It is a well known fact that software alone will not single-handedly save the fate of a business. A business needs a competent management team who make the right decisions, and having the right information is vital to the decision-making process Customer relations management software offers all this and more. Companies who accept CRM software solutions are more able to effectively anticipate their customer’s needs, realign their business process for improvement over their entire system and make the right moves for the business to maximize customer satisfaction and profitability.
Any company providing CRM solutions should have experts to gather data, as well as do research and analysis. These experts will be the ones helping your company make informed business decisions. They will recommend the types of solutions you will need to obtain an in-depth analysis and actionable advice for your business.
Since the software solutions company you choose will be giving you advice on customer relations, make sure they are experts in deploying customer-driven strategy. You will need a company that has a clearly defined approach that takes into account all of the factors that lead to success. They will also need to interpret their findings in an accurate and understandable way, so that the information will be used accordingly.
The success of your business relies on how you relate to your customers. A bad customer relations experience could mean losing your most valued customers. For businesses, losing customers is an unacceptable, and low customer satisfaction will cause you to lose potential customers to your competitors. A competent CRM software solution will guarantee that your senior management has all the necessary information they need to make the right decisions for your company.
CRM Software provides detailed information on CRM Software, CRM Software Solutions, CRM Software Systems, Automotive CRM Software and more. CRM Software is affiliated with Sales Contact Management Software.
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Executive Summary
An effective plan for entering, cleaning and updating the data for your salesforce.com (SFDC) system is critical for achieving success with SFDC. According to industry experts poor planning for managing the data entry/data quality issue has historically been one of the largest reasons for failure with CRM systems.
The data entry/data quality challenges faced by a SFDC customer, and the corresponding solutions and best practices to be considered will vary depending on the company sales process and size. However applying data management best practices can be instrumental for creating revenue growth and a competitive advantage with your SFDC investment.
Why Does Data Quality Matter for Salesforce.com Customers?
This whitepaper concentrates on the data impact and benefits to sales and marketing users selling to other businesses. Although SFDC is used by a variety of other company functions, such as service and support, this analysis focuses on the best practice recommendations for sales and marketing.
There are two main reasons why current stakeholders in a SFDC project should have a strategy for addressing the quality of data in their SFDC system.
1) Historical Lessons Learned from Prior CRM Project Failures:
There is a growing body of research from industry analysts that “data entry/data quality” is one the top, if not the top factor determining the success or failure for a CRM project.
CSO Insights, a research firm that specializes in benchmarking sales & marketing excellence, published its annual study of sales organizations worldwide on January 12, 2004. The 2004 Sales Excellence Report, which includes responses from over 1,300 sales executives, cited the number one challenge for CRM initiatives was populating systems with accurate data and then maintaining the accuracy of that information. Another research study from the company called, “Increasing Sales Effectiveness Through Optimized Sales Knowledge Management”, highlighted three key process improvements desired by the study participants tied to using technology for higher sales effectiveness.
• Dynamic Process. “Over half the organizations surveyed stated that their top improvement objective was to develop ways to manage sales knowledge delivery in a much more instantaneous, as-the-world-is-changing manner. Annual, quarterly, even monthly postings of information are not frequent enough to meet the needs of the rate of change in the marketplace.”
• Easier Access. “As noted in past studies, access to information still needs to be improved…In a perfect world there would be one place to go for knowledge, and while it might pull information from several sources, the linking would be transparent to the sales team member…”
• Distribute More Easily. “…a mechanism needs to be in place for notifying salespeople when specific pieces of sales knowledge in which they are interested become available. Individual preferences can be identified by a user-defined profile…”
There was a tendency for buyers of CRM solutions in the 1990s to focus on the functionality of a CRM application and not on the sources and updating of data that would enable the users and management to achieve their CRM objectives. Sales and marketing executives with multiple CRM initiatives under their belt have indicated CRM software is somewhat like an empty spreadsheet where the true value is gained only when populated with effective data.
2) End User Satisfaction Drives CRM Success
From the author’s personal experience, CRM applications have historically had a bad reputation among sales users. During the 1990’s, Sales Executives were quick to adopt Sales Force Automation solutions (a subset of today’s CRM market). Sales reps were subsequently required to do a tremendous amount of research and manual data entry to get each of their leads, accounts, contacts and opportunities into the CRM application. The end result of all of this manual, time consuming work was to provide sales management with pipeline and forecast reports. As a result, reps resented the CRM application because of the data entry requirement and that it didn’t provide any productivity benefit to them.
In many cases companies migrated data from legacy contact management applications like ACT, Goldmine or MS Outlook without deduplicating the records and cleaning the data. This caused the users to loose confidence in the CRM application all together due to crippling data problems. Without reps entering data or having confidence in their CRM solution, many CRM projects died or had marginal success. The CRM project sponsors lost trust in the CRM vendor for the failure when the root issue was a data entry or quality problem.
Conversely, if marketing and sales end users are freed up as much as possible from the administrative part of entering, updating and cleaning data, and instead are provided accurate data and intelligence within SFDC for their deals they have an additional reason to be excited about using SFDC.
