Technology And Computer|

Article by Tony Adeleke

If you want to know how to choose the right computer for your business, then read this article.

We both know that in this present time, your business cannot function effectively without engaging the use of computers. Computers have become essential business tools which you need daily for carrying out various business tasks. Gone are the days when you can do it all with just a paper, pen and your brain. Time and accuracy makes computers an indispensable business tool for entrepreneurs, the small scale business owner inclusive.

Choosing the right Computer for your Business is one of the critical decision you need to make as an entrepreneur. There are so many brands of computer and each come with different packages of features and price tag. The question then is How do you choose the best one that fit your purpose and at the same time is affordable? It is actually a tough decision to make. The truth is that it is not easy. You need to be well informed to make the right decision.

Bearing in mind that computers can be very expensive and the technology behind them changes at an average of six months or less. It will be a bad decision if you purchase a state of the art high-tech equipment only to discover that it has been rendered obsolete by recent technology before it could complete its ROI (return on investment).

Well, the simple guide that has been recommended by several small business entrepreneur who are running their own shows (not the academia or the salesmen, who only run business with their lips) is that you sit down and ask yourself some important questions. For example, you need to sincerely answer the following crucial questions:

1.What will the Computer be used for?

2.Do I need a Desktop computer or a laptop computer?

3.What is the Right Computer Specification For my Business?

4.How much can my business budget for the computer? 5.What is the cost of maintenance, cost of upgrading parts, and are the computer parts readily available?

6.Will there be after sale service or warranty?

7.What softwares will I need to make the equipment fit my business tasks?

8.Do the needed software come bundled with the computer or I need to buy them separately?

If you still don’t know how to choose the right computer for your business after going through the list above, then you might as well ask for help. Never assume that it is dumb or it make you look less intelligent if you request that a friend or relative should assist you in choosing a computer for your business. A knowledgeable friend or relative can offer great help in making the right choice. I should warn you that your decision to purchase a computer should not be based on the suggestion of a salesperson. Irrespective of how friendly or how intelligent the suggestion he or she offers, you must remember that you are the one parting with hard earned money. So don’t get sweet talked into buying a start of the art gadget that is too expensive for your business.

Identify your need properly and pick a basic equipment that fits your budget. It is better to pick a basic computer that you can easily upgrade than to pick a state-of-the art gadget that will go out of vogue in another six months. Since the computer is meant for work, then you don’t need to impress anybody. It is the ability of the computer to perform the business task you needed done that is important, not the brand name or the fact that it is the newest in town.

If you need further help, you can get more suggestion from the following article, How To Choose The Right Computer For Your Business. Each point is discussed in greater details by a practicing entrepreneur, using examples to illustrate what is meant.

Are your a small business owner, or a home based entrepreneur? You can get free advise, tips and suggestion on how to run your small business with less expenditure and less headache. I am a practicing small entrepreneur, visit Small Business Tips and Business Computers. You’ll learn one or two tips on how to run your business effectively at a cheaper cost.

Article by Karan Naidoo

Whether your small business has five hundred employees or one, yourself, you’re business will probably benefit by having a small business computer to handle all your data processing needs. It was business that brought the computer into nearly universal use.

Everyone knows IBM means computers. It also stands for the International Business Machines corporation. At one time, IBM was the sole giant in the business computer market. It still grosses more in profit than many third world nations. Its success speaks to the value computers have to businesses.

IBM broke the ground for computers in businesses, and since IBM’s heyday, dozens of computer manufacturers have come and gone. IBM itself began to lose its hold on the computer market when the micro-computer became prevalent in the market, and IBM steadily lost ground as the micro-computer became more powerful. Today, a modern personal computer has more and better features than the best of IBM’s big computer systems did twenty years ago.

The rise of the micro-computer also brought a significantly lower price to business computing. Computing power that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars twenty years ago can be purchased today for less than a thousand. This has enabled even the smallest businesses to automate their business data processing.

