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If you take a lot of pictures, or are getting ready for an event where you’ll want to have lots of quality photos to include in your family album (i.e. weddings, holiday get-togethers), you’ll want to know more about photo editing software that is both affordable and easy to use. Here are some software programs for editing photographs and graphics that you may want to check out.
Virieu has a free photo editing program that is easy to use, and is compatible with most computers. With the program, you can add captions to your pictures, ‘frame’ your portraits digitally, and make your photos into backgrounds for your screen or to send out in your email by using the fade and shade features that come along with the program. The programs will also show you how to darken or lighten certain sections of the picture, so that you can remove certain items from your photograph. You can try the editing software out for free during a 21-day trail, and then the service is $29.00.
www.reallusion.com also has a wide variety of editing equipment to try that will make any picture you take look professional and impressive. You can take advantage of the muscle-based facial enhancement feature, so that you can ‘fix’ the faces of the people you take pictures of to create a more flattering photograph.
Other products from the company include the Effect 3D Studio, a graphics editing and design program that allows you to make animated graphics no matter what your skill level is. You can also purchase CrazyTalk, a program that allows you to create animated talking characters for PowerPoint and DVD presentations. Most computers are equipped to download the programs (a Windows 98 or higher is usually acceptable), and you can try the products out before you purchase any of the programs.
In order for you to download, edit, and save your photos on your computer, you’ll need a digital camera to take your pictures with. Brands like Canon and Olympus have great digital cameras that are easy for you to use, and produce quality photos that you can save on your computer. You may also want to pick up a book or two with some more basic information on photo editing software, so that you’ll know which programs are easiest to use and most affordable. You can also find new and used photo editing programs, such as Instant Photo Editor on sites like www.amazon.com, with complete CD-ROM instructions on how to make sure you edit great photos every time you use the program.
Mansi gupta enjoys writing about photo editor. Learn more at www.mystikmedia.com/autoimager.asp .
Microsoft Great Plains is main mid-market application from Microsoft Business Solutions. This is short article, written in question/answer/FAQ style to give IT Director/Controller balanced top level information on Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains implementation. If you have decided on Microsoft Great Plains as main accounting and ERP system you need to know some technical details on Great Plains installation and implementation and what is going on behind the scenes. As of right now the current version is Microsoft Great Plains 8.0
What is installation in the language of technology? Installation has server and client sides.
What is following implementation? Implementation requires combination of technological and accounting skills
Do I need consultant? We strongly recommend you to use consultant in the following cases
Good luck with installation, implementation, upgrade and if you have issues or concerns - we are here to help! If you want us to do the job - give us a call 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com
About The Author
Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies - USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, based in Chicago, California, Arizona, Minnesota, Texas, Florida, New York, Washington, Georgia, Canada, UK, Australia and having locations in multiple states and internationally (www.albaspectrum.com), he is CMA, Great Plains Certified Master, Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer. You can contact Andrew: andrewk@albaspectrum.com; akarasev@albaspectrum.com
ERP(Enterprise Resource Planning) software has traditionally been
used by large corporates to integrate and automate diverse departments across the enterprise. For a long time, smaller companies purchased individual accounting and payroll packages and then migrated to expensive ERP solutions as they grew. They did not have much options as ERP solutions were costlier and required magnitude and many employees to justify their use.
Now, with many Open Source software coming out, it is possible for SMEs to go in for ERPs at an earlier stage. There are several in the market including Compiere, ERP5 and Fisterra. Companies have to carefully study individual requirements and test out these softwares to determine suitability.
In this article, I would like to review CK-ERP, an Open Source ERP/CRM system, ideally suited for use by SMEs. It has a total of 17 modules including accounting ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivables, Purchase Order, Sales Order, Quotation, Point of Sale, Human Resource, Payroll and contact management. It operates as modules running atop phpGroupWare. This makes it possible for the software to be easily installed on Internet if employees are in various locations or on the Intranet for more secure transactions.
Here is a overview of its excellent features.
