By Scott Nesbitt and Geeks.com
The Portable Document Format (PDF), created by Adobe Systems has become a popular way to exchange and print documents. You see PDFs just about everywhere -- on the Web, included with the software you buy, and even the documents sent to commercial printers. Its easy to understand the popularity of PDF because they maintain the formatting -- the layout, images, fonts, and more of the original document.
Conventional wisdom says that you need Adobe Acrobat to be able to create PDF files in Windows. With a $299 price tag, Acrobat is a little pricey for the average user. It also packs more features than most of us will ever use.
Anyway, you don't need to spend that kind of money to create and manipulate PDFs. You can do it cheaply, and even for free. Curious? Then keep reading.
Creating PDFs
There's quite a bit of free and low-cost software for creating PDFs in Windows. Some of it is good. Much of it isn't. Here are a few free PDF generators that won't let you down.
First up is PrimoPDF, which gets installed on your computer as a printer driver. That means you can use it with any application. I tried PrimoPDF with several programs and it worked perfectly. All you need to do is select File > Print in your application, and then choose PrimoPDF from the dropdown list. Then you're ready to go.
With PrimoPDF, you can set up your PDF so that it can can be viewed on-screen or in an electronic book reader, or printed on a conventional printer or a press.
PrimoPDF from the dropdown list On top of that, you can add a password to the PDF and prevent users from printing, copying, or modifying the file. You can also change the document's information -- like title, author, subject, and keywords.
PrimoPDF can be a bit slow, but it produces a crystal clear PDF while also maintaining any internal and external links in the original file. My only gripe is the advertisement that appears on the applications dialog box when you print. It's a minor annoyance, though I can't begrudge software developers from trying to make a living with their other products.
Like PrimoPDF, PDFCreator is installed as a printer driver. While PDFCreator works right out of the box, you can configure it to output nicer PDFs. You can, for example, make sure that your PDFs can be viewed in all PDF readers, set the resolution, maintaining any internal and external linksand ensure that the PDF opens as quickly as possible when its posted on the Web.
You can also configure PDFCreator to compress the file, and to include all or just some of the fonts on your computer in the document.
When you print to a PDF file, a dialog box appears. Here you can add information about the file: title, author, the date on which it was created, and keywords. This dialog box also contains two other buttons: one to override any options that you have set, and another for emailing the PDF. Click Save. Unless you're working with a large document, you should have a PDF file within a few seconds.
If you have a home or small office network, you can install PDFCreator on a server. Anyone using the network can get access to PDFCreator and create PDFs without installing the software. I've used PDFCreator in this way over a few small wireless networks and have never had a problem. You do, however, need to have the PDFCreator program running on the server for this work.
Many Windows users do work in Microsoft Office. But its free rival, OpenOffice.org, can do just about anything Office can. And it sports an excellent, integrated PDF writer. The PDF writer works with all of the applications that make up the OpenOffice.org suite -- word processor, spreadsheet, presentation program, and drawing package.
There are two ways to create a PDF in OpenOffice.org: quick and dirty, and with more options. To get the quick and dirty PDF, just click the Export Directly as PDF icon on the toolbar. You'll be asked where you want the PDF saved. Choose the directory and click Save. After a few seconds, you get a PDF. It's nothing special, though links are lost and the file is rather large.
The second option gives you more control over the PDF. Choose File > Export as PDF. Again, you'll be asked where you want the PDF saved. Choose the directory and click Save. Then, the PDF Options dialog box appears.
The options you can set include how you want the PDF compressed so its smaller, the security settings, the page layout when the file is viewed in a PDF reader, and more. Once you've selected the options, click Export. A document created this way doesn't look too bad.
Manipulating Your PDFs
Acrobat doesn't just create PDFs. What makes Acrobat useful is its ability to manipulate PDFs. How? By adding or deleting pages, inserting text, rotating pages, and more. Depending on your needs, you can find tools that do the same job at a fraction of the cost or for nothing.
Say you've created a document in your favorite word processor, and a nice cover for it in a drawing tool. How do you pull them together? Using PDF Split and Merge. As its name states, this software can combine and break apart PDF files. Its easy to use -- you just tell PDF Split and Merge what files you want to work with, give the combined file a name, and click the Run button. Unlike some software (free or not) for combining PDF files, PDF Split and Merge retains internal and external links, as well as any bookmarks in the files.
PDFTK (pdftk) is a powerful tool for fiddling with PDF files. It can combine and split PDFs, add security to a file, attach other files (like a spreadsheet) to a PDF, repair a broken PDF, and more. Pdftk is a command line tool, which means opening a command prompt and typing a long string of confusing, hard to remember commands to get it to work. It looks something like this:
pdftk manual.pdf attach_files command_ref.html to_page 24 output user_manual.pdf
That's a lot of typing! Luckily, there's a graphical face for pdftk called GUI for pdftk. No typing, just point and click. The GUI for pdftk isn't pretty and it only gives you access to a small subset of pdftk's functions, but those are the ones you're most likely to use anyway.
To edit a PDF in any other way -- like adding text or graphics, or changing colors -- you need to pay for the tool. There are a few such tools. Two of them are pdfedit995 and Foxit PDF Editor.
Pdfedit995 is free, but includes an ad that appears when it's run. Getting rid of the ad costs $9.95. Foxit PDF Editor, on the other hand, will set you back $99. As with any other software, your needs and your budget will dictate what you'll get.
In the end, though, you don't need to spend a lot of money (or any at all) to create and work with PDFs. There's a lot of free and Open Source software available on the Web that can handle whatever PDF needs you have.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Increase your office wireless router range
Quite often you may find that your office WiFi setup won't reach all the areas of your business because of range limitations. This problem can be overcome very easily and without spending much money.
What you need is Radio Labs WRE500MW (will NOT work with 802.11n as the MIMO specs differ).
Radio Labs tell us that this product will increase the range of your router by up to 30 times - that's very impressive and for a cost of approx. $120 that's really good value.
The antenna, which is what you get to attach to your existing router, achieves this feat by having it's own power supply and pumping out a massive 500mW - now that's a lot of power for a WiFi antenna.
What you need is Radio Labs WRE500MW (will NOT work with 802.11n as the MIMO specs differ).
Radio Labs tell us that this product will increase the range of your router by up to 30 times - that's very impressive and for a cost of approx. $120 that's really good value.
The antenna, which is what you get to attach to your existing router, achieves this feat by having it's own power supply and pumping out a massive 500mW - now that's a lot of power for a WiFi antenna.
The 9 worst PC performance inhibitors
* Update vs New installation
Whenever you update software you automatically carry over all the original pieces of software from the original install, even if they are no longer needed.
So the best approach is to delete the original and do a new clean install.
You will need to ensure that you have the right software to do a new install rather than simply an update.
* Too little disk space
If your disk drive is too small Windows will not work optimally. You need to ensure that there is sufficient disk space available for Windows to perform to its best - this is true for any operating system (UNIX, Mac OS, etc.) not just Windows!
I would recommend no less than 40GB drives for normal home use in a small family with 1 - 3 users.
If your computational needs increase you will need larger and larger drives. It makes a lot of sense to think seriously about what you might do with your computer into the future (photo albams, downloading movies, developing movies for friends and family, etc.) and talk to an expert about what might be best to buy up front.
Don't worry too much about cost as drive are very cheap these days with 500GB drive selling for as little as US$300 (try e-bay)
* Too many utilities
Delete any programs you no longer need. This will free up disk space and reduce memory requirements speeding upo you computer.
If you think you may need then sometime in the future then a good idea is to burn the installer onto a CD or DVD for later re-install - assuming you don't have the original media.
* Redundant data
Delete temp files. These can build up very quickly and end up hogging your drive.
Also empty your trash regularly. I do it just before shutting down every day.
Be aware that dragging and dropping stuff into the trash does not delete it from your machine! The trash can is a temporary holding area from which you can drag and drop stuff back onto your computer if you wish (just double click your trash can to open it like any other folder). You need to right click on the trash can and select 'empty recycle bin' to actually get rid of whatever may be in it.
* Data bottlenecks
Learn how to optimise your computers memory cache to optimise performance.
* Inefficient registry
Optimise and clean out the registry on a regular basis to optimise performance.
* Poor monitor display
A poorly set up monitor/graphics card combination can have a significant impact on performance.
Any graphics card should come with a CD or DVD with software to tune the card with your monitor/s (it's possible to have more than one if you need the 'screen real estate.')
Ensure you read the instructions carefully and tune the card and monitor.
* Obsolete hardware/software
Having an array of old and obsolete drivers, DLLs, registry entries and hardware (eg an un-used modem because you are now on broadband) will slow down your machine.
A good clean out of un-used software and hardware will help.
* Unnecessary Autostart programs
These can be very frustrating. They hog memory and slow start-up.
Many software products offer you the ability to install them into the system tray when first installed. Unless you are going to use this software regularly or it needs to be installed at start-up, deselect this option.
Also if you find that there are already items in the system tray you rarely use it's a good idea to remove them (the system tray is that the little set of pictures on the bottom right of your screen).
* Fragmented disk drive
Over time your hard drive will end up with a large number of files all over the place and many of them will be split into many fragments written on many disparate locations on your hard drive. This is called disk fragmentation.
This slows your machine down because when you need a file the computer needs to look all over your drive to pick up the whoile file - this takes time and if fragmentation is significant can slow you down a lot.
