Whilst the festive period represents a welcome break for some, it can be a busy time of year for many small to medium-sized business owners. The race to get work completed before the year is out coupled with the desire to launch full throttle into the following year, can often seem unachievable. However, Bibby Financial Services is encouraging owners and managers in the South West to ‘stop and pause’ and review their business to ensure it’s in the best possible shape for the year ahead, which is set to be another challenging twelve months.

Ashley Clarke, South West head of sales of Bibby Financial Services, comments, “While Christmas is a busy time for many owners and managers – trying to finish 2008 on an even keel and find the time to plan for the next twelve months, reviewing business practices is an invaluable exercise for the year ahead. With another tough year upon us, owners and managers that invest the time now will reap the rewards of their efforts well in to 2009.”

With a ‘Business health-check’ in mind, Bibby Financial Services has developed a tip for each of the twelve days of Christmas for owners and managers who want to get their business fit for the New Year and beyond:

1. Be realistic: Whether you are just starting out, or want to develop your business further in the new year, be realistic about what you can achieve. Know your strengths, how they can be best be utilised within your operating environment and the current economy. Don’t be afraid to seek professional advice where both you and your business will benefit.

2. Credit check: Don’t hide in your shell when it comes to customers, credit-checks bring security and peace of mind. With the current economy, you may already be experiencing longer payment terms, however a common and accepted business practice, credit checking ensures a smoother business relationship overall with no nasty surprises further down the line. Keep an eye on customers’ payment trends and spot potential problems before they become major issues – forewarned is forearmed.

3. Get protection: In the current climate being prepared for bad debt is crucial, avoid payment problems before they happen. Research shows that 47 per cent[1] of owners and mangers have no provisions in place to cope with bad debt. Investing in bad debt protection ensures you receive payment, even if your customer becomes insolvent, bringing security and peace of mind to areas otherwise beyond your control.

4. Review suppliers: Are you getting the best deal from your suppliers – shop around and negotiate longer credit terms (you don’t get if you don’t ask!). Suppliers are keen to keep as much business as they can so take advantage of any special deals on offer.

5. Keep in contact: Can your customers contact you easily? How do you communicate with your core customers? Regular communication is key to knowing your customers and keeping your business front of mind. Assess the communications tools you currently use – from the simple things such as answering machine messages, to customer newsletters and your company website.

6. Read the small print: If you are looking to secure business funding don’t be tempted by the largest amount without thoroughly understanding the fee structure and reading through all the terms and conditions. If the sum on offer from one lender is significantly larger than the rest, you could still pay dearly so be sure to go through all the small print. There are many alternative finance solutions, such as invoice finance, available instead of the traditional bank loan or overdraft. Make sure you explore all the options before signing on the dotted line.

7. Be prepared: Businesses need a nest egg too. From a surprise tax bill to a quiet patch, it’s good to ensure you have the funds available for the unexpected. Regularly review your financial arrangements, to ensure they are in tune with your ongoing needs.

8. Cash is King: You’ll need a strong cash flow to keep your business afloat, if this is stalling because of orders waiting to be confirmed and late payments it may be time to enlist outside help. Invoice financiers like Bibby Financial Services allow businesses to raise finance based on the value of their outstanding sales invoices, releasing up to 85 per cent of the value as it’s raised. A much needed cash injection is provided up front and then an ongoing source of funding that grows in line with your sales growth. Invoice financiers also provide a valuable collections service to chase outstanding payments.

9. Take a fresh look: Are you sitting on a cash-cow without realizing. Take time out to look afresh at your business offering and operating area because, even a slight shift that perhaps seemed unfeasible even six months ago, may now dramatically boost your bottom line.

10. Spend quality time: It’s essential you take time out from work if only to tackle any pressing issues with a clearer perspective. And as well as enjoying some quality time with friends and family, many owners and managers have their best ideas when they are out of the office.

11. Shout about your success: Don’t be afraid to blow your own trumpet. Establish what makes your business unique (cheaper, greater choice, locally based, innovative etc), and let people know about it. Remind existing customers why they work with you and let potential customers know about your business and how you can help them.

12. Get the team behind you: As your business grows it’s important to keep everyone in the loop and drumming-home the ethos, and goals of your company, as well as any recent developments and successes. Including your team in your vision keeps your business focused and strong and builds a loyal and motivated team of employees behind you

MAC OS X Leaopard : 240 shortcut – productivity booster

Since last 8 month I am using IMAC 24 inch,  my productivity increase almost 50% due to the excellent OS , shortcuts.   Now our company have more then 20 MACs , I like to share some shortcuts available for mac.