Parameters that Determine Data Quality
There are numerous data management best practices we introduce later in this whitepaper that can automate getting data into a SFDC system and keeping that data accurate over time. Before we discuss these best practices let’s touch on four main attributes that affect the quality of data.
• Completeness of a Record. Does the record have data for all the desired fields? Typical examples of an incomplete record include missing countries or zip codes associated with a street address.
• Accuracy of Data Elements. Is the value in the field correct? Typically examples of incorrect values can be old revenue numbers for a company, a phone number with an old area code, and a contact no longer at company. The passage of time and changes at a company account for the majority of inaccurate data about a company. Dun & Bradstreet indicates that a company record in its Worldbase database of 80M company sites gets changed on average 4.6 times a year.
• Number of Duplicate Records. The most common problem with duplicates is account records entered with different company names, ex HP, Hewlett-Packard. Unless you establish a company naming standard that is applied when creating or importing records it is easy to create numerous duplicates.
• Record Linkage. Our definition of record linkage means obtaining related data elements of value from the account record. Examples of linked records include contacts, credit reports, or other global sites within a corporate family tree such as a Johnson & Johnson. Providing the linked attributes around account records enables marketing to define and report progress in target markets and sales to better qualify prospects and determine decision-makers.
Pyramid of Data Quality Issues
SFDC offers a very scalable CRM solution that can be used effectively by companies with 5 to 5000 users. The data entry and quality issues vary considerably though for companies based on how data intensive their sales methodology is, and the volume of records. The later point assumes a company with lots of sales users and groups will have a larger volume of records. As a result there are corresponding different data management best practices for each tier.
Small SFDC Customers:
(Simple sales cycle and low volumes of data, typically 100s to 10k records)
Challenge: Getting data into SFDC.
As pointed out earlier, you should avoid having your sales or marketing users manually enter data into SFDC as much as possible, especially for basic account data. The users will resent the time required for data entry and perceived low marginal benefit to them.
Best practices:
• Load as many current and complete account records as possible during the initial SFDC implementation. Typical sources for these records are your internal billing or financial system as well as existing contact management systems like ACT, Goldmine, Outlook or even Excel spreadsheets from marketing or other functions. If the records are believed to be old, say greater than 18 months old, or substantially incomplete, then a decision should be made on their value and whether to import them or not. The SFDC import wizards do a good job entering batches of records.
• If you have account data coming from multiple sources then you should consider applying deduplication logic to avoid migrating redundant records into SFDC. You can license deduplication software tools from SFDC partners like Demand Tools, RingLead, and Active Prime, or you can use project oriented services such as InsideScoop’s Customer Cleanse service if you don’t want to maintain software over time. Customer Cleanse can also match account records to the D&B DUNS # (see description below) which will add any missing record data elements, update the latest data on revenues and employees, and append (add) additional account records to your criteria. The result of these efforts is a critical mass of complete, unique, and accurate account records.
• Another solution for consideration is to automate how lead, account and contact data is viewed and saved within SFDC by the end users. Sales users are often asked to conduct research on Internet based websites, such as Hoovers, and then copy/paste desired data into SFDC. InsideScoop’s Customer Connection service is sForce certified against the SFDC API and provides data from market leading data providers such as D&B within the SFDC screens. With one mouse click users can save lead, account or contact data they wish directly into SFDC. All background research about accounts and contacts is now provided within SFDC providing large time-savings and account intelligence to sales. In addition all the standard SFDC lead, account and contact fields can now be consistently filled in with data to assure 100% record completeness. Marketing can now get data attributes such as SIC codes and industry categories filled in automatically for lead records by having integrated data sources.
Medium SFDC Customers:
(Moderate sales cycle complexity and record volumes, typically 10k to 50k records)
Challenge: Cleansing account and contact data coming from multiple sources.
Companies with this range of users typically have lead or account records coming from former contact or CRM applications like ACT, Goldmine, or Siebel when deploying SFDC initially, or a billing/ERP system, a web site, and purchased lead lists while in production. As a result the prevalence of duplicate records increases significantly especially after a few years of accumulating data. Manual procedures for deduplicating records one at a time do not scale well when you have 20k to 150k account records to manage. Matching redundant account records using a company name and address can be difficult given different legal, “doing business as” names, or trade names in use for a company site.
Best Practices: Implementing an account naming data standard and an automated process to eliminate duplicate records will enable a SFDC customer to manage the record redundancy issue for large volumes of records. One of the best data standards for company names, addresses and related information on a global basis is D&B. They spend $250M a year to manage and update a “DUNS Number” for 80M organizational sites globally.
The DUNS # is a unique 9 digit number associated with an organization’s name and address. This number has become the de facto standard amongst businesses for tracking organization sites, much like the social security number is the unique ID for US citizens. There are DUNS #s assigned for companies as small as a 2 employee private startup up to the entire site hierarchy for the world’s biggest public companies, governments, non-profits and educational organizations.
