smartbusinessbackup.me

The backups are all done automatically and in the background and we are even notified if a backup is not performed..... Brilliant really and the price is virtually nothing for the peace of mind it gives, starting at £6.99 per computer plus 0.50p per gigabyte it suits our needs perfectly.

One of the major advantages of this system is that it backs up protected system files and files that are in use, most importantly for many people is that it is able to back up Microsoft Outlook .PST files....and it is the only backup solution that we have found that does this effectively and without error..... No mean feat considering even programs like dropbox have significant problems with this.

If you are a business with just a couple of computers and want to make sure that everything is backed up correctly and in a timely fashion this is a very good option, and if you have more infrastructure with servers and large databases this would suit you as well.

FSCONS: YaCy Demo from Michael Christen on Vimeo.

Nothing about me will survive more than a few years, and even the people who remember me will be gone in a short time. The miracle spark that is my consciousness will without ceremony flicker out on some day in near future and then I will just be gone, nothing more. 

But this is OK...

Laughter is still laughter, dancing still dancing, joy still joy. These things are not dimished because they are fleeting, in fact they are actually sweeter. 

So I am going to enjoy the sun on my face and not get stressed by the small things, like computers and microsoft <evil> etc...

Because life is too precious.

Dave

Ever wished that your email, Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin were all in the same place? Well now you can stop wishing as Relenta has new social intergration that lets you post to all of these different social sites right from your email interface. 

Relenta is one of the many CRM tools availiable these days allowing the managment of contacts, but it is different in that it works as an email client like Outlook combining this with a CRM as well a Twitter/Facebook/Linkedin interface makes for a killer combination. 

You can connect your Relenta account to any number of Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook accounts, preview and then import some or all of the contacts into Relenta. The Relenta system will match them against the existing contacts to keep your database clean and free of duplicates.

These social network messages then become shared action items in your CRM allowing you to have all of your contact with people in one place, fantastic if you ask us.

If you would like to give it a try for free just click below to go to the Relenta site 

Dave

Managing a Contact database, even a good one can be a pain. This is because there are always things that need to be intergrated with your database, like email, marketing and tasks.

There are many contact management solutions out there and some are actually quite good. Webware like Highrise is great in the way it integrates your database with tasks and it even does an ok job at including email, at least to some degree. If you are looking for a complete solution however Relenta is the only Contact Management system we have found that really does everything.

Email

Relenta is different from many contact management systems in that it handles email. It is basically an email client on the web which can send and recieve from all of you various email addresses. Is also has plain text and HTML functionality as well as basic email functionality like creating signatures, incoming email filters and even auto-responders. It is not as well featured as something like Outlook or Thunderbird, but it is a competent email client which has not left us wanting as far as functionality is concerned.

Contact Database

Relenta can import and organise your contacts with the best of them, having all of the standard felids as well as tags and groups. Grouping your contacts in Relenta allows you to send emails to groups which is a very nice feature we use all the time, grouping contacts into different client categories is very handy. You can also do all of the other things you would expect like add tasks and custom fields to users as well as a good search capability as well.

Task Management

We would have liked to have seen task management have a more smooth a flow something like Highrise, but you can still do some of the basic task management functions with relative ease. One function that was missing was the ability to set recurring tasks, at the moment Relenta does not do this which we find unusual considering the way that it is orientated towards business use. Related to this it would be nice to be able to set tasks according to group creating a workflow for different groups making it so that just adding a person to a group would assign certain tasks to them. Having said this however, the tasks functionality is still quite usable and certainly functions well enough for our everyday needs.

Email Marketng

One of the ways Relenta stands out from the crowd is through its ability to do email marketing. Using the contact groups described earlier you can set up a series of emails to go out for each group at the intervals of your choosing. This integration between email, contacts and marketing is a huge time saver when compared to using something like Mailchimp with Highrise for example and has helped.  our operation no end.

Conclusion

Relenta allows you to put all of the important aspects of manageing a client base into one place and does the job pretty well. We would love to see some more features and the tasks functionality needs some polishing up but we still think its the best alternative out there.