I know that's ten inhibitors but I never said I could count!
But there are simple solutions for most of these issues. You need a piece of software that can fix these problems without you needing to understand the detailed intricacies of your machine. One that's free and certainly does most of the hard work in a product develop by Microsoft.
Download Tweak UI here. Look down the right hand side of the page until you find the link for Tweak UI!
Whenever you update software you automatically carry over all the original pieces of software from the original install, even if they are no longer needed.
So the best approach is to delete the original and do a new clean install.
You will need to ensure that you have the right software to do a new install rather than simply an update.
* Too little disk space
If your disk drive is too small Windows will not work optimally. You need to ensure that there is sufficient disk space available for Windows to perform to its best - this is true for any operating system (UNIX, Mac OS, etc.) not just Windows!
I would recommend no less than 40GB drives for normal home use in a small family with 1 - 3 users.
If your computational needs increase you will need larger and larger drives. It makes a lot of sense to think seriously about what you might do with your computer into the future (photo albams, downloading movies, developing movies for friends and family, etc.) and talk to an expert about what might be best to buy up front.
Don't worry too much about cost as drive are very cheap these days with 500GB drive selling for as little as US$300 (try e-bay)
* Too many utilities
Delete any programs you no longer need. This will free up disk space and reduce memory requirements speeding upo you computer.
If you think you may need then sometime in the future then a good idea is to burn the installer onto a CD or DVD for later re-install - assuming you don't have the original media.
* Redundant data
Delete temp files. These can build up very quickly and end up hogging your drive.
Also empty your trash regularly. I do it just before shutting down every day.
Be aware that dragging and dropping stuff into the trash does not delete it from your machine! The trash can is a temporary holding area from which you can drag and drop stuff back onto your computer if you wish (just double click your trash can to open it like any other folder). You need to right click on the trash can and select 'empty recycle bin' to actually get rid of whatever may be in it.
* Data bottlenecks
Learn how to optimise your computers memory cache to optimise performance.
* Inefficient registry
Optimise and clean out the registry on a regular basis to optimise performance.
* Poor monitor display
A poorly set up monitor/graphics card combination can have a significant impact on performance.
Any graphics card should come with a CD or DVD with software to tune the card with your monitor/s (it's possible to have more than one if you need the 'screen real estate.')
Ensure you read the instructions carefully and tune the card and monitor.
* Obsolete hardware/software
Having an array of old and obsolete drivers, DLLs, registry entries and hardware (eg an un-used modem because you are now on broadband) will slow down your machine.
A good clean out of un-used software and hardware will help.
* Unnecessary Autostart programs
These can be very frustrating. They hog memory and slow start-up.
Many software products offer you the ability to install them into the system tray when first installed. Unless you are going to use this software regularly or it needs to be installed at start-up, deselect this option.
Also if you find that there are already items in the system tray you rarely use it's a good idea to remove them (the system tray is that the little set of pictures on the bottom right of your screen).
* Fragmented disk drive
Over time your hard drive will end up with a large number of files all over the place and many of them will be split into many fragments written on many disparate locations on your hard drive. This is called disk fragmentation.
This slows your machine down because when you need a file the computer needs to look all over your drive to pick up the whoile file - this takes time and if fragmentation is significant can slow you down a lot.
I know that's ten inhibitors but I never said I could count!
But there are simple solutions for most of these issues. You need a piece of software that can fix these problems without you needing to understand the detailed intricacies of your machine. One that's free and certainly does most of the hard work in a product develop by Microsoft.
Download Tweak UI here. Look down the right hand side of the page until you find the link for Tweak UI!
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Business analysis through SWOT: Strength, Weakness, Opportunity Threats
SWOT analysis has value but it should not be a process that you go through once a year or six months in some formalised (sorry for the apparent misspelling - it's British Commonwealth/English/Australian/New Zealand/Indian/South African english rather than American english) way. It should be a process that is in the forefront of your mind at all times.
As you encounter, in your day-to-day working, issues that address any of the items in SWOT analysis (you business/personal/staff/equipment/etc. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) you should ensure that you take the time to address them.
In other words these issues should become a daily part of your awareness and thinking if you want to achieve continuous improvement in your business affairs.
The real advantages come, of course, from actually actioning any issues that arise. Being aware of strengths but not doing anything to maximise the potential of those strengths makes the whole process of being aware of them a waste of time. The same is true for all the issues raised by SWOT analysis - Weaknesses, Opportunities and the Threats.
Being aware is only the begining.
Ultimately it is action that make the different.
As you encounter, in your day-to-day working, issues that address any of the items in SWOT analysis (you business/personal/staff/equipment/etc. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) you should ensure that you take the time to address them.
In other words these issues should become a daily part of your awareness and thinking if you want to achieve continuous improvement in your business affairs.
The real advantages come, of course, from actually actioning any issues that arise. Being aware of strengths but not doing anything to maximise the potential of those strengths makes the whole process of being aware of them a waste of time. The same is true for all the issues raised by SWOT analysis - Weaknesses, Opportunities and the Threats.
Being aware is only the begining.
Ultimately it is action that make the different.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Print your documents half way around the world
Would you like the ability to print a document directly onto a customers printer in their office? I know I have wanted to on many occasions - rather than e-mail it with the attendant security issues - and now I can with a great piece of software called PrintAnywhere - what else?
This free utility needs to be installed on both your and your customers machines. When you select a job to print you can choose the PrintAnywhere drivers and print to the remote printer.
A full encrypted file is sent over the Internet (very safe and secure from prying eyes) and printed for you.
It also then, becomes possible for you to allow your printer/s to be used by anyone from Anywhere.
There is actually a business here! Allow people from around the world access to your printers and you guarantee to deliver the documents in your local area for a fee. A lot faster than any courier company!
This free utility needs to be installed on both your and your customers machines. When you select a job to print you can choose the PrintAnywhere drivers and print to the remote printer.
A full encrypted file is sent over the Internet (very safe and secure from prying eyes) and printed for you.
It also then, becomes possible for you to allow your printer/s to be used by anyone from Anywhere.
There is actually a business here! Allow people from around the world access to your printers and you guarantee to deliver the documents in your local area for a fee. A lot faster than any courier company!
Save your precious business data
We all know how critical our business information can be and that's why we are told time and again to backup our data. But, let's be honest, how many of us ever do? I have a very strong suspicion that only a minority of us backup regularly if at all and when the day comes, as it will, and we lose all our data we are devastated and sometimes find ourselves in a really untenable position vis-a-vis our business.
The traditional backup procedures can be expensive. Using RAID systems means having a number of other disks to backup just one disk (expensive), saving data off-line (eg on tape) is time consuming and can be expensive, backup over the internet (possible for small data sets but don't try it with large ones as the time and cost can become prohibitive) or you need DVDs or stacks of CDs - all requiring money and often time that you might not have.
But there is a piece of software that, to some degree, can save us the trouble of backing up our data all the time.
Hard disk drive these days come with some very clever software on-board called SMART (Self-Monitoring And Reporting Technologies) that is capable of predicting a hard disk failure.
Using software that can interrogate the SMART condition of your drive/s it is possible to find out if your drive/s are close to failure and it's getting close to the time to replace them with something newer. Replacing your old hard drives with newer ones is one of the better strategies to ensuring data integrity - there are other techniques as well but this is a good, cheap alternative.
One of the easiest pieces of software to use is called Speedfan.
It will actually do more than check your hard drives. It will also allow you to overclock your computer (at your own risk), do a temperature check on the CPU and hard drives and will allow you to check and change the speeds of your computers fans. The great thing about this is that you can make the fans speed up as the CPU gets hotter and slow down if it gets cooler ensuring that an optimum temperature is maintained.
A great piece of freeware!
NOTE: Be aware that checking your disks for deterioration does NOT guarantee that you are safe from a hard disk crash and subsequent data loss - it just lessens the possibility.
The traditional backup procedures can be expensive. Using RAID systems means having a number of other disks to backup just one disk (expensive), saving data off-line (eg on tape) is time consuming and can be expensive, backup over the internet (possible for small data sets but don't try it with large ones as the time and cost can become prohibitive) or you need DVDs or stacks of CDs - all requiring money and often time that you might not have.
But there is a piece of software that, to some degree, can save us the trouble of backing up our data all the time.
Hard disk drive these days come with some very clever software on-board called SMART (Self-Monitoring And Reporting Technologies) that is capable of predicting a hard disk failure.
Using software that can interrogate the SMART condition of your drive/s it is possible to find out if your drive/s are close to failure and it's getting close to the time to replace them with something newer. Replacing your old hard drives with newer ones is one of the better strategies to ensuring data integrity - there are other techniques as well but this is a good, cheap alternative.
One of the easiest pieces of software to use is called Speedfan.
It will actually do more than check your hard drives. It will also allow you to overclock your computer (at your own risk), do a temperature check on the CPU and hard drives and will allow you to check and change the speeds of your computers fans. The great thing about this is that you can make the fans speed up as the CPU gets hotter and slow down if it gets cooler ensuring that an optimum temperature is maintained.
A great piece of freeware!
NOTE: Be aware that checking your disks for deterioration does NOT guarantee that you are safe from a hard disk crash and subsequent data loss - it just lessens the possibility.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Is a free home-based business really free? by Elaine Currie
Is it really a free home based business opportunity? Can I make money without paying anything at all? - Those are about the most often repeated queries put forward by people who are hoping to find a way to make money at home online. People who see an advertisement for a free home based business opportunity want to be reassured that "free" means it will never cost them a penny to run their home based business and that they can easily make money at home online without investing anything. I'm amazed they could even start to believe such a thing could be possible.
