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Quick Summary of Basic and Common Linux Commands There are many commands that are used in linux on a daily basis, ones that everyone should know just to get by. Like back in the days of DOS, you had to know how to work with the command line and how to navigate around. Learning new commands is always hard, especially when there are so many new ones that don't always seem to make sense in their names. SyncUp ? A File/Folder Synchronizer For Windows SyncUp, a file synchronizer is designed to assist the home and advanced users. The product has a simple and familiar windows explorer type interface for easy file handling. Further, the Scan Results provides a detailed preview of the files for synchronization. Editing Your Photos Using Microsoft Picture It Publishing Platinum 2002 - A Great Dinosaur I started using PIP (Picture It Publishing) Platinum 2002 right after I got it in a bundle with my HP Pavallion N5295 Notebook more than several moons ago! Mozilla Vs. Firefox For those who are unclear on the differences between the Mozilla package (Netscape is also comparable to Mozilla except they're two different companies) and Firefox / Thunderbird, here it is: CRM and Customer Life Cycle Customer Relationship Management or CRM is a combination of enterprise strategies, business processes and information technologies used to learn more about customers' needs and behaviors in order to develop stronger relationships with them. CRM software systems automate many customer-related business tasks. The Hidden Power of Online Manual Writing software manuals is boring, isn't it? We often think: "My software is easy to use. The user interface is intuitive. Why should I waste so much time for writing the document which nobody reads anyway?" Sometimes it's true ? I've never read the WinZip or Internet Explorer manuals ? everything seems clear without explanations. Nevertheless, even if your manual doesn't help to your software users, it may help to you. Publish your manual online and turn its hidden power into the real benefits for your business. Online Manual Makes Your Web Site Visible User manual is a huge bunch of words, the highly targeted words, which are specific for your software market. For instance, if you develop a database management system, its user guide will certainly contain such words as "database", "query", "transaction", "table", "record", and etc. On the other hand, people use these words in their queries when they are looking for a database management solution on the Google, Yahoo, or other search engine. Let the interested people to find your web site and your product. Upload your manual on your web server and make it available for indexing by search engine spiders. This area specific content will make your web site and your software more visible to potential customers. Making the user guide available online will increase your web site rank in relevant search results and will bring highly targeted traffic to web your site. Let the manual to work not only for your users, but for you as well. Online Manual Saves Your Time A picture worth a hundred words. Those who are engaged in user support know this for sure. When replying to user concerns, very often we have to write sentences like this "Open the Document settings dialog. Choose the External modules tab. Select the 'ABC Spell Checker' in the module list. Enter your registration key and verification code in the corresponding text fields which will appear at the bottom of the window. Then, press Activate". If your application is simple the user will likely understand you right and will do everything as you have explained. However, if your application is a complex system with lots of setting windows which behave differently in various modes, the user may be puzzled which window and which fields do you mean. In this case you risk getting into a long conversation by repeatedly explaining the same things again and again. The screenshot could be a very helpful illustration of your explanations. You may run your application, go to the certain window, open that tab page, activate the corresponding item in the list. Then make the screenshot of the window by using Alt+PrtSc key combination or another screen capture tool, save the picture in a file, and finally attach it to your message. Sometimes it's also necessary to add callouts, annotations and other enlightenments to the screenshot picture. Thus, you have to launch your image editor and to manually draw all the elements required. As you see, it may takes up to a half hour to reply to a single message only. And how many messages are yet in the queue? Having the screenshots prepared is a good approach which may save your time. But having screenshots already prepared together with callouts, explanations, and annotations is a great approach which will save you much more time. Most likely, you have all that stuff prepared in your software manual but it's not very polite to reply to the user: "Read that fantastic manual". User may have no idea where the manual is on the PC and on what page is the looked-for solution located. On the other hand, you may also have no time to manually cut particular pages with screenshots and related instructions