D&B is able to track from the DUNS # both legal and tradestyle names for a site, the physical and mailing addresses, economic metrics like revenue, employees, SIC codes and industries, as well as corporate linkage to provide a few examples of company data available. The corporate linkage feature can indicate the level in a family hierarchy, ex, global ultimate, headquarters, division, etc., and pull together as many tiers as needed under the global ultimate site. Hewlett-Packard has 761 linked sites within their US operations alone! Interested parties can see how corporate hierarchies look in SFDC through the white papers or free trials of Customer Connection offered on our website, www.insidescoop.com.
There are several benefits to using the D&B DUNS # data standard:
• Companies using the DUNS # can link related company names together, ex the legal name with various tradestyle names, ex HP, and have the option of using one naming convention going forward.
• The DUNS # provides a unique ID for driving the deduplication process before importing batches of records as well as by looking at the lead, account and contact records already in SFDC.
• A company selling to Fortune1000 global conglomerates like General Motors, Deutsche Bank, and Sony Electronics can now get access to the 1000s of sites reporting into the global ultimate site, with the hierarchy viewable within SFDC.
• Contacts and related financial or installed base data can now be linked to a specific site within SFDC. The linking of data attributes tied to the same site enables creating composite records of valuable customer intelligence for marketing or sales use.
InsideScoop’s Customer Cleanse service is based around the D&B DUNS #, and can be used for cleansing data before it’s entered into SFDC, or cleansing existing data within a production SFDC system. The service maps and transforms data from D&B so the data is meaningful to SFDC users. For example, existing account records can now be linked together to view corporate families within SFDC. Lead records that are added from D&B can be applied against territory mapping rules to determine the lead owner, as another example.
Large SFDC Customers:
(Complex sales cycle and large record volumes, typically greater than 50k records)
Challenge: Companies with years of CRM program experience strive to gain a competitive advantage through their Salesforce.com investment.
These companies realize that having access to the right data is a key ingredient for achieving this competitive advantage. If marketing defines a target market or set of accounts for sales to concentrate on, they can embed the prospect records for that market within SFDC. This allows sales to focus on selling into accounts that will be most receptive to your product or service. With the prospect records for a target market loaded into SFDC, management can generate penetration reports demonstrating the progress being made into these markets.
This sounds like a logical process, but executing this process has challenges. A database provider will sell you a file with these prospect records then you or some expensive consultants have to figure out how to map the data to the proper SFDC fields. Even companies with large budgets have not been able to solve this process easily.
Best practice: Marketing and sales management need to identify the common attributes behind those customers where your sales force is gaining momentum selling your product or service. These attributes should be used to define a target market and the prospects in that market that are mostly likely to be receptive to your product or service. The common attributes used to define these prospects are their size (ex, employees or revenue), industry (ex, SIC or NAIC code), geography, or corporate linkage (ex, divisions of Johnson & Johnson). Market leading database providers like D&B can supply the prospect records to these sort criteria. They can also “suppress” the customer records you already own so you only purchase incremental records of interest.
Here are two examples of what D&B can supply for prospect records:
• All public and private companies in the pharmaceutical industry with revenues > $100M in the US and Canada.
• The global, domestic ultimate and subsidiary sites for IBM in the top 13 industrialized European countries.
Let’s imagine two divisions of IBM in Europe have bought your product or service. With these other IBM sites in SFDC you can now cross-sell and get the decision-makers at the other IBM country headquarters and subsidiaries within the European countries you are targeting.
InsideScoop, which resells D&B data, also provides software and services in its Customer Cleanse offering necessary to transform and process D&B data into a customer’s SFDC system. The DUNS # is used as the unique account ID to determine what new records are desired from an external datasource like D&B while suppressing the existing account records already owned by the customer. New lead or account records can be applied to territory mapping rules so the leads are assigned properly.
The D&B corporate linkage feature can be leveraged to build named account hierarchies using the SFDC parent/child relationships. The SIC codes from D&B can be mapped to the industry categories used within SFDC. The Customer Cleanse process dedupes and merges/purges new records relative to the existing lead, account and contact records already within SFDC. Once new records are properly loaded into SFDC then penetration reports can be run for target markets or accounts identifying the progress or gaps that sales is making into these markets.
The combination of Customer Cleanse and Customer Connection creates a complete data management solution to clean data at hand, keep it clean over time, as well as create composite intelligence about customer sites using multiple data sources. SFDC customers who are interested can get a complimentary data quality audit of their data or a free trial access of Customer Connection by contacting InsideScoop sales, sales@insidescoop.com, or going to the InsideScoop website, www.insidescoop.com. If readers of this whitepaper would like to share their data challenges or best practices with us at InsideScoop please contact the author at cbadger@insidescoop.com.
