What is Unified Messaging 

Unified messaging is a system that provides a single in-box destination for voicemail, e-mail and faxes. Small businesses can benefit from a unified messaging system, especially if they don't have a separate line for each service or a means to route urgent messages.

Unified messaging is particularly useful to employees who don't always have immediate access to an Internet connection or a fax machine. And it's affordable: You can expect to pay $10 to $30 a month, although some unified messaging providers offer basic service for free. Providers usually offer some combination of voice-mail, e-mail and fax in their basic services, along with a variety of optional enhancements.

Voicemail
You'll get a new phone number, either local or toll free, that you can give to clients and customers. You'll be able to check your voicemail messages over the phone or from your e-mail in-box. Messages you receive as e-mail will either be audio files or converted to text.

E-mail
Many services give you a new, often Web-based, e-mail account you can use to retrieve voice-mails and faxes, but some send messages to your existing e-mail account. If your service employs text-to-speech technology, you can check and send e-mail over the phone. Depending on the service, e-mail messages are sent as audio files or are converted to text.

Fax
With fax service, you get a local or toll-free number that your associates can send faxes to at any time. You'll be able to retrieve the faxes in your e-mail in-box or over the phone. Faxes received over the phone are treated like a voice message, and you can forward, save or reply to them.

Enhanced features
In addition to corralling your messages into a single in-box, many services provide enhanced features that make sending and receiving messages even more flexible:

• Speech-recognition technology lets you retrieve and manage messages using voice commands.
• Notification services inform you by phone when an e-mail or fax arrives.
• Broadcasting features let you send voice-mail and fax messages to multiple recipients.
• E-mail-to-fax capabilities allow you to send or forward e-mail messages to a fax machine.
• Follow-me features forward calls to any specified location.

Tips for PC purchase

Are you in the market for a new personal computer? Get answers to these questions before you buy.

1.       Are you thinking ahead?
Think about the computer power you're going to need as your company develops. Computer speed, disk space and memory are three factors to consider.

2.       Have you done your research?
Familiarize yourself with basic computer terms (CPU, RAM, CD-ROM drive, etc.). Know what kind of equipment and software you need to protect your computer against loss of information, viruses and power surges.

3.       What are you willing to pay, and what will be the total cost?
Remember the possible cost of educating employees about the new computers. And remember that computer prices change rapidly throughout the year as newer technology floods the market. You'll also need to decide between buying locally or over the Web. Both have their advantages - you can find the cheapest prices on the Web (even with shipping charges), but buying locally allows for easier computer maintenance and testing before you commit.

What are computer viruses

Practically everyone with a computer has heard of computer viruses, but not everyone knows exactly what they are or how viruses can affect their computer. A virus is a small, self-replicating program that invades your system through an e-mail attachment, a shared file or a floppy disk. People create viruses for various reasons, ranging from mild pranks to malicious destruction.

As a result, the effects of a virus can vary from moderately annoying to absolutely crippling. The Wazzu virus, for example, attaches itself to Microsoft Word documents and inserts the nonsense word ?wazzu? in the document and rearranges random strings of words. A virus such as this one is definitely annoying, but not necessarily catastrophic.

Some viruses can be much more serious, however, threatening to destroy data or even erase your entire hard drive. One such virus spread by e-mail, Worm.ExploreZip, takes control of the infected computer's e-mail system and automatically responds to all incoming mail messages. It also sends destructive e-mail attachments that can erase certain types of files.

Viruses can be harmful, but it's also important to understand the role you play in propagating them. Viruses do not invade a computer without user action. In other words, you set the virus loose on your own computer by opening infected programs or files. If you take certain precautions, such as not opening e-mail attachments from unknown sources and running antivirus software, you can minimize the risk of infecting your own computer.

Types of Viruses

By familiarizing yourself with the types of viruses that exist, you'll be better able to prevent them.

Program viruses attach themselves to executable files such as .exe files. Each time you run the program, the virus duplicates itself and attaches to other programs. Sharing programs with other computers, either by disk or on a network, spreads these types of viruses. You are also at risk for this type of virus when you download applications from the Internet.

Macro viruses are contained in the macro language for programs such as Microsoft Word and Excel. Perhaps the most prevalent type of virus, they attach themselves to files (as opposed to programs) and are some of the hardest viruses to detect.

Boot sector viruses infect particular files on your hard drive or a floppy disk that execute when you boot your computer. This type of virus is transmitted by floppy disk. When you boot from the infected disk, the boot sector virus attaches itself to the boot files on your hard drive.