When people ask me the "is it really free?" type of question, I give them an honest answer. The answer to both question is usually "yes, but�" and they tend to be disappointed and feel that they've been tricked and that the advertisers lied when they offered a free home based business opportunity. It is true that fortunes can be made from a free home based business on the Internet and it can be easy to make money at home online but that is not the whole answer.
I am completely anti-hype but I don't think all internet advertising is as misleading as people often claim. If you consider the average internet advertisement, its wording is no worse than the standard "up to 50% off" claims we take for granted in offline advertising. We know that only a selected few items will actually be reduced by 50% and we don't feel at all cheated if we find a bargain with just 20% off its usual price. The thing is, people see things differently when they aresearching the Internet for ways to make money at home online, their expectations are far higher, they are more willing to believe improbable claims and their disappointment is, therefore, quick and keenly felt..
If you tried to tell the same people that they could make money at home with an offline business without incurring any costs, they would laugh you out of the auditorium. However, the Internet is a strange environment and people need to get acclimatised before they can recognise a legitimate way to make money at home online and to understand what is "free" in the context of a free home based business opportunity. After just a small amount of experience, people will realise that the free home based business opportunity is going to cost them money one way or another if they want to see profits accumulating at any significant rate. The ones who persevere also eventually realise that the cost of running a free home based business online is far less than the cost of running an offline business.
Let's think seriously about staring a business. First, how about an offline business. Suppose you decide you want to open a shop and sell dresses. Before you see any profit at all, you will have to pay out for premises (rent and taxes), services (fuel, water, phone), stock, insurance and advertising. If you are going to continue with your current employment while you build up the new business, you will also need to find staff and add wages to your list of expenses.
Now let's think about our free home based business opportunity on the Internet. You need to budget for a product (the equivalent of the stock of dresses), a website (the equivalent of the shop premises) and advertising. The list is shorter and now the Internet home based business opportunity is looking like a much better deal by comparison. The products can be obtained either free of charge or for a small price, the cost of a website is small change compared to the cost of premises, this will be a home based business, so you won't incur any additional service charges or insurance. An Internet home based business can be set up to run 24/7 with just a couple of hours work a day, so you can continue to earn money at your currently employment without having to spend anything on staff wages. That just leaves advertising costs.
Advertising your free home based business is the thing that's going to take up the biggest part of your budget. If you were opening your first shop on a limited budget, you would not be able to afford large premises in the prime part of the busiest shopping district where you would benefit from passing trade. You would have to be content with a small side street based shop and, to make customers aware of your business, you would have to advertise. In order to get a steady stream of visitors to your shop, you would need to advertise consistently and continuously. You would need to place your advertisements where they can reach your target market and you would need to make sure your advertisements appeal to your prospective customers so that they would be prepared to make the detour from the main street to check out your products.
The Internet works in the same way. Nobody will know about your new free home based business unless you tell them. You can have the best website in the whole word but, if you don't advertise it, it would be like keeping your shop door locked, the blinds closed and the lights off. No visitors means no potential sales and that inevitably means no profit. You have no advertise, simple as that. There are many free advertising resources available online for your home based business but you need to be selective as, although there are some very good free advertising resources, the results to be obtained from the free companies are not always as good as paid advertising. Another factor to consider is that using the free advertising resources can take up a lot of time and you need to place a value on your time and decide how it can be spent to best effect.
A free home based business opportunity does sound like the ideal thing for the numerous people who are looking for ways to make money at home online but are unwilling or unable to spend any money to do it. Many people leap into the first free home based business opportunity they see advertised and just as quickly give up when they find out they need to invest time and money in order to make money at home online with an Internet based home business. If these people would think things through, they would realise that starting an online home based business is far less costly than starting an offline business and the stage of getting into profit can come very early. Even if a free home based business it is not entirely free to run, being your own boss rather than being someone else's employee is priceless.
Elaine Currie has a Work At Home Directory at her Plug-In Profit Site to help everyone who wants to work at home: http://www.huntingvenus.com
When people ask me the "is it really free?" type of question, I give them an honest answer. The answer to both question is usually "yes, but�" and they tend to be disappointed and feel that they've been tricked and that the advertisers lied when they offered a free home based business opportunity. It is true that fortunes can be made from a free home based business on the Internet and it can be easy to make money at home online but that is not the whole answer.
I am completely anti-hype but I don't think all internet advertising is as misleading as people often claim. If you consider the average internet advertisement, its wording is no worse than the standard "up to 50% off" claims we take for granted in offline advertising. We know that only a selected few items will actually be reduced by 50% and we don't feel at all cheated if we find a bargain with just 20% off its usual price. The thing is, people see things differently when they aresearching the Internet for ways to make money at home online, their expectations are far higher, they are more willing to believe improbable claims and their disappointment is, therefore, quick and keenly felt..
If you tried to tell the same people that they could make money at home with an offline business without incurring any costs, they would laugh you out of the auditorium. However, the Internet is a strange environment and people need to get acclimatised before they can recognise a legitimate way to make money at home online and to understand what is "free" in the context of a free home based business opportunity. After just a small amount of experience, people will realise that the free home based business opportunity is going to cost them money one way or another if they want to see profits accumulating at any significant rate. The ones who persevere also eventually realise that the cost of running a free home based business online is far less than the cost of running an offline business.
Let's think seriously about staring a business. First, how about an offline business. Suppose you decide you want to open a shop and sell dresses. Before you see any profit at all, you will have to pay out for premises (rent and taxes), services (fuel, water, phone), stock, insurance and advertising. If you are going to continue with your current employment while you build up the new business, you will also need to find staff and add wages to your list of expenses.
Now let's think about our free home based business opportunity on the Internet. You need to budget for a product (the equivalent of the stock of dresses), a website (the equivalent of the shop premises) and advertising. The list is shorter and now the Internet home based business opportunity is looking like a much better deal by comparison. The products can be obtained either free of charge or for a small price, the cost of a website is small change compared to the cost of premises, this will be a home based business, so you won't incur any additional service charges or insurance. An Internet home based business can be set up to run 24/7 with just a couple of hours work a day, so you can continue to earn money at your currently employment without having to spend anything on staff wages. That just leaves advertising costs.
Advertising your free home based business is the thing that's going to take up the biggest part of your budget. If you were opening your first shop on a limited budget, you would not be able to afford large premises in the prime part of the busiest shopping district where you would benefit from passing trade. You would have to be content with a small side street based shop and, to make customers aware of your business, you would have to advertise. In order to get a steady stream of visitors to your shop, you would need to advertise consistently and continuously. You would need to place your advertisements where they can reach your target market and you would need to make sure your advertisements appeal to your prospective customers so that they would be prepared to make the detour from the main street to check out your products.
The Internet works in the same way. Nobody will know about your new free home based business unless you tell them. You can have the best website in the whole word but, if you don't advertise it, it would be like keeping your shop door locked, the blinds closed and the lights off. No visitors means no potential sales and that inevitably means no profit. You have no advertise, simple as that. There are many free advertising resources available online for your home based business but you need to be selective as, although there are some very good free advertising resources, the results to be obtained from the free companies are not always as good as paid advertising. Another factor to consider is that using the free advertising resources can take up a lot of time and you need to place a value on your time and decide how it can be spent to best effect.
A free home based business opportunity does sound like the ideal thing for the numerous people who are looking for ways to make money at home online but are unwilling or unable to spend any money to do it. Many people leap into the first free home based business opportunity they see advertised and just as quickly give up when they find out they need to invest time and money in order to make money at home online with an Internet based home business. If these people would think things through, they would realise that starting an online home based business is far less costly than starting an offline business and the stage of getting into profit can come very early. Even if a free home based business it is not entirely free to run, being your own boss rather than being someone else's employee is priceless.
Elaine Currie has a Work At Home Directory at her Plug-In Profit Site to help everyone who wants to work at home: http://www.huntingvenus.com
How NOT to do business - The Reward Mobile way
Today I received a letter from my cell/mobile phone carrier - Reward Mobile. They were very polite in the letter and mentioned that keeping me informed and up to date on their "latest improvements for providing me with a better customer service experience." The basic message was that I either stop receiving paper-based statements every month and go and have a look at them on Reward Mobile's site (they don't offer to e-mail them) or pay a fee of $1.50 plus taxes instead.
Admittedly they are offering me a sweetener of $5 off my next bill to transfer and the chance of winning a new phone as well. Very kind of them - NOT! I believe the reason is that they will save significant amounts of money in transferring to electronic processes. But how does all this help ME?
The reality is that it doesn't! Reward Mobile increase profits (or reduce losses if that's the way the business is going). I don't have paper-based records for tax purposes unless I print them out myself. I have to pay $1.50 plus taxes if I need an invoice directly from them, I have to spend my time going to the site to check on my account, etc., etc. In other words I have to use my time to save them money. Does all this sound familiar?
The letter, as I have already said, is very polite and tells me all about the great things they are doing for me. But how stupid do these people think we are?
This is obviously just another way of trying to make me feel good about them making more money from me.
The least they and others like them can do is to tell the truth!
