Author: Paul Wallbank

Paul Wallbank is a speaker and writer charting how technology is changing society and business. Paul has four regular technology advice radio programs on ABC, a weekly column on the smartcompany.com.au website and has published seven books.

ABC Christmas Computers

What are the festive technology questions?

For Christmas 2011 Paul joined Nikolai Beilharz to discuss dealing with problems with your Christmas tech gifts.

We had a number of callers with problems including setting up a wireless network, what to do if a drink is spilled on your keyboard and how older people can get useful computer training.

Seniors Computer Assistance

John from Hobart asked about where he could get instructions on using his computer.

The Australian Seniors Computer Clubs Association is a volunteer group bringing together local computer clubs that cater for older folk.

ASCCA’s national members directory lists local clubs by state and contacting the nearest group should help you find the right assistance from your peers.

Oh no! I’ve spilled a drink on my computer?!?

Watching a freshly spilled cup of coffee, glass of wine or can of softdrink pour into your keyboard makes for one half panic and the other half despair.

If you move quickly and you turn the keyboard upside down then you have a chance of rescuing a laptop computer before too much damage is done. The important thing is to stop liquid getting onto important circuits.

Having turned the keyboard or laptop upside down, leave it for a day for the liquid to dry out. Then its a good idea to take it to the local computer store to see if it the residue can be cleaned up as usually the keyboard becomes sticky and some keys may not work.

Should the liquid damage a desktop computer’s keyboard that’s usually easily fixed by buying a new keyboard but if you’re using a laptop, then the motherboard – the key part of a computer’s circuits – may be affected and that’s usually time to start shopping for a new system.

Setting up a wireless network

Most of the tech devices we’re getting for our households require some sort of wireless connection.

If you have a wireless network, it’s important you get the security right as you don’t want neighbours and passers-by using your connection. The IT Queries site has instructions on securing these networks.

Once have a secured network, preferably using the WPA2 encryption standard and a strong password, you can then connect each device. You’ll need the name of the network and the WPA2 password to make it work.

Sometimes some devices want older, inferior security settings and occasionally they just won’t work at all. It may take several attempts to get them to work and it’s worthwhile re-reading our ten tips for setting up technology.

Our next national ABC spot will be on February 9 next year. We will probably have some more spots over the summer break and we’ll let newsletter subscribers know about them as soon as we do. We also post them to the events page.

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10 ways to setting up a tech gift properly

Don’t let a dodgy gizmo wreck your holidays

Setting up a new device

Christmas is a great time for presents and computer and other tech equipment are great gifts.

But technology being what it is, doesn’t always work as it should. Here’s a quick Christmas check list to help avoid letting technology ruin your Christmas;

1. Read the box before opening

Is it compatible with your system? If you have an older Windows or Mac computer the device might not work with your computer. Similarly if your hard drive or memory doesn’t have the capacity required, the whole process might be a struggle.

2. Update your system
Before plugging in new equipment make sure any computers have had the latest security updates and virus definitions installed. Sometimes brand new equipment does come from the shop with nasties installed.

3. Backup anything important
While most of the time things will seamlessly, it’s worthwhile backing up anything important on your computer before installing new equipment.

4. Are all the parts included?

Does it appear to have been opened or used previously? If parts are missing or there’s signs someone else has used the product, you might have been sold something that was previously returned. If so, it’s best to take it back to the store rather than struggling with a possibly defective product.

5. Take your time

It’s Christmas! Chill out and relax, take your time have a mince pie. Don’t rush to set things up, just take it easy. Doing things too fast means you make mistakes.

6. Be careful opening the box

Manufacturers make it very difficult to open boxes; this is not entirely an accident. It’s also common with tech stuff to have little components and gizmos which are easily lost in the box. So be careful removing all the packaging and keep it to one side.

7. Read the manual!

Once again, it’s time for another mince pie while you read the manual. In there you will find all sorts of useful information. Including how not to mess up your system. Usually, you’ll also find a description of the parts in the box, check you haven’t left something small but critical in the box.

