Happy Holidays from our family to yours!

Wishing Scott The Happiest of Holidays!

To your family from ours at The Technology Coach!

Just a quick newsettler this month as many of us wind down for the Holiday Season. We're reminded at this time of year of the importance of family, taking some time for ourselves and enjoying the rest of life as much as we enjoy running our businesses!

This months tip is about creating an out of office email message to automatically let others know you are away from the office during the holidays.

As many of us head off for a week or two for the Holidays we worry a little, perhaps a lot, about others not being able to reach us while we are away.

Being small business owners it's important to be "reachable" when our customers want to ask questions or make a purchase. For that reason it's important to give a realistic expectation of when you will be able to contact or follow up with your customers or potential customers while you area away.

Remember when you take time off this holiday season to change your office and cell phone voice mail messages to let callers know if you're away for the holidays, for how long and whether or not you're checking messages.

Remember as well to not leave details like "the whole family is away in florida and the house is empty" for safety reasons of course!

Rather than coming back to a packed e-mail in-box and a full voice-mail box, spend a few minutes crafting a useful out-of-office message and people will be able to redirect or park tasks appropriately.

"out of office" email reminders are also important, and below you'll find some tips, tricks and step by step instructions for creating a great out of office message in either Outlook or Outlook express.

A good out of office message has four parts, read my blog to find out what they are and how to create your own out of office reminder message.

From our family to yours, here's wishing you a safe
and happy holiday season and all the best in 2009!

Scott Kendall
Small Business Technology Specialist
__________________________________

Small Business Technology Service,
Training, Coaching and Support!

http://www.thetechnologycoach.ca

scottk@thetechnologycoach.ca

Office 905.366.8234

Mobile 416.802.4424

Small Business Technology BLOG!

Proud winner "Best Business of 2008" Award

Beyond just small business technology support
The Technology Coach is your
Trusted Information Technology Partner

Scott Kendall The Technology Coach Awarded "Best Business of 2008" by the Mississauga Business Enterprise Center

Scott Kendall The Technology Coach was Awarded the "Best Business 2008" by the Mississauga Business Enterprise Center last night at their annual awards Gala.

The "Best Business" award is handed out to one business each year who's shown exemplary work in both business growth and community involvement.

Pictured Below is Heidi Brown the manager of MBEC with Scott with and the presitigous award.

Also on hand were John Fisher of MBEC and Ted Northcott of the Ministry of Small Business and Consumer Services.

For over 10 years, the Mississauga Business Enterprise Centre (MBEC) has assisted more than 100,000 businesses with expert advice, business information, professional consultation services and networking opportunities.

They answer your questions about registering and starting a new business, preparing a business plan, taxes, available government programs and much more.

Visit their one-stop business centre today, the MBEC staff are committed to helping your business succeed!
My Sincerest thanks to all of those within MBEC who saw this award as fitting, I am thrilled to be honoured in such a way by the staff and members of MBEC and look forward to continued community involvement in 2009!

Your Recession Marketing Lifeline: Repeat & Referral Business

If this recession is prompting you to look for a lifeline, don’t lean too heavily on marketing tactics that require you to turn complete strangers into customers.

Consumers don’t engage in as much impulse buying or social shopping during a recession, and they are more likely to hesitate before a purchase decision because they tend to more cautiously examine the risks and rewards. That’s not good news if you’re trying to acquire new customers because people view the purchase of products and services from unfamiliar businesses as a larger risk than purchasing products from businesses they trust.

When you’re sending periodic emails to your own in-house list of customers, make sure your messages help to overcome purchase hesitation by demonstrating that you have a relationship of trust, and explaining why the benefits of an immediate purchase outweigh the benefits of holding on to the money. It’s a good idea to ask for a referral somewhere in your offers while you’re at it. Professional-looking emails also set you apart from your competition and make you look healthy and prosperous to your customers. Don’t let up just because your customers seem distracted.

If you don’t have an in-house email list yet - or if you’re just a little short on familiar faces - focus a healthy portion of your marketing strategy on building your email list. That way, you’ll gain a low-cost way to educate your audience so your business is familiar enough to overcome purchase hesitation no matter what’s going on in the economy.

Tips for trimming small business budgets in a time of financial pullbacks.