Chris Badger, CEO and cofounder of InsideScoop, has over 20 years of sales and marketing experience working for high tech firms. He was one of the first sales personnel at Clarify, an early CRM market leader, and subsequently held sales management positions for Clarify and gForce/Docent. Chris has led or participated in 5 internal CRM deployments including a Salesforce.com implementation at gForce in 2001 and InsideScoop in 2003, in addition to selling CRM solutions to Hewlett-Packard, 3Com, Sony America, and Siemans Electronics. He holds an MS in Engineering Management from Stanford University and a BA in Engineering Sciences from Dartmouth College.
Marketing software is sometimes viewed as a luxury, not a
necessity. While you can certainly accomplish marketing without
marketing software, marketing software lessens the time and
effort required for marketing and your marketing efforts will
generally be much more effective. There are various types of
marketing software, and numerous producers of marketing software.
Finding the right combination of marketing software for you is
the challenge.
The first step in preparing an effective marketing campaign is to
devise a solid marketing plan. When writing a marketing plan,
there are several things to consider. The main points are
defining your target market and identifying the characteristics
of that market, analyzing your competition, formulating your
unique selling proposition using a competitive advantage,
reviewing options for marketing mediums, preparing your marketing
budget, and setting milestones for your marketing campaign.
Marketing software, such as Marketing Plan Pro by Palo Alto, will
help you work through the details of these steps to create a
useful and powerful marketing plan.
If you intend to engage in email marketing via newsletters,
autoresponders, announcements, or mass email campaigns, you will
find that email marketing software is crucial. Of course, there
are online email marketing services such as gotcorp.com that
provide self-serve email marketing tools like Campaigner. Using
such tools for email marketing is an option, but there are
ongoing costs involved. If you choose to use email marketing
software instead, programs like Email Marketing Director and
Campaign Enterprise 9 by Arial are very good.
Good email marketing software enables you to personalize messages
and to manage your mailing lists through a database. A time
saving feature to look for in email marketing software is the
ability of the software to automatically process unsubscribe
requests. Most email marketing software packages have built-in
templates you can use to produce email newsletters, announcements
and marketing messages. Support for embedded images and
compatibility with web editing software programs may be of some
importance.
If you are really serious about email marketing, it is best to
get started with advanced email marketing software from the
beginning. Advanced email marketing software has features that
will enable you to personalize and track your email messages.
With tracking capabilities and built-in reporting functions, you
can determine the effectiveness of your email messages as well as
who is and who is not opening and responding to the messages.
These advanced email marketing software programs generally use
SQL, Oracle, or Access database technology. High quality email
marketing software also has automated features for managing email
lists. These automated, time-saving features usually include
handling unsubscribe requests and removing bounced or rejected
email addresses from the email lists.
Customized marketing software suites may be something to consider as well. With customized marketing software, you can often
integrate marketing into your sales and customer relationship
management (CRM) systems. Some features that are common to
customized marketing software include the ability to capture
leads, to forecast sales, to manage contacts, and to analyze data
that is collected through the integrated system. Project
management capabilities can even be merged with customized
marketing software.
So, the big question is, “Do I really need marketing software?”
Like I said before, many people view marketing software as a
luxury. However, marketing software makes the job of internet
marketing much easier, especially if it has automated features.
There are options to using marketing software. Online marketing
services are one of those options; however, unlike using
marketing software, marketing services generally have ongoing
fees that are charged monthly or per campaign. Using marketing
software you can devise and manage your own internet marketing
campaign which is a cost-effective solution to marketing online.
Copyright Christopher J. Enders. Are you at the end of your rope,
fed up and confused by all the scrambled internet marketing
advice you’re getting? Whether you are new to internet marketing,
or a website owner who wants to make more money from your
website, learn the proven strategies that will sky-rocket your
internet business at http://BiznessTips.com
#1 Understand What Services You Are Purchasing
Before authorizing any services to be performed, discuss what the consultant will do and how much it will cost. If you are purchasing more than $300 in services, ask the consultant for a written estimate or a fixed-price for the project.
#2 Repair vs. Upgrade: Understand the Differences
Ask yourself how much it would cost to just buy a new piece of equipment or software instead of servicing the old one. Because of how quickly computer parts are updated, it may be less expensive to purchase new hardware or software. Ask your consultant about the maintenance costs for the old product versus the new one and whether the new product would have any features you would be able to utilize.
#3 Determine What You Should Do and What the Consultant Should Do
If you are cost-conscious when working with a computer consultant, determine which services the consultant will perform and what you can do by yourself. For example, if you are adding a new computer to your wireless network, the computer consultant may install the wireless network card and set up appropriate security for the network. You may be able to save money by installing software and configuring basic services such as e-mail.
#4 Ask Your Consultant for Advice Before Making Software or Hardware Purchases
Most consultants offer free advice by phone or e-mail. When purchasing something new, ask the consultant whether it will be compatible with your system, what the warranty options are, which vendors offer the most robust products, and where to buy for the best prices.
#5 Choose the Best Support Method
Many consultants charge for phone and on-site support, but not for e-mail. E-mail is quick and easy because you will be doing the work under the consultant’s guidance. In many cases, if the consultant charges for phone support, it may be more efficient to schedule a service call because the consultant will be doing the work and can see the problem directly instead of giving you guidance over the phone.