The letter could have been honest with me. It could have told me that the company, in it's attempts to save money, would prefer me to use their on-line systems and that a fee would be levied if I didn't.
And to make it worse before I can change over to their on-line system I need one of their posted out paper-based invoices so I can input my account number and other details - so they do admit that the paper-based forms have some value at least even ifg it's only so I can avoid their $1.50 plus taxes fee.
Reward Mobile now have an angry customer and I hope I'm not the only one. My contract is up with them and I have stayed because of the problems (small I admit) involved with changing my carrier but I think I will now start looking.
What about those customers who are not on-line? I'm sure that this is, in some way, discriminatory and if it's not it should be.
* Honesty is ALWAYS the best policy in business.
* Do NOT attempt to put sugar on a bitter pill.
* This is NOT something that Reward Mobile is doing for MY benefit, it's for theirs.
* Be honest in all your dealings.
I call this an example of deceptive behavior.
Admittedly they are offering me a sweetener of $5 off my next bill to transfer and the chance of winning a new phone as well. Very kind of them - NOT! I believe the reason is that they will save significant amounts of money in transferring to electronic processes. But how does all this help ME?
The reality is that it doesn't! Reward Mobile increase profits (or reduce losses if that's the way the business is going). I don't have paper-based records for tax purposes unless I print them out myself. I have to pay $1.50 plus taxes if I need an invoice directly from them, I have to spend my time going to the site to check on my account, etc., etc. In other words I have to use my time to save them money. Does all this sound familiar?
The letter, as I have already said, is very polite and tells me all about the great things they are doing for me. But how stupid do these people think we are?
This is obviously just another way of trying to make me feel good about them making more money from me.
The least they and others like them can do is to tell the truth!
The letter could have been honest with me. It could have told me that the company, in it's attempts to save money, would prefer me to use their on-line systems and that a fee would be levied if I didn't.
And to make it worse before I can change over to their on-line system I need one of their posted out paper-based invoices so I can input my account number and other details - so they do admit that the paper-based forms have some value at least even ifg it's only so I can avoid their $1.50 plus taxes fee.
Reward Mobile now have an angry customer and I hope I'm not the only one. My contract is up with them and I have stayed because of the problems (small I admit) involved with changing my carrier but I think I will now start looking.
What about those customers who are not on-line? I'm sure that this is, in some way, discriminatory and if it's not it should be.
* Honesty is ALWAYS the best policy in business.
* Do NOT attempt to put sugar on a bitter pill.
* This is NOT something that Reward Mobile is doing for MY benefit, it's for theirs.
* Be honest in all your dealings.
I call this an example of deceptive behavior.
Effective tools for website owners - by Mike Pham
First of all, I want to insist that this article is aimed at site owners since sometimes site owners and webmasters are different.
Suppose a realtor has a real estate website. But, she is just a newbie on the internetand she leans on the webmaster (from hosting provider, for example) in her website's SEO campaign. In fact, that webmaster couldn't understand real estate industry deeply like her and he has many other sites to manage. So the SEO campaign wouldn't get the expected result. In most cases, the site owners will play an important role in the success of SEO campaign. However, HTML language, search engines, link popularity, PageRank seem so strange to them at first. Thus, the purpose of this article is providing the amateur site owners with some basic but effective tools and knowledge in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This will help site owners collaborate better with webmasters or SEO firms to boost their websites' position in Search Engines.
1. Search Engines -You are a site owner and you yourself should be familiar with search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN Search to search for your competitors' sites to see how they are promoting themselves in the marketplace, evaluate the keywords, check your sites' link popularity (the number of links to your website from other sites) and link saturation (number of pages on your sites have been indexed by search engine). These search engine syntaxes aren't academic as you've imagined and you don't need to care about the complicated algorithms behind them. For example, to check whether your sites are indexed, just type site:your_site_domain in search engines. Remember that your_site_url and your_site_domain are not the same. Site domain does not include http:// while site URL must have (ex: http://your_site_domain/your_page.htm is a URL of your site).
Suppose the SEO firm, in their optimization report, would ask the site owners to exchange links with other relevant sites to improve the link popularity. The problem is: where can I find the other sites? Don't worry, search engines can assist you. Site owners can learn from their competitors about which sites they've exchanged links with by checking their link popularity.
In short, if you want search engines to help carry in business, you should make friends with them first. Search engines are always useful friends (although not easy to control!).
2. HTML basic syntax and HTML editor - Site owners don't have to master HTML language to re-design their pages. That is not their job. But basic syntaxes are always necessary.
For example, they should know to locate where the "head" block in an html page is to insert new auto-generated Meta-tags. I've mentioned auto-generated Meta-tags because site owners don't need to code the Meta-tags either. With "Meta-tags Generator" keyword, they can find that on search engines thousands of websites are welcoming them to use their tool. Besides, the html link syntax is also worthy to remember: Look at this simple code your descriptive text which you send to other site owners for link exchange. Your website has many pages for exchanging links so it's significant to understand this link code to change your_site_url_1 to other pages and your descriptive text respectively. In addition, with the knowledge of html syntax, you can open your web pages and add the links on your own and stop calling your webmasters all the time for modifying pages with links. Today, html editors such as FrontPage, DreamWeaver can highly simplify this task in the similar way as you are working in MS Word. Just select the position in Design view (in FrontPage) and paste the link code in the Code view at the cursor.
3. Google toolbar - Google Toolbar is a useful tool for web surfers and even more useful to site owners to check PageRank. PageRank is a Google's grade (from 0 to 10) to measure the page's popularity on the net. With high pageranks, they don't guarantee a high position in Google's search results but they can tell us many things. PageRank encourages site owners in the long process of SEO. The little green color on this bar looks like fruits in the tree of our efforts and we are motivated to dig more in SEO. In addition, PageRank helps site owners to find appropriate sites to exchange links with. Search for the sites with the same level (pagerank) to foresee the success of your link exchange requests. To install Google toolbar to your browsers (Internet Explorer or Firefox), just start by typing Google toolbar in search engines and follow the first result.
In this article, I've provided the site owners with some basic but effective tools to come along their SEO campaigns. They include but not limit to search engines, HTML editor, and Google toolbar. Besides, there are others such as FTP tool, Google sitemap, Link Directory software... The important thing to amateur site owners is forgetting your main career and get your hands wet with these tools. Webmaster and SEO firm cannot do everything for you. Learning SEO tools today will never be too late and wasted.
Article by Mike Pham of http://www.TopTrafficWholesaler.com , a full service search engine submission and targeted website traffic company. We offer a unmatched system to increase website visitors at the most competitive rates.
Suppose a realtor has a real estate website. But, she is just a newbie on the internetand she leans on the webmaster (from hosting provider, for example) in her website's SEO campaign. In fact, that webmaster couldn't understand real estate industry deeply like her and he has many other sites to manage. So the SEO campaign wouldn't get the expected result. In most cases, the site owners will play an important role in the success of SEO campaign. However, HTML language, search engines, link popularity, PageRank seem so strange to them at first. Thus, the purpose of this article is providing the amateur site owners with some basic but effective tools and knowledge in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This will help site owners collaborate better with webmasters or SEO firms to boost their websites' position in Search Engines.
1. Search Engines -You are a site owner and you yourself should be familiar with search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN Search to search for your competitors' sites to see how they are promoting themselves in the marketplace, evaluate the keywords, check your sites' link popularity (the number of links to your website from other sites) and link saturation (number of pages on your sites have been indexed by search engine). These search engine syntaxes aren't academic as you've imagined and you don't need to care about the complicated algorithms behind them. For example, to check whether your sites are indexed, just type site:your_site_domain in search engines. Remember that your_site_url and your_site_domain are not the same. Site domain does not include http:// while site URL must have (ex: http://your_site_domain/your_page.htm is a URL of your site).
Suppose the SEO firm, in their optimization report, would ask the site owners to exchange links with other relevant sites to improve the link popularity. The problem is: where can I find the other sites? Don't worry, search engines can assist you. Site owners can learn from their competitors about which sites they've exchanged links with by checking their link popularity.
In short, if you want search engines to help carry in business, you should make friends with them first. Search engines are always useful friends (although not easy to control!).
2. HTML basic syntax and HTML editor - Site owners don't have to master HTML language to re-design their pages. That is not their job. But basic syntaxes are always necessary.
For example, they should know to locate where the "head" block in an html page is to insert new auto-generated Meta-tags. I've mentioned auto-generated Meta-tags because site owners don't need to code the Meta-tags either. With "Meta-tags Generator" keyword, they can find that on search engines thousands of websites are welcoming them to use their tool. Besides, the html link syntax is also worthy to remember: Look at this simple code your descriptive text which you send to other site owners for link exchange. Your website has many pages for exchanging links so it's significant to understand this link code to change your_site_url_1 to other pages and your descriptive text respectively. In addition, with the knowledge of html syntax, you can open your web pages and add the links on your own and stop calling your webmasters all the time for modifying pages with links. Today, html editors such as FrontPage, DreamWeaver can highly simplify this task in the similar way as you are working in MS Word. Just select the position in Design view (in FrontPage) and paste the link code in the Code view at the cursor.
