August 2007 - Posts

• VPN and work away from home

  The other day I was in Best Buy and noticed a new Cisco Prosumer line of products.   In case you didn't know, Cisco bought out Linksys, and so they are hoping to cash in on the Small Business market now.  Microsoft has been working this angle for more than 2 years, touting software, services and features specifically for small businesses.  Over a year ago, I bought several Netgear ProSafe routers to help my business.  The reason I went with them, was because Cisco was too expensive, and the relatively new Netgear products offered a high bitrate VPN router product at an extremely cheap price.  Their top of the line (at the time) was roughly $359.  When you compare that to the $1000+ price tag on a similar featured Cisco product, it was a no brainer. So what I did, was bought several servers, had them co-located (hosted on site at a company that leases space), threw a ProSafe router there on site, hooked up another router at home, and blammo.  I now have a seemless network, where I can access any server I own and it all shows up in Network Neighborhood.  The downside?  It took quite a bit of time to set it all up and get it working 100%, plus I had to wait for some Netgear firmware updates, and their vpn software doesn't work on Vista yet.  But technically if I had XP installed and used their VPN software, I could remotely login to my network while working at my neighborhood Panera or Starbucks.  And right now, the fact that I can roam with my laptop on the network, access any home pc from my server, and vice versa, I absolutely love it! Now, supposedly these new Cisco products should do the same thing.  And they also offer money back when you upgrade and if you turn in your old products.  So checkout either product and see if it helps you be more productive. Posted Aug 16 2007, 01:53 PM by Randy Walker with no comments Filed under: Productivity

• Internet Phone System Recommendation

  Through the many talks I give, I have always highly recommended various ways to improve efficiency and make your small company seem like a big one. I want to first say, that I in no way receive any sort of compensation from this recommendation.  One company that I use is called RingCentral, which can be found at http://www.ringcentral.com.  Basically I have setup a toll free number, and then use their system to manage incoming calls.  I add all my phone numbers, and then have their system forward incoming calls to each phone simultaneously, and the caller never knows.  So both my home phone, cell phone, and any client work phone I'm at all ring at once.  In some cases, I don't have it ring a client phone, but will use their taskbar management software to have a call forwarded to that number if I'm sitting at the computer. You can actually have their system do a variety of things, such as setup certain extensions to get the caller's name before forwarding the call, only allow the caller to leave a message, just give the caller an announcement, and even setup worktime hours which use certain rules different from other times.  The call controlling software allows you to see your faxes, forward calls, immediately send calls to voice mail, and is also supposed to work with internet phones like Vonage.  One really cool feature is the ability to put a link on your website, so all they have to do is type in their phone number, it will ring them, and then connect them immediately to you. I want to note that there are several companies out there that provide a similar service, I just happen to use this one and have been elated with it.  The only complaint I've had is the inability to ban international phone numbers or certain countries. If you do happen to go with Ring Central, please let me know that way I can get a few extra minutes out of it by referring you. Posted Aug 02 2007, 10:14 AM by Randy Walker with no comments Filed under: Presentations, Business Size, Productivity