#6 Get Training
Many on-site service calls can be prevented if you ask the consultant to show you how to fix the problem. For example, a router may drop your internet connection occasionally. If you know how to restart the router, you can avoid having to wait for a service appointment and paying for repair service. Printer problems are often repetitive and generate many unnecessary service calls. Don’t be afraid to learn about the details - it will often be much easier than you think.
#7 Determine Who Will Purchase Equipment
When purchasing parts for service, determine whether you or your consultant will purchase the parts. Often it may not be a good idea for you to purchase them, because your consultant may have exact specifications for the product that must be purchased and often will have sources to buy at the lowest prices.
#8 Determine How to Protect Your Technology Investment
Extended warranties are very effective for printers and laptops which break often but of little use for routers and desktop computers. Having proper firewall and anti-virus protection can prevent your computer from virus infection. Talk with your consultant about maintenance for your new software or hardware.
#9 Be Prepared for Your Service Call
Organize your original software CDs, usernames, passwords, and account information. If you do not have this information prepared before the consultant arrives, the consultant will spend billable time locating this information which will increase your service fee.
#10 Understand the Consultant’s Qualifications and Experience
For complex systems and niche areas such as Linux, Macintosh, Cisco Routers ask the consultant what their qualifications and prior experience are. This can make a huge difference in your bill because if you hire a generalist, you will likely spend money training them before they can do the job. If you hire a specialist, the hourly rate will be higher, but the work will be done faster and often more cost-effectively.
#11 Demand Written Documentation if Necessary
If you absolutely cannot have any downtime or another consultant or service provider may need to access your system, demand written documentation from your consultant for all work performed. This should include all technical specifications, system configuration, usernames and passwords.
#12 Understand the Consultant’s Policies
Many consultants bill a minimum of one or two hours for on-site service calls. Some charge for phone support while others don’t. Some offer fixed-price services. By understanding the policy, you can structure their work in a way that is most cost-effective.
Deryck Richards is the founder and managing partner of Desktronix. With an extensive educational background in computer information systems, Deryck currently manages hosting and data center operations for Desktronix. He also provides system administration and technical support directly to small businesses as he has since 2000. His areas of expertise include networking, Windows, Linux, and Macintosh systems and he is the author of The Guide to Technology for Small Business. For more information, visit http://www.desktronix.com
The future of your medical practice could greatly depend on how well you comply with HIPAA. As there are complex procedures and you have to keep record of various steps apart from ensuring the security of the information you have access to, most the employers and medical professionals prefer to use HIPAA software.
The software is available online as well as offline, which helps the people concerned with implementing this law. In fact, this software can make the difference between success and failure, for a large number of medical professionals. The HIPAA software helps in removing inefficiency, which causes trouble for many health service providers.
If you plan to run a medical office without sapping too much of your time in dealing with administrative and data management problems, then HIPAA software can be of great help. It provides help in managing almost every aspect of a medical office, such as billing, scheduling, processing of claims, auditing, recording and reserving medical information. It reduces costs as well as the margin of error in managing health care services, and helps in improving the overall productivity of the staff.
Good HIPAA software should ensure that you are complying with all the HIPAA rules and regulations. You must not forget to get your software updated as new rules and regulations are incorporated. A list of such software programs is available on several websites. You can purchase them online. A number of software companies sell HIPAA software.
Do check the performance on trial basis before you pay the full price, as not all software would fulfill your requirement. The choice of software also depends on the type and size of your organization, as well as volume of data that has to be loaded and processed by this software.
HIPAA provides detailed information on HIPAA, HIPAA Compliance, HIPAA Laws, HIPAA Software and more. HIPAA is affiliated with Electronic Medical Record Systems.
GhostSurf 2006 Platinum is an excellent way to protect you and your valuable information from the many invaders on the rampage on the Internet. It allows you to be invisible on the Internet. As it stands, websites, advertisers, hackers, even snooping friends and family can easily watch your Web surfing. Information you type into sites, including your name, address and credit card number is often sent unprotected and can be read by others as it travels over the Web. Hackers can use your IP address to attack your computer, and in the process steal valuable data. Your data is visible to anyone with access to your machine. GhostSurf 2006 is the answer.
GhostSurf 2006 provides an anonymous Internet connection to let you surf the Web invisibly. It works with all Web browsers, and also supports instant messengers, newsgroups feeds and popular chat programs. GhostSurf 2006 also erases all of your Internet tracks. Items such as your Web history, cache, clipboard, and cookies can be electronically shredded.
The GhostSurf Platinum’s main window provides easy access to all features. GhostSurf Platinum protects your privacy and prevents Internet pests from spoiling your online experience. State-of-the-art surfing tools in GhostSurf Platinum encrypt your Internet connection and route your surfing through private anonymous hubs. This makes users virtually invisible on the Internet and ensures a secure surfing experience .