3. Google toolbar - Google Toolbar is a useful tool for web surfers and even more useful to site owners to check PageRank. PageRank is a Google's grade (from 0 to 10) to measure the page's popularity on the net. With high pageranks, they don't guarantee a high position in Google's search results but they can tell us many things. PageRank encourages site owners in the long process of SEO. The little green color on this bar looks like fruits in the tree of our efforts and we are motivated to dig more in SEO. In addition, PageRank helps site owners to find appropriate sites to exchange links with. Search for the sites with the same level (pagerank) to foresee the success of your link exchange requests. To install Google toolbar to your browsers (Internet Explorer or Firefox), just start by typing Google toolbar in search engines and follow the first result.
In this article, I've provided the site owners with some basic but effective tools to come along their SEO campaigns. They include but not limit to search engines, HTML editor, and Google toolbar. Besides, there are others such as FTP tool, Google sitemap, Link Directory software... The important thing to amateur site owners is forgetting your main career and get your hands wet with these tools. Webmaster and SEO firm cannot do everything for you. Learning SEO tools today will never be too late and wasted.
Article by Mike Pham of http://www.TopTrafficWholesaler.com , a full service search engine submission and targeted website traffic company. We offer a unmatched system to increase website visitors at the most competitive rates.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Can you make money with your business idea?
Perhaps the most crucial problem you will face after expressing an interest in starting a new business will be determining the feasibility of your idea. This combination of guide and worksheet will help you decide weather your business idea is feasible.
This guide is a checklist for the owner/manager of a business enterprise or for one contemplating going into business for the first time. The questions concentrate on areas you must consider seriously to determine if your idea represents a real business opportunity and if you can really know what you are getting into. You can use it to evaluate a completely new venture proposal or an apparent opportunity in your existing business.
Perhaps the most crucial problem you will face after expressing an interest in starting a new business or capitalizing on an apparent opportunity in your existing business will be determining the feasibility of your idea. Getting into the right business at the right time is simple advice, but advice that is extremely difficult to implement. The high failure rate of new businesses and products indicates that very few ideas result in successful business ventures, even when introduced by well established firm. Too many entrepreneurs strike out on a business venture so convinced of its merits that they fail to thoroughly evaluate its potential.
This checklist should be useful to you in evaluating a business idea. It is designed to help you screen out ideas that are likely to fail before you invest extensive time, money, and effort in them.
Preliminary Analysis
A feasibility study involves gathering, analyzing and evaluating information with the purpose of answering the question: "Should I go into this business?" Answering this question involves first a preliminary assessment of both personal and project considerations.
General Personal Considerations
The first seven questions ask you to do a little introspection. Are your personality characteristics such that you can both adapt to and enjoy business ownership/management?
* Do you like to make your own decisions?
* Do you enjoy competition?
* Do you have will power and self-discipline?
* Do you plan ahead?
* Do you get things done on time?
* Can you take advise from others?
* Are you adaptable to changing conditions?
The next series of questions stress the physical, emotional, and financial strains of a new business.
* Do you understand that owning your own business may entail working 12 to 16 hours a day, probably six days a week, and maybe on holidays?
* Do you have the physical stamina to handle a business?
* Do you have the emotional strength to withstand the strain?
* Are you prepared to lower your standard of living for several months or years?
* Are you prepared to loose your savings?
Specific Personal Considerations
* Do you know which skills and areas of expertise are critical to the success of your project?
* Do you have these skills?
* Does your idea effectively utilize your own skills and abilities?
* Can you find personnel that have the expertise you lack?
* Do you know why you are considering this project?
* Will your project effectively meet your career aspirations
The next three questions emphasize the point that very few people can claim expertise in all phases of a feasibility study. You should realize your personal limitations and seek appropriate assistance where necessary (i.e. marketing, legal, financial).
* Do you have the ability to perform the feasibility study?
* Do you have the time to perform the feasibility study?
* Do you have the money to pay for the feasibility study done?
General Project Description
* Briefly describe the business you want to enter.
* List the products and/or services you want to sell
* Describe who will use your products/services
* Why would someone buy your product/service?
* What kind of location do you need in terms of type of neighborhood, traffic count, nearby firms, etc.?
* List your product/services suppliers.
* List your major competitors - those who sell or provide like products/services.
* List the labor and staff you require to provide your products/services. _
Requirements For Success
To determine whether your idea meets the basic requirements for a successful new project, you must be able to answer at least one of the following questions with a "yes".
* Does the product/service/business serve a presently unserved need?
* Does the product/service/business serve an existing market in which demand exceeds supply?
* Can the product/service/business successfully compete with an existing competition because of an "advantageous situation," such as better price, location, etc.?
Major Flaws
A "Yes" response to questions such as the following would indicate that the idea has little chance for success.
* Are there any causes (i.e., restrictions, monopolies, shortages) that make any of the required factors of production unavailable (i.e., unreasonable cost, scare skills, energy, material, equipment, processes, technology, or personnel)?
* Are capital requirements for entry or continuing operations excessive?
* Is adequate financing hard to obtain?
* Are there potential detrimental environmental effects?
* Are there factors that prevent effective marketing?
Desired Income
The following questions should remind you that you must seek both a return on your investment in your own business as well as a reasonable salary for the time you spend in operating that business.
* How much income do you desire?
* Are you prepared to earn less income in the first 1-3 years?
* What minimum income do you require?
* What financial investment will be required for your business?
* How much could you earn by investing this money?
* How much could you earn by working for someone else?
* Add the amounts in 5 and 6. If this income is greater that what you can realistically expect from your business, are you prepared to forego this additional income just to be your own boss with the only prospects of more substantial profit/income in future years?
* What is the average return on investment for a business of your type?
Preliminary Income Statement
Besides return on investment, you need to know the income and expenses for your business. You show profit or loss and derive operating ratios on the income statement. Dollars are the (actual, estimated, or industry average) amounts for income and expense categories. Operating ratios are expressed as percentages of net sales and show relationships of expenses and net sales.
For instance 50,000 in net sales equals 100% of sales income (revenue). Net profit after taxes equals 3.14% of net sales. The hypothetical "X" industry average after tax net profit might be 5% in a given year for firms with 50,000 in net sales. First you estimate or forecast income (revenue) and expense dollars and ratios for your business. Then compare your estimated or actual performance with your industry average. Analyze differences to see why you are doing better or worse than the competition or why yo ur venture does or doesn't look like it will float.
These basic financial statistics are generally available for most businesses from trade and industry associations, government agencies, universities and private companies and banks.
Forecast your own income statement. Do not be influenced by industry figures. Your estimates must be as accurate as possible or else you will have a false impression.
* What is the normal markup in this line of business. i.e., the dollar difference between the cost of goods sold and sales, expressed as a percentage of sales?
* What is the average cost of goods sold percentage of sales?
* What is the average inventory turnover, i.e., the number of times the average inventory is sold each year?
* What is the average gross profit as a percentage of sales?
* What are the average expenses as a percentage of sales?
* What is the average net profit as a percent of sales?
* Take the preceding figures and work backwards using a standard income statement format and determine the level of sales necessary to support your desired income level. From an objective, practical standpoint, is this level of sales, expenses and profit attainable?
ANY BUSINESS, INC. Condensed Income Statement For year ending December 31
Market Analysis
The primary objective of a market analysis is to arrive at a realistic projection of sales. after answering the following questions you will be in a better positions to answer question eight immediately above.
Population
* Define the geographical areas from which you can realistically expect to draw customers.
* What is the population of these areas?
* What do you know about the population growth trend in these areas?
* What is the average family size?
* What is the age distribution?
* What is the per capita income?
* What are the consumers' attitudes toward business like yours?
* What do you know about consumer shopping and spending patterns relative to your type of business?
* Is the price of your product/service especially important to your target market?
* Can you appeal to the entire market?
* If you appeal to only a market segment, is it large enough to be profitable?
Competition
* Who are your major competitors?
* What are the major strengths of each?
* What are the major weaknesses of each?
* Are you familiar with the following factors concerning your competitors:
* Price structure?
* Product lines (quality, breadth, width)?
* Location?
* Promotional activities?
* Sources of supply?
* Image from a consumer's viewpoint?
* Do you know of any new competitors?
* Do you know of any competitor's plans for expansion?
* Have any firms of your type gone out of business lately?
* If so, why?
* Do you know the sales and market share of each competitor?
* Do you know whether the sales and market share of each competitor are increasing, decreasing, or stable?
* Do you know the profit levels of each competitor?
* Are your competitors' profits increasing, decreasing, or stable?
* Can you compete with your competition?
Sales
* Determine the total sales volume in your market area.
* How accurate do you think your forecast of total sales is?
* Did you base your forecast on concrete data?
* Is the estimated sales figure "normal" for your market area?
* Is the sales per square foot for your competitors above the normal average?
* Are there conditions, or trends, that could change your forecast of total sales?
* Do you expect to carry items in inventory from season to season, or do you plan to mark down products occasionally to eliminate inventories? If you do not carry over inventory, have you adequately considered the effect of mark-down in your pricing? (Your gross profits margin may be too low.)
* How do you plan to advertise and promote your product/service/business?
* Forecast the share of the total market that you can realistically expect - as a dollar amount and as a percentage of your market.
* Are you sure that you can create enough competitive advantages to achieve the market share in your forecast of the previous question?
* Is your forecast of dollar sales greater than the sales amount needed to guarantee your desired or minimum income?
* Have you been optimistic or pessimistic in your forecast of sales?
* Do you need to hire an expert to refine the sales forecast?
* Are you willing to hire an expert to refine the sales forecast?
Supply
* Can you make a list of every item of inventory and operating supplies needed?