Customer Billing process
Any company with more than 10 recurring customers should seriously
consider using an ERP(such as ck-ERP) to keep track of payments, work
orders and related accounting. ck-erp has ck-Quote (a Quotation module),
ck-so(Sales order module) and ck-ar (Accounts Receivable module) to
keep
You can easily enter customer records and configure various types
of tax. The accounts receivables include Accounts Receivable Aging
reports, Customer Invoice Aging reports and Detailed list of Tax collected.
If you are a Manufacturing company with thousands of customers, you
can consider middle agents like Distributors or C&F agencies as customers
and keep track of their payments using the same software.
The system is multi-currency and multi-user, allowing each module
multiple access levels.
Inventory and Purchase process
Many companies, especially trading and manufacturing companies are
generally swamped with purchase inventory and vendor information.
Keeping track of vendor payments and paying bills in time before credit
collection agencies call is a major source of tension. Here is what
you can do with ck-erp’s purchase modules - ck-po(Purchase Order module),
ck-ap(Accounts Payable module) and ck-inv(Inventory module) . Lets
see how a purchase process works.
Accounts
The accounts section has practically everything one would want.
The core General Ledger module has the basic Double Entry accounting
system with Ledger and Journal. The interesting aspect of the General
Ledger is that it is the base for the Accounts Receivable, Accounts
Payable, Inventory, Bank and the Payroll modules. The entries from
all these modules ultimately reflect in the General Ledger.
The accounting system has multi-currency support. The admin can set
Standard Remarks for the invoice, purchase orders, Quotations and
so on. The admin can even setup Multiple Ledgers for various divisions.
A Bank Reconciliation module allows you to reconcile bank statements
with ledger entries.
On the flip side of the Accounts module is the fact that it does not
have the yearly Opening and Closing balances. This makes it difficult
to reconcile yearly accounts. A major flaw, which one can hope will
be corrected in the near future.
Point of Sale(POS)
If you are a supermarket with multiple cashier desks and high cash
transactions, you could use this module. Again the Point of Sale module
is integrated with the General Ledger.
The ck-pos module lets cashiers enter Cash Sales, with or without
tax. A good feature of the POS system is that it allows Credit Sales
as well. Useful when customers insist on Purchase on Credit, for example
in high value goods. Any Credit Sales entered by the cashiers have
to be approved by Manager.
The Manager interface to the POS, ck-pos-m allows a manager to remotely
control all the cashier operations from his office.
Human Resource Management
HR management software of some sort is required if you have more than
10 employees, and better still if payroll is integrated with the General
Ledger. CK-ERP has excellent HR management features.
CRM and Contact Management
CK-ERP’s latest addition is the CRM package.
CK-CRM also includes a Contact module for organisational contacts
and individual contacts.
Reliability, hiring and termination costs are persistent problems in the electrical contracting industry. Thorough screening, testing and interviewing techniques can help prevent reliability issues. The question is, do you have time to do all of these things and maintain focus on the job site?
First review a list of functions your company must do to hire, maintain and retain an employee. Place a cost on each item using the time value of the person who must handle each separate item. For example and simplification, your office manager earns $15.00/hour and spends a half-hour a day dealing with employee issues. The time value is $7.50 to perform that function. Do this for each item listed below and come up with a daily total amount. Divide the total by 8 and determine if you are performing the functions cheaper than the staffing company can. Most electrical contractors can not because they are set up operationally, not administratively.
If you need a guideline to compare costs, most staffing companies charge a very small amount on top of each hour billed; use 5-7% as a general rule. Keep in mind this includes all labor burden costs including state/federal payroll taxes, worker’s com, liability insurance, payroll processing, etc (see list for the rest).
Outsourcing your human resources function eliminates the need for:
Placing job ads, handling phone calls from ads, processing job applications,checking references,performing criminal background checks, scheduling and paying for drug testing (if required), scheduling and conducting interviews, controlling Worker’s compensation insurance costs, maintaining liability insurance on employees, paying for office staff human resources training,
employee handbook development, safety program development, administration and injury reporting, payroll administration, mailing checks and setting up direct deposit accounts, payroll tax accounting - weekly payroll and annual mailing of W-2’s,
time tracking of field employees (electricians), offering and administering health and savings plans, worker’s compensation claims processing, processing unemployment claims, handling court ordered garnishments, paying attorney’s fees if a suit is filed against your company, addressing and processing NLRB issues, dealing with and paying for other post-employment obligations (wrongful termination suits, HIPPA notifications, etc)…and all of the other time consuming costs not mentioned above that chew into your bottom line!
