Back in December 2012 Twitter announced they were going to reduce the number of characters per tweet when including a web link. The number of characters, when including a link is to be cut down to 118 (reduced from 120), and 117 if using a secure https link. It was implemented this week, so if you are tweeting a link, you may find yourself lost for words, or at least a couple of characters!
Posted by Jack on 2013-02-22 10:04:18
As the first few flakes of this winter’s snowfall fell, I was reminded of a day a few years ago when there was a surprise overnight snow storm in the North West, and the majority of the UK. It surprised everyone, the council hadn’t sent out the grit trucks in time, people hadn’t made childcare provisions and businesses hadn’t devised any contingency plans. Employees delighted, “SNOW DAY”, businesses dismayed.
With an increase in snowfall over the past few winters, it is becoming more important to ensure that businesses, large and small can still function if staff cannot get to their office desk safely due to treacherous driving conditions, road closures and often childcare issues if schools and nurseries are closed.
The snow yesterday was just a passing shower, but it was a warning for all business owners to ensure that they can operate “business as usual” regardless of the changes in weather. Simple solutions such as providing an email solution which allows employees to access from anywhere, help to provide peace of mind that everyone can work from home if needs be (providing they have access to the internet of course!).
With snowfall costing UK small businesses on average £230 million a day, it’s worth having a contingency plan, to avoid the freeze on your profits.
Posted by Jack on 2012-12-07 11:07:18
Microsoft are rebranding Hotmail to bring it back to life with a name and lots of new features. But what does this mean for the for Hotmail users? Hotmail users can already use the outlook.com interface by visiting the site and logging in. All addresses, passwords, contacts and messages will be imported and available on log in, and you can still send and receive e-mail using your @hotmail.com, @msn.com or @live.com addresses as well as adding an outlook.com address to the account.
The first thing you will notice with the new Outlook is the design, the new interface is less cluttered with the display advertisements removed from the main pane. The main e-mail frame is bigger and more dominant in the centre of the screen but Outlook.com have retained the Hotmail folder structure on the left hand pane.
As well as cleaner, fresher interface, Microsoft are also focusing heavily on social integration. User will be able to see tweets and Facebook updates from people they are conversing with and there will be links directly to profile pages, and you will also be able to retweet, @reply, Like and comment directly from the main pane. Another key social feature will be the integration with Skype, which will allow you to start a Skype conversation directly from an e-mail, however this is not yet available.
Microsoft have recognised that Hotmail was lagging behind the other web based e-mail tools, and the re-brand has seen them raise their game. The new interface and functionality has arguably put them one step ahead of the competition, leaving us to wonder what the others will do next.
Posted by Jack on 2012-08-06 09:19:43
Ofcom have finally laid out plans for the release of the 4G platform which will finally give mobile users in the UK superfast mobile services … unfortunately this isn’t going to arrive until late 2013.
While 4G is already fairly common place in countries like Germany and the USA, the UK is only preparing to start “the bidding phase”, which must be completed before the rollout can start. With the current timelines, it is anticipated that the bids from aspiring 4G operators, which are anticipated to include Vodafone, O2 and Everything Everywhere will be completed by Easter 2013. Ofcom are also keen to encourage other new entrants to the market.
It is very clear that both extra capacity and coverage are needed. Research by the mobile network provider Three has shown that current smartphone users are using on average 1.1GB per month, compared to 450MB a year ago. 4G should also provide a faster broadband option for rural parts of Britain. Ofcom are also insisting that by 2017, the 4G bidders must provide indoor mobile broadband coverage to at least 98% of the population, which is great news for businesses and consumers alike.
The software giant Microsoft has revealed Office 2013 suggesting it will be a workspace that will integrate documents, as well as social media feeds.
Microsoft unveiled Office 2013 and delivered a hefty dose of social networking name dropping, including some tools it has recently acquired.
The Office 2013 demo, showed lots of the new functionality, including a bit of Yammer, a big dose of Skype integration and the usual complement of SharePoint hooks.
Microsoft's underlying message: Office will be social and you'll be following documents, collaborating and using the latest version of the company's productivity suite as your primary work space.
Key features include:
It seems that through this latest version of the Office suite, in the end, Microsoft had no choice but to take the product, defend the desktop, integrate cloud and yes go social in a big way.
Cloud Based E-mail is another term for hosted Exchange. Exchange was traditionally a corporate e-mail solution, deemed far too costly for small businesses to use. However, using our Cloud-based Exchange solution, there is no need to purchase your own business email server or install, configure and manage exchange yourself. Everything is hosted in our secure, UK-based data centre.
The result is simple – low monthly costs, which are both predictable and controllable.
The Benefits?
The Costs?
At a fixed monthly cost of £5.99 per mailbox which offers a massive 25GB storage capacity, representing a massive saving of literally thousands of pounds to install and configure your own Exchange Server
Advanced Features
An exchange based e-mail solution offers many benefits over a basic POP3 e-mail solution. The two features most commonly asked for by our clients are shared calendar and contacts, and the Out of Office assistant. Click here to see a more extensive list of the benefits and features of an Exchange-based e-mail solution.
Would you value some free advice and guidance? If you depend on your e-mail and would like to take advantage of the features and benefits of a Cloud Based E-mail system, please contact Full Circle for more information on 01204 684 051
Global software company SAP’s latest campaign “Run Like Never Before” invites organisations world-wide to unleash their imaging and harness new SAP innovations to realise their business vision.
The “Run Like Never Before” campaign coincides with SAP’s 40th anniversary and, whilst SAP remains a leader in ERP and core business processes, the campaign focuses far more on the company’s recent technological advancements. It aims to showcase how innovations such as in-memory computing, cloud computing, mobile technology and analytics can help customers to run with greater agility, efficiency and speed.
