Jefric Consulting, LLC – Blog

July 2009 – Technology is an essential tool for your Small Business and staying current is extremely difficult. Let us help you. Read this month’s newsletter here.

All newsletters can be found here.
Visit the Jefric Consulting website here.

This is a nice, quick read that answers many of the most common questions people have been asking lately. Have a look at the Frequently Asked Questions about Windows 7 here.

Are you worried about Windows 7? Have you downloaded the RC (release candidate) and are trying it out? Are you holding off buying a new computer until Windows 7 comes out?

Share your thoughts about Windows 7 here.

If you are still deciding, have already decided, or are using Cloud Computing this article is for you. Whether you are a small or mid size business or a larger enterprise, these 8 Questions are clearly something you should be asking about Cloud Computing, and in some cases any new business technology that you are considering:

If you would like a copy of the article published in InformationWeek, send me an email: alan@jefric.com.

Did you know that:

(Source: Microsoft, April 2009)

All of this in the 133 years since Alexander Graham Bell made his first phone call. (Elisha Gray apparently invented the telephone, but Bell beat him to the patent).

If you are one of the many businesses struggling with the ever increasing communications and messaging challenge, you probably want to do something about it. Reduce the number of choices, and make use of some new technologies and solutions that import, connect and consolidate the various services together and reduce the confusion.

Have you encountered this in your company? Post your experience here.

Visit: the Jefric Consulting Website: http://www.jefric.com

LinkedIn is a truly remarkable social networking site, offering a great deal of value to professionals and the business community alike. Starting with the basics of finding, reaching out to and keeping in touch with people you known, have or would like to work or do business with, or be introduced to, LinkedIn is a very powerful tool with something different of value for nearly everyone.

Once setup, have created a profile and starting using the site, people often think: “What do I do next?” There are conferences, webcasts, seminars, networking events and more which help people with that very question and more. You can also find online information which will help guide you through. Here is one example that I have found summarizes it up nicely: LinkedIn Bible: Everything You Need to Know About the Social Network for Professionals

What do you think? Leave a comment here.

This blog has been submitted to my Technorati Profile

It appears our friends in Redmond are coming back into the Anti-Virus market with a free offering: Free Microsoft anti-virus coming soon. Is this a good thing? I’m sure Symantec, McAfee, Trend Micro, CA, etc. are wondering the same.

Protecting your computer involves more than just a single anti-virus agent. Full system protection involves messaging, spyware, and malware protection and more, across a wide array of devices. This is where many other vendors have invested a great deal of time and money. SonicWall, WatchGuard and others also have hardware / firewall solutions with integrated system protection. Even Microsoft knows this and has a high end solution, Forefront.

Does Microsoft have a plan? an alternate agenda? It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Tell us what you think. Leave a comment here.

“Several free services will shorten URLs for sharing on Twitter, but they’re not all created equal. Here’s how to not only save space, but also use analytics features to understand what content matters most to your followers.”

Make sure your message is delivered the way you want it to be. Learn more here.

Here’s another view of this up and coming technology:

“A panel of experts at MIT Sloan CIO Symposium this week said that more companies would look to cloud computing in the near future because of its potential cost savings and its ability to deliver flexible computing.”

Read the full article here.

Are you using cloud computing? Are you considering cloud computing? Tell us what you think. Leave a comment here.

Most people will agree that Google is the gold standard in search engines on the Internet, and the others, like Yahoo, Live. Ask, etc are a distant second. If you are Microsoft, does that stop you from trying?

Say hello to bing.com, the successor to Microsoft’s live.com search engine. Being dubbed as not just a search engine, but a “decision engine”, Bing claims to be “a search engine that finds and organizes the answers you need so you can make faster, more informed decisions.”

Will Microsoft be successful this time? Give it a try and leave your comments and feedback here.