March 2nd, 2010 by Al

Often people ask me, “How can work more efficiently with my computer?”

It’s a great question, but one that is uniquely answered by each individual. Efficiency is geared toward the person and what works best for them and can be highly subjective. I’ll just say, there is a certain flow to your work that must be considered.  A flow that represents your “Feng Shui” and should be carried through into your technical strategy.

How do you do it?

Well, for me, I began look at all the things that I work with on a daily basis. What Computer, Devices and Applications I use and how they integrate with the mobile part of my technical world. I also look at things from an enterprise perspective, one where I quickly learned that standard equipment and standard applications maintain an ease of support and makes sound fiscal sense.

For example:

Computers/Personal Data Assistant

• My Desktop choice (a 27” iMac) was made with the over technical strategy I wanted to employ in mind. It represents the anchor for my business and as such, becomes the homeport for all my correspondence and technical data.

• My Mobile Desktop choice (a 17” MacBook Pro) was made keeping in mind that I wanted seamless integration with my iMac. When I work in the field, it becomes a mobile office, effectively allowing me to dynamically create on-the-fly work that otherwise, would have to wait until I got home.

• My PDA choice (an iPod Touch/Blackberry Pearl) integrates well with either, and serves as a quick connect without deploying the MacBook. It’s drawback – a dependency on Wi-Fi. However, more and more places are offering guess wireless, but security must be accounted for and risk mitigated. I must consider at some point-for efficiency’s sake- to consolidate my 2 PDA devices into 1 and that would be obtaining the iPhone. The iPhone would provide my operation with seamless integration aligning itself with my Desktop and Mobile Desktop computing strategy.

All 3, iMac, MacBook Pro and iPod Touch create a synergy that works well for me and is easy to support and maintain.

Applications

Applications (Apps) are programs that run on computer which allows the user to accomplish some sort of work such as Email, Word or Excel. Applications are not so subjective. Market leaders are leaders for a reason and outside of technical holy wars, the prevailing Office Suite offered by Microsoft, is the winner hands-down because they allow you to maximize productivity. My computer choices however, placed me in a quandary. While Microsoft does offer Office for Mac, it’s clear where Redmond is placing the bulk of their efforts and it’s not there. However, in the world of applications, no man is an island and there are many ways to go.

What I will present next, is my own preference. I work with both Mac and Microsoft—and there is a real need for me to transcend those worldly boundaries as an IT Consultant. Also, being a frugal business owner, nothing is wasted so I use software licenses where I can.

Being a Techie, for me it’s no problem to work in both worlds.

To do this, I use a product called, “VMware Fusion,” an application that allows me to run other operating systems as virtual PC’s. An Operating System (OS) is a set of programs that allow the user to interface with the computer’s peripherals. I’ll say this for my purposes here, I run multiple OS environments for testing and evaluating newer versions of application software, including other OS’ such as Windows Server 2003, RedHat LINUX or Windows XP.
As I mentioned, certain software are better in their Microsoft porting. A port is an application developed to run on a particular OS. For me, I run XP in a Virtual Machine (VM) which is computer representing itself in a virtual way that simulates a real physical one, for the purpose of running Microsoft Office 2007 and Intuit QuickBooks 2009. Both applications are Microsoft ports and are far better than their Mac ported counterparts. These Apps affect my productivity, so having the ability to run them in a Virtual XP machine is extremely valuable to me. VMware Fusion also has a feature called, “Unity” which allows for the virtual machine to become transparent and appear to be part of the Mac OS. Applications appear as if they were installed natively on the Mac OS which works well for me.

Let’s quickly talk about Email. I was using Entourage which is part of the Office for Mac suite. It’s alright, but doesn’t integrate all that well for me with my PDA. Blackberry’s sync doesn’t work for me that well either, so I decided to change that part of my strategy. I’m now using the standard mail application with Mac OSX Snow Leopard, and utilizing the standard applications for Address book, Calendar and iTunes. It simplifies their synchronization and saves me time. It lacks all the bells and whistles, but we’re talking efficiency here. You experience fewer headaches, and systems are easier to operate and maintain.

