August 2008 - Posts
TiGra Networks is proud to announce our new joint venture with Master Place Ltd, which we are calling LiveCRM.biz. Based on Microsoft Dynamics Customer Relationship Management, our solution provides a quick and easy way to revolutionise your sales, marketing and customer service.
At TiGra Networks, we believe in walking the talk. We’ve used Microsoft Dynamics CRM in our own business for several years. We’ve steadily built up a solid understanding of the product and what it can do for our customers.
Master Place Ltd specializes in business process and project management. We began our relationship with Master Place Ltd when they contacted TiGra Networks for IT support. We ended up installing and supporting, amongst other things, their CRM system and it soon became clear that we had very complimentary skills portfolios and similar business aims and ethics. We saw the potential in offering hosted CRM to other businesses and the partnership has given rise to our new joint venture, LiveCRM.biz.
Why Hosted CRM?
Primarily, cost and convenience. Hosting the application on our servers offers all the same features of the on-premise edition at a tiny fraction of the outlay and with no software to install. This means that even the smallest business can now afford a best-of-breed customer relationship management solution. We can have you up and running in just a few minutes and we can even train you to use the system so you can get the most from it.
What if I Don’t Like Hosted Solutions?
No problem. With Microsoft Dynamics CRM and LiveCRM.biz, you have the freedom to choose hosted or on-premise. We can install the solution on your own servers, or we can supply new servers pre-installed and ready to go. Some people worry that once they use a hosted solution, they will be locked in. Not so with LiveCRM.biz. You can always move your data between hosted and on-premise installations (or vice versa) at any time. We can also assist with data migration from other systems such as Act, BCM and others.
What Does It Do?
Microsoft Dynamics CRM is such a powerful solution that it is not possible to do it justice here, so we recommend that you download the introductory video from the Microsoft web site. In summary, it provides a central database for all of your Sales, marketing and Customer Service information, plus reporting and process automation engines.
Try It for Free
The best way to understand the power of LiveCRM.biz is to try it for yourself. Get in touch and we’ll arrange for you to have access to our demonstration server. If you like what you see, we’ll set you up with your own private system and you then have 30 days to use the system for free. We are sure that once you try it, you’ll want to keep it.
Action Pack Subscribers
For Microsoft Partners who subscribe to Action Pack, Microsoft has given us permission to host your Action Pack licenses for CRM Workgroup Edition at a substantially reduced cost compared to our normal hosting fee. There are several reasons why you may want to use this service:
- Workgroup Edition cannot grow beyond 5 users. By using our hosted solution, you remove that limitation and you can expand beyond the 5 user limit (although users over and above the 5 MAPS licenses will be billed at full price).
- External Connector License is included in the hosted edition so you will not need to pay extra for that if you need to implement a customer-facing portal.
- You may not have the infrastructure or the skills and manpower to maintain a CRM solution in house. We can make life much easier for you.
If you are a MAPS subscriber and are interested in exploring this option, please contact us for details.
This superficially amusing article about one customer’s experience with Lloyds Bank Plc actually raises a more interesting security issue. The BBC news article reports (emphasis mine):
Lloyds TSB stressed there was no security lapse in this case. A spokesperson said: "On the majority of transactions advisors cannot read customers' passwords. In this case it was a business banking customer using a system where more than one person from a business can check their balance. In these cases an advisor can read the full password. But if such customers require more complex transactions, then full security procedures apply and advisors cannot read secure information."
Maybe I’m missing something here, but if someone (even a bank employee) has access to your Internet banking password, or can change your password to something they like better without your knowledge or permission, then isn’t that a security breach?
It always amazes me what arcane and hard-to-use security practices banks put in place that actually just make their service harder to use and don’t really increase security. My bank, for example, makes me log in with an online banking ID number that is different from my phone banking number and is not related to my account number. Originally, I had to enter this number every time, which resulted in me having to keep a written record of it and carry it around with me everywhere just in case I needed it. The bank later relented and allowed this ID number to be saved in a cookie, so most of the time now I don’t have to enter it, as long as I am using my normal computer and the cookie hasn’t expired, but I still can’t take it for granted so I still have to carry the written record around with me. Next, they used to make me enter two characters from my password. I have a visual mind and I can’t count letters in a word unless I can see it written down, so the result is that every time I log on I end up writing down my full password then counting off the letters. At every turn, the bank conspires to make me write down my login details. Their very attempts to strengthen security end up weakening it.
In fairness, the bank recently issued a little security device for my business account that looks a bit like a pocket calculator. The device requires me to insert my chip-and-pin visa card, enter my PIN, get a new 8 digit code and enter that into the web site as my password. The code is different every time. This is great, except that I now have to carry around the device, as well as my card and my Internet banking ID. The bank seems to think I always do my Internet banking from the same computer in the same office. Wrong again.
In the final analysis, what is up with a plain, ordinary strong passphrase of my own choosing? What is up with a digital certificate that I can store on my USB thumb drive? Why all these convoluted and hard-to-use security schemes?