Now, more than ever, businesses large and small are keeping a close eye on the bottom line and looking for ways to trim budgets. Here are a few measures you can take to make the most out of resources and keep tight budgets in check:

• Consolidation consideration. Forego multiple standalone devices and consolidate your fax machine, scanner and printer into a single multifunction device. This not only creates more office space, but it also saves money on maintenance, toner supplies and paper.

• Make teleworking an option. Deploy mobile technology to allow your workers to access information regardless of location. This will not only allow workers to respond to inquiries faster, but can also cut down on driving between locations which will save money on gas and free up valuable office space.

For more great ideas or to discuss implementing high tech strategies to reduce your operating costs call The Technology Coach Today!

Scott Kendall
Small Business Technology Specialist
__________________________________

Small Business Technology Service,
Training, Coaching and Support!

http://www.thetechnologycoach.ca

scottk@thetechnologycoach.ca

Office 905.366.8234

Mobile 416.802.4424

Small Business Technology BLOG!

Proud winner "Best Business of 2008" Award

The Paperless Office—Really?

A handy scanning system brings order to piles of different-size paper records Neat's scanner handles business cards, receipts, and standard-size documents Of all the promises of information technology, none has proved more elusive than the paperless office. Although electronic communication has replaced much of the paper in my life, a lot of the most important information—financial and legal documents, expense report receipts, business cards—stubbornly remains on paper.

Scanners were designed to solve this problem by transporting such documents into a computer. This saves on storage space, but in most cases it's a very limited solution. You end up with an electronic image of the paper, rather than an interactive digital document that takes full advantage of a computer's ability to classify, sort, and search.

The aptly named Neat Co. has a new product that many folks, particularly those who run small businesses or need to maintain detailed tax records, will find attractive. The $499 NeatDesk combines a specialized scanner with some clever software that lets you digitize and organize those messy, easily lost, or misfiled paper documents.

The sheet-fed scanner has three slots: one for business cards, one for cash register tapes or credit-card receipts, and one for sheets up to standard business size. You can put as many as 10 documents in any of the slots at once. Hit the scan button, and the documents shoot through the system and are parsed by the NeatReceipts software, which runs on Microsoft Windows and on the Mac OS.

It will even handle Cash-register receipt tapes, generally produced by low-quality thermal printers and can be quite difficult to read, even for humans. The software tries to figure out the vendor, the date, the total purchase price, and the sales tax. If it can't read the vendor's name, you can type it in by hand, and chances are good the system will recognize the name the next time it appears on a receipt. The software also excelled at reading larger receipts, such as hotel bills, fed through the document slot.

NeatDesk is hardly the first system to convert the contents of scanned material to computer-readable and searchable text. Like most other scanning systems, it uses technology called optical character recognition to carry out the conversion, and the results can be edited in Word or other programs. Or you can save those same scans as PDF files, which can't be edited but preserve all formatting and images. The real usefulness of NeatDesk's software-hardware combination, though, comes from its ability to classify the items you have scanned in the system's own database and feed the information to other programs.

For example, once you have scanned in a batch of receipts, you can file them in folders, then send the contents to small-business accounting software such as QuickBooks and Peachtree. NeatReceipts' folder system is also compatible with personal-finance programs including Quicken and Microsoft Money. In addition, you can report business expenses and perform some other tasks using features that are built into NeatReceipts.

NeatDesk efficiently reads business cards to figure out what bits of information should be placed in which data fields—name, address, title, and so on. You can use the NeatReceipts contact list, or, as most people will probably prefer, sync the scanned data with Outlook or the Plaxo online contact service. Small business is a major segment that's often neglected by tech companies focused on consumers and big corporations. Packages such as NeatDesk fill an important need.

For more information about how to integrate a solution like this into your small business, contact The Technology Coahc today!

Rogers Wireless Launches BlackBerry Pearl Flip Phone in Canada

Just a few weeks after unveiling its first ever flip-phone, Research In Motion is making good on a promise to begin selling the stylish device in good time for the Canadian Christmas shopping season.

The 3.6-ounce BlackBerry Pearl Flip comes equipped with a SureType QWERTY keyboard, microSD/SDHC memory slot, Bluetooth 2.0, and 2-megapixel digital camera, as well as two high-resolution, light-sensitive colour displays.

