ITs been done before

On a recent social outing I noticed a friend of mine deleting emails from his Blackberry - ‘Mail box Full’ emails actually and over 50 of them clogging up the small screen. For the purpose of this post however, I’m ignoring the irony of mass emails to alert you to a full mail box, a mere nod should suffice.

The process was click, scroll, delete, yes...click, scroll, delete, yes.... click, scroll, delete, yes... ad infinitum, not easy to ignore, especially as he could do this without looking. I had to ask why ……

“Shift, click, scroll, click, delete does the same thing” I said.

The original thumb breaking process had now been reduced from 300 clicks to 5 clicks and we could enjoy the evening. Now I know that some readers might call me a “Smart Ass” but sometimes we all need the assistance of a Smart Ass. In fact, for centuries people have been requiring the services of Smart Asses. Just the other day I had a Smart Ass come to my house to repair my fridge! Some new parts and some professional services (Smart Assed Services) and my fridge is once again fridging!

I’ve always liked the caption above. Day to day business can feel like a battle and in fighting these battles we often overlook available resources that can have a dramatic effect on the outcome. If you find a task arduous and time consuming, like my blackberry friend, there is a good chance that others have too. There is also a good chance that some Smart Ass has a solution. No-one would consider creating a spreadsheet without using Excel or trawling through hundreds of websites when you can just “Google it”.

ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems provide many business solutions. The good ones are developed around real businesses that have faced real business problems. The best ones can be tailored to meet exact requirements. The doyen of this elite, Intact Software, has provided thousands of solutions to real business problems. Many of them having been solved with an out of the box Intact solution
and some that have required a ‘perfect fit’ tailored Intact solution.

There are many ERP solutions available to choose from but it is important to ensure that they are backed up with more than adequate Professional and Customer Services. Many faceless companies can offer a system without providing you with a solution. Experienced ERP providers will avoid offering services to a potential client if their system is not a perfect fit. Unsuitable systems are often ‘found-out’ during implementation…. if you’re lucky.

Intact Sales Director Mark McArdle has often stated “Give me one hour of your time and if you are not impressed with this solution, you can invoice me for your time!” A statement not to be made lightly; and certainly not made if the solution is not a perfect fit. Its not rocket surgery when you know that implementing systems like Intact can assist you in ensuring you are not over or under stocked, you are receiving correct payment for the supply of goods and services, your customers are being looked after and you are buying product at the best prices. All of which result in a more successful business and healthy margin.

So the next time you are carrying out a tedious task, consider that somebody somewhere has also had this problem. Pretty soon you may have your very own smart-ass with a smart-ass system, resulting in clearly defined processes & greater productivity.

Ireland - A Blacklisted Nation

I'm not talking about FIFA's decision to allow Thierry Henrys goal stand and eliminate us from the world cup, or even our Ladies Bobsleigh team under threat of expulsion from the Winter Olympics for whatever reason. Nor am I referring to Roddy Doyle’s dialogue in the Commitments referring to us Irish as, well 'Outsiders'!!

Modern day communication in our country is under threat. As a nation we send hundreds of thousands of emails every day. Some hoping to generate business for our ailing economy, some to catch up with distant relatives or long lost friends, anyway you catch my drift..... But are these intended recipients actually receiving our emails as we would expect? Maybe not!

Regular email is considered HAM and unsolicited email SPAM, so let’s get that out of the way and move on! Thankfully procedures are put in place on the internet and within companies to try and differentiate between Spam and Ham so we are saved the task of siphoning through our inboxes for mail we want to read. Super! However, what if the person you are trying to send an email to has a system in place that thinks your Ham is Spam? That couldn’t happen surely, you're not selling Viagra, Cialis, and Rolexes etc. Well mail systems need to be more clever than that because if they weren’t, how would Pfizer ever send an email to anyone? They're a pretty big company!!

Many anti-spam products use a technique known as blacklisting. I won’t bore you with the exact details but basically if you're name or number (IP address) is on a black list, there is a good chance your mail won’t be received by the intended recipient.

Some recipient’s mail servers check your name and IP address against a number of blacklist servers and if you appear on one of them, your mail gets sent off into cyber space never to be seen again!

I don’t send spam emails, how can I be blacklisted?

Well, up until recently, the most common way to be blacklisted was for your computer to become infected by a mass mailing worm (virus) which acts as a spammer on your computer. If you didn’t stop it quickly enough, you would eventually end up on a blacklist.

That is up until recently (I eventually get to the point)!! When I say recently I mean in the last six months, Irelands leading ISPs have now found themselves listed on Blacklist servers and the moderators of these servers are refusing to take them off! Germany based UCE are refusing to remove blocks of Eircom’s IP addresses from their blacklists. Barracuda, Spam Cop and Abuse At are also blacklisting Eircom’s mail servers but will accept requests by individuals to remove domain names and IP addresses. And it doesn't just stop at Eircom; O2, Clearwire, Vodafone/BT are all there too!! You can check it out for yourself at www.mxtoolbox.com where you can type in your domain name (yourcompany.com) or IP address and see where you are listed.

This is a result of poorly managed networks; trying to charge people for anti spam systems when they should have been stopping it themselves. Allowing their mail servers relay mails at will just to make selling their products that bit easier. Not having the brains to differentiate home users from business users (they know how to differentiate charging them!!).

It doesn’t look like this will be resolved soon though they have at least admitted to the problem which is a big step in the right direction.....

Maybe we should revert to fax or Skype and start talking again!!!

Changing Broadband to save money?

First may I wish a happy and a prosperous 2010 to everyone... 2010; the year when companies that have survived the onslaught of recession will be looking to become stronger and to do so will strive to reduce any operational costs even further.

Is broadband one of those potential savings? Well the broadband companies claim so, but will it save your company money or will it cost you?

Here’s what you need to look out for:

Types of Broadband (Ireland):
In Ireland there are 2 primary means of supplying broadband to a premises; DSL and Wireless – which usually present themselves in your office COMs room as phone Line or Ethernet respectively.

The question you must ask here is “Will my existing equipment support the new connection type?” – the prospective supplier will offer you free equipment to support the new connection, but will it support any features you may have setup e.g. email, content filter, on-line backups, remote access, remote support, CCTV ?

And if it does, who is going to configure it for you and what will they charge?

IP Addressing:
Changing providers will inevitably result in a new pool of IP addresses being assigned to your router. The IP address can be seen as a modern day phone number for your computer network. If you have a remote office, remote users (sales reps), work from home, centrally managed email e.g. MS Exchange, CCTV, VoIP connections etc. a newly assigned IP address will result in all these features requiring to be reconfigured. This is time consuming and costly not to mention the downtime during the changeover.

Email Relaying/DNS:
While this topic is usually less severe and less common than the above, it should still be considered when making the change. Changing broadband provider in Ireland may also require local computer settings to change if you are relaying mail out through the original providers SMTP server, or if your DNS is pointed at the previous providers your internet may not work.

Internal IP Addressing
Your network has an internal IP range typically 192.168.1.x, where the first 3 parts of the address specify the network address and the x refers to your individual computers address in the range. Some broadband providers are shipping broadband routers (modems) with the address 192.168.1.1 which in a lot of cases can be the IP address of your network server. This will cause an IP conflict on your network which will disconnect the computers from your server.

Final Thoughts:
While it is possible to make a saving by swapping broadband providers, the cost of changing should be considered before doing so. My advice would be to plan it and to discuss it with your IT providers to see the exact costs involved in preparing for a minimum downtime changeover.