“Companies of all sizes and in all parts of the world are looking at new business models and innovative practices that will allow them to grow in a rapidly changing world,” explained Jonathan Becher, chief marketing officer of SAP. “SAP provides customers with the solutions and services to make their businesses “Run Like Never Before”.”
The “Run Like Never Before” campaign focuses on the promise of SAP, its technology and its partners to help companies both big and small to not only run better, but fundamentally transform how they do business.
SAP Business One is a fantastic example of how SAP have taken on board the needs of small companies, giving them the technical capabilities normally associated with much larger companies.
SAP Business One offers small businesses a simple, yet fully integrated solution that allows them to make the most of limited resources. It may be that you have outgrown your accounting-only solution or it may be that you are looking to take your business to the next level by integrating financial, sales, customer relationship management, e-commerce, inventory and operations process. Either way, SAP Business One could be right for you.
The system is designed specifically with the small business user in mind, having an intuitive user-interface that minimises the need for extensive user training. It is not a case of one-size fits all, with over 550 industry specific add-ons, Full Circle IT Solutions can guide you through the process of building a system tailored to your specific business processes and needs.
SAP Business One integrates seamlessly with SAP Crystal Reports, the most widely used reporting solution in the world. The software allows you to design, create, manage and deliver personalised reports (on-line or embedded within other applications), empowering business users to make informed decisions with minimal IT overhead.
SAP Business One is a software solution that connects all areas of the business, helping your business to “Run Like Never Before”.
As a business owner or manager, your skills, services, expertise and ultimately your time will always be in demand. You can only ever deliver on a finite amount of time, that's just the way it is, so it's incredibly important that you maximize the use of the time you have available.
All too often, we, as business owners and managers seem to be operating continuously in what I call Fire Fighting Mode. That is to say we are struggling with a growing work load and are consistently operating in a reactive fashion, just moving from the most important task to the next, without taking stock of the bigger picture. Organisations that operate like this will often find that their business is suffering, and not realising its true potential. Working like this is just not sustainable and either the business or the staff will eventually break down, more often than not it's the later that gives way first. Don't try and be a hero and throw yourself at the problem harder, you will just burn out quicker. What you need to do is to work smarter, not harder.
Understanding the value of your time and acknowledging its importance to your business success is the first step towards leveraging its power. As a business owner, you need to take steps to maximize the amount of time you have available to you and your staff, in order to permit you all to focus on tasks that add value to your business. It is only then that you will gain that all important capacity to operate in a proactive mode. Put simply, you have to make the time for yourself in order to make the business more effective.
Herein lies the secret of automation - the more tasks, systems and processes that you can automate, the more time you have available to proactively reinvest in tasks that add value to your business and to you.
That's right, I said everything. Just sit back and take the time to consider this point for a moment. Let it wander around your mind whilst you consider the processes and tasks that you could look to potentially automate. Now eliminate the word potentially from your vocabulary and evaluate how you could automate everything that you do.
At the very least, by reviewing and automating your processes, you are giving your business that all important attention, ensuring that your business is operating as efficiently and effectively as it possible could. The possibilities for how you can go about automating are vast. The key thing with automation is to try it. Even if you don’t achieve the ideal of total automation, any steps taken will undoubtedly lead to increase in efficiency, productivity and ultimately profit!
Automating your tasks will enable you to maximize the availability of your most valuable asset, time, giving you the power to focus your energy and efforts on activities that add value to your business. Start automating EVERYTHING today!
Looking outside it’s hard to believe that just over a week ago forecasters were warning about snow as early as October this year.
As business owners need to start planning for the onset of wintery weather and have contingency plans in place for working through the winter. Will your business suffer this winter with staff arriving late to work or even struggling to get to the workplace, either due to the snow and ice or due to lack of childcare? What provisions do you have in place to enable them to work from the safety of their own home in these situations?
Just something while sitting in the garden this weekend.
Small businesses that are looking to grow need their IT software to do more than just accounting.
Small businesses can be just as complex as larger corporate outfits. They may need a CRM, Customer Relationship Management, systems to manage their customers, just like large companies. They may have logistics requirements, to manage order processing and inventory management, just like large companies. They may need finance functionality to control and manage their profitability, just like large companies. They may need reporting to provide insight and business intelligence, just like large companies. Small business may require access to this information at anytime, anywhere, just like large companies.
All of this functionality is available with SAP Business One, along integration to Microsoft Office tools such as Outlook and Excel.
For more information about SAP Business One, and how to incorporate SAP’s market leading enterprise application software in to your business, whatever it’s size, contact Full Circle IT Solutions on 08454 674727 for a free, discussion on the benefits SAP Business One can bring to your organisation.
SAP Business One is now available to small companies at a reduced price, offering powerful functionality and rapid implementation.
The Starter Package is designed to provide small companies with a fixed-price, small-scale business software solution for one to five users. SAP Business One, through the Starter Package includes the basic finance, sales, purchasing, customer relationship management and inventory functionality databases that small companies need to run their businesses.
SAP Business One is designed to grow as you grow, when businesses need to add more users, they simply can upgrade to the standard edition of SAP Business One at any time, without having to reconfigure the software. The Starter Package can be implemented in as little as three to 10 days and the package is offered at a reduced price, in comparison to the full SAP Business One solution.
For more information about SAP Business One, and to discuss how the Starter Package could help your business to “Get a great start”, contact Full Circle IT Solutions on 08454 674727 for a free, discussion on the benefits SAP Business One might bring to your organisation.
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