These days it is imperative for most businesses to have a website, networking equipment has become a major expense for everybody. In addition to the initial expense, IT equipment must have maintenance and upgrades and this often has to be outsourced. Then there is the painful loss in profit caused by all the down time and hassle involved.
Buying second-hand computer hardware and other related items helps businesses to keep costs down, in particular when a company is in its first few years and solo professionals due to the massive investments they’ve already made. It is easy to see why the trade in used networking equipment and data storage is as healthy as it is. Nearly any hardware essential to run a company can be sourced, saving a fortune in total. A further good point of choosing used computer units is availability. If you just don’t want need the worries that come with recently launched technological innovations, tracking down a specific brand or model may sometimes seem impossible. If you’re working with suppliers who specifically focus on refurbished servers and information storage, the process is much easier. Usually you can ask for a specific manufacturer or model.
A lot of the problems with advances in technology won’t become obvious until the associated computer hardware is already being used. Generally this will call for repairs and upgrading the system. As a matter of fact it’s not unheard of for early adopters to simply cut their losses and replace that new computer hardware entirely after such an unproductive attempt at deployment. This is not a problem with second hand servers and other computer hardware as they have generally been used for some time. You will not have to spend your precious time dealing with the teething problems frequently associated with brand new networking equipment. Dependability should not concern you either as everything is tested thoroughly prior to being resold.
The key to sourcing the correct refurbished networking equipment is selecting superior suppliers. Take your time and find a supplier that actually has the expertise to meet your needs. By doing this you can be assured of sourcing the best equipment. It’s a good idea to get a warranty too. So you can see the advantages of investing in used computer hardware are more than merely financial. Indeed why not save yourself money by straightaway buying second hand and, what’s more, leveraging some very economical IT financing options to top it all off?
Hooray, it’s getting warm in my part of the world so we can get the lawn tools out and put the winter ones away and get to work. It’s virtually time.
Need to build up some energy? No problem! Need a tiller for the garden this year? I have you covered…here is the oddest link roundup you’ll see for a while:
Tilling
What would you do with 10 cultivator choices… Buy a rototiller with a few things in mind: strength, size and soil type. Sometimes a used tiller can be found in the classifieds but compare online first. I found reliable high quality rototiller from the Rototiller Store. Check it out. Information is easy to read and use from the Rototiller Store. Time to go review these rototillers. Shopping at the tiller store is easy because you can see all of the good prices and specials in one place on the web. Too easy!
Make Money…Really!
Don’t read this if you don’t want to make more money. Working hard outside requires a lot of energy that I don’t have now that I’m older. This is hands down an awesome opportunity. There is nothing like drinking this energy drink and getting a rush of energy that simply does not run out or crash. And it’s healthy. Do you need to stay up all night? This stuff will do it to you. Boost of energy all night! Great flavor without sugar - amazing. Energizing. Need I say more? I recommend you go check out efusjon now - and pay particular attention to the comp plan found here. It’s awesome! I can’t believe you’re still reading this. Go sign up already! It’s a good matrix plan and it will make you money in no tme. Sounds too good to be true? It isn’t too good - but it’s true. Ha!
Wood Splitters
You haven’t put away that wood splitter yet?!? No problem. Storing your splitter in a secure, dry area is ideal. Cleaning is good maintenance protocol. If you’re in the market for a inexpensive wood splitter, check out the site Log Splitter Sale.com. You might need to get a new log splitter this year if yours is over 5 or 10 years old. Find the best ones at the site listed above. Go visit the site already if you’re looking for a splitter.
Alright! That’s a wrap.
Let’s face it - with numerous unique kinds of TVs offered, splashing out on a new TV’s can without doubt be bewildering. Our buyers’ piece intends to take you through several of the chief things to dwell over when getting a new telly. Search the Digital Direct website for superb savings on Cheap TV Digital.
Are TV’s Changing? The short response is, yes. Not very long ago almost all tellies were of one variety - Cathode Ray Tube (or more traditionally known as CRT). Despite the fact that these conventional sorts are still available on the market, there is a completely new selection of TV’s just around the corner. The professed “digital revolution” has made it likely to ascertain significantly more TV programmes & get much clearer images on your telly screen. Modern TV’s are furthermore more compact & fashionable. Some new plasma and Liquid crystal display (LCD) TVs are so tremendously slender that they can be connected on your study room wall like a picture.
The Different Brands of TV’s. If your television is more than 6 years old, the probability that it is a prehistoric CRT Telly. The new type of tellies comes in three core forms - Plasma tellies, LCD televisions & HD (which can contain either of the other two). Our TV purchasing guide will support you indentify the difference:
Plasma Televisions. The most well-liked choice for large flat-panel tellies, plasma screens can be as tiny as 3 inches deep - unquestionably slender enough to be put a wall. The screen is entirely flat, so you can simply view the image from a wider viewpoint without causing a loss of sharpness. Plasma tellies use a matrix of small gas plasma cells to produce a crystal clear image.
