1. Hello Google Apps, hello real collaboration
This is the latest post in an ongoing series about Small Business and resources for entrepreneurs. Previous posts have covered how Google AdWords and Google Places can help business owners use technology to drive success. -Ed.
I’ve talked to a lot of small businesses that don’t have the budget or the resources to invest in and maintain technology. That’s why I love telling them about Google Apps — a suite of web-based office tools — and how it can help move their businesses forward.
I always find that it’s easier for small businesses to understand the benefits of Google Apps when one of our customers tells the story for us. So I’ve asked Stephen Culp, Founder and Chairman of Chattanooga, TN-based Smart Furniture and CEO of Delegator, to share his experiences with Google Apps, and how he took a company that started out in a Stanford professor’s garage and made it a success. (Sound familiar?) We’ll continue the conversation with Stephen and other Google Apps customers at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce America’s Small Business Summit next week in Washington, D.C.
As the founder of three companies, an attorney, Naval Reserve Officer and former Peace Corps volunteer, I’m a believer in an entrepreneurial approach to virtually everything. Smart Furniture, for example, started back in 1998 in a Stanford professor’s garage, with a new business model called “Design on Demand®” that allows furniture and interiors for homes and offices to be customized for you, and more importantly, by you, all on the web.
Smart Furniture began as a small and growing company with phenomenal people, but limited budget (and time) for technology, especially the wrong kind. We tried for years to scale efficiently without pouring money into the “standard” infrastructure to run our business. We considered the idea of Microsoft® Exchange, and while the idea was great, in practice it got a lot more complicated — and expensive.
Then, in 2008, we discovered Google Apps. We liked the general virtues of SaaSapplications that were inherent in Google Apps, and the fact that the applications improved over time without any effort from our team. Plus, the collaborative benefits were game-changing. Google Apps took that idea of efficient, company-wide collaboration and — unlike the alternatives — made it real.
In other words, for us, Google Apps does just what technology should. It frees up resources to focus on our actual business. It offers tools we didn’t have — or hadn’t integrated — before, including third-party apps from the Google Apps Marketplace. It replaces unnecessary layers of tech silliness with a simple, intuitive, integrated platform that actually serves us — our team and our goals.
Google Calendar alone increases our efficiency exponentially. Everyone can look at the same calendars, create new ones for events, projects or work groups, and share them, without having to master a byzantine instruction manual. Then there are the collaboration benefits. Before Google Apps, we’d constantly lose information as people changed roles or moved on to new projects. With Google Sites, we’ve eliminated the need for shared servers and their little air-conditioned server rooms, and replaced our entire intranet with one comfortably situated in the cloud. We use Google Sites to store company files and team members’ bios, and support our project groups. Meanwhile, Google Docs allows everyone to contribute to projects and idea creation — a key part of our company culture. We create documents to solicit feedback, track ideas, keep common agendas, take notes, prepare for meetings, manage inventory and even organize our company’s softball league. It’s part of almost everything we do.
Yes, our IT guys freaked out at first. Some thought that eliminating the maintenance of our previous system, a.k.a. Frankenstein, would make them no longer necessary. What they didn’t realize was how much better their jobs would get. Now they have the time to work on interesting projects — building, creating and innovating, rather than constantly rebuilding, patching and defragmenting. Our team is amazing, and we’re glad to have them back out of that air-conditioned server room.
At Smart Furniture, Google Apps helps build and support our culture, an important part of the secret sauce that has helped us succeed. Our culture keeps all of us working together, enjoying our days, not peering out the window wondering when we can clock out. As any company grows, it’s hard to maintain the sense of close collaboration that a small business has. Google Apps keeps us chatting (we all use chat in Gmail), collaborating, learning and growing together, as if we were still in the one-room office where we began — which was, incidentally, about the same size as the server room we were planning to build for Exchange.
In our experience, as a small business, the wrong technology can distract your team and drain resources, while the right technology can seamlessly support your goals. Both Smart Furniture and Delegator are on pace for greater than 100 percent growth in 2010. Customer satisfaction rates are at record levels, and we love where we work. For us, Google Apps is the right technology.
2. European Authorities Join Facebook Privacy Dogpile
7. Multicore CPUs move attack from theoretical to practical
Many of us use software firewalls, virus scanners, and other security software on our PCs. We expect this software to make our computers safer, but some new research suggests that it contains a whole host of exploitable vulnerabilities.
The Matousec researchers found that common software tools, including Norton Internet Security 2010, McAfee Total Protection 2010, and Trend Micro Internet Security Pro all had flaws that allowed attackers to bypass the protections that these programs offer. The malicious software can do this without even having to run as an Administrator.
This is the latest post in an ongoing series about Small Business and resources for entrepreneurs. Previous posts have covered how Google AdWords and Google Places can help business owners use technology to drive success. -Ed.
I’ve talked to a lot of small businesses that don’t have the budget or the resources to invest in and maintain technology. That’s why I love telling them about Google Apps — a suite of web-based office tools — and how it can help move their businesses forward.