All businesses do some data processing. For example, a business has to do accounting. Sales orders, invoices, inventory, payables and payroll are all data processing activities. You can do it manually, but that takes a great deal of time. A small business computer applied to your accounting requirements will save you both time and money, and prevent many common errors that are frequent among manual accounting systems. Most small businesses today use computers to do all of their accounting, allowing time to be spent making money instead of keeping records.

A small business computer can be a small computer. They are so powerful today, even the cheapest computers have enough power to run a small business. What you will actually need of your business computer depends on how data intensive your business is. If you’re running a maid service, you’re probably only keeping data on your accounts and customers.

You probably wont have extreme data storage needs, and the speed of your computer will not figure significantly into your use. A computer designed for the consumer market is probably sufficient. If, on the other hand, you’re running an Internet catalog orders and sales business, you’re probably going to need a lot of disk space for all your data, and a fast system to keep up with your demand. A high-end personal computer or workstation should suffice.

Today you have to take every opportunity and advantage that you can give your business to succeed. Automating your data processing with a small business computer will give you that advantage and lower your cost of doing business. If you use your small business computer smartly, you may find that it may extend your customer base by enabling you to sell your products on the Internet. No business is too small to ignore these advantages.

As a business consultant, web designer and photographer my technical know-how around doing system administration on my Microsoft desktop is limited and sometimes I do require the assistant of my computer engineering son to get it right. In a Microsoft Environment, keeping updated with respect to potential security breaches and patches is a constant vigil. The rigor of keeping current with OS updates, Norton updates and Spyware updates is time consuming. Valuable business hours each week are spend and lost on this task of self-administration dictated by the Microsoft Operating Environment.

So with the purchase of an IBM T40 (a tough notebook), increasing system administration time was not an option. This alone forced an serious consideration of Linux as an alternative operating environment. That was five years ago. Now an established Linux user, I can clearly profess the capabilities and benefits of Linux for small and large businesses, especially, when it comes to notebook deployment.

What Linux variant is best for small business and notebook deployment in your company?

As a small and medium business development manager with Sun Microsystems, exposure to Linux and the debate around its viability was a daily event. Questioning and challenging the virtues of Open Source (FREE) Linux versus Licensed Linux versions like Red Hat and Novell SuSE continues to this day . After years of personal use of Open Source (Free) Linux, I can never go back to running the Microsoft Operating Environment on my notebook. And once you can get Linux versions of Quick books, Quick Tax and Picasa (now available on Linux), there is no reason to stay in that perpetual administrative nightmare world of Microsoft.

Having successfully deployed two Open Source Linux variants on my IBM T40 notebook over the last 5 years, a compelling comparison can be made between Fedora and Ubuntu. Fedora, the Open Source version of Red Hat, required the installation expertise of some Linux gurus from Belleville Ontario. It worked fine, but required some Linux ninja system administration every 6-9 months. Administration items applied during these visits included upgrades to Open Office (the open source version of Star Office), Linux OS fixes and new peripheral drivers. This, again, turned out to be a drain on my scarce time for doing real business.

Now the Linux called Ubuntu is installed on my notebook. Ubuntu by Canonical is a full Open Source Linux based on Debian Linux. Ubuntu is now available on Dell systems and Federal Governments are adding this Linux operating environment to their list of standard available OS’s for all desktop and notebook computers.

Right out of the gate, Ubuntu was simple to install. You could even bring down a trial copy to experience exactly how it would behave on your notebook before downloading and committing the Ubuntu OS environment to your machine. But the best part is that Ubuntu continuously keeps on top of OS and all related application software updates. Ubuntu has an Update Manager that magically appears in desktop tool bar. And with a simple click (and password) you are kept current on the latest versions of Ubuntu patches, any Linux application software you have installed from Canonical and Open Office upgrades.

With Linux rebooting your machine after an update is nearly non-existent.

Oh, as an added treat with Ubuntu, Ubuntu boots up on your machine in less than a minute. I still go get a coffee when my Microsoft desktop is booting up. An additional benefit of Ubuntu: there is no requirement for installing ant-virus and anti-spyware software. Ubuntu inherently repels these vial scourges of the internet.