What many electrical contractors do not take into consideration is the amount of time away from production and the amount of time their office staff devotes to recruiting, hiring and maintaining each employee on the payroll. This is a variable cost outsourcing labor solves.
Going back to the numbers, variable costs are costs that can be varied flexibly as conditions change; like the number of electricians you need to carry on your payroll at any given time. The point made here is that labor is a much more flexible resource than capital investment. Outsourcing labor provides you and your staff with freedom away from time consuming human resource functions. The time you save is better spent marketing, dealing with customers, suppliers, and focusing on the work at your project site.
Spend time to add up the time and cost of the listed functions involved in hiring and retaining electricians. Ask a staffing company to provide you with a cost breakdown of their hourly charge for each electrician’s skill level. Keep in mind staffing companies cover all the costs you would and charge a nominal account administration fee (the fee is normally much less than what companies spend on the list of HR functions). Compare the costs. Remember to consider the intangible benefits of reduced liability, time savings and increased freedom to focus on your customer.
Most contractors will agree that for any given electrical contracting project, outsourcing is cost effective. One key point that must be emphasized is outsourcing labor is not a “one size fits all” solution to controlling variable costs. Businesses that are comfortable where they are do not make good candidates. On the other hand, a business that wants to grow while maintaining tight control over variable costs makes an excellent fit.
We can never predict when an employee will decide to leave a company but, we can control what it will cost to replace that person using effective outsourcing strategies. Keeping the right mix of permanent and temporary employees is the key to controlling the priciest variable costs in our industry - labor. Outsourcing electricians allows you to control variable costs that are discussed in the next few paragraphs.
As you are aware, variable costs are the costs directly linked to the tempo of operations in electrical contracting. They are called variable because they vary with the size and workload of the business. This means that the more projects bid and won; the more labor, material, etc. costs will rise. The more labor costs rise, the more employee-related administration costs go up.
This, of course, is in contrast with fixed or overhead costs. These costs are those that are incurred regardless of whether or not your company works one or ten projects. These costs do not vary as the pace and size of your operations change unless a dramatic change is made. Variable costs are project specific, whereas, fixed costs are associated with the entire company. Office leases/mortgages have to be paid no matter what is produced or in what numbers. Hence rent or a mortgage is a fixed cost.
Consider a situation where you determine your electrical contracting service yields a 25% contribution margin. Your figure can then be used to determine whether variable costs for your project(s) can be reduced. You can choose to bump up the price of materials and/or reduce your labor costs.
Material pricing adjustments is the easy part. Labor costs are not. To attract and retain quality electricians, you must pay more than the competition, offer benefits and training.
Remember your bottom line or net profit is determined by how you decide to spend each penny of your contribution margin on fixed costs. We know you can control your fixed costs by deciding on how much to spend on vehicles, equipment, tools, phone service and all the rest of your business needs
But, what is the true cost to attract, hire, manage and retain a qualified electrician for a three month project and what is the cost to hire a permanent/full-time employee? You probably know the answer, the cost is the same. It is the replacement cost of the employee that will eat into your bottom line after you conduct all of your human resource or human capital management functions in-house. And what price do you place on the expenditure to bring someone new into your company? And what does it really cost to replace that person? The answer is simply the cost of time - your time, your staff’s time and all time removed from project related activities.
Learn more about outsourcing electricians at Strategy Construction’s Web Site.
Mike Widner is Director of Strategy Construction Company in Colorado Springs, CO. His background is in manpower management and human resources management in the construction industry. Over eight years, Mike performed several personnel realignment projects for the US Air Force and currently focuses on helping electrical contractors control labor costs using outsourcing techniques.