If you know any other shortcut, let me know and I will update the list.

~ Sandeep

1	Cmd-C	Copy files
2	Cmd-V	Paste files
3	Option-Drag	Copy files to new location
4	Cmd-Drag	Move and auto-align icons
5	Cmd-Delete	Delete
6	Cmd-Option-Drag	Make alias
7	Cmd-Shift-Delete	Empty trash
8	Cmd-Shift-Option-Delete	Empty trash without warning
9	Tab	Select next field
10	Shift-Tab	Select previous field
11	Return	Perform default action
12	Escape	Close dialog box
13	Page Up	Scroll up list
14	Up Arrow	Select item above
15	Page Down	Scroll down list
16	Down Arrow	Select item below
17	Cmd-Shift-G	Open ‘Go to Folder’ dialog
18	Cmd-Period[.]	Close dialog box

Exposé, Space, Dashboard and the System

Issue: Freeze

Full Keyboard Access

Finder

Search: Spotlight

Utility: Print Screen

Application: Dock

Preference: Universal Access

Boot: Start Up

These shortcuts only available during start up.

Browser: Safari

Music: iTunes

Terminal

Mail: Hello from Cupertino

Front Row

Address Book

Image Editor: Adobe Photoshop

Cloud computing is Internet-based (“cloud”) development and use of computer technology (“computing“). The cloud is a metaphor for the Internet (based on how it is depicted in computer network diagrams) and is an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it conceals.^[1] It is a style of computing in which IT-related capabilities are provided “as a service”,^[2] allowing users to access technology-enabled services from the Internet (“in the cloud”)^[3] without knowledge of, expertise with, or control over the technology infrastructure that supports them. According to a 2008 paper published by IEEE Internet Computing “Cloud Computing is a paradigm in which information is permanently stored in servers on the Internet and cached temporarily on clients that include desktops, entertainment centers, table computers, notebooks, wall computers, handhelds, sensors, monitors, etc.”

Cloud computing is a general concept that incorporates software as a service (SaaS), Web 2.0 and other recent, well-known technology trends, in which the common theme is reliance on the Internet for satisfying the computing needs of the users.

Microsoft , Google and Amazon has already launch their platform which worked base on the Cloud Computing Architecture. Microsoft Azure Platform , Google Apps Engine and Amazon Web Service are most reasonable  example of Cloud Computing .

There are similarities. However, Azure supports any .NET 3.5 language (C#, VB.NET, F# and a number of others), whereas App Engine only supports Python. In addition Microsoft has already announced that eventually you will be able to run native code on Azure opening the door to almost any Language/Framework that runs in Windows (e.g. Java, PERL, PHP).

Google App Engine doesn’t provide local storage. Azure does (although it’s not shared across instances, you have to use the Azure Storage Service for that). I’m not sure what ancillary offerings Google has beside app engine, but Azure provides a number of services above and beyond the hosting service including

• SQL Data (and soon to be Reporting and Analysis) services,
• .NET Services (WF, WCF and Identity services in the cloud),
• Live Framework (too much there for words)

I’m pretty sure I’m missing something there, but it’s 2 in the morning. Basically the big deal here is that Azure has a lot to offer that GAE is lacking currently, and will have more to offer in the upcoming months. So yes it is equal to GAE…and then some.

You can give access to your store to more than one Yahoo! ID. To do so, you’ll need to do the following:

1. Sign in to the Store Manager for your store with a Yahoo! ID that does have access to your store.
2. Click the “Access” link in the Site Settings column.
3. Enter the Yahoo! ID that you wish to add to the access list for your store into the appropriate text input field on that page.
4. Select an appropriate access level for that new Yahoo! ID. All access allows the ID to do everything in your store, including adding and removing access for other Yahoo! IDs.
5. Once you’ve entered the Yahoo! ID into the text input box and selected a level of access for that ID, click the [Add] button. A page will appear that asks you if you’re sure that you wish to add that ID to your store. Click [Proceed] to add that ID to your store.

You should make sure that each new Yahoo! ID granted access to your Yahoo! Store has the appropriate level of access.

Learn more about granting Granting Access to a Store for Other Yahoo! IDs here:

http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/store/manage/sitesettings/sitesettings-07.html

Make sure you do not give your master access that you use to login to any developer unless they require to work on some specific tasks. There ARE some operations that are done only by your id – which will be asked by your developer when required – other than that, the Store Access granted with above mechanism will suffice for the most part.

I hope this help.