With Ubuntu your system administration life will become simple and painless. You can spend more quality business hours selling and marketing.

Want to cut hidden costs in your organization that manifest themselves as Microsoft self-administration by your end users?

Ubuntu is a must for you or your IT folks to consider. Seriously consider, test and deploy.

We all know that the basic human needs are categorized into three. Those are the need for home or settlement, the need of shirt, and the need for food. It is a fact that we can fulfill our basic needs if we have money in our hands. Money or financial power can enable people to do many things. One thing as example is people can run their new business with money. They can use it as capital to run their business. How if businessmen are lack of capita? Don’t worry because you will get helped here.

The help that this site is offered to you is in the form of Business Loans. There are thousands of clients that have already got the fund from this site. It is Small Business Loan where you can apply only in 5 minutes. You can apply in this Small Business Loans by achieving some financial benefits such as no collateral and low interest rate. Besides having business fund from this Unsecured Loan provider, you can also get consultation about your business through expert financial analyst.

You can have consultation to the loan analyst from this site for free. One that you should notice is that this is limited offer. You should visit this Business Loans page and fill the application from to get the service. To get more detail about the Business Loan offering in this site, you can visit Ezunsecured.com.

An introduction:

First of all we have to introduce in world wide hosting services provider – Hosting24hour.com is a leading web hosting services provider in the world. We offer all kinds of affordable quality Linux hosting services in our network to grow your business and web site hosting solutions. Before choosing reliable web hosting solutions for your company web site, you have taken a look at some points and not to confuse you about hosting services.

The web pages are designed with various software platforms. This can be done using the Windows or Linux platforms, too. How can a web page, developed with the UNIX or Linux operating system platforms as UNIX / Linux based hosting. There is no great difference between these two, and we can say that Linux web hosting is an updated version of the Linux / UNIX systems.

Choosing a web hosting solutions, there is an important decision. So important that it is quite surprising, this is often overlooked or disregarded. There are two main operating systems are Linux and Windows. Now we will discuss about advantages and disadvantages of both operating systems.

Which is better Windows or Linux Web Hosting?

On the Internet there is an enormous amount of argument over which operating system is best for web hosting solutions. The web hosting servers run the web site and the server software all run on a computer program known as the operating system. If you use a personal computer chances are that you are using Windows ME, XP, NT or some other similar computer program. This is your computer’s operating system. With web hosting servers they also need an operating system, and there are essentially two different competing versions. If you want more about these hosting system and better information about web hosting solutions visit at Hosting24hour.com

Windows Hosting:

All of the first Windows; Microsoft makes an operating system mainly for servers. This operating system allows for a true integration with Microsoft products and also allows web sites to Active Server Pages. Microsoft server also allows integration with its SQL database, which is a powerful database. The downside of Microsoft’s server software is that it costs several thousand dollars for each server. Possible options include Windows 2000 Server, Advanced Server and Server 2003. Additional software will be extra costs such as: firewall, remote admin programs, ASP Encrypt, ASP Mail, and many other applications needed to make your server ready for production.

Windows hosting should be used if your site is using Microsoft features. If you plan to have a website that uses databases, you will also want to use Microsoft hosting. Web sites where you can interact with your visitors or customers used Windows hosting. Visitors can easily access database and implement online chat services and so many other interactive features.

With Windows hosting, web sites can use e-commerce functions. If someone has little or no experience webmaster, they should consider Windows hosting. Linux hosting services can be a little harder to manage for someone who does not have much experience but good one in web hosting solutions. Sites that are created on the Windows servers can be difficult to convert, so that they can easily be used on a Linux server. This may be something that you want, when planning your web site or the choice between Windows and Linux hosting.

Linux hosting:

The next version of web hosting solutions is the Linux hosting services is actually a common name with quality website hosting services for a variety of operating systems. Linux was developed by a community of people who come together to jointly write, for the most part of Linux. After this largely developed and refined, other parts are in the program in order to end what the end consumer wants.