Give it a try for free here, see what you think.

Dave

Being a distribution of Linux means that there are almost no viruses around that will affect it, we have been using Ubuntu for years now and have never seen it infected at all. This means that you don't have to install anti-virus or anti-spyware software and therefore your computer will run a lot quicker even though Ubuntu is approximately the same size as Windows.

Installation of Ubuntu is far easier and much quicker than Windows, the installation process is straightforward and generally does not involve driver installations often a major time consumer when installing Windows. No more inserting disks when trying to install hardware, just plug it in and and it goes.

Ubuntu has packaged with it a version of Openoffice an open source free alternative to Microsoft office that works just as well. Ubuntu also has packaged with it Firefox and our opinion the best browser available at the moment. And if its free software you after them and then Ubuntu has its own software centre where you can download hundreds of free applications easily and safely.

Unfortunately, there are some pieces of software that Ubuntu does not support and for many people this may be a stumbling block. For example Ubuntu does not support Itunes and although there are ways to play and copy music using Ubuntu this incredibly popular interface is not yet available although there is talk that they are working on this. This also goes for Windows live messenger and although the Ubuntu Instant Messenger is every bit as good it is not exactly the same which may put off a lot of people. This lack of compatibility with major software vendors is I believe the greatest disadvantage of Ubuntu and if it were not for this one not so minor hiccup I would quite happily swap my entire operation over to Ubuntu in a second.

Ubuntu is by far the nicest looking, easiest to use and install and the safest operating system that I know of and I believe as software compatibility increases (and it will) the major companies will not be able to stem the tide of people switching over to a free, safe and sexy looking operating system.

Just register here for a free account and you will be able to start using our new and improved interface.

We hope everybody likes it, please submit some feedback if you can.

Dave

I do however have a vicarious way to enjoy being overseas, namely of jumping on a computer in a faraway land. Recently a lady asked me to fix her computer because it was running slow, which of course I was happy to do, the process took me a few hours to complete (a little longer than normal) because her internet connection kept dropping off. At the end of the job I apologised to taking a bit longer than normal and told her that her Internet connection was not very stable to which she replied that "it probably isn't very good because the boat is rocking around quite a bit". It turns out that she was on a boat off the Greek islands and she was connecting to the Internet using a mobile phone, it's amazing to think that sitting at my desk fixing computers can reach so far.

Talking about travel another one of my clients recently called me at 1:30 AM, not something that happens very often but once I heard her problem I was happy to help. It turns out that she was booked on a flight that was leaving at four or five in the morning and her electronic ticket would not print out. Some airlines can be very pedantic about these things and without the printout they often will not let you on your flight. Within about 10 or 15 minutes however I was able to print out her ticket for her on her printer, needless to say she was very grateful.

These days booking a holiday or travelling is something that you really need a computer for and Murphy's Law seems to dictate that if something is going to go wrong with your laptop it will go wrong on holiday. Either way it's good to have some way of getting this fixed while you are overseas and that's what we are here for, and it gives us a bit of a thrill too.

Cheers, Dave

The great thing is none of us know, we can speculate as much as we want but we can never really be sure what is around the corner for us. I know that may scare some people, the type of people that love to plan and control their lives, the type of people that can’t go to the supermarket without a list indeed without walking down the aisles in the same order as they always do. But for me it gives life a magic and excitement that is makes it all worth going through.

Accepting this lack of knowledge is not restricted to the future, many of the things that we think we know about the world or even our own past are, when more closely examined just as much of a mystery to us as what might happen tomorrow (if anything at all).

This uncertainty, this mystery is in my opinion the source of creativity. It is when we look through the eyes of a child having a sense of wonder in everything we see that we are at our most creative. This creativity is one of the most valuable things we have both in our personal and professional life.

This is the point where I could put a shameless commercial plug for the services that we offer, saying something like "kiwi computer help, there for the unexpected", but I don't think I will. The fact is that computers can be as much a source of the unexpected as anything in this world and that can be as much of a good thing as a bad thing.

And just for once I am going to focus on the fact that it is a great thing.

Dave