One Of The Most Costly Business IT Support Mistakes I See Almost Every Week And How To Avoid It

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I work at an IT Support Company that provides IT Support for small to medium sized businesses. I'm on the train on my way to see a prospective Business IT Support client right now with a detailed IT Support Audit report in my bag.

The report has some bad news for them. Nothing unusual there, but the nature of the bad news is entirely avoidable and might surprise you! Let me explain.

Business IT Support Audit

Like many IT Support Companies we always undertake an IT Support Audit before we accept a new company as a Business IT Support Client. We charge our clients a fixed monthly IT Support fee so we need to know what we're getting into otherwise we could lose a lot of money.

The IT Support Audit has highlighted a common problem. I'm tempted to say they have been tricked, but that implies deliberate action. In reality they have been misled rather than deliberately tricked by their IT Support Company into spending too much on their computer system. Yes - too much!

That may sound more like a waste of money than a significant IT Support problem, but it is a significant IT Support problem. Here's why.

IT Support Complexity

They are a company of about 20 people, with a computer infrastructure sufficiently complex for a small bank. I exaggerate, but not that much.

Their requirements are actually simple, but they have 2 servers, one of which is a very high specification. Between the 2 servers they operate 5 different virtual servers and 3 different operating systems. Plus they have got a very sophisticated (read expensive and overly complex) Cisco networking infrastructure.

Based on advice from their IT Support Company they spent over 20 thousand upgrading their systems a matter of months ago. They find that ongoing IT Support costs are high as well. Changes or fixes are very expensive. I'm not surprised. It's a complex setup requiring a great deal of time and technical expertise to implement changes or IT Support fixes, to say nothing of the unnecessary business disruption involved.

In short, high installation costs and high ongoing IT Support costs. And all of it unnecessary.

A simple, elegant (and cheaper) IT Support Solution

It's a simple business so all they really need is a single Microsoft SBS server, a Draytek router and a few Netgear switches. This solution would have cut their initial costs by 10 thousand and their ongoing costs by approximately 7 thousand per annum. They could have done with that money. Unfortunately they have just been forced to make some staff redundant.

Elegantly simple and appropriate engineering is something that few IT Support Companies seem to understand. I see similar bad engineering on a regular basis. It really annoys me. Not only is it expensive, but it's sloppy, lazy work by the IT Support Company. Of course that's easy for me to say. After all I've been doing this for 20 years. As a business owner without IT Support expertise how can you avoid these expensive errors?

3 basic business tests you should apply when hiring a new Business IT Support Company
Get at least 3 IT Support quotes. This sounds basic, but so few companies do it. I make this a policy throughout my business when we are purchasing any new service. I know it's time-consuming, but it's worth the effort.
Ask "stupid" questions! Don't be afraid to ask. You are the customer. If they can't answer it in a way that you can understand then move onto another more customer service centric Business IT Support Company.
Select an IT Support Company that specialises in your size of business. If you are a small business and they support Enterprise clients that doesn't make them better for you. It actually makes them worse for you. They will try to shoehorn their enterprise technology into your small business - it's expensive and ultimately it won't work.

By the time you read this article I will have given the prospective Business IT Support client the bad news. For their long term benefit they need to undo some of the recent, expensive over engineering. It's a difficult pill to swallow. I wonder how they will react!

Ziptech Services Ltd offers fast remedy to all IT related issues in your company and provides you a friendly business IT support and service within a fixed price.

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Avoid Women's Hair Loss - Smart Hair Care Tips

There's no certainty that proper hair care will stop or prevent hair loss. With some women, the reality of genetics and even hormonal influences can over-power any hair care regimen. But why risk it? It would be prudent to do all you can to prevent women's hair loss. You don't want to wear a hat all the time if you don't want to, right? We decided to look all over the internet for the best tips on keeping your hair and scalp healthy and preventing women's hair loss, and we'll now present them to you.

Exerting a lot of pulling on your hair for any style is not recommended. Very tight ponytails, or even the bun, is not a good idea due to the pulling. Pigtails that are very tight plus anything with a tight curl also put too much of a pulling on the hair.

The simple and harmless looking styles actually exert tremendous stress on your hair follicles and hair, plus it does the same to your scalp. One possibility is that you can shed too much hair at once. You can take a lot of stress off of your hair by simply loosening up your tight styles just a little bit.

You'll can cause unnecessary stress by using different kinds and brands of shampoo and other hair products. Women changes hair producst around for a lot of reasons - we know. What this does is put more stress on your hair and scalp in different ways.

It's far better to find a routine of one brand and stick to that for as long as possible. You probably know what works well for you, so just use that. Keep the frequency for changing to more than a few months. Switching more often increases your risk of breaking down your hair or weakening it through too much strain.

Not all hair care products are created equal. Why do you think the cheaper products are so much cheaper? Get the best you can while staying within your budget. It's more than possible that your hair will not be as clean as it can be with the really cheap shampoos. Your stylist will use the best she can on your hair because she wants to see the best results, as do you. So if it's at all possible, just use the same products even if they're expensive. Apart from women's hair loss, it makes quite a bit of sense to take the best possible care of your hair. The more effort you put into caring for your hair, the healthier your hair and scalp will be. A scalp that is kept in good condition is also more likely to hold onto its hair. Therefore, it's worthwhile to take good care of your hair and scalp every day. You can do this fairly easily. The tips in this article don't require much time at all to put into action.

For additional information about online income there's plenty of information not outlined on this page, go to Author's web blog to discover supplementary information.