I always find that it’s easier for small businesses to understand the benefits of Google Apps when one of our customers tells the story for us. So I’ve asked Stephen Culp, Founder and Chairman of Chattanooga, TN-based Smart Furniture and CEO of Delegator, to share his experiences with Google Apps, and how he took a company that started out in a Stanford professor’s garage and made it a success. (Sound familiar?) We’ll continue the conversation with Stephen and other Google Apps customers at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce America’s Small Business Summit next week in Washington, D.C.
As the founder of three companies, an attorney, Naval Reserve Officer and former Peace Corps volunteer, I’m a believer in an entrepreneurial approach to virtually everything. Smart Furniture, for example, started back in 1998 in a Stanford professor’s garage, with a new business model called “Design on Demand®” that allows furniture and interiors for homes and offices to be customized for you, and more importantly, by you, all on the web.
Smart Furniture began as a small and growing company with phenomenal people, but limited budget (and time) for technology, especially the wrong kind. We tried for years to scale efficiently without pouring money into the “standard” infrastructure to run our business. We considered the idea of Microsoft® Exchange, and while the idea was great, in practice it got a lot more complicated — and expensive.
Then, in 2008, we discovered Google Apps. We liked the general virtues of SaaSapplications that were inherent in Google Apps, and the fact that the applications improved over time without any effort from our team. Plus, the collaborative benefits were game-changing. Google Apps took that idea of efficient, company-wide collaboration and — unlike the alternatives — made it real.
In other words, for us, Google Apps does just what technology should. It frees up resources to focus on our actual business. It offers tools we didn’t have — or hadn’t integrated — before, including third-party apps from the Google Apps Marketplace. It replaces unnecessary layers of tech silliness with a simple, intuitive, integrated platform that actually serves us — our team and our goals.
Google Calendar alone increases our efficiency exponentially. Everyone can look at the same calendars, create new ones for events, projects or work groups, and share them, without having to master a byzantine instruction manual. Then there are the collaboration benefits. Before Google Apps, we’d constantly lose information as people changed roles or moved on to new projects. With Google Sites, we’ve eliminated the need for shared servers and their little air-conditioned server rooms, and replaced our entire intranet with one comfortably situated in the cloud. We use Google Sites to store company files and team members’ bios, and support our project groups. Meanwhile, Google Docs allows everyone to contribute to projects and idea creation — a key part of our company culture. We create documents to solicit feedback, track ideas, keep common agendas, take notes, prepare for meetings, manage inventory and even organize our company’s softball league. It’s part of almost everything we do.
Yes, our IT guys freaked out at first. Some thought that eliminating the maintenance of our previous system, a.k.a. Frankenstein, would make them no longer necessary. What they didn’t realize was how much better their jobs would get. Now they have the time to work on interesting projects — building, creating and innovating, rather than constantly rebuilding, patching and defragmenting. Our team is amazing, and we’re glad to have them back out of that air-conditioned server room.
At Smart Furniture, Google Apps helps build and support our culture, an important part of the secret sauce that has helped us succeed. Our culture keeps all of us working together, enjoying our days, not peering out the window wondering when we can clock out. As any company grows, it’s hard to maintain the sense of close collaboration that a small business has. Google Apps keeps us chatting (we all use chat in Gmail), collaborating, learning and growing together, as if we were still in the one-room office where we began — which was, incidentally, about the same size as the server room we were planning to build for Exchange.
In our experience, as a small business, the wrong technology can distract your team and drain resources, while the right technology can seamlessly support your goals. Both Smart Furniture and Delegator are on pace for greater than 100 percent growth in 2010. Customer satisfaction rates are at record levels, and we love where we work. For us, Google Apps is the right technology.
2. European Authorities Join Facebook Privacy Dogpile
At least one U.S. Senator wants the FTC to investigate. Notable leaders in the tech sector have begun talking about dropping out. Millions belong to groups complaining about it. Now, European privacy advocates are on Facebook's case, arguing the company's latest round of privacy adjustments are not only wrong-headed, but may run afoul of European privacy laws. The company seems to be making efforts to mitigate the bad publicity that the fracas has generated.
3. The Virtual Machine Backup-and-Recovery Conundrum
Server virtualization has crossed the proverbial chasm. Not long ago, when deploying new servers, one had to justify making them virtual, rather than physical. Now, IT managers in many organizations have decreed "virtual first" policies, requiring new server deployments to be virtual unless there is specific justification for a physical server. Alas, for all its goodness, virtualization creates a number of new storage and data management issues. One big problem area is backup. Backup techniques from the physical server world don't work very well in a VM environment. Why?
4. Firefox 4 Steps Out of the Shadows
Speed, power and user control are Mozilla's top three goals for Firefox 4, according to early product plans released Monday. Specifically, the browser will be fast -- "super-duper fast," according to Firefox director Mike Beltzner -- while also enabling new open-standard Web technologies such as HTML5 and putting users in full control of their browser and Web experience. For developers, Firefox 4 will likely offer bidirectionally connected apps, an HTML5 parser, a full-screen API, CSS3 compatibility, and faster 2-D drawing.