Trojan horses aren't viruses by definition because they don't replicate themselves. They do, however, possess the same potential to damage your hard drive if they go undetected. They typically arrive in an e-mail with a vague subject line or a promise of entertainment. When let loose, the Trojan horse - much like its namesake in Greek mythology - introduces a slew of unwanted attackers that can wreak havoc on your hard drive.

What is a Virtual?? ---àTelecommuting

Telecommuting More Popular

Statistics Canada predicts there will be 1.5-million telecommuters in Canada by the end of this year. According to a 2001 survey conducted by the International Telework Association and Council (ITAC), there were 28.8-million, or one in five U.S. employees, who telecommute in the United States. The study also found that a majority of these telecommuters are more satisfied with their jobs, more productive and more loyal to their employers.

InDimensions employees use e-mail, instant messaging, Web-based video conferencing, collaboration tools such as Microsoft NetMeeting, discussion boards and, of course, the telephone.

"The challenge was finding the right mix of tools for our needs," says Sweeney. "We not only had to learn how to use each tool, but more importantly, what tools are appropriate in different situations."

One of the most touted tools is Web video conferencing. Web cameras are now less than $100 and fast connections that make video useful are available in the home for less than $50 a month.

Future Not Here Yet

Sweeney warned, however, that people have inflated expectations about video conferencing. "They want the Jetsons," he says. "Unfortunately, we're not there yet. If you're using the public Internet, you will be frustrated by network congestion from time to time."

The six Canadian branches of SAS Institute, a multi-national business solutions company, use Web-based video conferencing to meet once a week. To make video conferencing a viable tool, SAS uses leased equipment and boosted Internet bandwidth from a third-party video conferencing company to guarantee network capacity.

Kalvin Falconar, account executive at SAS Institute's six-person Calgary office, says that the big benefit of video conferencing is not saving money, but creating opportunities. "If it gets us faster to market, the benefit outweighs the cost."

Web conferencing also saves time that would otherwise be spent in airplanes and airports, a savings that encourages more frequent meetings.

Sixteen years ago, Falconar was selling software for a company that required a quarterly national meeting. "We would bring in (staff from) Edmonton, Calgary and Regina and have a day or day and a half meeting in one spot," he recalled. "I'm at SAS now, but now we do a weekly meeting through video conferencing."

"We view video conferencing as a vital component to the virtual office," says Sweeney. "There is a tremendous amount of communications provided through facial expressions. Even when the video is fragmented, that communications value remains."

A Place for Face to Face

Bernie DeKoven, an on-line collaboration consultant based in Redondo Beach, California, disagreed. He says face-to-face meetings should be reserved only when there is absolute value in them.

"It's not that we should stop meeting face to face," he says, "but that our face-to-face meetings should become better vehicles for exploring the social and political agendas of organizational life."

The biggest challenge, Sweeney says, is ensuring that people communicate clearly in a digital environment.

"You have to work harder to understand the reasons why communications break down in a virtual environment," he says. "You have to work on the interpersonal relationships in a more concerted way."

In addition, not all people adapt well to it.

DeKoven, who runs the Web site Coworking.com, says workers who rely on regular human contact have the most problems with a virtual work environment. "People who need face time are the ones who have the most trouble. They feel excluded and threatened. They feel endangered and that endangers the quality of what is getting done."

What to look for in investing in new telephone system  

What Should I Look For in a New Phone System?

I'm about to outgrow my current phone system. Can you give me a few pointers on what to consider before I start looking into upgrading?

Buying and installing a new phone system is a major undertaking for a small business. Selecting the wrong system and making poor installation decisions can cripple your business and add thousands of dollars to your communications bottom line. But a little basic knowledge goes a long way in shopping for office telecommunications.

The technology behind a full-fledged phone system is the "switch" or central mechanism through which all incoming, outgoing and interoffice calls pass. The switch is generally the most expensive single component of a multiline phone system. The larger the switch, the more complicated the phone system. Many switches are modular, so you can add capacity as your business needs grow and change.

The phones themselves are another component of your system. The important thing to keep in mind about phones is that while sophisticated features may look impressive and sound useful, the truth is that people generally don't use most of them. Fully loaded phones are also a main profit source for dealers, so watch out for the upsell.

Wiring is a major cost of a new phone system. Most major phone dealers will also wire your office, but you're not likely to get the best deal that way. The key issue is to overestimate your wiring needs by a factor of two. Laying more cable than you actually need will add to the cost of installation, but it's well worth the investment. Rewiring and retrofitting your system down the road can be expensive and disruptive.