8. Eliminate the obvious

Sometimes something simple is wrong, it could something as basic as a disk or plug is in the wrong way. Take it easy and relax.

9. Don’t panic

If things don’t work, relax and have another mince pie. It’s often something simple. Don’t do anything drastic, if you’ve had a few drinks or it’s getting late, leave it for tomorrow morning.

10. Relax

If it doesn’t work, don’t worry. You can return it or call a tech later.

Remember Christmas is a time for sharing and relaxing. Don’t let your computers and technology upset your holiday.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year.

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Pretty shells and shiny toys

Are we obsessing on the wrong things in technology?

“I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” – Isaac Newton

“We live in a bubble, and I don’t mean a tech bubble or a valuation bubble. I mean a bubble as in our own little world,” – Eric Shmidt

Newton’s famous quote is one of the things that jumps out on reading the opening of Jeff Jarvis’ Private Parts, is how we live in an era of pretty shells that catch our attention and obsess some of us.

While we play with those pretty shells, we ignore much of what is happening around us. Those glittering social media and cloud computing tools are fun to play with, but what do they really mean?

The winners from the early stages of the industrial revolution were people like Josian Wedgwood and Robert Stephenson who saw how to apply the inventions of the time to create new products and markets, later they were followed by people like Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie and Henry Ford who developed the industries of the 20th Century.

Right now, we’re making shiny trinkets out of our technology tools, Business Week’s It’s Always Sunny in Silicon Valley makes this case well and Eric Schmidt’s bubble quotation above comes from that.

We see lots of applications for finding coffee roasters, sharing music files and plugging into the social media platform of the day; all of which are the concerns of middle class white people trying to maintain last century’s consumer society.

Somehow we’re missing the bigger picture, but gee those sea shells are pretty.

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The year of the cloud

2011 was the year cloud computing took off.

This post originally appeared in Smart Company on December 23, 2011.

I was asked last week to join Stilgherrian and Jeff Waugh on ZDNet’s Patch Monday reviewing the year that was in technology. One of the things that came out of the session was much of what happened in the tech world over the last year was really a continuation of 2010’s trends.

That’s certainly true and the biggest buzzword in business tech for the last two years has been “the cloud”.

Over the last year we’ve seen a lot more providers getting on the cloud bandwagon with Microsoft responding to the Google Docs threat with their Office 365 product, MYOB launching Live Accounts, to respond to threats like Xero Accounting Software and Saasu and a whole range of vendors proclaiming they are ditching the desktop and moving onto the web.

Despite the hype businesses are slow to respond as they evaluate the various risks with moving to web-based services. Partly this is due to suspicion of the more outrageous claims such as “saving 80% of your costs by going onto the cloud” that have been peddled by some vendors.

A lot of that suspicion is fair enough, too. Many business owners – along with CEOs and government ministers – have been burned over the years by IT salespeople claiming big savings available if the gadget or software of the day is purchased.

Unlike corporate leaders and government minsters, the managers and owners of smaller businesses tend to learn from their mistakes and so they are waiting to see if the cloud services really deliver.

Eventually businesses will move a lot of their computing applications to the cloud as the cost-benefit equation is better for most services than running it in your own office as it eliminates the overheads of buying computer hardware and hiring some geeks to look after the things.

Given the real advantages of cloud services – not just in terms of cost savings but also in business flexibility, productivity, security and reliability – it’s worthwhile using the quiet January period to have a look at where your organisation can benefit from moving online.

Some of the other buzzwords like social media, collaboration and site optimisation are worth having a look at too. The holidays are an opportunity to see where these can be used better in your business.

One thing is for sure – next year you’ll be hearing more about cloud computing as vendors are gearing up for some big marketing campaigns next year. So knowing what you want for your business may well pay dividends.

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How group buying can work for a business

Online vouchers can be good for a business when planned well

Online deal finding site The Dealmix has an excellent blog post analysing how daily deals can work for a business.

As the Dealmix points out, “daily deals can either hurt or help small businesses, depending on how they’re structured.”