Thanks -

Jigar Panchal
Department Head – Yahoo Store Development
IndiaNIC.com

Barack Obama Victory Speech Grant Park Chicago Part 1

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y11XTAh4V5Y

Barack Obama Victory Speech Grant Park Chicago Part 2

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR88Ncsq6GM

In this article we will discuss security for databases accessed through the Internet. We will also examine the issue of password management since handling that task properly will help us make our web site and its applications more secure. This is the seventh part of an eight-part series that shows you how to build security into an application for an Internet cafe….

Roxio Creator 2009 – New Edit movies and burn DVDs like a pro. Keep your precious memories safe.

MySQL is the world s most popular open source relational database management system RDBMS . As a result over ten million installations are spread around the globe. Nevertheless in reality only a small percentage of those are actually high performance optimized and tuned servers. This four-part article series targets the MySQL database and system administrators covering various strategies to help benchmark and optimize databases and tune servers to yield an outstanding performance….

Automate Software Builds with Visual Build Pro Easily create an automated, repeatable process for building and deploying software.

Web applications bring your data online and make it available anywhere there’s an Internet connection. But happens when you’re on a plane or when you can’t find a WiFi hotspot?

Google launched an open source browser extension for IE and Firefox called Google Gears that enables web applications to be available offline.

“Gears is an incremental improvement to the web as it is today. It adds just enough to AJAX to make current web applications work offline. Gears today covers what we think is the minimal set of primitives required for offline apps. It is still a bit rough and in need of polish, but we are releasing it early because we think the best way to make Gears really useful is to evolve it into an open standard. We are releasing Gears as an open source project and we are working with Adobe, Mozilla and Opera and other industry partners to make sure that Gears is the right solution for everyone,” explains Google.

Stunning move by Google today in the Rich Internet Application space. While most of us (myself included) are off debating Flash vs. Silverlight vs. Apollo vs. Whatever, Google introduces Google Gears…at technology all of the above (or none of the above) can utilize…

This is a huge move and is quite brilliant. In one seemingly innocuous move (and one tiny 700k (yes, 700K) download) Google is well positioned to get Google Docs, including Writely, Spreadsheet and Presentation, along with who knows what else, enabled for offline use.Here’s a snippet of Javascript that is used to detect if Google Gears in installed. Note the three (currently) different ways, one each for Firefox, IE and Safari.

<script src=”gears_init.js“></script>
<script>
  if (!window.google || !google.gears) {
    location.href = “http://gears.google.com/?action=install&message=<your welcome message>” +
                    “&return=<your website url>”;
  }
</script>

To the below is a dialog box that pops up to let you know that Google Gears is going to store data locally. Gears uses SQLite to store information, and you use SQL from your JavaScript to CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) your data. I wonder how would would store data securely?

If you like, you can explore the databases that are created using SQLite Database Browser. This starts to explain why SQLite was a 2005 Google Open Source Award Winner.

The local storage shows up when running Internet Explorer on Windows under:

C:UsersScottAppDataLocalLow
GoogleGoogle Gears for Internet Explorer
www.yourdomain.comhttp_80

Within Firefox, the local storage databases go in:

…Application DataMozillaFirefoxProfiles
<profile>Google Gears for Firefox

So it seems I can’t go to a Gears-enabled site in IE and later in Firefox and share data. Each browser gets it’s own data storage. That means num of browsers * num of gears enabled uris = num of SQLite databases. For folks who run more than one browser, this makes the whole local storage thing a tricky issue, but I can understand why they’d segment databases by browser. I disagree, but I see their point of view.

Gears also includes a thread pool “tiny process pool” like construct that lets you perform CPU-intensive things without triggering the “Stop unresponsive script” dialog box, but you can’t touch the DOM. Again, very cool and very intelligent tradeoffs.

• Google Gears Developer site

Things are looking up, methinks. It’d be nice if Gears-like (Gearsesque?) functionality could get built into next-gen browsers the way that XmlHttpRequest did. Seems like only yesterday I was deep in the middle of the Great Cookie Scare of 1995, explaining to client what Cookies were…NO, they can’t write out a megabyte sized cookie, no cookies aren’t programs…glad that’s over. If we’ve going to build some rich stuff, let’s stop with the Flash Shared Objects and IsolatedStorage already and get the browser to solve this problem. Kudos for Google and let’s pray there’s no offline ads…

For more information on Google Gears………

Visit blog.indianic.com

IndiaNIC developed more then 40 iphone applications , few of them in the process of finalization or listing at Apple App Store.

Download the file below to review the few applications already developed and available at iTune Apps Store.

[download#1#image]