There are various types of factoring available. These factoring can be in any industry viz. account receivable factoring, asset based lending, business loans, construction factoring, credit card receivables factoring, distributors factoring, equipment, hard money loans, invoice factoring, manufacturing, medical factoring, purchase order financing, real estate lending, staffing, systems, technology, trucking, verdict funding, wholesalers, etc.
Various agencies provide all these types of factoring. Usually their turnaround time is 24 hours. They provide exclusive online and paperless factoring solutions to the small and medium sized businesses. These agencies either provide stated rates for factoring of invoices of a particular amount or they offer a free invoice-factoring quote. Thereafter these agencies approach the factoring companies that purchase the creditworthy accounts receivable at a small discount and convert the invoices in to cash.
With the help of these factoring agencies cash is received in mere 24 hours and no debt is created. Since there is no debt created it increases your credit worthiness which can be used to avail a loan. This also represents a healthy balance sheet and strong financial position. These agencies also offer higher advance rates which ultimately results in factoring lesser invoices but generating all the required money.
Moreover the factors handle the collection in professional manner thus reduces the collection costs. They also help in processing of invoices by generating invoices online. This further means increased paperless work. As a result the turnaround time is much shorter than any other means.
Invoice factoring is also known as accounts receivable financing. This practice helps in solving the immediate cash flow problems for small businesses with immediate infusion of money. They also provide a credit facility to small business owners with complete flexibility. This also provides the working capital to the small or medium business owners. This factoring helps in generating working capital without the need of constant renegotiations. Since there is a considerable increase in the working capital it leads to more sales and expansion of business.
A practice of factoring helps small business owners not only to solve their cash problems but also help in increasing sales. Small business owners can also concentrate on their businesses rather than chasing their customers for payments and cash. Factoring practice helps all kinds of small to medium business owners whether they are a small trucking company or any manufacturers.
As a result of invoice factoring, it not only reduces accounting costs but also helps business owners and manufacturers in increased productivity. This practice if factoring the invoices keeps the businessmen from other time consuming jobs like collection, administration, book-keeping, looking up additional capital or warding off creditors.
Finally the best part of factoring is that the business ownership remains unchanged as in case of loan, etc. Since there is no loss of business equity, the ownership percentages remain unchanged.
Henry Byers, Factoring Financial Services advisor - focusing on Factoring Company and Business Factoring
Microsoft Word is all singing, all dancing. Truly a great product which has made the lives of professional writers and students vastly more productive.
Most of us however are not professional writers. We only use Word to type an occasional missive or and article now and then. We don’t need or use 90% of the bells and whistles. Unfortunately, some of these built in bells and whistles are designed to impose themselves and often like to blow loudly in our ears whether we asked for it or not.
Research shows there are three common pet hate ‘features’ that most average users would rather turn off if only they knew how. This is a cheat sheet for such users.
A. How do I stop Word from helping me type?
Word checks spelling and grammar as you type. When these features are on, spelling and grammar that Word does not recognize are underlined sternly with wavy red and green lines.
To turn off Word’s various automatic checking features:
1. From the Tools menu, pick ‘AutoCorrect’ (or AutoCorrect Options). Then click on the ‘AutoCorrect’ tab.
2. Uncheck the boxes for the AutoCorrect items that you want to disable.
3. Do the same on the ‘AutoFormat As You Type’ tab.
4. On the ‘AutoText’ tab, uncheck the ‘Show AutoComplete tip’ box.
5. From the Tools menu, pick ‘Options’ then click on the tabs and uncheck any boxes for features that you want to disable.
B. How do I tell the Office Assistant to go take a walk?
1. Click on the Office Assistant, then click on ‘Options’.
2. Uncheck the ‘Use Office Assistant’ box.
You can also customize the behavior of the Office Assistant by checking or clearing the checkboxes on the ‘Options’ tab.
If you later decide that you rather miss the lovable Assistant, you can easily bring him back by choosing ‘Show the Office Assistant’ from the Help menu.
