Worldwide News & Product Reviews
“The latest in tech news and hot product reviews.”
by Charles Carr

Communications Technologies that Simplify the Complicated

Luc Vezina, director of product marketing for Protus, a provider of communications tools for small- to medium-sized businesses and enterprise organizations, writes in this week:

Communication drives nearly every part of every transaction. Yet it seems like the more communication technologies you have available, the more difficult it becomes. Technology may set off the complexities, but handled correctly, they can also be the cure.

Virtual Phone Services

For many years, the gold standard for business phones has been a complex, equipment-based phone system. The advantages include a single number for the office; extensions for each individual; an auto-attendant to greet callers; a dial-by-name directory; voice mail; and call forwarding to another extension.

Yet, gaining these features with a traditional business phone system requires a lot of expensive back-office equipment, as well as a phone for everyone. It's not very flexible either. These systems only work within the four walls of the office where they're located, so if you have two or more offices in different locations you need two systems with two separate phone numbers. If you're away from the office when someone calls that phone, the only way you'll know is by checking voice mail. You can give out your mobile and home numbers too, but then reaching you becomes complicated.

A virtual phone service for small businesses gives you all the advantages, plus more, without the drawbacks. First and foremost, there's no equipment to purchase, install and store. Instead, you pay a small monthly fee. You don't have to buy special phones either; a virtual phone service will work with the phones you already own.

A virtual phone service isn't limited to the four walls of the office. You can have one incoming local or toll-free phone number for the business, and then create extensions for branch offices or telecommuters no matter where they happen to be. Your staff can take advantage of all the features.

Another benefit to a virtual phone service is the find me/follow me smart call-forwarding feature. Rather than giving out several phone numbers and then having callers guess which one to use, you can give them your office number, then have the call ring your mobile, home, and/or any other phone—either in a sequence or all at once.

Internet Fax Services

Faxing is still a big part of the communications picture in the many industries. Each year, thousands of pages of contracts, forms and other documents are sent that require signatures or handwritten notes.

The problem is fax machines are always at the office, but the people who need them are not. More complications. This requires faxers to go back to the office to review, have it read over the phone or find a store along the road that has a fax machine—usually for $3 to $4 a page.

An Internet fax service solves this issue. It allows you to send and receive faxes on a laptop, smartphone or other device via your e-mail account or a secure online server, anywhere there is an Internet connection. Since it is a service, there's no hardware to buy or maintain, and the better services don't require you to download any software.

Of course, mobility is only one advantage. Because the documents come in electronically—usually as a PDF, although again, better services will give you a choice of format—you only print the documents you need. That alone saves money on paper and toner in these uncertain economic times, while helping you go greener as well. There's no need to pay for an extra phone line either, and since an Internet fax is accessed using devices you already own, you're not paying for electricity to power a fax machine 24/7.

The electronic format also makes important faxes portable and easier to store. You can carry all your files with you and look them up instantly, without having to bring a stack of paper to every sales call.

Individual numbers assure the privacy of confidential financial and/or health records. And by eliminating the paper, there is no chance that an important fax will be thrown out with yesterday's newspaper or ruined by a coffee spill.

An Internet fax service is faster, cheaper, more portable and more secure than a fax machine. It's also more environmentally friendly. Makes you wonder why you're still using a fax machine.

E-Mail Campaign Management Services

When it comes to e-mail campaigns, many companies will attempt to use the usual office suite tools, i.e. word processing and/or spreadsheets, to both build and manage their campaigns. The problem is those tools are not designed for the type of high-level campaigns that are required, and they are completely ineffective at tracking results to help refine future campaigns.

There are several software products that manage and track the job. But software still needs to be maintained, and the inevitable problems and crashes that occur must be dealt with. Again, confusion.

A better choice is an e-mail campaign management service. These services allow the creation of highly targeted and timely newsletters and e-mail campaigns, manage opt-in lists, and produce easy-to-read yet detailed graphical reports of the results of each campaign and your overall marketing effort. This can all be done from any location where there is an Internet connection.

Different service levels are available depending on budget and how sophisticated one's marketing needs are. For example, you can choose between simple scheduling based on dates, and automated scheduling that is triggered by a date, time, event or action. The level of personalization also varies, from simple name personalization in the subject line and body to features such as gender, geographic or other attribute-based list segmentation.