It hasn't been that long since Rogers released the business focused Blackberry Bold and Bell Mobility is yet to announce a contender for this market.

The Flip fits between the current Blackberry Bold and the previous Pearl in terms of functionality and features, business focused but in a smaller package than the Bold.

The external LCD display allows users to preview incoming calls, emails, and text messages without even opening the handset, while the 240 x 320 internal display can be used to surf the web and watch videos.

The device also features a number of pre-installed software applications, including BlackBerry Desktop Manager, BlackBerry Maps, and Dataviz Documents to Go, which allows users to edit Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint files on the go.

Beginning today, the BlackBerry Pearl Flip will be available through Rogers Wireless in Canada, at a cost of just $50 with a three-year voice and data contract. The smartphone has been available in the U.S. since October 13, and operates on the T-Mobile USA network.

Seveal changes in the Ontario telecom market this week

Today’s relaunch of the Fido brand from Rogers telecommunications with a twist, gone is the $6.95 system access fee.

Rogers will also scrap the seven dollar system access fee for monthly billed customers, says the CBC, noting prepaid Rogers and Fido customers are already exempt.

Industry observers said the company’s move is likely to spell the end of the system access fee, which is thoroughly hated by consumers.

It’s the number one complaint about cellphones bills and now people are getting a little more traction with their pushback in a lot of telecom issues.

Says the Financial Post, “In a market that sees BCE Inc., Telus Corp. and Rogers Communications Inc. lure their customers with sexy smartphones and multi-media devices [instead of honest service and value for money], it appears the only way to put a dent into Canada’s incumbent cellphone players is by selling cheap, no-frills wireless plans.” a bold marketing step for Fido.

Meanwhile, “Bell Mobility launched another salvo Monday in the Canadian cellular phone rate war with plans that let customers roll unused minutes over from one month to the next,” says the Vancouver Sun.

“Bell’s announcement came as Rogers was rumoured to be on the brink of announcing a relaunch of its Fido brand, a move that would also see new rate plans and a dropping of the controversial system access fee.”

Choosing the right cell phone provider is often heavily influenced by current contract obligations but with Bell mobility not having launched a new business focused device (the are the brand for business aren't they?) in over 18 months, rogers is gaining some real ground with their Blackberry Bold for Business and iPhone for consumers.

Undecided on which smartphone technology is right for your business? Drop us a line at the technology coach, we'd be more than happy to help you choose the right solution, teach you to use it to it's fullest and maximize business opportunities through technology.

Find lost user manuals for your technology.

User Manuals are often the first thing that go to the garbage bin, after you have got your hands on your favorite product / gadget, though most of the time you do not require a user manual, it becomes essential when you have a problem with your gadget or want to learn more about certain features.

But the user manuals are long gone with no possible way of getting them back. So how do you find user manuals for any products or gadgets online? Well follow these simple tips to find the the user manuals for your products.

Google Search Trick

Google search is a abundance of resources and documents and you just need to use the right search terms to find things from it. To search for user manuals with Google, follow this simple trick.

Search for “Product Name user manual” without the quotes, this should show you links from where you can easily download user manuals for your gadget.

User Manual Index

UserManualGuide provides users with a browsable index of user manuals, the user manuals are neatly categorized into proper hierarchy. So you can find user manuals based on manufacturers, which are further divided into product categories like home products, PC products, cellphones and so on.

Nodevice is also a great place to start searching for user manuals, it indexes the manuals for most of the popular gadgets, computer systems, cellphones, home products and more.

You can also find service manuals for products such as microwaves, fridges and more. Visit Nodevice to browse the user manuals index.

Search The Manufacturer Website

The last preferred way of finding manuals would be to search on it on the manufacturers site, the problem we see here is that popular product manufacturers keep on building newer and newer products making it a bit harder to find the right manual for the product.

The first two methods will not only help you find manuals from the manufacturers site itself, it will also give you access to several user uploaded manuals which are scattered across the internet, giving you a higher chance of finding the manuals.

If all else fails don't be afraid to call the manufacturer and ask for a copy to be either emailed or regualr mailed to you, there might be a small fee but given the other option (replacing the technology) It's probably worth it.

If you're still stuck and you're technology isn't doing what you'd like, Give us a call at the Technology Coach, we're here to help!