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Helpful Tech Devices to Avoid the Dangers of Living Alone for Seniors

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An elderly living alone is not uncommon these days. More and more senior citizens want to live independently despite the physical limitations aging has given them. However, even if most seniors are living alone, this does not mean that the setup of senior independent living is safe. A lot of risks threaten the safety of seniors even inside the comforts of their own homes.

Fortunately, there are a lot of practical devices that seniors can use these days to help promote elderly safety despite living alone. The use of these devices can very well offer seniors and their loved ones a quiet mind with the idea of living independently.

Personal Response Alert System

A lot of technological endeavors have been dedicated towards elderly safety these days. A personal response alert system is just one of the many technologies that can be a lot of help for seniors.

One kind of this technology and is very popular among seniors is a fall detector. This device is introduced to respond to the growing need of seniors nowadays. Statistics show that almost one-third of people who are 65 years and older fall each year. With accidental falls, safety is indeed at risk. Some falls can cause major injuries while others survive with a slight bruise only.

Fall detectors come as a pendant or a bracelet and are worn by elderly living alone. When the user falls, the pendant or bracelet sends a signal to the server. The signals sent to the server are then used to send help to the senior in question as soon as possible. After all, immediate help is essential during falls.

Another personal response alert system is an SOS cell phone. This works differently than a fall detector because its coverage is wider. Essentially, an SOS button in a cell phone works once pushed during emergency situations. The SOS button will then trigger emergency response systems in an effort to bring help to the elderly no matter what happens.

What makes an SOS cell phone better than fall detectors is that it can be used not only during falls. A cell phone can be used anytime and anywhere for whatever emergency situation is happening. This can be true for medical emergencies, physical attacks, and the like. Most SOS cell phones work to automatically reach up to five numbers during emergencies to ask for help. They can also give off a very loud alarm to attract attention of nearby people. With such offers of an emergency response cell phone, help can always be guaranteed to be on the way every time one is needed.

Medication Management System

Seniors living alone can benefit from a medication management system as well. This kind of device will basically help them take their medication at the right time all the time. Plus, this ensures that they take the right medications as prescribed.

The thought of an elderly living alone is indeed a source of worry. But thanks to these technological devices, independent seniors can very well live alone with a quiet mind. With safety and security devices right at their hands, seniors can live independently, freely, and safely without stirring the peace of mind of their children and grandchildren.

Is the Business Development Representative of Just5, which is a global provider of mobile phones that are designed for optimal ease of use, reliability and emergency response, offering basic features that are ideal for seniors, people with poor eyesight or hearing problems, people with medical conditions that require constant care and children who need a "starter phone." For more information, visit http://www.just5.com/.

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Ten Things to Avoid in Managing Your Church Website

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You may know the top ten things you should do with your church website. But do you know the top ten things you shouldn't do with it? Here are some tips-some no-nos, specifically, when managing your church website.

Hoarding the password. You may be the website guy, but you don't need to guard the password like you would protect the key to Fort Knox. If you get amnesia tomorrow, the church website is locked forever. Share, trust, enjoy.
Changing the theme too frequently. The tech-inclined among us may be inclined to show off our expertise by changing the theme frequently. That's not a really good idea. It messes with people's minds. If your website was created in 1994, fine. Give it a little facelift, but don't change the whole look every week. Change bothers people, especially when that change isn't necessary. (Just trying changing your church's music style. See how that goes over.)
Installing lots and lots of cute plugins. If your church uses a WordPress platform, and many do, you have the capability of adding plugins. That's nice. Just don't get carried away. Untested plugins can compromise your website. Keep it to a necessary minimum.
Deleting someone else's stuff. So maybe you're on this power kick as the web manager, and you decide to delete the pastor's blog, or maybe just an article that rubs you the wrong way. Not a good idea. Hands off.
Adding tons of text to the home page. The home page is like curb appeal. It should look good-clean, cohesive, nice. In other words, you shouldn't put all your clutter out on the front lawn. If everything is on the home page, nothing is going to get read. Not the plan of salvation. Not your End Times viewpoint. Not the photo gallery of the church picnic. Put them on subpages, please.
Canceling your hosting service to save money. Hosting costs money. It can be annoying to pony up another twenty or thirty each month to keep your site on the web. Just don't cancel it, though. If you do, your website disappears forever. Try saving money in coffee costs, not website hosting.
Changing the coding on the template. Unless you're a whiz-bang-know-a-ton-web-programming nerd, we suggest that you don't tamper with the source code for your website. No offense, but you're liable to mess something up. If you have a question about what this means then stay well enough alone, okay? One misplaced bracket, and you're toast.
Creating too many links and menus. Menus are pretty awesome. You can just go click-click and access more pages. But the more you add, the more junky clutter you add to your website. Streamlined simplicity is beauty, and when you have a whole line of menus pasted on the side of your church website, you're looking totally tacky. Your church may actually have 892 really important programs, but you should put them in sub pages, not the main navigation menu.
Spending too much time on it. It is possible to spend so much time on the website that you cease to eat, sleep, and do other things. Don't fall into that trap. A website is a tool, not a cruel tyrant demanding your every minute. If you're spending too much time on the church website, I have a fascinating concept to share with you. It starts with "d" and ends with "elegation"
Not managing it at all. This is far and away the worst sin that you could commit upon a church website. And that is-nothing at all. Not managing the website is worse than not having one. A website that is not updated is a church website that is functionally dead. By all means, update the thing every once in a while, will you?

Daniel Threlfall works with http://www.sharefaith.com/, a church solution company that produces top church websites free of charge.

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