When shopping for a phone system, you have three choices: a key system, a PBX system, or a hybrid, which is a cross between a key and a PBX. Key and hybrid systems are suitable for most small businesses, but if you want to use an auto-attendant to route incoming calls, you'll need a hybrid or PBX system.

A phone dealer can help you choose the best system for your business, but you should understand the basics before you invest in costly telecommunication equipment. The following list will help you evaluate your telephone-system options.

1.       Size.
The number of lines and extensions you'll need will determine the size of the system you'll buy.

2.       Modularity.
It makes more sense to purchase a modular system that will grow with your business rather than an inexpensive system that you'll quickly outgrow and need to replace in a year or two.

3.       Price.
It's difficult to estimate phone-system prices because the total cost depends on installation charges, the type of equipment you select and the options (voicemail, wireless headsets, etc.) you choose. Generally, key system prices range from $160 to about $600 per station, PBX systems cost between $400 and $600 per station, and hybrids fall in between. Get quotes from a number of suppliers before you make a decision.

4.       Products.
Telecommunications experts usually recommend buying popular brands over buying obscure brands. Not only is it easier to find dealers that can provide support and system upgrades for popular brands, but it also will be easier to find a new dealer if you become dissatisfied with the dealer who originally sold you the system.

5.       Features.
Base your feature selection on how employees will use the phone system and how calls get routed through your business. The most common features include:

• Call forwarding.
  With call forwarding, you can program a phone system to forward a call to another extension if the first extension is busy or not answering.
• Call waiting.
  Many systems provide a signal when the user is on the phone and a call comes through on another line.
• Hold.
  Hold allows you to park a call until it can be transferred or managed. Exclusive hold lets only the person who places the incoming call on hold retrieve that call.
• Speakerphone.
  Check the sound quality of this hands-free feature before you choose a model. Speakerphone quality varies drastically from product to product.
• Speed dial.
  A standard feature on most phone systems, speed dial allows users to store frequently called numbers and access them at the push of one or two buttons.
• Voicemail.
  No business telephone system should be without voicemail. But if this capability isn't included with your current phone system, you have other options besides purchasing a new system. Consider one of the many third-party voicemail products on the market.

What is Internet Telephony??

Windows 2000 time yet?

What do I need to know about Windows 2000? I've heard that it will eventually replace both Windows NT and Windows 98. Should I be preparing to upgrade my small company?

It's not clear what Microsoft's plans are for the Windows 2000 operating systems. A few months ago, the folks in Redmond were telling everyone that Windows 2000 (a.k.a Windows NT 5.0) was the prototype for all of the company's future operating systems. But lately, Microsoft doesn't seem to be as sure of its "one OS fits all" approach.

Windows 2000 is still on track to replace Windows NT as the product of choice for servers and enterprise users. Microsoft is well into its final Windows 2000 beta test period, and the company expects to release the final version later this year. There are literally hundreds of changes in the new operating system and most Windows NT 4.0 users will want to upgrade.

What about the consumer and small business users now running Windows 95 or 98? Microsoft has long promised that Windows 2000 would be the company's first step toward unifying all of its operating systems in a single code base. In other words, Microsoft wants to dump the obsolete DOS code that still lurks inside Windows 98 and move instead toward "consumer" and "business" versions of Windows NT. The company also plans to adapt Windows 2000 for specialized uses, using embedded devices and set-top boxes that provide advanced cable television services.

That's a tall order, and I'm not surprised that Microsoft is backing off a bit. The company now predicts that it will be at least two or three years before a consumer version of Windows NT is ready, due in part to the fact that Windows 2000 is simply too big and complex to serve all of these markets. In the meantime, Microsoft will release at least one more significant upgrade to Windows 98, probably some time next year.

What does all of this mean for your business? If you're now using Windows 95 or 98, plan to stay put for at least a couple of years until Microsoft gets its act together. If you're already using Windows NT, however, you should start thinking now about how Windows 2000 fits into your technology plans.

How do I improve Network Performance?

Networking your company's computers can make your employees much more efficient. But if your network isn't up to the task, it can also cause frustration and confusion.

Keeping your network in peak condition doesn't require a computer expert. The following suggestions can help you identify and prevent network problems before they happen.

Stay organized

You wouldn't keep your company's paper files in one huge, disorganized pile. Yet some computer networks are just as jumbled, with each employee organizing data in different ways - if at all.

Set up your company's network just as you would a filing system. Create virtual folders that reflect how you organize your business. And require your employees to keep data in the proper locations. You can also set up individual folders where employees can store personal data and works in progress. Once you're organized, periodically audit your network to make sure it stays that way.