In figuring out whether a deal will work, Dealmix breaks a group buying deal into four elements; expiration, quantity, terms and price;

Pricing the deal

Of all the areas, the pricing is the most critical. Get this wrong and you won’t achieve your objectives and it could be very quickly drive you out of business.

The Dealmix recommends two ways of pricing an offer – by making a net profit on the deal or structuring it a way that the customer’s total spend  offsets the cost of the offer.

Using Average Customer Spend, or ACS, to estimate how much a customer will spend is problematic with specials and group buying deals as the takers are not going to be your average customers.

It’s likely group buying customers are going to be far less open with their wallets than your regulars. Trying to upsell price conscious is probably what brings cafes and restaurants unstuck with many of these deals.

Both methods rely on knowing the Cost Of Goods Sold and the Average Customer Spend. Notable in the stories of group buying disasters is just how many business owners don’t understand these basics.

If you don’t know what the total cost is to your business in providing the goods or services, you should be talking to an accountant before going near these deals.

Also keep in mind the group buying service is going to take their cut which will be between 15 and 100% depending on the size and nature of the deal. For many businesses the commission is a deal breaker.

Quantity

The biggest complaint from customers about group buying offers is the deals are booked out for months – it’s also how service businesses find themselves overwhelmed by the response to a keenly priced offer.

Again, before launching a group buying offer, understand the spare capacity of your business and ensure there is a maximum limit to the number of deals available – as The Dealmix points out, a sold out deal is a great marketing tool.

Terms

Conditions are probably the trickiest; put in too many gotchas and you’ll scare customers away or find yourself fighting with the 90% of clients who buy the deal without reading the T&Cs.

You can guarantee some of those fights will end up being public and it’s unlikely your business will win the public relations battle. This is not your business objective.

Make sure key terms like what days the deal is available on, maximum limits, types of service are reasonable and clearly defined at the time of the offer.

Expiration

When the deal expires is the key condition, it’s madness offering deals that never expires as they can come back to haunt you for years and it may even affect the resale value of your business.

The Dealmix suggests not restricting it to a month as you’ll be overwhelmed with customers while leaving it too long will dilute the value and any measurements.

Ideally the deal will last three to six months, which is another reason for understanding your business’ capacity at various times of the year.

Timing the expiry is important to, as The Dealmix suggests, the deal shouldn’t finish on a busy day and equally you should consider when your business is the quietest. If things are slow during school holidays, summer or Christmas then that might be the time you want to have the last minute rush of redemptions happening.

Business Planning

Probably the most important aspect of a group buying deal is how does it fit into your business objectives. Are you intending to build a customer base, contact list, pubicise your business, clear stock or give sales a boost? Those objectives are going to determine how you structure the offer.

As The Dealmix’s diagram shows, group buying deals are complex and the merchant has to give some thought on getting the offer right. Those business who do get the mix right can do very well from a well thought out online offer.

Like all business tools, group buying sites can be really useful when done well. The key is understanding what you’re doing with that tool.

We discuss group buying and building your own campaign in e-business, Seven Steps to Online Success. If you need help or advice in building an offer, Netsmarts can help you.

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Protecting your technology over the holidays

There’s some easy things we can do to protect our systems over the Christmas break.

This post first appeared in the Xero Accounting Software Blog, the advice for protecting your computers and networking equipment applies for home and business users.

The holiday season is here and for many it’s time for a much needed break. Before doing so it’s worthwhile taking a few precautions with your computers and other electronic equipment.

While most of us are moving our data to the cloud, there may still be some data that remains on your office systems. Bear in mind that if your router is damaged or desktop computer has gone missing, you won’t be able to access the web.

And even though your systems will spend much of the next fortnight turned off there are still risks such as power surges, fire and theft etc. There’s even the risk of a virus creeping in when you turn things on when you return. So here’s some things to consider before you leave.

