Every day you gather more information that is critical to the success of your business. Sales and customer service people compile new customer contact information, inventory is managed, quotes are generated and sales information is tallied.
Tying all of your office computer equipment together in a network gives you the opportunity to
Upgrading to a system that allows for more users and has a higher level of performance is often viewed as something that will ultimately cost a business money. In all reality though, beyond the initial cost of materials and installation, implementing a network cabling system that connects all of the equipment in your office can actually work to save you money.
Installing network cabling into your business environment will allow all employees to share access to a single piece of equipment as opposed to buying a separate piece of equipment for each user. If your business requires
Home networking is essential for quick and convenient access to music, data and video files and for the ability to share access to important pieces of equipment like scanners and printers. A home that contains multiple PCs for personal, school and work can greatly benefit from residential network cabling.
Just because your home has fewer PCs than your office and there are fewer people using them, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your residential networking cabling will be an easier project. Don’t assume that just because your walls don’t contain metal studs and that your floor isn’t poured concrete that your home network cabling job will be a walk in the park.
A faster office is a more productive office right? That means, because you wish your computer equipment to operate at the speed of light, that Cat6 cable is the only way to go – or is it?
Just because you are making upgrades to faster equipment office wide, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll have to invest in Cat6 cable. It’s true that Cat6 has twice the bandwidth of Cat5 and that it is far superior in performance than either Cat5 or Cat5e. Cat6 is also capable of transferring data at a much faster rate, but in most regular office applications Cat5e is more than capable of handling the required workload.
Your new computers, internet service and office communication system may be much faster than the one that you are replacing, but that’s not the only thing to consider when selecting a networking cable. If you aren’t transferring exceedingly large amounts of data or operating virtual PCs, Cat6 cable may be much more cable than you need and cost much more money than you need to spend.
There could be any number of reasons that your voice and data system may be changing. You might be adding more PCs or phone lines; adding a dedicated server to store critical data or adding scanners or printers to more adequately serve customer needs.
In order to ensure a seamless transition into your larger, upgraded network there’s a very good chance that you’ll need upgrades or
During the early days of the PCs in the 1980s, software manufacturers battled with consumers over copy protection. Floppy drives and the 5.25" floppy made it possible to very easily create illegal copies of software. This resulted in a boom in training books that were targeted to buyers of pirated software. The leading word processing software, the application that invented the term "WYSIWYG" was called Wordstar. Wordstar rapidly grew into the leading and best-selling word processor of the early 1980s. And as it grew in popularity, many users were also copying the software.
Wordstar decided to copy-protected their product just as WordPerfect was gaining in popularity. WordPerfect was shipping without copy protection and ultimately became the leading word In the Lotus 1-2-3 followed suit and also abandoned copy protection. In the highly competitive software world of the 1980s, the most successful companies were learning that copy protection was bad for business. Wordstar disappeared many years ago.
So, I bought a new Acer Aspire One Netbook for my wife and for home use. It is a terrific little machine. It comes with Windows 7, 1gb RAM, a 160gb hard drive, 3 USB ports, external video jack, 10" LCD screen, 100mb ethernet, WiFi, cam and a microphone for only $325. And it weighs just over 2 pounds.
But when I went to install my printer to the machine I ran into a problem. I have a HP LaserJet 1320TN at home. It has been a terrific printer. It has 2 trays and it prints on both sides of a page. It has never had a single problem. I think the printer is about 7 or 8 years old. So, I get out the CD that came with the printer and I copy it onto a thumb drive because the netbook does not have a CD drive. Then I try to install it but it just doesn't work. The printer software is too old.
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They are creating a revolution in
I decided to research Voice Over IP (VOIP) phone for my business. It felt like the industry had reached a point where voice quality, features and price made it a smart choice. I was also very frustrated about my phone bill from Verizon. They were charging me for calls to Annapolis and when I called to ask them about it they gave me some double-talk about Latas or Stratas. I told the operator to "get real". Do they really expect businesses to pay a premium for in-state calls? OK. We aren't in Maryland. But Annapolis is only 45 minutes away. I guess they feel like they might have an advantage with call quality or service. Or maybe they think people want to work with a big name company.
Well, I decided to call on my old friend, Allen Kadis of EMC. Allen has a lot of experience with VOIP and small businesses. He immediately recommended Vocalocity. So, I did some more research and they received good reviews for service and price. I also learned that there is a bit of a price war going on in the VOIP phone industry. It seems that there might be too many players for the market. And VOIP phone companies just handle the phone traffic and do not make their own phones. So, you buy industry standard phones and pick your carrier. It is a very competitive industry.
So, I chose Vocalocity and got my phones in the mail in about 2 days. I was very excited because I would have a phone that I could take anywhere and that had auto-attendant and other great business features. Actually, it seems to have all of the features of a standard business phone system. I plugged it in and it worked. I was very impressed. But then I started experiencing some problems with the service. I found that about 1 out of every 5 calls would lead to the caller not being able to hear my voice. So, I called in to Customer Service and was told that I might need an adjustment to my firewall settings.
The technician worked remotely and eventually gave up. She told me to get a technician on-site to make the changes. I called back a few days later and was told that my firewall was too old and would not work at all. So, I removed the firewall. Well, that just made my phone worse. That made it so that the phone once and disconnect. I called in again to Vocalocity and was told that my router was also too old and that it was incompatible with VOIP.
So, I ordered a new D-Link Router for $45 (including shipping) and plugged it in. That made my VOIP phone die. I had "No Service" on the phones. No dial tone. No ringing. Nothing. When I called into Customer Service they told me to get Verizon (my Internet Service Provide) to "bridge my router". So, I called Verizon and I spent about an hour working with them to change the settings in my modem and my new router. I was told by Vocalocity that this would be the last step. But after the bridging process I still had "No Service" on all of my phones. Grrrrrrr.
Now this was my 3rd day without a business phone. All of our calls were being forwarded to my cell phone. I called Customer Support and Jack Jackson spent about 45 minutes gettings the phones corrected to communicate with our new "bridged router". Jack was very helpful, knowledgeable and patient. And he got our phone system working.
The lesson I would like to share with you is this.
Switch to VOIP. You will save a lot of money and you will get MORE features than you have now. And the sound quality is excellent. But before committing to a VOIP phone system, make sure you tell them the make and model of your router, firewall and modem at your office. Otherwise, you might have 2 or 3 days of no office phone! The other consideration is to make sure that you have enough Internet speed. Check your speed at Speedtest.net. How much speed you will need will depend on the number of phones at your office.
I highly recommend Vocalocity. They ultimately did help me find and fix all of the problems. And I now have a really great VOIP phone system that is packed with lots of great business features. So, if you want to make the switch, give them a call at 1-877-862-2562 and tell them that Progressive Office referred them to you.
Feel free to comment or to contact us if you need help.
I have a question. Can you imagine an iPhone App for your business? Do you deliver a product or service? Do you have a product or service at your business that brings clients to your office? Progressive Office is looking to develop a way to create low-cost, custom iPhone Apps.