GhostSurf Platinum’s SpyCatcher runs the fastest and most comprehensive scans of any anti-spyware product on the market. SpyCatcher allows you to customize your scanning preferences to suit your individual privacy needs. All of this product’s scan options use the Spyware Profiling Engine, which ensures cutting-edge protection by using a three-pronged method for spyware detection that includes profiles, behavioral analysis and contextual intelligence.
GhostSurf Platinum’s SpyCatcher alerts you when spyware or suspicious files try to run on your PC. If the program is not a known spyware file, for example, a new program or a mutation, SpyCatcher’s Suspicious Files Wizard will help you determine if you should allow or remove the program in question.
GhostSurf Platinum keeps items stored on your PC such as Web history, cache, clipboard, cookies and creates a complete trail of your online activity. It protect your privacy and wipes these files away to Department of Defense standards for data destruction. GhostSurf Platinum is powerful enough to prevent undelete tools and aggressive hardware recovery systems from retrieving these deleted files and can even go as far to remove residuals left on your computer by previously deleted files.
GhostSurf Platinum’s AdArmor feature enables you to eliminate all types of advertisements, including popups, in page and paid search engine advertising as well as ActiveX, flashing text, animated images and others.
GhostSurf Platinum controls access to your data by creating an encrypted, password protected location to store sensitive information.
GhostSurf Platinum is the most comprehensive Internet privacy product available.
Additional Features:
• Encryption of your Internet connection
• Blocking of all personal information
• High-Speed IP masking
• See and block every piece of data that your computer emits
• Proprietary anonymous hubs route your connection
• Prevents advanced spyware from reinstalling
• Full-time staff dedicated to the research of spyware
Minimum System Requirements: Intel Pentium. 350MHz. 64MB RAM. 16MB Hard Drive Space - MSRP $49.95
Joel Smith recommends reading the Tenebril GhostSurf review at Identity Theft Spy. See www.identitytheftspy.com/2006/02/tenebril_ghosts.html for the review.
Obviously the biggest changes come from Microsoft’s new browser, Internet Explorer 7. IE7 has a new interface which is a big improvement compared to their previous browsers. Next to this new interface, security has improved a lot and new features such as tabbed browsing, embedded search and RSS feeds are being introduced.
Although this may look like a big list of improvements, it really isn’t that astonishing. The new features take a large part of the resources cake. And, maybe the most important reason: Opera and Firefox are already using these features for a long time.
Firefox has recently released version 1.5. Although we really were satisfied with Firefox in all previous versions, this new version really is a disaster in our opinion. We have seen a lot of crashes and also loading times have increased quite a bit.
While firefox released a slower new version, Opera has done the opposite. Opera 9 is currently available as a public preview version and has impressed us the most from all new browsers. Not only is opera 9 by far the fastest browser available, it also brings new features such as tab previews and widgets.
With the interest of Google in both opera and firefox the new browser war could become a very interesting one …
Tim De Grave - SodeX bvba
http://www.freedownloads.be
All new versions of these browsers can be downloaded on http://www.freedownloads.be
Comparison of browser speed: http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html
If you have Microsoft Great Plains and support it for your company then you need to know some technical details about Great Plains version upgrade and what is going on behind the scenes, which options do you have in case of Dexterity, VBA, SQL customization, additional complexity comes with migration from ctree/Pervasive to MS SQL/MSDE.
What is upgrade in the language of technology? Upgrade has server and client sides.
Server side - upgrade converts tables from old format to the new one. In general words - Microsoft Business Solutions developers may change table structure, append additional fields to add new functionality, things like that. Upgrade copies the table with changes to temporary table, then drops original table, recreates it with new structure and copies all the data from temp table to the newly created one.
Workstation side - workstation is written in Great Plains Dexterity and has Dynamics.exe - engine and DYNAMICS.DIC - dictionary. These two plus all the additional files will be replaced with the new ones. Other dictionaries, such us REPORTS.DIC and FORMS.DIC should be also upgraded and upgrade will try to deal with them automatically. In some cases modified reports (in REPORTS.DIC) could not be upgraded and need to be recreated in the new version.
What is customization upgrade? You should consider different types of customizations: Dexterity, VBA/Modifier, SQL, ReportWriter, Crystal Reports
Dexterity Customization - being very short - Dexterity may have so called Custom Forms - these do not need upgrade - they should work as is. Then Dexterity may alter existing Great Plains forms (so-called Alternate Great Plains forms) - in this case Dexterity customization should be redone for these forms/screens. Plus additional consideration should be given to Dexterity triggers, shadow tables, etc.
VBA/Modifier customization - Modifier allows you to modify existing Great Plains windows - it creates so called modified Great Plains windows, stored in FORMS.DIC. Usually modification is placing new buttons or fields, which in turn will be given VBA scripts (stored in DYNAMICS.VBA). VBA scripts may call something nice, like Crystal Report, or have some data access logic. Usually the old version of DYNAMICS.VBA workds with the new version. You may need to rearrange buttons on the modified form.