C. How do I turn off the automatic URLs?
Word likes to convert all URLs and email addresses in your document into active hyperlinks. If you’d rather not, then here’s how to turn off that feature:
1. From the Tools menu, Choose ‘AutoCorrect’ (or AutoCorrect Options).
2. Click on ‘AutoFormat As You Type’ tab.
3. Under ‘Replace As You Type’, uncheck the ‘Internet and network paths with hyperlink’ box.
Note that this setting only applies to what you subsequently type. If you forgot to turn off AutoCorrect before you started and you end up with a document full of hyperlinks that you don’t want, you can disable them, either one at a time, or all at once. To turn a link off, right-click on the link, select ‘Hyperlink’ from the pop-up menu, and then select ‘Remove Hyperlink’. To remove all links from the document, choose Select All from the Edit menu or press [Ctrl]+[A], and then press [Ctrl]+[6] to remove all hyperlinks.
Most Word features can be turned off or on from the ‘Tools’ menu. From this menu, the ‘Options’ command brings up a screen with several tabs where you can make all sorts of changes to Word’s behavior. The ‘Customize’ command lets you to change Word’s menus and toolbars.
The ‘View’ menu also has some great options for changing the look of the Word screen.
Peter Kitson manages the Business-Software-Books.us project at
http://www.business-software-books.us
A collection of business software books and tutorials available for free download.
If you are like me before buying a product you will download and try lots of demo versions to find the software that fits best your needs. But with all this installing/unininstalling your hard drive becomes fragmented, your registry cluttered with unneeded information and your system performance degrades. Here are some programs which could help bring things back to normal.
Registry Washer
Registry Washer safely scan your entire Windows registry using Registry Washer robust searching algorithm for errors, any invalid entries and provides you with a list of all registry errors found, you can then choose to selectively clean each item or automatically repair them all. In addition with Registry Washer tools you can easily search inside your Windows registry, detect and manage Internet Explorer components installed on your machine and manage your windows start-up items with Registry Washer registry tools.
SpeedUpMyPC 2.0
Now, you can get a faster, cleaner, and safer PC within minutes - without being a Windows expert! SpeedUpMyPC automatically finds the best settings for your PC and carefully controls your system resources to give you the best performance. Easy to use, this award-winning utility has all the features you could ever need to clean up your system, monitor resources, and improve performance.
Smart PC
Smart PC makes your PC faster, error-free and more efficient!
By a few easy steps you can make your PC run faster, cleaner and error-free with the help of a new system tool Smart PC. The software fixes stubborn errors, cleans-up space-wasting junk and debris making your PC more efficient and reliable. Special features of the new software ensure your personal privacy while surfing through the Web and protect your PC from information theft.
And your benefits are:
Smart PC has 3 operation modes: Quick, Normal and Full varying from basic functionality to professional one. Smart PC allows you to make undo of any repairs so that you can easily recover any changes.
Are you ready to set up your computer on a proper mode in a blink of an eye?
For More Information:
Registry Washer: http://www.lightsparkle.com/product_page.php?product_id=299
SpeedUpMyPC 2.0: http://www.lightsparkle.com/product_page.php?product_id=15
Smart PC: http://www.lightsparkle.com/product_page.php?product_id=620
Joe Light runs an online collection of optimizing and diagnostic software at http://www.lightsparkle.com
Microsoft CRM is CRM answer from Microsoft Business Solutions. If you compare it to other traditional CRM applications, such as Siebel - you will see that Microsoft CRM does use all the resent Microsoft technologies, that means that Microsoft targets its CRM to Windows market exclusively, plus this means that Microsoft CRM is more difficult in its installation. Microsoft doesn’t even have to care about other platforms, such as Linux/Unix or Apple. Now - we see kind of paradoxical situation when Microsoft CRM is gaining market share even in recession and early post-recession time. Where is the secret?
Let us give you our vision, based on our three years of MS CRM implementation practice in USA and internationally.