Ultimately, an e-mail campaign management service helps you target your prospects more effectively, move them through the sales cycle, and close more leads—all while allowing you to continually refine and improve your direct-marketing efforts.

To succeed, you have to communicate. Be sure the technology you're using is helping rather than hindering that objective by taking advantage of services that give you greater flexibility and mobility. They're your best bet for keeping in touch with all the people you need to reach, at all the times you need to reach them.

Best Bets

According to the CEO of Bookmaker.com, Mickey Richardson, "With the recent unveiling of the new iPad, it has without doubt raised awareness on how it will compare to similar pieces of technology on the market today." Richardson and his team have put together odds on what will be the best-selling tablet in 2010.

Apple iPad
+200
Barnes & Noble Nook
+275
Amazon Kindle
+300
Microsoft/HP Slate
+350
Dell Mini 5
+400
Sony Reader
+400
iRex Iliad
+500
Fujitsu Flepia
+550

The +/- Indicates the return on the wager. For example: Betting on the candidate least likely to win (the Fujitsu Flepia tablet) would earn the most amount of money, should that happen.

Good luck, contestants. We'll see you at the finish line.

Rubik's Cube Contest

Our SoCal area readers might be interested in either attending or competing in the upcoming Rubik's Cube tournament being held at Petco Park during the San Diego Science festival. There's still time to enter a team for a chance to win a whole bunch of money.

According to organizers, "The San Diego Science Festival will host a Rubik's Cube competition where students (K-12) will compete for the fastest time to collectively solve 25 Rubik's Cubes. Registration has been extended until February 15, and each team that signs up will be competing for their share of $5,000 in prizes that will be awarded during the final round."

The final tournament will be held Saturday, March 27; semi-finals are held one week prior.

Some background from provided by Science Festival organizers:

Thirty years after its introduction to America by Erno Rubik, the Rubik's Cube today is being used to teach important math concepts including area, perimeter, volume, angles, algorithms and enumeration, among many other geometry and algebra topics. To date, the You CAN Do The Rubik's Cube program is used as an education tool and confidence booster in thousands of schools K-12 in 48 states across the U.S. and in over 100 Boys & Girls Clubs of America and YMCA after-school programs. With the launch of the new You CAN Do The Rubik's Cube "Competition Guide," dozens of schools have hosted regional competitions as well. The "You CAN Do The Rubik's Cube" solution kits available to schools, camps, and after-school programs include 12 Rubik's Cubes, 12 solution guides, an instructional DVD, cube sign-out sheets, posters, stickers and award certificates for when a child solves the puzzle.

Visit www.YouCanDoTheCube.com for more information on eligibility and guidelines.

Become a Xen Master

If you're a system administrator, you're probably going to love "The Book of Xen" (No Starch Press, October 2009, 312 pp., $49.95, ISBN 9781593271862). It's a high-quality, high-performance virtual machine monitor.



If you're not familiar with Xen, it allows system admins to consolidate all the machines under their oversight, cutting costs for hardware, maintenance and even power.

I like the book because it gives you a sense of both the theory behind the Xen and plenty of real-life examples of its practical use. And authors Chris Takemura and Luke S. Crawford know that of which they speak because both are seasoned Xen consultants and use Xen extensively in their own hosting company, prgmr.com.

They start out with a top-down view of Xen and then work into the on-the-ground stuff like memory management, installation, networking and virtualized storage. They also explain how to use Xen and standard Linux tools to take snapshot backups, perform QoS ops, and limit over-aggressive disk users.

The Book of Xen also shows how to set up and manage multiple guests, including various Linux distributions, Solaris, NetBSD, and Windows. It also provides help setting up virtual hosting for multiple users, each with their own requirements.

This is a great book packed with useful information, especially for sys admins who know quite a bit about Linux and want to put Xen into production.


Review contributed by Kenny Castner

Comments and Letters about Worldwide News & Product Reviews
“The latest in tech news and hot product reviews.”
by Charles Carr

Machine vs. Service

The reason fax machines aren't being completely replaced by fax "services" is that fax machines are often free (built into printers) whereas services cost about $1,200+ every 10 years (at today's prices). Sure, you pay for the phone line, but you can use it for outgoing voice calls as well. Notice that there are no ads for fax machines, but plenty of ads for fax "services."

—Ron Cerrato, San Diego