usage within 2% to 5% of your total word count generally works out best.

Keywords – A Key Component to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Part II

In my last post I talked about what keywords are.  This time, I’m going to go into a bit more about how to determine which keywords are valuable to your online marketing and search engine optimization efforts.  Unlike traditional marketing vehicles where you craft a message that you expect to resonate with prospects, search engine optimization requires you to figure out what words or phrases (keywords) people will use to search for your products or services.  Certainly, this requires you to know your market, your business, and your target prospects, but you also need to know what your competition is doing.  For that, there are some tools that can help you gather more information about what keywords are likely to be valuable to your business AND what keywords your competition is using:

• Google Search Based Keyword Tool (http://www.google.com/sktool/#) – This tool is free and provides some basic information about keywords that could be valuable to you.  It is at the very least insightful and, used correctly, can be invaluable.  Let’s take a look at how it works…  

You can type a domain name in the “domain name” field for suggestions specific to a domain name or you can simply type in some keywords to get “general” information as I did below.

What you’ll find is how often your keywords are used in searches along with some other similar search terms (below).  You’ll also find an estimated dollar amount next to each term.  These dollar amounts are the average prices other businesses are bidding on these terms in their pay-per-click/adwords campaign.  I’ll go more into Google Adwords, pay-per-click campaigns, and writing ads for Google and other search engines in future posts.  For now, however, you can see how this information can be invaluable in your efforts to find the best keywords for your business. 

• Another popular tool is Word Tracker (http://www.wordtracker.com/) which has a few more advanced tools to help you make decisions on your keywords. 

Ultimately, you need to have a good idea what keywords potential prospects are using to look for your products or services.  Once you have a good grasp of the keywords you want to target, you’ll be able to utilize them throughout your search engine optimization efforts.  Next time, we’ll talk about how to use the keywords you’ve targeted.