Keep your software off the network

It might sound like a good idea to install one copy of a computer program on your network and let all your employees use that copy. But this is a recipe for disaster: Most desktop programs aren't designed to run over a network. At the very least, your employees will find the program sluggish and unreliable; at worst, your company will lose critical data.

In addition to being a bad idea, running desktop software over a network might also be illegal. If you want to run an application over a network, ask the vendor if they sell a network-ready version. And then buy a license for each employee who will be using the program.

Beware of giant files

One employee downloading streaming video or moving large files can bring a network to its knees. If necessary, set a "reasonable use" policy for your network, and make sure employees understand what types of data they can and cannot download.

Make sure your network is robust

In some cases, of course, your network might be inadequate for your company's needs. This often happens with a regular Ethernet network, which moves data at 10MB per second. So-called Fast Ethernet networks, which move data at 100MB per second, are much more efficient and can handle much heavier loads. And setting up a Fast Ethernet network isn't much more expensive than a regular Ethernet network - if your computers are up to the task.

To support Fast Ethernet, computers must have the right network interface cards, the small piece of hardware that plugs into an expansion slot on your computer. Most Pentium-based computers accept Fast Ethernet cards, while many older 486-type computers do not. If your business needs Fast Ethernet, you'll have to retire those old computers and replace them with newer models.

Switch to switches

Without going into too much detail, there are generally two ways to connect computers on a network: with a hub or with a switch. If your network is busy, installing a switch could make it much more efficient. Here's more good news: Ethernet switches aren't much more expensive than hubs, and they're relatively easy to install. The boost you give your network could more than compensate for the added expense.

How do I back up my computer network?  What are my options??

Backing up your company's computers is not an optional activity -- if you lose computer data, you could also lose your business. But there is more than one way to back up your data, depending on your company's budget, the number of computers that require backup, and whether you use a network. The six choices below give you a good idea of the backup options available:

1.       Use floppy disks.
Once upon a time, you could back up your entire computer on a few floppy disks. Those days are now long past -- you would need hundreds of floppies to back up even a medium-size hard disk on a modern PC. If you want to create separate backup copies of a few crucial files, floppies are still an option, but they're not a practical choice for regular backup duties.

2.       Get a second hard disk.
You can install a drive that's just as big as your existing hard disk and then copy, or "mirror," all of the data on the second drive. Hard disk prices have dropped considerably, and mirroring a disk makes it easy to replace lost data. But keeping all of your backup data on the same system makes it vulnerable to a hardware failure or power surge that could rob you of both your data and the backup.

3.       Buy a portable disk drive.
Portable disk drives such as the Iomega Zip and Jaz models now hold up to 2GB of data, allowing you to back up an entire hard disk on a few disks. Portable disks are getting cheaper, and you can access data on them almost as quickly as you can with a regular hard disk drive. For large backup jobs, however, they're still more expensive and less reliable than tape backups.

4.       Use a tape backup.
Backup systems that use magnetic tape cartridges are still the most economical onsite media choice for large backup jobs. Tape drives that support the Travan standard are the cheapest and easiest to use, although high-end tape drives that use Digital Audio Tape (DAT) are also a good buy. And if you're backing up multiple systems over a network, tape drives are an especially good solution because of their higher capacity, reliability and data transfer speed.

5.       Use an online backup service.
These services allow you to upload your data over the Internet to remote servers - if you need to restore lost data, you simply log on to the backup service and download your files. Internet backup services offer several benefits: they're cheap, easy to use and very reliable. But Internet backups can be slow, especially if you're doing a full backup over a modem. Keep in mind also that if your computer or network goes down, you'll need Internet access to retrieve your backup files.

6.       Make CD-R backups.
A new generation of cheap compact disc recorders makes it easy to burn backup data onto CDs. Blank CD-Recordable (CD-R) media are dirt cheap -- you can buy them in bulk for around a dollar each -- and a CD backup is extremely durable and easy to store. There are two drawbacks, however: CDs only hold 640MB of data, which means that you'll need half a dozen of them to back up the average hard disk, and you can't reuse CD-R media once you record on them.

What Is Better: Local or Network Backups?
If your business uses a network, you'll have to decide whether to back up all of your computers over the network or to back up each computer separately. In most cases, you should back up all of the computers on a network along with your file servers; that way, you can purchase a single high-end backup system for your whole network. It's much more expensive to buy a separate backup unit for each computer, and it's a waste of time to lug a portable backup drive from one computer to another.