Archive for the 'Nerd's Lair' Category

Outsourcing Means Fast Efficient Turnover and a Competitive Edge

An invaluable tool to business growth is outsourcing. It can be used strategically to influence corporate growth and financial stability.

The key is to outsource work which is non-essential or areas where the company lacks expertise. This frees valuable resources which can focus on areas of competitive advantage.

Growth can be enumerated in many ways not just in costs saved.

When you outsource a specific project you save on time and resources spent on training required to complete the project successfully. You can harness the talent, technology, and expertise of niche providers. By outsourcing, you can appoint a consultant or company who has core competencies in the field and can complete the project within the given time. The company saves on hiring permanent employees, training, benefit payments, hidden costs, absenteeism, requirements of workspace, and equipment.

The company focuses on core aspects and transfers the nitty-gritty of non core aspects to outsourced companies. This just means fast and efficient turnover as well as a competitive edge.

Outsourcing is a way to maximize workforce flexibility without the added burdens of permanent financial commitments. One uses highly qualified consultants who can complete a particular project in no time at all.

Time is money and by outsourcing a company saves valuable time which can be channeled productively, leading to growth.

Capital is used efficiently without unnecessary wastage in overheads, office space, technology, and training. Outsourcing spurs growth by providing skilled manpower and increased productivity at lower costs. If the outsourcing is selected intelligently, it leads to tax breaks saving the company thousands of dollars.

Further, business risk is shared by the outsourcing company which will know how to minimize or avoid risk in their area of expertise.

The business world is moving at a fast pace and companies need to provide quick service and low rates. Outsourcing allows a firm to do just this, provides the most advanced technology, efficient service, and low rates.

A company can, by outsourcing certain sectors provide in house support which will not be otherwise possible without expansion. So, one can gain economies of scale, efficiency as well as expanded expertise.

To summarize, growth of a company when outsourcing is adopted can be evinced in:

• Cash flow.

• Emphasis on core competencies and long term value creation.

• Minimization of risks by reliance on experts.

• Using external talent and technologies when essential and keeping overheads small and manageable.

• Infrastructure of large firms without associated burdens of large offices, greater number of permanent employees, and hidden costs of maintenance.

• Improved process and project deliveries.

• Service improvements.

• Technology infusion.

• Little or no capital investments.

• Better project costing.

• Asset conversion.

In the modern world outsourcing is an intelligent way of handling a growing business poised for success in every field. also freelances for Submit free Press Release Site

Paul Wilson is a freelance writer for http://www.1888OutsourceServices.com/, the premier Outsourcing Directory provides help on finding outsourcing companies including call center outsourcing, it service outsourcing, financial outsourcing, accounting outsourcing and more. He also freelances for Submit free Press Release Site http://www.1888PressRelease.com

Published in: Nerd's Lair | on June 12th, 2008 | Comments Off

Microsoft Great Plains in Construction & Building - Implementation & Customization Highlights

Microsoft Great Plains could be tuned and setup to fit most of horizontal markets. You can deploy third party modules or build your own custom logic in Great Plains Dexterity. Today we’ll look at the options to automate building & construction business. We’ll try to use technical language to be understood by programmer, technical consultant, IT system/database administrator, web developer.

• Project-Oriented business. Construction company is project oriented. You incur expenses, labor, inventory against the building and stick to the budget in order to meet the expected profit. Microsoft Great Plains has Project Accounting module with budgeting, expenses, inventory, labor. If you need phases with their budgets - you should probably look for one of the third party project modules, such as WennSoft JobCost. If you are established business with decades of history - you might still be using such legacy (and very efficient in Phasing functionality) Project module as Intellisol Project Accounting - in this case you are looking to convert it to either Great Plains Project Accounting or other current third party module.

• Financing. Builders usually finance the projects. When you do construction project budgeting - you need automatic financing cost estimation. This is MS SQL Server stored procedure, incorporated into Great Plains Dexterity customization for project accounting module.

