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July 2010

Google Alerts

Social media is a great way to get a competitive advantage over your competitors and to stay up-to-date about what people are saying about you or topics of interest. While we discussed a few of them in last week's article about Twitter Search and Facebook Search, this week's focus is on Google Alerts.

Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. Here are five ways that Google Alerts can be used to help your business:

1. Track Topics and Keywords

This is how most people start out using Google Alerts. By selecting keywords or topics that are relevant to your business , you are able to have Google tell you who is writing about that relevant topic. Keeping on top of what’s happening in your industry will help you make better decisions in your business and alert you to new products or strategies that can help you do things smarter.

2. Keep an eye on yourself

An obvious offshoot of tracking broad keywords is to use Google Alerts to also track your brand name, the names of all of your employees, the name of your blog, your domain name, any product names, etc. Anything that is associated with your company and is unique enough that it can be tracked, should be tracked. Being able to quickly spot conversations taking place about you on the Web allows you to become part of them. Whether the mention is someone recommending you or someone being critical, your ability to get involved is very beneficial to your business as it shows how you can be proactive.

3. Track Competitors

If your competitors are doing something that is cutting edge, you should be as well. Tracking competitors alerts you to different strategies or potential openings that might arise. Tracking Competitors is very important and a great strategy for improving your business.

4. Track New Links

As a small bus......

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Posted By: Michael Drobnis @ May 05, 2010 10:42:00 PM

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Why Managed Services?

A lot of people approach us and ask us why they should work with Solution Works when it comes to managing and supporting their technology needs, when they believe they can do it themselves for less money and less hassle.

We can understand a company's hesitation to trust their IT network to an outside vendor and / or spend money on a service they don't feel they need. The problem is that for most businesses, the cost of managing their technology needs is typically 3X what it would cost if we took care of it for them and more importantly, a lot more stressful.

In fact, we are convinced that if companies knew exactly what they could be getting out of a managed services agreement, it would help. In addition to proactive and readily available IT support, you are able to call your provider whenever you have a question, technical or non-technical.

To truly understand the cost of IT, you not only need to look at what it costs to buy software or hire an IT guy to come in and fix your problems, but you need to look at the cost of downtime, computer slowness, virus issues and so much more. In fact, when looking at a typical employee with a salary of $30,000, the cost of dealing with spam alone can reach over $1,000 in lost productivity per year. So what can you do? Look at implementing a managed services solution like SolutionCare.

Managed services is not only about providing technology support but for us, it is also about providing technology solutions and advice. The SolutionCare advantage is that under our SolutionCare complete plan, you are not only getting UNLIMITED IT Support for a flat rate, but you are getting a full fledged CIO/CTO as part of your company at no additional cost. In addition to 24X7X365 monitoring and helpdesk support, we will help you develop technology budgets, plan for disasters, develop policies and procedures and even manage your vendors. &n......

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Posted By: Michael Drobnis @ May 05, 2010 10:07:00 PM

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We're Hiring!

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Posted By: Michael Drobnis @ February 22, 2010 12:00:00 PM

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Tired of hearing Click, Click, Click in IE8?

If you are using Windows7 or IE8, you may find that every time you click on a link in Internet Explorer, it makes a clicking sound. If you would prefer to remove this sound as opposed to shutting off your speaker, take a look at the following article at LyteByte:

http://www.lytebyte.com/2008/06/22/how-to-disable-clicking-sound-from-internet-explorer-in-vista/

Thanks to the SBS Diva for the original post.

Posted By: Michael Drobnis @ February 15, 2010 2:38:00 PM

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Office 2010 - A Free Preview

For those of you who are not aware, Microsoft released the beta version of Office 2010 a little while back and for the most part, there has been a lot of good comments about it. Does this mean we think every small organization should jump on it right away? Not necessarily, although if you have Software Assurance, it would provide a lot of great benefits. Some of these benefits include:

Better Image Tools for editing content in your documents
Integration with Office Online - allowing access to your documents from mobile devices
Use of Videos in Office applications quickly and efficiently

Of course this is all based on the Beta version and I am sure the new version will provide even additional benefits not here. However, for a more in-depth look at Office 2010, Microsoft Press has released a free ebook that can be downloaded here.

Posted By: Michael Drobnis @ February 15, 2010 9:30:00 AM

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Does 3 feet of snow place you in the cloud?

Cloud computing is the next big move in technology for small businesses. What it provides is the ability to take all of your company resources and place them in a data center where they are centralized, have backup internet access and electricity and are offsite for disaster recovery purposes.   So why is this important?

This winter, and more importantly in the past 2 weeks, the Washington, DC area has received more snow than ever before. As a result, this snow has caused traffic problems, electricity problems and even the closure of the federal government for 4 days.   For small businesses, this has resulted in workers not being able to get to the office and in a lot of cases, the inability to get work done from home, because all of the data they needed was at the office, behind 10ft high snow drifts.   If all of their data existed in the “cloud”, perhaps they could have been more productive.

There are a lot of positives and negatives to whether or not cloud computing is right for your organization. For more information on cloud computing and the pros and cons and a free analysis, contact us at Solution Works.

Posted By: Michael Drobnis @ February 14, 2010 11:17:00 PM

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8X8 - 8 Times the Trouble

As most people know, we began offering the Microsoft Response Point phone system to our clients about 1.5 years ago. Since then, Microsoft has shown no commitment to the system, so we have held off for any further implementations.

However, we use the system in-house and love some of it's capabilities. One of those capabilities is the ability to use SIP trunking, which is the ability to have phone lines over the internet integrated with the system.

Long story short, we decided to go ahead and use Packet 8 (now called 8X8). They suggested switching all of their phone lines over to them, but we decided that we would keep some using the regular telco carrier.

As of last Monday, I couldn't be happier that we did that because their lack of Response on the fact that we had no service, has been absolutely ridiculous.

The responses from the technical support representative last Tuesday included:
9:00AM - I call via phone for an update to yesterday's problem
10:10AM - Ryan writes: I have escalated this issue to the 8X8 Network Ops team, should have a response very soon
1:02PM - After another email, Ryan writes: I will supply a status update now. (ok????)
1:06PM - I get the "update" - At 10:57 - told my manager, at 1:30, I will send another update
4:21PM - 8X8 Network Operations has escalated this to 8X8 System Operations
11:26PM - I did some research into the issue and sent it to them
The following day:
3:15PM The team is looking into it - the box may be bad, and if so, we will send you a new one
4:47PM - I have escalated this issue to the Manager of Support
Realize I still have not received a call back despite my calls and emails - just these responses
8:18PM - I will see if I can have my manager call you (sure)
The folllowing day (3 days later):
1:07PM - I told him I am going to cancel the service - he responds: While the 2nd box is being shipped, I will forward t......

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Posted By: Michael Drobnis @ January 15, 2010 5:19:00 PM

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