April 30th, 2009 by Al

The other day, I was telling my wife (yeah, she listens) that even in a down-turn, IT equipment purchases shouldn’t be put off. The reason is obvious to me, but not those responsible for towing the fiscal line. Even so, the main reason for investing in technology, is to increase your company’s position– for the new market.

Suspending capital expenditure is a sure sign your company–is weak and in survival mode–and won’t be ready.

To bolster my position on this critical line of thinking I will outline my “Top 3 Reasons For Purchasing Hardware Now:

1. Your equipment ages, it becomes slower, becoming a security risk. It’s likely to cost more in terms of support and maintenance.

2. Other company systems become faster, store more data and wants to transfer at a faster rate. You become in impedance to that business. Your customers will hate this. If you have internal customers, it’s a bad experience hearing from them.

3. Equipment is less expensive – That’s right, if you’re feeling the pinch, they are too! And, they are more apt to be creative with pricing.

Now, as opposed to later is actually the best time to increase your company’s position with this type of capital expenditure. One of the main reasons we’re in the mess we’re in–is because of poor risk management.

How much are you putting at risk by putting off that upgrade?

Copyright Alfred Ardon 2009. All rights reserved.

April 30th, 2009 by Al

(CNET) — Following the outbreaks of SARS and Avian Flu earlier this decade, Sprint Nextel has taken the threat of a global flu pandemic very seriously. And in 2005, the company created a special group within its Emergency Incident Management team to plan what to do in such an emergency.

Read more here: CNN Companies Plan for possible swine flu pandemic

April 30th, 2009 by Al

An appeal came over on my Facebook wall last night:

Need help converting audio from GarageBand to wav or mp3. It’s on an AAC extension. Anyone in my community that can offer advice? Please?

GarageBand is an application that allows your musical as well as vocal projects to be realized. It runs on a Mac. Many podcasters use this application to share their own message and brand, and it has a plethora of other possibilities.

I love playing around with this app. Why? Because it’s fun, and it reminds me that it is one way for your business to spread it’s message and establish it’s “brand”.

Here’s the scoop.

You’ve completed you project and now have this lovely audio file, but it’s an AAC extension, which won’t work if you plan to use it on your <fill in the blank> site.

You have 2 options.

In GarageBand, locate “Sharing” on the menu bar. There are 3 we’re likely to interested in for this project:

1. Send song to iTunes – Choose “Share > “Send Song to iTunes..”
2. Export song to disk – Choose “Share > Export Song to Disk”

All three involving using your project outside of GarageBand.

Option 1, sends the project to iTunes and is a bit more involved. But it will accomplish the conversion. It’s usage is primarily for preparing your project for use within iTunes like adding it to your playlist, converting it or burning it to CD.  In this case you convert the file you exported into MP3. Note: when converting files, only the selected file (highlighted) will be converted.

Option 2, exports the song to Disk. This will convert the file. Once you’ve selected Share, check “Compress” > then “Compress Using: MP3 Encoder” and finally > “Audio settings: High Quality“. The box below indicates the ideal usage for these settings. Click Export. It will now export your file, you can control where it lands.

GarageBand is a fun app, and is useful for many business functions. Primarily for getting your message out to your audience. If you have a Mac and are not using it, you’re losing a great opportunity. I hope you found this helpful.

Copyright Alfred Ardon 2009. All rights reserved.