• Sales. It is natural way to discount the property if potential customer is willing to finance it or pay upfront for the future property. In Great Plains Receivables Management (RM) or Sales Order Processing (SOP) modules - you should have discounting quote/invoice. The discount amount is based on the phase of the construction

• Warranty. Certain percentage should be placed aside for warranty and payment to repair crews or subcontractors. Microsoft Great Plains has Field Service Suite of modules with repair automation logic/functionality. Expect the needs to customize it via Great Plains Dexterity or Great Plains Modifier with VBA

• Customization Technologies. Microsoft Great Plains is build with Great Plains Dexterity - this is former Great Plains Software programming language and IDE, it was designed in the earlier 1990th. Dexterity allows your customization work it Great Plains graphical environment and security realm. VBA/Modifier - it is for light customization of existing Great Plains screens - you can place your custom button through Modifier and then attach VBA script to this button - feel free to use ADO to connect to the database. Web applications - your can deploy eConnect to incorporate Great Plains objects into your web application - eConnect was initially designed for eCommerce developers. Crystal Reports - is reporting tool of choice.

Good luck and you can always seek our help in customization, implementation, integration and support. Call us: 1-866-528-0577 or 1-630-961-5918, help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies - USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, serving Chicago, California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Georgia, New York, Australia, UK, Canada, Continental Europe, Russia and having locations in multiple states and internationally ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), he is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK

Published in: Nerd's Lair | on April 8th, 2008 | Comments Off

Spyware - Eradicate It Now

Spyware removal has become a tedious work. As the spyware threat has worsened, a number of techniques have emerged to counteract it. Among these are

• programs designed to remove or to block spyware
• educating the users in such a way that spyware removal no longer is needed
• user practices which reduce the chance of getting spyware on a system.

Spyware remains a costly problem even with all new technology used to combat them. If a large number of spyware programs have infected a Windows computer, the only way to save the computer may be to back up user data, and fully reinstalling the operating system.

Anti-spyware programs

One of the markets most popular anti-spyware programs, Adwarealert will help you find and ultimately rid your computer of unwanted spyware software.

Many programmers and some commercial firms have released products designed to remove or block spyware. Steve Gibson’s OptOut, , practially invented a growing category. Programs such as,

• Adwarealert
• Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware SE
• Patrick Kolla’s Spybot - Search & Destroy

rapidly gained popularity as effective tools to remove, and in some cases intercept, spyware programs.

Recently Microsoft bought the GIANT Anti-Spyware software, renaming it as Windows AntiSpyware beta and releasing it as a free download for Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows 2003 users. The renamed software for now exists as a time-limited beta test product that will expire at the end of July 2006. Microsoft is continuously developing and updating this product.

Antispyware protection, removal and antivirus

Major anti-virus firms such as Symantec, McAfee and Sophos have come later to the table, adding anti-spyware features to their existing anti-virus products.

In the beginning, anti-virus firms did not want to add anti-spyware functions, citing lawsuits brought by spyware authors against the authors of web sites and programs which described their products as “spyware”.

However, recent versions of these major firm’s home and business anti-virus products do include anti-spyware functions. The spyware is treated differently from viruses though.

Symantec Anti-Virus, for instance, categorizes spyware programs as “extended threats” and now offers real-time protection from them (as it does for viruses). The drawback with these programs is that they are very complex and in many cases produce more hurdles to jump over then you as a user really need.

Like most anti-virus software, anti-spyware software requires a frequently-updated database of threats. As new spyware programs are released, anti-spyware developers discover and evaluate them, making “signatures” or “definitions” which allow the software to detect and remove the spyware.

If a spyware program is not blocked and manages to get itself installed, it may resist attempts to terminate or uninstall it. Some programs work together: when an anti-spyware scanner (or the user) terminates one running process, the other one starts up the killed program again, making it virtually impossible to clean the computer.

Some spyware will detect attempts to remove registry keys during the spyware removal and immediately add them again. Usually, booting the infected computer in safe mode allows an anti-spyware program a better chance of removing persistent spyware.

The most extreme way of cleaning is to move the hard drive to another computer, boot on the normal boot disk that computer has, and then clean the infected disk. You can also mount the infected disk over the local network and scan & clean it to remove as much spyware as possible.

It doesn’t matter what way you choose to clean your computer, but using a good spyware removal program will make your life much easier …

Kenth “The Designer” Nasstrom writes about spyware, adware and other non wanted software. You should find out how to remove spyware and adware from your computer now and reduce the risks.

Published in: Nerd's Lair | on April 1st, 2008 | Comments Off