There are a host of applications that came with my new iMac and I am finding new nuggets of gold that would otherwise remain hidden. I encourage you to explore the hidden gold within your computer and operating System as well.

In conclusion, your efficiency is dependent on your technology decisions. Computers, PDA’s and Applications should allow you to work as effortlessly as possible. These decisions are not base solely on the “cool” factor. Think the process through and go with the vendor that supports your existing technology invests the best.

If you keep it simple, you will be more efficient with less headaches.

© Al Ardon IT Strategies Inc. 2010

February 27th, 2010 by Al

Impact of Obsolete Business Systems

Obsolete Systems Impact Operations
Inefficiency in Business Computing impacts productivity and worker morale. The purpose of Efficient Business Computing is to maximize work flow and accomplish business objectives. Lack of fiscal provisioning stalls business growth, affects worker productivity and morale all of which impacts its ability to compete.
Business Systems Must Be Planned For
When a business starts up, they must take into account all the necessary tools and equipment needed for the successful operation of the business. These costs, as well as their maintenance and support, should be planned and accounted for in your annual budgeting cycle.
IT strategic planning is part of the business owner responsibility to its customers and shareholders.  IT strategic planning ensures the business is capable of booking, transacting customer requests and delivering its goods and services to those customers. Meeting and exceeding all performance expectations should be at the forefront of its strategic direction. Today, no business or service organization can afford not having an IT strategy.
Successful Planning Nets Huge Results
There is nothing better for a business owner that is partnered with an IT consultant who understands both the impact and potential gains coming from having a successful IT Strategy. IT Strategies featuring standardized systems are far easier to deploy and maintain verses a mixed bag of obsolete Non-Standard systems and operating systems.
Efficiency is utilizing Standard applications correct for the intended task and it is not based solely on user popularity. If that were the case, you’d be overspending, you’d have an unsupportable infrastructure, and enormous administration costs. Incorporating a strategy that is annually budgeted for is smart, both in terms of maintenance and upkeep, as well as administrative support and makes good fiscal sense maximizing ROI.
Running with it – Hire the best!
So, you’ve decided, you have a project in mind, what now? What I hear most is “there is no budget”, “money’s tight”, or “I can handle this part of it…” and a host of others–This is dangerous thinking, and puts your project, vision and goals at extreme risk! It is not cost effective to “kind of” hire someone.  The reason it does is because it introduces an element of failure at the start of project, which is due to the distrust that is apparent with this line of thought. If I know someone who can do the job better and faster than I can, I’ll hire them, its going to save me time and money in the long run. Trust! its key!
Your IT consultant should work with you, the business owner, to understand your desires and this takes immersion into the business process in order to truly understand it.  And finally, the IT consultant must be someone you can entrust with your entire vision. IT Strategic Project planning is not just going out and buying a bunch of gear,  installing it in a haphazard way, hoping it all works. It doesn’t work that way.  Like any other business process, it has a certain flow to it, and the pieces of the IT sub-systems must  complement each other.

For example, you don’t mix RAM manufactured by 2 different companies, you can’t mirror identically sized hard drives from different manufacturers, they won’t mirror, the internal specifications aren’t the same.

My Analysis
The people that work for you are your lifeline to your customer, so what affects their morale, will ultimately affect your customer. A person that is forced to work with slow, obsolete systems is not very productive and is impacting your bottom line. I’ve observed people who are over-taxed just trying to accomplish simple tasks like sharing a file or printing a document.
Current systems are easier to support and maintain which make the work easier, result in higher productivity and increase morale among your workers, all of which positively impacts the delivery of your goods and services to your customers.
After all, is this why you’re in business in the first place?

© Al Ardon IT Strategies Inc. 2010