from the manual and to attach them to each support message. The solution is easy. Put your manual on your web site in the form of HTML pages. Make all the pictures, screenshots with callouts, descriptions, and instructions accessible for every user. When you are processing another support request, simply insert an URL link to the appropriate page of your online manual and add just a few clarification words ? more words and pictures are already on that page. You will save much time and nerves because you will be sure that the user is looking at the same thing which you are describing. At the same time, the user will get a fast solution which is supported by clear pictures and neat instructions. Online Manual Makes Your Products Trustworthy Besides the users get the faster and more helpful support, they also see that you did this tedious job ? writing the handy and well structured manual with great screenshots and clear explanations. They know that this job is boring and developers don't like to do it. Therefore, if you did it and if you did it perfectly, it means that you respect your customers, not only their money. Good manual means that you consider your business and product seriously yourself. This helps your business to look more credible and serious. So, make your manual available online and prove your respect to your existing and prospective users. Make them trusting in you and in your product before they even download a demo copy of it. Online Manual Brings Sales As we see, the software manual which is a part of your web site generates a targeted traffic. The people may easily find your product because online help makes your web site more visible in relevant search results on the search engines. Those new visitors get more loyal when they see a well done help system. Also, if a prospect experiences difficulties with your software and asks for technical support, you may easily resolve the issue by referring the user to a certain page of your online help. With just a one click the user will see screenshots and explanations which will help them to settle the case. So, you have a motivated and targeted visitor, who feels loyal to your company and products, and whom you can easily help in case of a technical problem. The probability of such visitor ordering a license is several times higher than of the average one. Corporate Accounting System: Microsoft Great Plains ? Overview Corporate ERP/MRP selection might be tough one, especially considering very turbulent ERP world and fierce competition between Microsoft Business Solutions (Great Plains, Navision, Axapta, MS CRM), Oracle (Oracle Financials, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards), IBM (including Lotus Domino), SAP, Microsiga (Brazil, Portugal). We recommend you, IT director of large corporation, make your home work and decide on Microsoft or Java/EJB/J2EE platform (however you should consider vendor dependence minimization, and stake on both with XML streams integration between the two). In this small article we will concentrate on Microsoft Great Plains, former Great Plains Software Dynamics/eEnterprise/Great Plains Accounting Managing Stress in the Computer Industry - Five Steps to a Stress-free Life It would be easy to think, like most people apparently do, that stress and the computing (and especially programming) industry were unlikely bedfellows. The habitual image of long-haired young "geek" programmers churning out 'software' from their teenage bedrooms is one that many still associate with mainstream programmers. Stereotype or not, this image is still commonly held, and the armies of deadline-bound, overworked and stressed-out programmers in the real World are all but forgotten in the melee that is the result of the technological age. 5 Time-Saving Tips in Microsoft Word Whether you have used Microsoft Word for years, have just switched from WordPerfect or are new to word processing, try these easy steps to save time and simplify your work in Word: Computer Phones ? Facts and Fallacies The stakes are high when considering security, privacy, and savings, and the old adage, "look before you leap" might be a more judicial approach when searching for a computer phone provider, aka VoIP (voice over internet protocol). Introducing GRML Creating a new markup language. Google Brings the Earth to Your Desktop Google Inc. has launched a new software package that allows you to see satellite images on your desktop. Microsoft Great Plains Subcontracting ? Overview for Microsoft Business Solutions Partner Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains is very popular ERP/MRP applications in the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Middle East, South Africa, Latin America. Considering high number of new Microsoft Great Plains partners and the desire to subcontract occasional customization, integration and reporting projects, we would like to advise you on Microsoft Great Plains subcontracting guidelines, based on our experience in dealing with Great Plains VARs Candidates for subcontracting: Selecting Corporate ERP: Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains ? Estimation Parameters As we could imagine, if you are reading this article ? you are in the decision making