* Do you know the quantity, quality, technical specifications, and price ranges desired?
* Do you know the name and location of each potential source of supply?
* Do you know the price ranges available for each product from each supplier?
* Do you know about the delivery schedules for each supplier?
* Do you know the sales terms of each supplier?
* Do you know the credit terms of each supplier?
* Do you know the financial condition of each supplier?
* Is there a risk of shortage for any critical materials or merchandise?
* Are you aware of which supplies have an advantage relative to transportation costs?
* Will the price available allow you to achieve an adequate markup?
* Can you obtain the additional data needed?
Are you aware that there is less than a 50-50 chance that you will be in business two years from now?
This guide is a checklist for the owner/manager of a business enterprise or for one contemplating going into business for the first time. The questions concentrate on areas you must consider seriously to determine if your idea represents a real business opportunity and if you can really know what you are getting into. You can use it to evaluate a completely new venture proposal or an apparent opportunity in your existing business.
Perhaps the most crucial problem you will face after expressing an interest in starting a new business or capitalizing on an apparent opportunity in your existing business will be determining the feasibility of your idea. Getting into the right business at the right time is simple advice, but advice that is extremely difficult to implement. The high failure rate of new businesses and products indicates that very few ideas result in successful business ventures, even when introduced by well established firm. Too many entrepreneurs strike out on a business venture so convinced of its merits that they fail to thoroughly evaluate its potential.
This checklist should be useful to you in evaluating a business idea. It is designed to help you screen out ideas that are likely to fail before you invest extensive time, money, and effort in them.
Preliminary Analysis
A feasibility study involves gathering, analyzing and evaluating information with the purpose of answering the question: "Should I go into this business?" Answering this question involves first a preliminary assessment of both personal and project considerations.
General Personal Considerations
The first seven questions ask you to do a little introspection. Are your personality characteristics such that you can both adapt to and enjoy business ownership/management?
* Do you like to make your own decisions?
* Do you enjoy competition?
* Do you have will power and self-discipline?
* Do you plan ahead?
* Do you get things done on time?
* Can you take advise from others?
* Are you adaptable to changing conditions?
The next series of questions stress the physical, emotional, and financial strains of a new business.
* Do you understand that owning your own business may entail working 12 to 16 hours a day, probably six days a week, and maybe on holidays?
* Do you have the physical stamina to handle a business?
* Do you have the emotional strength to withstand the strain?
* Are you prepared to lower your standard of living for several months or years?
* Are you prepared to loose your savings?
Specific Personal Considerations
* Do you know which skills and areas of expertise are critical to the success of your project?
* Do you have these skills?
* Does your idea effectively utilize your own skills and abilities?
* Can you find personnel that have the expertise you lack?
* Do you know why you are considering this project?
* Will your project effectively meet your career aspirations
The next three questions emphasize the point that very few people can claim expertise in all phases of a feasibility study. You should realize your personal limitations and seek appropriate assistance where necessary (i.e. marketing, legal, financial).
* Do you have the ability to perform the feasibility study?
* Do you have the time to perform the feasibility study?
* Do you have the money to pay for the feasibility study done?
General Project Description
* Briefly describe the business you want to enter.
* List the products and/or services you want to sell
* Describe who will use your products/services
* Why would someone buy your product/service?
* What kind of location do you need in terms of type of neighborhood, traffic count, nearby firms, etc.?
* List your product/services suppliers.
* List your major competitors - those who sell or provide like products/services.
* List the labor and staff you require to provide your products/services. _
Requirements For Success
To determine whether your idea meets the basic requirements for a successful new project, you must be able to answer at least one of the following questions with a "yes".
* Does the product/service/business serve a presently unserved need?
* Does the product/service/business serve an existing market in which demand exceeds supply?
* Can the product/service/business successfully compete with an existing competition because of an "advantageous situation," such as better price, location, etc.?
Major Flaws
A "Yes" response to questions such as the following would indicate that the idea has little chance for success.
* Are there any causes (i.e., restrictions, monopolies, shortages) that make any of the required factors of production unavailable (i.e., unreasonable cost, scare skills, energy, material, equipment, processes, technology, or personnel)?
* Are capital requirements for entry or continuing operations excessive?
* Is adequate financing hard to obtain?
* Are there potential detrimental environmental effects?
* Are there factors that prevent effective marketing?
Desired Income
The following questions should remind you that you must seek both a return on your investment in your own business as well as a reasonable salary for the time you spend in operating that business.
* How much income do you desire?
* Are you prepared to earn less income in the first 1-3 years?
* What minimum income do you require?
* What financial investment will be required for your business?
* How much could you earn by investing this money?
* How much could you earn by working for someone else?
* Add the amounts in 5 and 6. If this income is greater that what you can realistically expect from your business, are you prepared to forego this additional income just to be your own boss with the only prospects of more substantial profit/income in future years?
* What is the average return on investment for a business of your type?
Preliminary Income Statement
Besides return on investment, you need to know the income and expenses for your business. You show profit or loss and derive operating ratios on the income statement. Dollars are the (actual, estimated, or industry average) amounts for income and expense categories. Operating ratios are expressed as percentages of net sales and show relationships of expenses and net sales.
For instance 50,000 in net sales equals 100% of sales income (revenue). Net profit after taxes equals 3.14% of net sales. The hypothetical "X" industry average after tax net profit might be 5% in a given year for firms with 50,000 in net sales. First you estimate or forecast income (revenue) and expense dollars and ratios for your business. Then compare your estimated or actual performance with your industry average. Analyze differences to see why you are doing better or worse than the competition or why yo ur venture does or doesn't look like it will float.
These basic financial statistics are generally available for most businesses from trade and industry associations, government agencies, universities and private companies and banks.
Forecast your own income statement. Do not be influenced by industry figures. Your estimates must be as accurate as possible or else you will have a false impression.
* What is the normal markup in this line of business. i.e., the dollar difference between the cost of goods sold and sales, expressed as a percentage of sales?
* What is the average cost of goods sold percentage of sales?
* What is the average inventory turnover, i.e., the number of times the average inventory is sold each year?
* What is the average gross profit as a percentage of sales?
* What are the average expenses as a percentage of sales?
* What is the average net profit as a percent of sales?
* Take the preceding figures and work backwards using a standard income statement format and determine the level of sales necessary to support your desired income level. From an objective, practical standpoint, is this level of sales, expenses and profit attainable?
ANY BUSINESS, INC. Condensed Income Statement For year ending December 31
Item Amount Percent
Gross sales 773,888
Less returns, allowances,
and cash discounts 14,872
________
Net sales 759,016 100.00
Cost of goods sold 589,392 77.65
________ ________
Gross profit on sales 169,624 22.35
Selling expenses 41,916 5.52
Administrative expenses 28,010 3.69
General expenses 50,030 6.59
Financial expenses 5,248 0.69
________ ________
Total expenses 125,204 16.50
Operating profit 44,220 5.85
Extraordinary expenses 1,200 0.16
________ ________
Net profit before taxes 43,220 5.69
taxes 19,542 2.57
________ ________
Net profit after taxes 23,678 3.12
Market Analysis
The primary objective of a market analysis is to arrive at a realistic projection of sales. after answering the following questions you will be in a better positions to answer question eight immediately above.
Population
* Define the geographical areas from which you can realistically expect to draw customers.
* What is the population of these areas?
* What do you know about the population growth trend in these areas?
* What is the average family size?
* What is the age distribution?
* What is the per capita income?
* What are the consumers' attitudes toward business like yours?
* What do you know about consumer shopping and spending patterns relative to your type of business?
* Is the price of your product/service especially important to your target market?
* Can you appeal to the entire market?
* If you appeal to only a market segment, is it large enough to be profitable?
Competition
* Who are your major competitors?
* What are the major strengths of each?
* What are the major weaknesses of each?
* Are you familiar with the following factors concerning your competitors:
* Price structure?
* Product lines (quality, breadth, width)?
* Location?
* Promotional activities?
* Sources of supply?
* Image from a consumer's viewpoint?
* Do you know of any new competitors?
* Do you know of any competitor's plans for expansion?
* Have any firms of your type gone out of business lately?
* If so, why?
* Do you know the sales and market share of each competitor?
* Do you know whether the sales and market share of each competitor are increasing, decreasing, or stable?
* Do you know the profit levels of each competitor?
* Are your competitors' profits increasing, decreasing, or stable?
* Can you compete with your competition?
Sales
* Determine the total sales volume in your market area.
* How accurate do you think your forecast of total sales is?
* Did you base your forecast on concrete data?
* Is the estimated sales figure "normal" for your market area?
* Is the sales per square foot for your competitors above the normal average?
* Are there conditions, or trends, that could change your forecast of total sales?
* Do you expect to carry items in inventory from season to season, or do you plan to mark down products occasionally to eliminate inventories? If you do not carry over inventory, have you adequately considered the effect of mark-down in your pricing? (Your gross profits margin may be too low.)
* How do you plan to advertise and promote your product/service/business?
* Forecast the share of the total market that you can realistically expect - as a dollar amount and as a percentage of your market.
* Are you sure that you can create enough competitive advantages to achieve the market share in your forecast of the previous question?
* Is your forecast of dollar sales greater than the sales amount needed to guarantee your desired or minimum income?
* Have you been optimistic or pessimistic in your forecast of sales?
* Do you need to hire an expert to refine the sales forecast?