Although the Windows hosting platforms are generally reliable, but Linux hosting services have a good reputation in particular for the provision of both stable and reliable web hosting solutions. Customers with sites on a Linux hosting server can be sure that their sites are safe. Linux hosting solutions are usually also very efficient and reliable. However, Linux web hosting becomes a top reputation for able, stable, secure and reliable hosting services. If your site is like a brochure, which is online, you may want to use Linux website hosting services for your company web site. The stability of Linux comes with quality website hosting such a website is very good. Linux hosting is also compatible with e-commerce functions for small business web hosting. Select a best affordable Linux hosting solution for your business at: Hosting24hour.com.

A large number of web hosting companies market Linux hosting solutions and you might have heard of a few: Red Hat, Debian, Slack ware, etc. Linux web hosting is good that it is compatible with the popular web programming language PHP. It is also favored by some best web hosting providers in that it generally has a good safety record and is usually on average to a stable operating system.

Linux software is usually free or inexpensive; APF firewall, Apache, Send mail, BIND and much more. We recommend that you use a virus scanner such as Clam-or F-Prot and Mail Scanner. Linux servers are difficult to manage, in comparison to Windows but provide quality website hosting for your business needs. Everything is done by remote shell access (such as Dos, remember Dos!). There is no right interfaces or buttons to click on – just a huge amount of commands. Although all this console power, you have much more control over your actual server compared to Windows.

Linux Hosting Services Features:

- PHP and MySQL support

- Apache Web Server

- Mod Rewrite Support

- Chmod file permissions

Yes, what is the best? Now it depends on your business or website need. If you want the tightest security you can then Linux hosting solutions are probably for you. But it is very technical to install, and you are not many extras. What about compatibility with PHP? You can see it is much effective as your operating system is the best, but which operating system is best for what I do.

Allows easy if you need to develop your site in ASP then you can use any one web hosting company. If you develop in PHP then definitely go with best Linux hosting Provider Company like Hosting24hour. They provide cheap Linux hosting, domain hosting services, powerful reseller web hosting plans and several shared web hosting packages.

Shared Hosting:

Shared hosting, web or shared hosting as is known, in some cases, than the most basic form of web hosting, as the most common Linux web hosting plans come with very basic resources and the server itself, they are among many different shared hosting accounts. Our shared web hosting solutions allows you to easily start in the Linux web hosting world, since most shared web hosting packages with some affordable web hosting services and the most common web hosting accounts are the cheapest form of web hosting to at the present time.

Shared hosting can be used for the hosting of websites basic research, not much traffic, as you will notice that you do not have much space or bandwidth, the basic common web hosting plans, shared web hosting packages can also as a development environment where you can test all the new sites or applications that you have before them in the use of a live and active web hosting environment.

Shared web hosting accounts are hosted in the normally high specification servers because of the nature of the common web hosting, the server hosting shared web hosting account easy targets for hackers and other malicious attackers. Although common web hosting servers are now safer than they are used, it is not a hacker much trouble to a shared hosting server that has weak security measures in place. However, the performance of a server during a malicious attack also depends on the server load at the time, which means that if one server was to attack if they have a high burden, it would still likely crash.

Web hosting:

Web hosting account also use other services in most cases so that you the complete web hosting experience, for example, you can access your shared web hosting account with a control panel or via FTP protocol.

Web hosting account in the form of backup web hosting hosted usually in highly reliable web hosting server with several disks in RAID configuration to ensure that no data is lost when one of the server’s hard disk fails or Encounters an error. Web hosting space accounts in the form of hosting hosted in the normally high specification servers, though the software may be used, because different web hosting needs to be as easy to manage for both the web hosting provider and web hosting services, as well as for those customers who rent a web hosting provider of web space. A high specification for use with web hosting space can also ensure that customers with a respectable amount of uptime.

Virtual hosting:

Virtual hosting is usually in the form of Virtual Private Hosting Server, which is widely regarded as fill for the large price gap between web hosting reseller for those who need to host several websites and dedicated hosting server. Although, as shared and Linux reseller hosting accounts you have the physical web hosting node with other VPS hosting servers, you have access to your own dedicated reseller hosting environment with your own resources guarantees which means that you are usually allowed to install any program you want on a VPS hosting servers. Virtual Private web hosting servers are the best web hosting solution for you if you want to start your own web hosting company, or seek to host the websites you for your web design clients, this is because If you want to install your own server-side components, or if you want to install your own software, then this can easily do without impact on other web users.