Reset passwords

The New Year is a good time to refresh passwords, so review what your key login details are and update them to stronger, more secure phrases. I personally like using phrases like a song or poem and dropping characters into the spaces so a password might look like: Mary$had$a$little$lamb

You can make the passwords stronger by adding numbers and capitals as well.

Staff turnover happens in all businesses and you may have forgotten to remove some former employees from your accounts when they left. The end of the year is a good time to review who has access to your cloud and remote access accounts.

If you’re a social media user it’s also worthwhile checking what applications you’ve allowed to access your Facebook, Twitter or other online services. That mafia or farm game looks harmless, but often you’ve given it the right to post things and collect data from your account, so take off the ones you no longer find useful.

Unplug everything

Even when turned off, most modern computer equipment still has power running through its systems. This puts technology at risk during storms or brownouts. Printers, modems, routers, should all be turned off and disconnected from power and communications lines.

Network, telephone line or cable connections should be unplugged – power surges can often affect phone and cable network connections. In fact you should unplug anything that connects your equipment to the outside world.

Hide your equipment

Give thieves as little temptation as possible. Electronic equipment has a high resale value and is easily moved. Lock away anything portable and draw the curtains or blinds in rooms where less portable equipment is kept.

If you have an old laptop or mobile phone sitting around it’s not a bad idea to hide away the modern equipment and leave the old stuff in an obvious location. This is a variation on the old “leave ten dollars in the cash draw” ploy that gives thieves something without them ransacking the place. Don’t leave the sacrificial laptop in plain sight or you’ll be inviting break-ins.

Backup

One of the advantages with cloud computing is that many of your backup needs are taken care of. Unfortunately you still need your own local backups.

In most offices not everything gets saved to the cloud and that information matters. For many small business years of work is sitting on the hard drive.

External hard drives and DVDs are the most popular ways of saving backups. Your backup should include documents, email, address books, favorites and bookmarks.

Store the backups away from the computer, preferably offsite. I recommend making two copies, leave one onsite for easy access and store one elsewhere. If something terrible happens to your home or office while you are away, your data is at least safe.

For home offices, it’s a good idea to leave a copy of the backup with your neighbours or a relative in a nearby suburb. An old client of mine swaps external hard drives with his mother- in-law at church each week so he has a reasonably up to date copy of his data somewhere he knows he can get to.

When you return

Your computer is the very last thing you should turn on. Turn on modems, printers, external drives and network equipment before your computer. If you have a cable or ADSL Internet connection, give it a few minutes to connect before trying to log on.

Update your system

While you were away new Internet nasties in the form of viruses, Trojan horses and spyware will have come out and there’s a good chance some of them may be waiting in your inbox.

Before checking emails or surfing the net, update your security software and check for any system updates. Don’t do anything on the net until everything is updated.

Christmas and New Year are times when you should relax. There’s nothing worse than returning to find office equipment and valuable data lost. By backing up your systems and taking some precautions you don’t need to feel anxious about your business being up and running quickly when you get back to work.

Enjoy your holidays and let’s all look forward to a great New Year.

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Rules

Too many rules can kill your business

Three recent examples of rules from web based organisations.

Example 1

“Your article does not adhere to the following Editorial Guidelines:

Issue 1 (Section 3.f.i.c)
http://EzineArticles.com/editorial-guidelines/guideline/3f#i-c

Issue 2 (Section 3.f.i.a)
http://EzineArticles.com/editorial-guidelines/guideline/3f#i-a

Example 2

Hi,

Please don’t include a URL in the question text. Links should go in question details, preferably labelled.

Quora content team

Example 3

Account suspended. Make sure your listings meet the quality guidelines.

Why rules can be a problem

Rules are necessary in any society though if you’re trying to build a community one sure way of killing it is to welcome new users with a wall of rules and a bunch of “leaders” inflexibly enforcing them.

An interesting thing all three of the above services – Quora, eZineArticles and Google Places – have in common is they need free content from contributors to build their communities and realise their business plans.

It’s one thing to give power hungry moderators and administrators control when you’re in a position of power, but it’s silly when you need people more than they need you.

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