SQL - you may have some stored procs for data integration, EDI or the like - if the addressed tables will be changed in the new version then you need to analyze your SQL code. The good news is - Microsoft Business Solution doesn’t make a lot of changes since version 7.0, because Microsoft is now trying to merge the products it owns: Great Plains, Solomon, Navision and Axapta - and so has different priorities
ReportWriter - MBS doesn’t change tables, but it keeps changing Dexterity formulas used in ReportWriter original reports - this is the problem in so-called Modified Reports upgrade - usually you have these reports modified: SOP Blank Invoice form, SOP Blank Picking ticket, etc. If report can not be upgraded - it should be redone in the new version with some exceptions.
Crystal Reports - the nice thing about Crystal Report - id doesn’t need to be upgraded (if the fields in the tables exist in the new version - which is usually true statement)
What is upgrade for third-party modules? Your Great Plains may have so-called third party modules: Mekorma, Kampdata, Horyzon, Wennsoft, Avalara, Truepay, Trinity, Intellisol to name a few
Third party modules may have their own utility for upgrade. You just need to know that your third-party is ready for the new Great Plains version - if not - you just wait and stay on the old version.
What is migration from Ctree/Pervasive.SQL 2000 to MS SQL/MSDE? MBS has migration tool. You need first to install Great Plains on SQL Server with exactly the same account/segments structure and then install migration tool (it is Dexterity chunk) on your ctree/Pervasive workstation - then, when you integrate the chunk - you will map it to target SQL-based Great Plains Company, select all system and company tables, click the button and it will move all your tables one-by-one. In the case when your Great Plains ctree/Pervasive has third parties - you need to check if the vendor has migration tool - otherwise you have to do manual move, use SQL Linked server to your legacy data
Do I need consultant? It is probably good idea to have consultant to do the upgrade. We strongly recommend you to use consultant in the following cases
You have Dexterity customization
You are doing migration from Pervasive/Ctree to Microsoft SQL Server/MSDE, especially when you have third-parties without migration tools
You have a lot or ReportWriter Modified Great Plains Reports
You have old version of Great Plains: Dynamics or eEnteroprise 6.0 or prior - in this case you can not appeal to Microsoft Technical Support - it is discontinued
Your Great Plains has more than 20 users and you have to have upgrade done over the weekend - if it fails - you have business problems
You don’t have support - in this case you have to select your Microsoft Business Solutions Partner and pay for the annual support/enhancement plan - you will get new registration key and will be ready for the upgrade
Good luck in upgrading and if you have issues or concerns - we are here to help!
About The Author
Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies - USA nationwide Microsoft CRM, Microsoft Great Plains customization company, based in Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Atlanta, and Miami and having locations in multiple states and internationally www.albaspectrum.com, he is Dexterity, SQL, VB/C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer.
akarasev@albaspectrum.com
If you want us to do the job - give us a call 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com
There are several kinds of software piracy. The bottom line is when software is pirated, the developer does not receive compensation for their work.
Effects of Software Piracy
When software is pirated, consumers, software developers, and resellers are harmed. Software piracy increases the risk consumer’s computers will be corrupted by defective software and infected with viruses. Those who provide defective and illegal software do not tend to provide sales and technical support. Pirated software usually has inadequate documentation, which prevents consumers from enjoying the full benefits of the software package. In addition, consumers are unable to take advantage of technical support and product upgrades, which are typically available to legitimate registered users of the software. Pirated software can cost consumers lost time and more money.
Developers lose revenue from pirated software, from current products as well as from future programs. When software is sold most developers invest a portion of the revenue into future development and better software packages. When software is pirated, software developers lose revenue from the sale of their products, which hinders development of new software and stifles the growth of the software company.
Kinds of Piracy
End User Piracy -
Using multiple copies of a single software package on several different systems or distributing registered or licensed copies of software to others. Another common form of end user piracy is when a cracked version of the software is used. Hacking into the software and disabling the copy protection, or illegally generating key codes that unlocks the trial version making the software a registered version creates a cracked version.
Reseller Piracy -
Reseller piracy occurs when an unscrupulous reseller distributes multiple copies of a single software package to different customers; this includes preloading systems with software without providing original manuals & diskettes. Reseller piracy also occurs when resellers knowingly sell counterfeit versions of software to unsuspecting customers.
Indications of reseller piracy are multiple users with the same serial number, lack of original documentation or an incomplete set, and non-matching documentation.
Trademark/Trade Name Infringement
Infringement occurs when an individual or dealer claims to be authorized either as a technician, support provider or reseller, or is improperly using a trademark or trade name.
BBS/Internet Piracy -
BBS/ Internet Piracy occurs when there is an electronic transfer of copyrighted software. If system operators and/or users upload or download copyrighted software and materials onto or from bulletin boards or the Internet for others to copy and use without the proper license. Often hackers will distribute or sell the hacked software or cracked keys. The developer does not receive any money for the software the hacker distributed. This is an infringement on the developer’s copyright.
Another technique used by software pirates is to illegally obtain a registered copy of software. Pirates purchase the software once and use it on multiple computers. Purchasing software with a stolen credit card is another form of software piracy. Unfortunately there are many kinds of software piracy that has hampered the software industry.