* Are you willing to hire an expert to refine the sales forecast?
Supply
* Can you make a list of every item of inventory and operating supplies needed?
* Do you know the quantity, quality, technical specifications, and price ranges desired?
* Do you know the name and location of each potential source of supply?
* Do you know the price ranges available for each product from each supplier?
* Do you know about the delivery schedules for each supplier?
* Do you know the sales terms of each supplier?
* Do you know the credit terms of each supplier?
* Do you know the financial condition of each supplier?
* Is there a risk of shortage for any critical materials or merchandise?
* Are you aware of which supplies have an advantage relative to transportation costs?
* Will the price available allow you to achieve an adequate markup?
* Can you obtain the additional data needed?
Are you aware that there is less than a 50-50 chance that you will be in business two years from now?
Are you ready for Windows Vista?
Windows Vista will demand more computing power than any previous version of the Windows OSs yet released.
Many PC users will find that to get the best from Vista will mean upgrading an existing machine or getting a new one - all costing money. But for some there will not be any need to change their machines in any way - but how can you tell?
The graphics chip maket ATI has developed and made available a Vista readiness checker available on its website.
The program runs as a Java applet from your browser and reports on whether your machine has the minimum capabilities needed to run Vista. The output is in a graphical form that lets you know where your machine does and where it doesn't meet Vistas needs.
The program will also make recommendation on how to proceed if your graphics aren't up to scratch. Mind you all upgrades recommended are ATI based but it's easy enough to translate thier recommendation into other manufacturers cards if you wish.
But, hey, given they have gone to all this trouble why not buy your card from them if you need one?
To check your machine go here.
Many PC users will find that to get the best from Vista will mean upgrading an existing machine or getting a new one - all costing money. But for some there will not be any need to change their machines in any way - but how can you tell?
The graphics chip maket ATI has developed and made available a Vista readiness checker available on its website.
The program runs as a Java applet from your browser and reports on whether your machine has the minimum capabilities needed to run Vista. The output is in a graphical form that lets you know where your machine does and where it doesn't meet Vistas needs.
The program will also make recommendation on how to proceed if your graphics aren't up to scratch. Mind you all upgrades recommended are ATI based but it's easy enough to translate thier recommendation into other manufacturers cards if you wish.
But, hey, given they have gone to all this trouble why not buy your card from them if you need one?
To check your machine go here.
AOL Active Virus Shield - free!
AOL have just released a free program to protect your PC against a wide range of malware and viruses and the good news is that it's completely free! Given the credibility of AOL in the internet sphere there is no issues at all with using this product. You will have to supply a valid e-mail address to receive your activation code but you can rest assurred that AOL will NOT use your information in anyway that could be malicious.
Another very generous aspect of this release is that you do not have to be a member of AOL to download the software.
AOL have used the Kaspersky antivirus technology so it is well suited to handling all the latest malware now and well into the future. Given that the software automatically checks for definition updates on an hourly basis these is an almost cast iron guarantee that no nasty programs will get through. Another advantage is that you don't have to remember to update the definitions they are automatic and so the whole system is a fire and forget proposition.
Active Virus Shield also has an e-mail scanner that checks all e-mail attachment to ensure safety and has heuristic scanning to pick up on very latest threats to your system.
The program is optimised for laptop use and also works on Windows XP 64-bit editions.
Download the software from here.
Another very generous aspect of this release is that you do not have to be a member of AOL to download the software.
AOL have used the Kaspersky antivirus technology so it is well suited to handling all the latest malware now and well into the future. Given that the software automatically checks for definition updates on an hourly basis these is an almost cast iron guarantee that no nasty programs will get through. Another advantage is that you don't have to remember to update the definitions they are automatic and so the whole system is a fire and forget proposition.
Active Virus Shield also has an e-mail scanner that checks all e-mail attachment to ensure safety and has heuristic scanning to pick up on very latest threats to your system.
The program is optimised for laptop use and also works on Windows XP 64-bit editions.
Download the software from here.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Maximising RDBMS effectiveness (3)
Consider out-sourcing of basic functions.
There is a very large presence of competent and capable service organisations and individuals who can manage your database needs. A simple check of the Yellow Pages will highlight the fact.
With the outsourcing of some/all database functions you will not need to worry about maintenance and management or the day-to-day minutiae that can plague the non-expert. There is also a good reason to believe that you can save on costs as well. Good internal costing data or projections can help you make a determination on the potential for cost savings using an outsourcing approach.
According to research company Gartner,the following 10 factors determine costs for database systems. Each of these costs can be reduced by careful planning.
Service level needs
Staff skill levels
Rate of application change
Process maturity
Scope of services deployed
Use of automated tools
Database consolition potential
Database growth rates
Database complexity
Database size
There is a very large presence of competent and capable service organisations and individuals who can manage your database needs. A simple check of the Yellow Pages will highlight the fact.
With the outsourcing of some/all database functions you will not need to worry about maintenance and management or the day-to-day minutiae that can plague the non-expert. There is also a good reason to believe that you can save on costs as well. Good internal costing data or projections can help you make a determination on the potential for cost savings using an outsourcing approach.
According to research company Gartner,the following 10 factors determine costs for database systems. Each of these costs can be reduced by careful planning.
Maximising RDBMS effectiveness (2)
Consider Open Source alternatives.
Because of the long traditions of database development the fundamentals are well-understood, standardised and deployed throughout the industry.
As such there is very little risk of looking seriously at open source alternatives to commercial products. When one considers the potential cost savings it should be manadatory to, at least, seriously review the products available through open source channels. This is especially true if the systems you are deploying that, as Gartner Analyst Donald Feinberg said, "do not require high availabily (authors note: ie >=99%) and other mission critical attributes."
Recently Noel Yuhanna, a Senior Analyst with Forrester Research said, "Typically, enterprises can save over 20% or more on database management costs with an open source database." (Note: See a similar comment in article (1) of this short series of notes).
However, the temptation of staff to proliferate new databases because of the 'zero cost misperception of open source software' should be avoided. The only cost you will avoid are the purchase and/or licensing costs. All the other costs associated with deployment will still be borne by the organisation and prolifetation of databases can be expensive and time wasting - as you may discover to your cost.
Because of the long traditions of database development the fundamentals are well-understood, standardised and deployed throughout the industry.
As such there is very little risk of looking seriously at open source alternatives to commercial products. When one considers the potential cost savings it should be manadatory to, at least, seriously review the products available through open source channels. This is especially true if the systems you are deploying that, as Gartner Analyst Donald Feinberg said, "do not require high availabily (authors note: ie >=99%) and other mission critical attributes."
Recently Noel Yuhanna, a Senior Analyst with Forrester Research said, "Typically, enterprises can save over 20% or more on database management costs with an open source database." (Note: See a similar comment in article (1) of this short series of notes).
However, the temptation of staff to proliferate new databases because of the 'zero cost misperception of open source software' should be avoided. The only cost you will avoid are the purchase and/or licensing costs. All the other costs associated with deployment will still be borne by the organisation and prolifetation of databases can be expensive and time wasting - as you may discover to your cost.
Maximising RDBMS effectiveness (1)
Consolidate your database needs.
In is not uncommon for, even small businesses, to accumulate a number of database systems throughout the organisation. The use of Oracle for your larger more complex systems and here and there Microsoft SQL, Filemaker and MySQL to name just a few of the possibilities.
This proliferation can be costing you money and limiting the businesses efficiencies and potentialities.
If you are users of DBMS then you know the criticallity of these systems your your overall effectiveness. But having more than one such system can be costing you money in the form of licensing fees and even where licensing fees may not exist (there are a lot of free RDBMS's available on-line) in terms of lots of people doing disparate systems development and too few people with an indepth knowledge of whole of organisation database needs and systems.
You also probably have people doing database work that should/could be more effective doing other tasks within the organisation. And this can become a real issue if people with the knowledge of 'their'system leave the organisation.
Recently Noel Yuhanna, a Senior Analyst with Forrester Research said, "Typically, enterprises can save over 20% on database management costs with a well-executed plan by reducing servers and storage, databases and tools licences and administrator requirements."
In is not uncommon for, even small businesses, to accumulate a number of database systems throughout the organisation. The use of Oracle for your larger more complex systems and here and there Microsoft SQL, Filemaker and MySQL to name just a few of the possibilities.
This proliferation can be costing you money and limiting the businesses efficiencies and potentialities.
If you are users of DBMS then you know the criticallity of these systems your your overall effectiveness. But having more than one such system can be costing you money in the form of licensing fees and even where licensing fees may not exist (there are a lot of free RDBMS's available on-line) in terms of lots of people doing disparate systems development and too few people with an indepth knowledge of whole of organisation database needs and systems.
You also probably have people doing database work that should/could be more effective doing other tasks within the organisation. And this can become a real issue if people with the knowledge of 'their'system leave the organisation.
Recently Noel Yuhanna, a Senior Analyst with Forrester Research said, "Typically, enterprises can save over 20% on database management costs with a well-executed plan by reducing servers and storage, databases and tools licences and administrator requirements."
Introducing Microsoft Windows Vista by William R. Stanek from Microsoft Press
The new incarnation of the Windows OS (Vista) has a lot in it that is new and much much more that are improvements on what has been before. These changes to our computing experience will change the way we use our PC's making it easier and far more robust and reliable. However, as with everything new, there is a down side. We will have to relearn a lot - forgetting old ways of performing tasks and learning new approaches and habits.