Reported by Roy, on the UPS Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system: “Please say your telephone number, one digit at a time”. I don’t know about you, but have you ever tried saying the digits all at once? I think we can see what they mean, but it wasn’t a very eloquent way of saying it.
I saw a post by Jesse Liberty, Silverlight Geek about the technology being used by the Democratic National Convention to stream HD video using Silverlight technology. Well, never mind the politics, check out the technology. If you have ever, EVER seen a flash video that can rival this quality, just point me to it so I can publish it up here as a comparison. Watching this video I didn’t really notice anything strange at first. But then, it dawned on me. I was watching full-screen high definition video with hi quality audio and it was just like watching TV. No jitter, no pauses for buffering, just smooth uninterrupted high quality video.
I think this is the first time in the history of the Internet when I haven’t felt that streaming media was a backward step in terms of quality. The first time I haven’t felt cheated by the compromise of quality over bandwidth. My office has a shared 8Mbps ADSL line so there is nothing that special about it, but the results I’m seeing here are exceptional.
If you still aren’t convinced about Silverlight or you haven’t quite grasped what it is all about, just wander over and check out the DNCC web site. These guys know how to use technology.
UPDATE 2008-08-28:
OK, my comments above seemed a bit biased in hindsight, so I decided to give Adobe Flash a fair try by comparing their best effort. I've just visited their HD Showcase at
http://www.adobe.com/products/hdvideo/hdgallery/ - One has to assume that this web site should show Flash video in the best possible light.
I viewed several of the videos there, but the results are just appalling. The image quality is great, but even at the lowest resolution 480p "low bandwidth", and bearing in mind that I am using a 24Mbps ADSL link which is anything but "low bandwidth", the temporal results are just unacceptable. First, there is a twenty second pause during which time I see nothing but a black screen. Then, the video runs for a little while, then it freezes for 10 seconds... 20 seconds... now it resumes for a couple of seconds, now it stops again. You get the idea. I would never use this technology on my web site, not in a million years, not even if I could afford the high-power media servers with the associated fat internet pipes needed.
If for some mind numbing reason you're still on the fence here, I encourage you to check out both these sites and see the difference for yourself. ANd once again, if you find an example of Flash Video that lives up to the Silverlight example, please post a comment here so we can all see it.
OK, this isn’t ALL my office, it’s a shared office facility in South Wales UK where I operate from most of the time. The Photosynth servers were feeling a bit better today and were allowing new synths to be created, so I ran around with Grace’s digicam and took about 190 photos. It’s taken a good few hours to process all the images and here’s the result. Click on the image to enter the virtual world of Photosynth.
That’s it folks, the next version of Windows Small Business Server is finished. The code has RTMed and evaluation copies will be available within a few weeks. Official availability is 12 November. Time to start training! The resources have been appearing on Technet for some time now, so lets do what we do best.
I’ve been waiting for what seems like years, but in fact must be only a few months, for the full release of Photosynth. This release allows for images to be uploaded rather than just viewing the pre-created models. Well at least in theory, anyway. In practice, the server is creaking under the strain of what must be phenomenal interest. Looks like I’ll have to wait a little longer.
Photosynth Blog
Meanwhile, until the servers are upgraded, you can watch a video on how to create your own synths.
If you’ve installed a 64-bit version of Windows Vista then loaded up Office 2007, you might have noticed that the Mail control panel applet is missing. That makes it kind of difficult to create multiple Outlook profiles and manage your data files, especially if you’re having some issues with Outlook itself.
It’s taken me a few months, but I’ve found it! It’s hidden behind the right mouse button. Click start, right-click on your Outlook icon and select Properties.
“Voilla!”
via Allison Pauli, Partner Marketing, Windows Server Solutions:
Get Ready for the Windows Essential Server Solutions Launch with Technical Training Series
The November 12, 2008 launch for Windows Essential Server Solutions is fast approaching! Prepare by attending Partner Academy Live technical training sessions for Windows Small Business Server 2008 and Windows Essential Business Server 2008 starting on August 15, 9am PDT with “The Small and Midsize Business Server Platform: Which Is Right for Your Customer?”. Topics include planning and installation, migration, security, management, virtualization, and more for both Windows SBS 2008 and Windows EBS 2008.
I really like Windows DreamScene, I think it is a really cool feature of Windows Vista Ultimate, especially if you add StarDock DeskScapes. It’s just unfortunate that it is afraid of its own shadow. The slightest little problem and DreamScene commits suicide. It’s a real PITA having to go in and re-enable it all the time. I can sort of understand why Microsoft did this, after the problems of ActiveDesktop. But a feature that keeps disabling itself is one that is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I was reading this post on Transparency. Feedback. Connection. Participation. - Announcements - Community Server. Well there is transparency all right. All the images are 100% transparent.
As for the Feedback, Connection, Participation? This is a great example of how not to do it. There is no way to comment on this post and the author has not published any personal contact details, so no-one can tell him its broken. It’s such a shame that so many people put effort into creative work and then apparently fail to check it from the point of view of their audience. Maybe I am guilty of this too. It is something I will try to watch out for.