mode, probably replacing legacy system with the new one or abandoning either Unix/Mainframe or Apple direction for your corporation. In any case, nobody should make an outside influence on your decision ? you should be maximally objective. Let us give you our estimates and the parameters to check on the pool of the possible ERPs/MRPs. Two Reasons to Use Timesheet Software This short paper will expand on two key reasons to move to a computerized timesheet system at your company. There are more than two reasons of course, but these will be expanded on at a later date. The two key reasons to be discussed here are Timesheet Efficiency, and Timesheet Automation. Cisco CCNA Certification: Becoming A Truly Valuable CCNA. I've been active in the Cisco Certification track for four years, working my way from the CCNA to the coveted Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert title, and during that time I've conducted job interviews and casual conversations with hundreds of CCNAs and CCNA candidates. SpyBot - Search and Destroy versus Microsoft AntiSpyware (Beta).... My personal experiences... Ok... Where to start? Microsoft Great Plains Partner Selection: Overview Microsoft Great Plains, Navision, Solomon and Axapta are Microsoft Business Solutions ERP applications, serving to the whole spectrum of vertical and horizontal markets. Assuming that you already have one of these systems installed and implemented we would like to give you - IT director, Database Administrator, Programmer, Software Developer, Controller your options in supporting/upgrading Microsoft Great Plains for your company IT Department Skills to Support Microsoft Great Plains and Microsoft CRM Microsoft Great Plains as ERP and Microsoft CRM as Client Relation Management system is very robust combination and could serve midsize to large corporation as Business System.� Being VP IT or IT Director you need to foresee the positions to have in your IT department to do internal MS Great Plains and MS CRM support. Let us give you the directions, based on our research and consulting practice. Microsoft SQL Server Specialist ? we specially do not name this position as MS SQL DBA, because both Great Plains and MS CRM are not very complex from the database administration side, they do not use indexes optimization, referential integrity, probably do not require complex transaction log backup/recovery scenarios.� On the other hand this position requires Great Plains and Microsoft CRM tables structure analysis and some primary Great Plains data fixing skills via SQL queries, described in MBS Customer source techknowledge database.� The best candidate should have some accounting background - to be able to address ongoing issues to MBS technical support. Network Administrator with good Microsoft Exchange and Active Directory skills.� Microsoft CRM uses all the newest Microsoft technologies, and Exchange is a workhorse here.� In order to install and upgrade MS CRM this guy needs to understand the under-laying Microsoft technology.� In the best case - she/he should know Exchange security structure and probably program Exchange handlers, due to the fact that CRM/Exchange connector is not a perfect tool yet. C# or VB.Net programmer with excellent SQL Skills? if you are midsize or large company - you should have this position - you will need web publishing and MS CRM customization and its support.� Currently Microsoft CRM SDK has C# examples - so C# programmer would be the best fit, it may have more VB code in the future, so the C# - VB balance maybe restored. Crystal Reports Designer/Programmer - Crystal Reports is the best tool available on the market to address both Great Plains and MS CRM reporting needs.� This position maybe merged with one of the above. These people should be probably cross-trained in both Great Plains, Microsoft CRM, Crystal Reports, SQL and C# programming, so you do not depend on the unique skills of one person.� In our opinion, which is based on our long term consulting practice - these skills will allow you to keep the cost of IT support reasonably low and avoid paying high consulting price to your Microsoft Business Solutions Partner. Happy hiring and training! But in any case you need to select Microsoft Business Solutions Partner/Var/Reseller to be your official representative.� This is how MBS has its channel working - it assures that Microsoft Business Solutions products are properly implemented.� If you want us to be your Microsoft Business Solutions Partner - give us a call 1-866-528-0577! [email protected] Microsoft Great Plains Oil & Gas ? Implementation & Customization Highlights Microsoft Great Plains serves the wide spectrum of horizontal markets. Great Plains could be considered as ERP platform, which you could expand with third party modules or advance with your own in-house custom functionality. The best approach would be reasonable and balanced combination of existing modules and new custom logic. In this small article we'll give some highlights on Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains implementation and setup in Oil & Gas industry, especially for companies, specializing in off-shore platform installation and drilling.
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