But before you go out and upgrade to Vista it is probably a good idea to find out what the OS is capable of doing so you can make an informed decision of paying for the upgrade. Introducing Microsoft Windows Vista is the first official guide to this new operating system and comes from Microsoft Press. The book is very well written, well organised and full of technical data and screen shots. The book concentrates on new and updated features. The great advantage of this approach is that you don't have to reread material you are already familiar with - this is all useful and highly digestable.
The good of this book is that it's full of very useful information about what is new and changed in the Windows Vista OS and all coming from insiders who know the guts of the OS and what it is capable of doing. The downside is that it is developed by insiders who have, understandable, a biased perspective and are not always supplying impartial information. But it's one of the best books on the market that lets us know all about Windows Vista.
But before you go out and upgrade to Vista it is probably a good idea to find out what the OS is capable of doing so you can make an informed decision of paying for the upgrade. Introducing Microsoft Windows Vista is the first official guide to this new operating system and comes from Microsoft Press. The book is very well written, well organised and full of technical data and screen shots. The book concentrates on new and updated features. The great advantage of this approach is that you don't have to reread material you are already familiar with - this is all useful and highly digestable.
The good of this book is that it's full of very useful information about what is new and changed in the Windows Vista OS and all coming from insiders who know the guts of the OS and what it is capable of doing. The downside is that it is developed by insiders who have, understandable, a biased perspective and are not always supplying impartial information. But it's one of the best books on the market that lets us know all about Windows Vista.
How Personal & Internet Security Work by Preston Gralla from QUE
Today one of the most serious issues confronting PC users is that of security. A great pity is that the realities are little understood by most PC users.
We have all heard the horror stories of bank accounts being cleaned out and personal identities being stolen from our machines by malicious and ruthless criminals and international crime syndicates. We know a little about phishing and the various internet scams, such as the Nigerian scam and bogus bank e-mails asking you for your banking details, but few of us realise exactly how the systems work and why it is so important to protect ourselves from them.
How Personal & Internet Security Work, discusses all the threats facing a PC user connected to the internet. It explaines the threats, how they work and, most importantly, how to protect yourself against them.
Given the comprehensiveness of the book it is a valuable resouce for the professional and amatuer as well. If all you are interested in is readijng up on the subject this book may well terrify you but if you want to set up systems to protect yourself or others on the net then this will be an invaluable resource.
The information in excellent and the book is well illustrated and covers the HOW of protecting against most of the real threats out there.
We have all heard the horror stories of bank accounts being cleaned out and personal identities being stolen from our machines by malicious and ruthless criminals and international crime syndicates. We know a little about phishing and the various internet scams, such as the Nigerian scam and bogus bank e-mails asking you for your banking details, but few of us realise exactly how the systems work and why it is so important to protect ourselves from them.
How Personal & Internet Security Work, discusses all the threats facing a PC user connected to the internet. It explaines the threats, how they work and, most importantly, how to protect yourself against them.
Given the comprehensiveness of the book it is a valuable resouce for the professional and amatuer as well. If all you are interested in is readijng up on the subject this book may well terrify you but if you want to set up systems to protect yourself or others on the net then this will be an invaluable resource.
The information in excellent and the book is well illustrated and covers the HOW of protecting against most of the real threats out there.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Free Business Billing Software
Billing is one important area of all small and big businesses. Billing software market is crowded that choice of one becomes so difficult for a start up business owner. The question is will billing software survives the flood of software suits or packages offered by small and big software developing companies.
It should. The problem open software community today faces is the lack of skills or interest to learn the basics of programming and working of programs.
People also seek comfort zones all the time. We all live in an age of instant gratification and we are hardly programmed to wait or try hard to get something. This is the general trend and they will go for easily available packaged solutions, instead of trying to learn what it is about the working behind the things they see.
Needless to say a billing cum accounting system will, to a great extent take the load of learning accounting from your shoulders. With Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) the modern mantra, it is quite understandable if a few companies have taken the initiative to make major inroads into the field of free open source billing software.
It is necessary for the user to have a basic coding and programming knowledge to tweak the pieces of software to a workable suite. Then again the attempts in that direction should be recognized.
When introducing an open-source billing software, it is sure to be met with much skepticism and prejudices. No open source software is an exception. The whole hearted attempts from skilful people keep the trend alive. This project has been the hot favorite at SourceForge.net for a few months now.
A recent addition to free software, specifically billing software is JBilling, located at http://www.jbilling.com. The open source software works with all major operating systems and supports My SQL, Postgre SQL and Hypersonic. It runs on JBOSS. It is thus a 100% free open source billing system that supports recurring billing, automatic payment processing using credit cards etc. It also handles web-based interface directly with end customers.
There are also different advantages of this specific billing software. Most of the processes are automated. Though it is not a new thing in open source world, business persons appreciate automatic invoicing, billing, payment processing, etc. What more? JBilling v 1.0.4 also accepts online payment via credit card.
The software thus easily becomes an alternative to proprietary billing systems.
To download and learn more about Free Open Source Billing Software, visit http://www.jbilling.com.
(NB. I do not necessarily endorse this product. You will need to ensure that it suits your needs and is all it suggests it may be. Regards, Lance.)
This article is free for republishing
Source: http://www.articlealley.com
It should. The problem open software community today faces is the lack of skills or interest to learn the basics of programming and working of programs.
People also seek comfort zones all the time. We all live in an age of instant gratification and we are hardly programmed to wait or try hard to get something. This is the general trend and they will go for easily available packaged solutions, instead of trying to learn what it is about the working behind the things they see.
Needless to say a billing cum accounting system will, to a great extent take the load of learning accounting from your shoulders. With Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) the modern mantra, it is quite understandable if a few companies have taken the initiative to make major inroads into the field of free open source billing software.
It is necessary for the user to have a basic coding and programming knowledge to tweak the pieces of software to a workable suite. Then again the attempts in that direction should be recognized.
When introducing an open-source billing software, it is sure to be met with much skepticism and prejudices. No open source software is an exception. The whole hearted attempts from skilful people keep the trend alive. This project has been the hot favorite at SourceForge.net for a few months now.
A recent addition to free software, specifically billing software is JBilling, located at http://www.jbilling.com. The open source software works with all major operating systems and supports My SQL, Postgre SQL and Hypersonic. It runs on JBOSS. It is thus a 100% free open source billing system that supports recurring billing, automatic payment processing using credit cards etc. It also handles web-based interface directly with end customers.
There are also different advantages of this specific billing software. Most of the processes are automated. Though it is not a new thing in open source world, business persons appreciate automatic invoicing, billing, payment processing, etc. What more? JBilling v 1.0.4 also accepts online payment via credit card.
The software thus easily becomes an alternative to proprietary billing systems.
To download and learn more about Free Open Source Billing Software, visit http://www.jbilling.com.
(NB. I do not necessarily endorse this product. You will need to ensure that it suits your needs and is all it suggests it may be. Regards, Lance.)
This article is free for republishing
Source: http://www.articlealley.com
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Malware - sites to avoid.
Malware - those programs that can really mess up your PC system (Mac are also starting to be affected as well) are concentrated around three main types of sites according to recent research by McAfee, one of the world's leading anti-virus software creators.
The sites to avoid are fake celebrity sites (#1), screen saver sites (#2) and pornography sites (#3). Visit these sites at your own risk.
However, often it's not necessarily you but rather staff that you may be employing that visit these dangerous and potentially system crippling sites. Give this real possibility it becomes crucial that you install software that can protect your organisation from these malicious forms of attack.
On the commercial side there is always companies like McAfee to help you out (check their web site in any event to help you understand the possible dangers - McAfee.com). But there are always the excellent free resources to call on as well. For example AOL have released a great anti-virus, anti-adware, anti-malware product that is completely free (who said that freeware was developed by shonky people?).
To check out the software before downloading go to: http://www.download.com/AOL-Active-Virus-Shield/3000-2239_4-10568703.html?tag=lst-0-6 (just copy and paste this URL into your web browser) There is a button on the page for simple and quick downloading if you decide to go ahead and use this great piece of software.
The software, once installed, will ask to scan your whole system - it takes a bit of time but is well worth it. After that the software will check every new item that your computer comes in contact with and help you delete and threats.
Thanks AOL for a great product!
The sites to avoid are fake celebrity sites (#1), screen saver sites (#2) and pornography sites (#3). Visit these sites at your own risk.
However, often it's not necessarily you but rather staff that you may be employing that visit these dangerous and potentially system crippling sites. Give this real possibility it becomes crucial that you install software that can protect your organisation from these malicious forms of attack.
On the commercial side there is always companies like McAfee to help you out (check their web site in any event to help you understand the possible dangers - McAfee.com). But there are always the excellent free resources to call on as well. For example AOL have released a great anti-virus, anti-adware, anti-malware product that is completely free (who said that freeware was developed by shonky people?).
To check out the software before downloading go to: http://www.download.com/AOL-Active-Virus-Shield/3000-2239_4-10568703.html?tag=lst-0-6 (just copy and paste this URL into your web browser) There is a button on the page for simple and quick downloading if you decide to go ahead and use this great piece of software.
The software, once installed, will ask to scan your whole system - it takes a bit of time but is well worth it. After that the software will check every new item that your computer comes in contact with and help you delete and threats.
Thanks AOL for a great product!
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