LCD Televisions. Like plasma screens, LCD TVs are flat and trendy, taking up a limited amount of area. Available in several sizes, LCD TVs give improved resolution images when contrasted with plasma screens. LCD televisions can be watched from a range of points of views, but unlike plasma, there is an obvious fall in quality. LCD televisions run through a network of small liquid crystals which are crammed between a backlight & a piece of glass.
Companies have spent BIG dollars for the telephone equipment that some vendor wanted to sell them - not necessarily for what they wanted or needed.
If you are in the market now or will be soon to update your telephone equipment this report may contain answers to the questions you need to know before you make that capital expenditure. Armed with this knowledge you might just save thousands of dollars.
Paying Too Little or Too Much
To start with, what should a new telephone system cost? In general, you should plan on spending somewhere between $450.00 and $850.00 per station installed. If you spend less than that, you’re probably buying something that you don’t want. Cheap never lasts. The pleasure of low price is often long forgotten after the pain of poor quality hangs on for many years. If the price is higher, you are probably buying something you don’t need.
These numbers do not include specialty add on items like caller I.D., paging or voice mail. Those would increase the price. But this should give you an idea of what you’ll be spending. If you think you’re going to buy an 8 phone system for under $2,000.00 don’t fool yourself. If you find someone to sell it to you, I guarantee you won’t be happy because you’ll have bought an inexpensive, cheap problem waiting to happen.
All too often the customer will say ” I need 3 lines and 8 phones and the vendor is more than happy to provide a bid of just that. Some will even go to the length to fax you your proposal. Why do they work soooooo… hard?
If you’re in the manufacturing business or accounting business you probably know that business very well but how much can you know about telephones? It’s a shame that a business is sold what they asked for when that really isn’t necessarily what they need.
So how do you figure out what you need?
First and most simply … How many telephones will you need? Start with a floor plan of you facility. It can be a simple sketch of the rooms. Don’t have one? Some businesses have a fire escape plan, which is a good place to start, and it will serve for this purpose as well. Or you could just draw that sketch. It doesn’t need to be anything fancy. Just something that shows the different rooms and the basic structure of your facility. Now mark the location of each phone you will need so you can get an accurate count of the number of telephones. Don’t forget things like faxes, modems and credit card terminals. These could be noted by marking an “F” for fax, “CC” for credit card terminal or an “M” for modem.
Now you know you need “X” number of telephones and “Y” number of peripheral devises (those faxes etc.).
The next step is to figure out what type of telephones you want to have at each location. To be candid, there are as many different types of telephones as there are type of cars. So how do you get a handle on which type of telephones you need at each location? You need to identify what the job of the telephone is at that spot.
“Some basic information on which to base your decision. “
Does the phone need to show each line on it; or can you get by with one button with all the lines located under it? This depends on if you need to be able to go to a phone other than the one that was answered to see the lines and take a call off hold.
Speaker telephone (this might be used by someone who would review large or several papers while on the phone to keep their hands free. Another use may be for a conference room where multiple people might need to listen or talk as a group.
Does the person use the telephone a lot and need to have a one-touch button on it for other individuals in the office? If so, how many? For example, an officer of the company might need a phone with a button for his / her secretary that would enable them to see if that staff member was on the line. It would also allow for one touch access to call that individual. A receptionist would need to have buttons for all the other people so they could transfer calls with the touch of one button. This might be in the form of a console with many buttons on it, or a manager or executive secretary might need a smaller version of the console with a few extra buttons for a smaller group of personnel.
Is there a phone in a break or storage room where you want a way to communicate but that won’t be used a lot? This could be a less expensive type of telephone. Do you need to have a courtesy phone in a lobby or counter area for customers to use?
How many telephone lines (telephone numbers) does your business need? How many outside telephone calls do you want to have going on at once? It’s been proven that many businesses are over lined. If you have 10 telephone lines and really only need 9 that could be costing your company as much as an extra $400.00 a year. This is an area that you should discuss at length with a prospective telephone vendor. One time I was designing a telephone system for a doctor and she told me she wanted to have five phone lines for her new start up business. When I asked her how many people she was starting with she told me three. “How can three people answer five phone lines?” I asked. And that didn’t account for anyone being with patients. I informed her that if she had too many lines no one would ever call in and say, “Doctor Smith, you know when I call in I never have any trouble getting through.” People expect their call to be answered. In other words if she was over lined she would never know. She would just pay too much month after month. However, on the other hand if she didn’t have enough lines, people would complain about her lines always being busy and she could simply add more lines as needed.