5. Pre-Columbian Americas enjoyed water pressure
Until recently, it was thought that hydrodynamic systems used to provide water pressure were brought to the new world by Spanish explorers. A new discovery in the Mayan city of Palenque appears to demonstrate that pre-Columbian civilizations enjoyed the benefits of positive water pressure long before the Spanish "introduced" them to the concept. What remains unknown, however, is what this system was used for and how it was used.
This specific water system was first identified during a 1999 mapping survey of Palenque, but it took a second visit by an archaeologist and a hydrologist before anyone was sure what they were seeing. The structure was a conduit fed from a natural spring that ran for about 200 feet while dropping in elevation by about 20 feet.
Near the bottom of the conduit, its cross-sectional area narrowed from nearly 10 square feet to less than one half a square foot. This would increase the velocity of the water, causing it to flow out of a small opening with some force. Simple calculations suggest that water would exit the conduit system and enter the city with about 20 feet of head.
The fact that such a structure exists is not surprising, according to Kirk French, the lead author of the paper, which appeared in the Journal of Archaeological Science, "The experience the Maya at Palenque had in constructing aqueducts for diversion of water and preservation of urban space may have led to the creation of useful water pressure," French said.
The authors hypothesize two possible scenarios for the use of the pressurized water. The most obvious, since the outlet appears to be in the center of the city, is a decorative fountain. The other possibility is more utilitarian: the pressure was used to provide water for houses located at higher elevations within the city.
6. Peppermint OS Puts Its Pedal to the Metal
3. The Virtual Machine Backup-and-Recovery Conundrum
Server virtualization has crossed the proverbial chasm. Not long ago, when deploying new servers, one had to justify making them virtual, rather than physical. Now, IT managers in many organizations have decreed "virtual first" policies, requiring new server deployments to be virtual unless there is specific justification for a physical server. Alas, for all its goodness, virtualization creates a number of new storage and data management issues. One big problem area is backup. Backup techniques from the physical server world don't work very well in a VM environment. Why?
4. Firefox 4 Steps Out of the Shadows
Speed, power and user control are Mozilla's top three goals for Firefox 4, according to early product plans released Monday. Specifically, the browser will be fast -- "super-duper fast," according to Firefox director Mike Beltzner -- while also enabling new open-standard Web technologies such as HTML5 and putting users in full control of their browser and Web experience. For developers, Firefox 4 will likely offer bidirectionally connected apps, an HTML5 parser, a full-screen API, CSS3 compatibility, and faster 2-D drawing.
5. Pre-Columbian Americas enjoyed water pressure
Until recently, it was thought that hydrodynamic systems used to provide water pressure were brought to the new world by Spanish explorers. A new discovery in the Mayan city of Palenque appears to demonstrate that pre-Columbian civilizations enjoyed the benefits of positive water pressure long before the Spanish "introduced" them to the concept. What remains unknown, however, is what this system was used for and how it was used.
This specific water system was first identified during a 1999 mapping survey of Palenque, but it took a second visit by an archaeologist and a hydrologist before anyone was sure what they were seeing. The structure was a conduit fed from a natural spring that ran for about 200 feet while dropping in elevation by about 20 feet.
Near the bottom of the conduit, its cross-sectional area narrowed from nearly 10 square feet to less than one half a square foot. This would increase the velocity of the water, causing it to flow out of a small opening with some force. Simple calculations suggest that water would exit the conduit system and enter the city with about 20 feet of head.
The fact that such a structure exists is not surprising, according to Kirk French, the lead author of the paper, which appeared in the Journal of Archaeological Science, "The experience the Maya at Palenque had in constructing aqueducts for diversion of water and preservation of urban space may have led to the creation of useful water pressure," French said.
The authors hypothesize two possible scenarios for the use of the pressurized water. The most obvious, since the outlet appears to be in the center of the city, is a decorative fountain. The other possibility is more utilitarian: the pressure was used to provide water for houses located at higher elevations within the city.
6. Peppermint OS Puts Its Pedal to the Metal
Linux aficionados gained a new option Monday, thanks to the release of Peppermint OS. Checking in at under 512 MB, Peppermint is a Linux-based operating system that's designed to be cloud/Web-centric, ready to use and "insanely fast," its makers said. As a fork of Lubuntu, the system is based on -- and compatible with -- Ubuntu 10.04 and its repositories. "I think that we have come to a crossroads in modern technology where consumers are becoming less and less afraid of trying new things in order to get exactly what they want," Shane Remington, Web developer and project manager for Peppermint OS, told LinuxInsider.
7. Multicore CPUs move attack from theoretical to practical
Many of us use software firewalls, virus scanners, and other security software on our PCs. We expect this software to make our computers safer, but some new research suggests that it contains a whole host of exploitable vulnerabilities.
The Matousec researchers found that common software tools, including Norton Internet Security 2010, McAfee Total Protection 2010, and Trend Micro Internet Security Pro all had flaws that allowed attackers to bypass the protections that these programs offer. The malicious software can do this without even having to run as an Administrator.
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