For standard virtual Linux website hosting account, you will notice that your web hosting provider gave you access to the control panel for Linux virtual hosting services. The control panel with affordable web hosting services to be taken into account, because they allow web hosting providers company to manage their Linux web hosting services with ease, and even the web hosting customers to manage their cheapest web hosting plan with ease.

What is Linux?

Linux is an operating system, like Microsoft Windows, MacOS, or Unix. It was created as a hobby by Linus Torvalds, a student at the University of Helsinki in Finland. What most people don’t know about Linux is that its source code is available to anyone. The Linux source code is called the kernel and it is the base of the Linux operating system. Because the source code or kernel is free, it has enabled hundreds of companies and individuals to release their own operating systems based on the Linux system. These operating systems or formats are often referred to as Linux distributions.

Each distribution has its own set of features and functionality that makes it unique. While Linux is generally considered free-ware and people associate that with no cost, that is not always the case. Some distributions are available for download for free and others are available on CD or floppy disk and have a small charge associated with them. You can find a list of distributions at http://www.linux.org/ and a list of applications at http://www.Linux.org/apps/

Because if the adaptability of Linux it has been embraced and supported by a number of operating systems and software programs. For example, IBM, Hewlett-Packard and other giants of the computing world have embraced Linux and support its ongoing development and openoffice.org and Mozilla run on Linux. US retailing giant Wal-Mart began selling Linux systems back in 2002 – if Wal-Mart isn’t mainstream, nothing is.

What are the benefits of Linux?

Many people fear that Linux is going to be difficult to work with or that it will be difficult to find software that will run on Linux however Linux is a very standard operating system, compatible with just about any software you need.

Beyond being a standard operating system, Linux supports open source software which makes it a very economical operating system, especially if you program your own software. It offers many free or low cost applications which include, basic desktop applications like web browsers, email programs, word processing programs, spreadsheets, graphics programs, and file managers.

Linux can easily operate as a central server for your business. With Linux, you can serve your own web pages up for public consumption and handle your own email.

Linux doesn’t require top of the line hardware though many recommend you have at least 256 MB of RAM and at least 4 GB of space in your hard drive.

Linux is considered to be extremely stable and doesn’t need to be rebooted periodically to maintain performance levels. Think about the last time you sat at your computer and it froze. Not fun, right? That doesn’t happen with Linux if it is configured correctly.

Linux isn’t going to be replaced anytime soon and when bugs are found in the system, a developer are quickly on the job and often times a solution is offered within a matter of hours, not months or years like many other operating systems.

Linux is also fast and can handle a number of tasks at the same time.

Linux also claims to be one of the most secure operating systems isn’t plagued with the viruses that other operating systems generally deal with.

Linux is free from having to upgrade it or deal with proprietary file formats and licensing fees. You don’t have to register it due to its open source format.

You can have both Linux and windows on your computer. (You’ll have to partition them on your hard drive and you can only boot them one at a time.)

Drawbacks of Linux

There is no 1800 customer service number to call. However, most distributions offer a support number or email to call if you find a bug. They also generally come with installation instructions.

You cannot run applications for MS windows on Linux. However, there are Linux emulators or applications that enable you to run some windows applications on your Linux system. They operate like a translator. Some of these ‘translation or emulator’ products are free and others are available for a price.

Linux is not able to run some advanced financial applications or reproduce some proprietary multimedia formats.

Tips and Advice:

Choose a popular distribution has a large developer community. A large developer community means that you’ll find the programs that you need easily and you will be able to install them with the same ease. The more well-known distributions have prepared programs in ‘packages’ that are easy to install. On top of this, there are tools designed especially for a particular distribution to manage these packages to make sure that programs run correctly right away. The website Distrowatch.com maintains a comprehensive list of the most popular distributions.