1. Microsoft CRM is for MCSE / Microsoft oriented IT departments - Microsoft CRM would be be-loved system for IT specialists. If you are MCSE+I - CRM will recruit all your MS Exchange, Active Directory, MS SQL Server, Windows domain security, Windows 2003 Server, Web publishing and HTML knowledge and experience. This is completely opposite to earlier Apple Computer believe - that computer systems should be easy in service and completely intuitive. MS CRM is kind of intuitive for end user, but not for its administrator.
2. Microsoft CRM - is not CRM - but rather simplified CRM - if you do remember old days whitepapers about CRM in general, or even it’s predecessor - Lotus Notes/Domino - these papers were full of predictions about the future and were written for top level company executives, not for regular computer specialists. This was probably why so high percentage of CRM sales failed in implementations. Microsoft CRM has the highest ever rate of successful implementations, because it is not a CRM, but rather popularized version of it - it just does the job - as cheap and reliable car.
3. Transportation Companies - about 30% of our clients in the States are transportation and freight forwarding companies. This actually proves the hypothesis that MS CRM is very simple solution - these companies usually do not have extra money to spend on their computer system, but need the solution for its sales people to instantly see the cargos, plus have simple customization, allowing them to integrate with legacy system.
4. Movement down to small and tiny companies - this is completely new trend for CRM market. We know the examples when 5 employees companies make a decision to implement and have surprising success in Microsoft CRM implementation.
Happy implementing!
About The Author
Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies - USA nationwide Microsoft CRM, Microsoft Great Plains customization company, based in Chicago, California, Colorado, Texas, New York, Georgia and Florida, Canada, UK, Australia and having locations in multiple states and internationally (www.albaspectrum.com) You can reach Andrew at 1-630-961-5918 or 1-866-528-0577. He is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer.
akarasev@albaspectrum.com
Think of this, first we had the HAM Radio, then the bbs and now the Internet. Linux and the various other x systems are the next evolutionary step toward enhancing Global 2-way communications. And the best part, its virtually free!
As Fort business scurries to find solutions to the current Linux crisis, the Linux community triads on daily doing what we’ve been doing for the last 10-13 years… developing software, writing manuals, persuading pertinacious hardware vendors… and i.e. working with computers. But, there’s a hitch. You can’t put a patent on creativity and creativity comes from all sources and global regions… And big software companies can’t hire everyone! And if I’m not mistaken, everyone doesn’t want to work for big software. Or, sit in front of a computer terminal all day!
Fort business must and will eventually open its collective doors to free source. Acknowledge the facts that the bulk of there newest and best software was developed by low or unpaid freelance geniuses. To sum it up: Makes good money, makes good sense!
Very few people understand computer code. And it’s my guess very few will or have the desire to. So, what’s big businesses problem? FEAR? I certainly don’t know, but if you look around the Internet and Stock Markets these days you can see that they’re slowly figuring this out. Makes good money, makes good cents!
Patrick Sadler has over 12 years of past Internet experience. He is sole proprietor of Knowledgeworks, Inc. Knowledgeworks manufactures and produces Developers Linux CDs, specializing on the latest stable versions of the Linux Networking Operating Systems. You are able to reach him at the factory website: http://knowledgeworks.org.uk
There have certainly been incredible strides made in the field of artificial programming and how these systems can interact with humans. Unfortunately the results as good as they are do not work as good as they need to. In fact a human who is asked to consider if they are discussing information with a machine or a human online can usually always pick out which is which. So is this a litmus test? No, but if we are going to have computers and robotics interact with people, we must do better than we are currently.
In fact what I see as a major problem currently is that many of the Artificial Intelligence grad students and their professors are making errors in their assumptions of how best to design these artificial intelligent systems. Therefore their programming efforts are not succeeding as well as they should at places like Carnegie Mellon, MIT and Berkeley. Is this to say I am criticizing their efforts entirely? No, however their mirroring theories of mimicking the human when interacting are not enough. Humans do not always want interaction with like minds of other humans. As we know opposites attract.
It is for this reason that I am calling for some interactive personality programs which run over one another to be integrated into the AI systems with some mirroring which has already been developed to remain and thus we will be better to simulate human behavior in machines which will be interactive robotic assistants. Consider this in 2006.
“Lance Winslow” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/