Typically, if I were designing lines for a new business the ratio is one line for every two or three people. Ten people; five lines. Twenty people; ten lines. However, that isn’t always the case. In a factory, most people will be in the shop and not need to use the phone. But in a telemarketing firm almost everyone need to have a line. You can’t afford to have staff sitting around waiting to use the phone. But these are the exception, not the rule.
Price vs. Cost
Often a business will use the bottom line price to make the final decision. This could be a costly mistake. Let’s be realistic. If price is the ultimate deciding fact, we’d all be driving cheap, unreliable, unsafe cars. But you and I know, there are a lot of fine luxury automobiles sold in this country. And there is a good reason why.
We are all very aware of the massive amount of information we’re bombarded with about the importance of taking care of our hearts. So if you found out you needed to get a pacemaker, would you go out looking for the cheapest one you could find? Of course not. You would want the best doctor and the best pacemaker money could buy.
Your business telephone system is the heart of your business communication to YOUR customers. Don’t you value them as much as you do your health? OK, almost as much. Remember your telephone is the heart of your business.
There was a small city government that was looking at two different telephone systems. One was a cheap system, the other a more expensive more reliable system. Of course the reliable system was almost twice the price of the other cheaper system. When the customer asked if the vendor offering the cheaper system could offer a 5-year warranty like the more expensive system she was told that his cheaper system would probably have to be replaced in five years. So the longer warranty was out of the question. Now can you see that the higher priced system is actually less costly because it would last much longer?
“Could you be missing an important part of the equation?”
There is another part of the telephone equation that most equipment vendors will never even address. The network side. Let me explain. Lets say your looking at a telephone system that has 8 telephones. Earlier you heard me say you can expect your telephone equipment to cost you somewhere between $450.00 and $850.00 per station. If you have an 8-phone system that’s a bottom end figure of about $3600.00 and a top end figure of about $6000.00. That’s pretty much a
given. Well if your business has 4 telephone lines you probably spend about $30 to $35 per line or $140.00 in reoccurring monthly charges on your telephone bill. If you have long distance bill of say $125.00 per month that’s a total reoccurring monthly bill of $265.00 or $3,180.00 per year. If you think you will keep you telephone system 10 years, okay let’s be conservative and say 5 years or 60 months, that means you have a network cost of $15,900.00.
Don’t you think that the network side of your equation at least deserves a look? Wouldn’t it be a good idea to see if there is anything that can be done there to reduce some of the monthly reoccurring expense? Many vendors won’t even look at this side of the equation.
“Company gets sued because of their telephone system”
How could it happen? Isn’t it almost always true that if something could
happen, wouldn’t it happen at the most inopportune time?
A delivery truck looses control and crashes into your building. Thankfully no one is hurt but the impact does two things. The point of impact causes your power to go off and in the excitement of the loud crash a customer in you building collapses. You pick up your telephone to dial 911 to get emergency help and guess what, your phone doesn’t work. If you lose critical time this could result in a liability position for your company.
You see, at your house the telephones are powered by the phone cord plugged into the jack. But on a telephone system you basically have a computer device that runs the individual telephones and without electricity your telephones won’t work. Therefore, isn’t it critical to have battery back-up on that system? Battery back-up is a way to keep your phones running even when you don’t have electrical power. This is often an overlooked part of a telephone proposal.
OK, my story is a little stretch. So let me ask a more realistic question. If your power goes off and a customer calls your business what do they hear? Nine out of ten people asked that question say; ” The customer hears a busy signal.” Well, that does sound like a logical answer but losing power to your telephone system is the equivalent of unplugging all you phones at home and then having some one call you. What would they hear? … That’s right unending ringing. It would appear to them your business is closed. What if they then called one of your competitors and made a purchase from them? You could lose that customer for life. Can you afford to lose even one revenue call due to a short power outage?
Caution: The Trunker
There is yet another area that can be hazardous to your telecommunication health. The one-man shop or trunker. There are telephone equipment sales companies that are run totally by one person. That’s right, one person who sells and installs telephone systems. Some of these guys drive up in their car and operate out of the trunk, thus the term trunker. Their overhead is lower because it’s just them. If you purchase a bargain telephone system from a company that is run by an individual like this, what is your service like if something happens to him. What if he goes on vacation and you need immediate attention? What if he’s installing a new system for someone else and your system goes down? It’s mind boggling that a business would risk their communications to purchase a telephone system from one person. Oh you might save a little on the front side, but the loss you could have down the road far out way the few pennies you kept. You need the assurance that your service needs will be met if something happens to your telephones.
Comparing Apples to Oranges
Once you have all your bids in, how do you decipher what is what? There are only a few things that will relate across from one system to the next. The number of phones and lines is an easy one. You need to be careful about the types of phones and what they do. The only other thing that at a glance makes comparing easy is price and we’ve already discussed the draw back to using that as a major factor. One suggestion is to take your proposals; cover the prices up on them and then copy them and let a vendor or two that you trust tell you what the differences are in the bill of material. A way to eliminate this problem is to hire a consultant to draw up a request for proposal. Usually for a percentage of the purchase price a set of standards can be drawn up so all the vendors are quoting apples or oranges not both. This fee can be somewhere between 5 and 10% of the awarded bid price. But this can be money well spent if it keeps you from making a costly mistake in the purchase of equipment you will have to use for years.
