Friday, October 24, 2008

3 Tips For Speeding Up Your Computer

Even though we've been working with Microsoft products for over 20 years, sometimes very strange things happen on our perfectly configured computers.

Here are three things we look for immediately to speed up a system:

1) Remove all unnecessary programs that are running the systray (the systray is all the little icons in the bottom right next to the clock). You can turn them off permanently by going into msconfig.exe and unchecking the programs that shouldn't be there. Just be careful with what you are unchecking.

2) Uninstall programs that you will never use again. Go to Startup>Control Panel>Add/Remove Programs (only on Windows XP).

3) Finally, AFTER unwanted programs are removed, clean out your Windows registry by using a registry cleaner. We recommend RegCure.

As always, make sure your virus scanning software is up to date and run full scans once per week. We recommend AVG - the free version works just fine.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

4 steps to creating real-time online proposals

Here's a simple method for creating online proposals. By using Google's 'publish' feature in Google Docs, you can quickly create a unique webpage that is your proposal. No HTML required. Best of all, the webpage is dynamic. When you make a changes to the proposal, your customer can view the changes immediately.

No more emailing documents around and wasting precious time during the sale close!

Here are the steps:

1) Login to your gmail account and click "Documents" in the upper-left.

2) Once inside Google Docs, click on New > Spreadsheet.(Alternatively, you can upload an existing Excel spreadsheet if you have one.)

3) Format your new spreadsheet to resemble a proposal, complete with a signature line. (You can also choose a Template from the "New" button.)

4) Now, click "Share" in the upper right and then choose "Publish as Web Page." Also check the box "Automatically re-publish when changes are made"

That's it. Copy and paste the hyperlink that appears and drop it into an email to your client. If you have to make updates to the document, just tell your client to click on the link in the original email and they will see the updates.

They will see an option to print the document.

TIP: Put your fax number right on the document with instructions to sign and fax. Done deal.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

10 Reasons To Love Gmail

1) All contacts and email content is immediately searchable.

2) The 'Star' feature gives you a quick and easy to-do list.

3) It's free and ubiquitous.

4) The 'archive' feature lets you maintain a clutter-free inbox.

5) You can send/receive emails from multiple addresses. (i.e. jsmith@gmail.com or jsmith@acme.com)

6) Virus scanning on incoming messages (again, free).

7) Access from just about any cell phone.

8) Gmail can host your corporate email system (again, for free).

9) Perfect functioning spam-filter.

10) Did I mention it was free and ubiquitous.