Get the latest version of your chosen distribution. The newer the Linux distribution version, the better the hardware support. The number of glitches you’ll get in the installation process decreases with the newness of the version of Linux you choose.

Consider paying for your Linux distribution. It is true that you can get a full-featured Linux operating system free of charge by downloading it from any number of sources. This is an excellent alternative to an operating system like Windows, which either comes pre-loaded with a newly purchased computer (which gets figured into the cost), is bought separately or copied ‘illegally’. In most people’s experience, the popular Linux distributions are easy to install. However, if you do run into some glitch (normally hardware related), you may have a frustrating experience. Although there are a number of excellent Linux support forums out there, personalized advice on your particular problem may be hard to find.

Use an appropriate computer. if you want to use Linux to do the same things that you would with Windows XP or Mac OS X, then you’ll need the newest computer you can get your hands on. Avoiding ‘elite’ video cards and new, exotic hardware will also work in your favor because you won’t have to deal with hardware support which may be inferior to hardware support from other operating systems.

Bottom Line:

Linux is a fantastic and powerful operating system that can handle most or all of your operating needs. It is secure, fast, reliable, and generally extremely cost effective. When purchased or obtained through a reliable distributor and installed and configured correctly there are virtually no drawbacks to running Linux. Additionally, you don’t have to give up your windows if you don’t want to.

MemberSpeed Content Management software can run on any Linux Any Linux based Hosting Platform (Preferably RHEL 3 or above).

Want to learn how to start a computer business?  If you are like many others trying to get into computer consulting, you might be wondering, “Can I cut it?”

The truth is, if you have a basic understanding of computers, great problem-solving skills and a true desire to help others, you already have the ingredients for a great computer business.  The following four steps can help you learn how to start a computer business. 

1. Start a Computer Business to Enjoy Great Opportunities.  In a typical corporate computer or IT job, your earnings potential and career advancement possibilities are constrained by elements you can’t control:  lazy, incompetent peers; ineffective management; and a seniority system that is not necessarily based on the hard work of employees.  When you decide to start a computer business, you get rid of many of these annoyances and barriers.  You get to be your own boss, find your own peers and clients, and be appreciated for what you do.  Plus, the market for those trying to start a computer business is diverse and continues to grow.  Today, no business can exist without some type of computer help.  So you will be needed and have many opportunities to earn substantial revenue from great, loyal clients.

2. You Need Specific Skills to Know How to Start a Computer Business.  When you are planning the future of your computer business, list your own current computer-related skills.  Are you the one those in your office, or your friends and family members turn to when they need technology help?  If the answer is, “Yes,” you already have a lot of marketable skills.  You don’t have to be a complete expert in every single detail of using and repairing computers.  In fact, this level of knowledge is nearly impossible given how diverse the technology industry is.  If you are fairly skilled at working with computers and have specific areas of expertise, you can always find partners and subcontractors with complimentary specialties to help you fill in the skills gaps and build a strong computer business.

3. Think About the Move from Employee to Business Owner.  If you are currently the employee of a business within the computer industry, learning how to start a computer business could be a really smart move.  When you make that choice, you increase your income potential for the same work you are already doing and get to work for yourself.  But how do you handle the transition?  Many technology professionals start by moonlighting, so they can try out what having this type of business is like before leaving the safety of a full-time day job.  Moonlighting can also help you build a steady client list and get reference accounts to give yourself a head start in building a long-lasting computer business.

4. Don’t Forget about Non-Technical Skills.  If you want to know how to start a computer business, you need to think about more than just your knowledge of technology.  A few traits can help:  the ability to be self motivated; the drive to work without having an employer looking over your shoulder; the ability to wear multiple hats to manage all the different elements of your business; strong marketing skills; excellent administrative and planning skills; and the ability to efficiently delegate tasks to other employees, contractors, and partners as your business grows. 

This article introduced you to four important action items to think about as you plan how to start a computer business.  To learn more about how you can get great, steady, high-paying clients, sign up for free tips on how to start a computer business now at http://www.StartAComputerBusiness.com

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