As you can see there are many areas to examine when getting ready to purchase a telephone system for your office. Can you afford to over look any of them? As a matter of fact, you should actually go through what is called a telephone interview with a potential telephone equipment vendor. Spend time having all your questions answered so you understand exactly what it is you need and so will your prospective vendors.
© Bower Income and Profit Systems MMIII All Rights Reserved.
James A. Bower is the Co-Founder and President of Bower Income and Profit Systems a company dedicated to enhancing business performance in many areas through tapes books and seminars. His presentations include sales, marketing, telephone skills, motivation, goal setting and achievement, telephone equipment and voice mail design and business organization for efficiency. He is an internationally recognized instructor and is the recipient of many awards in recognition of his successful efforts in assisting businesses create a more efficient environment resulting in maximum profits. He has had the opportunity to speak for groups as a large as 5000 and can get his points across to any size audience.
James has been actively addressing business issues and solving business problems for over 30 years. He is available to make presentations to company staff or for individual consultation.
Contact James at 316-773-1994 or jbower1@cox.net
Current laptops or notebook computers have one
major obstacle to overcome: short battery life.
Despite their sleek style and ever increasing higher
performance levels, laptops have never been truly mobile.
With batteries averaging around 3 to 5 hours of usable
power, most laptops are limited in the amount of time
they can spent away from the warm electrical embrace
of a wall plug-in.
As most laptop owners will attest, running out of power when
you’re sending that all important business email or watching
your favorite movie has always registered high on the annoyance
meter. In today’s lingo — it sucks big time!
Sure, things are improving, as new technology come on
stream (dual-core processors, hyper-threading) users are
getting longer battery life from their laptops.
But even as laptops become smaller and more efficient,
short battery life is still a limiting factor for most
laptops.
Fully loaded power sapping gaming laptops have been hardest
hit by this problem. Try playing a game or watching a movie
on battery power at your favorite beach for any extended time
and you will see why laptop batteries are in dire need of an
overhaul.
Laptop manufacturers are no doubt aware of this issue and
may be relieved help is on the way. Actually, the solution
to the power-challenged laptop is already here.
Once more, new technology comes to the rescue.
Short battery life for laptops and for all handheld electronic
devices will probably be solved by two new energy sources:
micro fuel cells and printable solar cells.
Micro fuel cells can use such fuels as alcohol or methanol
and offers ten times the power of conventional batteries
using only 1/20th the weight. Perfectly suited for laptops
or notebook computers. It actually burns fuel which can
be quickly replenished by merely refilling its reservoir
or replacing a fresh fuel cartridge. As everyone knows,
recharging a conventional cell battery takes hours, this
new battery will only take seconds to recharge or rather
refuel.
One of the major leaders in this new technology is MTI with
its Micro’s Mobion® cord-free power pack which will probably
replace lithium ion batteries. These use direct methanol
fuel cells (DMFC). Expect these creatures to be in almost
22% of all of handheld devices by 2011. And if these new
micro fuel cells are embraced by the buying public; you
can kiss your lithium ion battery goodbye long before
that date!
Read more info on Micro Fuel Cells here:
www.mtimicrofuelcells.com
Even more promising is printable solar cells that folds
out or can be wrapped around or built into a laptop, giving
them a renewable energy source and power. One of the
leaders in this new technology is Konarka. They produce
a flexible lightweight photovoltaic plastic material
that will give any device solar energy.
As sunlight is not always available, Konarka technology
uses all types of light, including indoor light, to produce
electrical energy. These inexpensive printable solar cells
could have many applications, including a source of
power for laptops. Cheap, renewable and plentiful.
Read more on Photovoltaic Solar Cells here:
www.konarka.com
What we will probably see in the future is a hybrid of the
two technologies, micro fuel cells and photovoltaic solar
cells, working in tangent to give laptops an energy source
that never runs out. Unlimited power available anywhere,
anytime.
Micro fuel cells and printable solar cells will give laptops
the freedom and power they need to be used anytime, anywhere.
These new energy sources will finally make the laptop truly
portable. It will also make the Internet truly wireless, mobile,
and available everywhere.
Perish the thought!
The author has an unhealthy interest in all things laptop! Including
laptop batteries. He also owns a modest website on Marketing Tools
for eMarketers. Marketing Tools As part of that site he runs an Online Notebook Guide
for Laptop Enthusiasts. Laptop Buyer’s Guide Copyright © 2006 Titus Hoskins.
This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.