These types of software piracy have hampered the software industry. For the software industry to prosper and further develop useful software for consumers please support and pay for software. This results in better software for all.
To Report Piracy :
Software Information Industry Association
About The Author
Sharon Housley manages marketing for NotePage, Inc. http://www.notepage.net a company specializing in alphanumeric paging, SMS and wireless messaging software solutions. Other sites by Sharon can be found at http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com and http://www.small-business-software.net
If someone entered your home, uninvited and installed numerous cameras and listening devices in order to monitor your activities, you would quite rightly be outraged. While such a situation, unless you are living in the Big Brother House, would be considered ridiculous, the same cannot be said for the humble home computer.
Recently released research alarmingly shows that home PC’s are increasingly likely to host software which can watch each and every keystroke the user inputs. According to the research compiled from an audit conducted jointly by the software firm, WebRoot and services provider, EarthLink, the average home PC hosts 28 so-called spyware programs.
Whilst the worst examples of spyware are written by virus writers to steal passwords and hijack computers to launch “denial of service” attacks against web-servers, the vast majority are used to collate marketing information and then target advertising according to the end-users web surfing habits.
The WebRoot/EarthLink audit surveyed more than 1.5 million PC’s during the last 12 months and discovered an amazing 41 million incidents of spyware; adware, Trojans, tracking cookies and other undesirable programs.
Most of these programs are loaded into the computer memory when the PC is started up. From here, the program will work silently, often giving no clues as to its existence. However, unexplained browser window pop-up’s, often advertising adult services and mysterious alterations to the browsers homepage setting are more often than not an indication that spyware is present and active on a computer. One particular piece of spyware, which is proving to be very expensive for many home users, is that of Trojan Diallers. Diallers, often without any warning to the end-user, hangs up the current net connection and then automatically reconnects using a Premium Rate telephone number, thus running up huge telephone bills. The activities of companies using this technology as a revenue stream are currently under investigation in the UK by government watchdogs.
A hard-disk and memory overflowing with spyware used to be one of the unfortunate consequences of visiting sex and adult orientated sites; a kind of eSTD. Like most Internet marketing technologies, from the pop-up to the pop-under and the first snowball of Spam, spyware began life serving the adult industry. Then, just like pop-up, spyware filtered through all aspects of ecommerce. In an interview to the BBC, David Moll, CEO of WebRoot, said that spyware has now become so common across the whole of the Internet, that it can be contracted from nearly anywhere.
So-called “drive-by downloads” are now responsible for most infections of spyware. The term “drive-by” refers to the casualness of the infection. By simply visiting an ordinary webpage a user can unwittingly initiate an automatic download of spyware onto their computer. There are no clues and no warnings.
In a recent, carefully controlled and closed demonstration, it took me less than 20 minutes to create a spyware program and embed it into a webpage. Using colleagues who had previously been made aware of the nature of the experiment, I invited them to take a look at this “special” but very ordinary looking webpage. Within seconds of visiting this webpage, the spyware went to work taking a snapshot of their hard disk, a snapshot of their Favourites folder and a copy of their browsing history. Before they had even finished reading the webpage, the spyware was already transferring their information to my server. It’s as easy as that! Equally that same code could be manipulated to perform a total trash of the hard disk or some other equally miserable and criminal act.
Speaking to the BBC, David Moll explained.
“Some (spyware programs) lurk on misspelled URLs and strike those that type faster than their fingers can carry them. As a result you do not end up where you expect to be.”
Alarmingly, users do not even need to visit a website to contract spyware. The preview window in Microsoft’s Outlook Express allows emails containing HTML and any other code which can be placed on a normal webpage, to be loaded, without warning. Companies looking to implant spyware using the “drive-by” principal are regularly exploiting this glaringly obvious flaw in the design of Outlook Express.
“If you get one piece of spyware, you will get five because the business model says they pay each other to pass on information about victims,” said Mr Moll.
Thankfully anti-spyware/adware programs such as Ad-Aware (free) and WebRoot’s own offering, Spy Sweeper can clean up a PC and even help prevent further infections, but just like anti-virus software, anti-spyware software needs to be kept up-to-date to remain effective.
In addition to providing software solutions to this problem, legislators too are seeking to end this electronic intrusion. In the USA an anti-spyware bill is moving towards approval in Congress. If successfully implemented, this bill will force firms who wish to use spyware to first receive permission from the end-user before it is installed. But even before any new laws come into place, spyware makers are already working on next generation coding which keep their programs intact and operational….perhaps even on your PC.
Related Links:
WebRoot Spyware Audit http://www.webroot.com/services/spyaudit_03.htm
Ad-Aware http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/
WebRoot http://www.webroot.com/
About The Author
Robert Palmer is CEO of deskNET Communications www.desknet.co.uk the first affordable alternative to opt-in email marketing and newsletters. With over 20 years professional experience in software development, Robert is a leading architect in the development of the emerging Net technology, One-2-Many Broadcasting software.