VOIP Phone systems

Of all the tech markets right now one of the few that is growing is VOIP phone systems. There is a good reason for that, they are cheap and they work great. If that is not a winning combination for small business I don't know what is. If you notice on the sidebar here one of the blogs I follow is http://blog.voipsupply.com/ , this is the blog from Voip Supply ,a great company to get all your equipment from.
Now that we have hardware out of the way it is time to look at software. There are many great packages to choose from. Most are based on Asterisk, my favorites are Trixbox and PBXinaFlash . Both have there pros and cons but both would make a great system for any SOHO or small business. Just got one of these systems going recently and the ROI is about 5 months for ours. I will admit that is on the quick side even for a voip system but I caught some great deals. If i had bought everything at normal retail the ROI would be 7-9 months, still not too shabby. Especially when you consider if I had got a system from Avaya, Nortel or the like it would have cost roughly 6 times as much to get all the same features.
If you haven't heard of this technology do some reading at any or all of the links above and another good one to check out is Nerd Vittles . There is a wealth of knowledge out there and and equal pile of savings to go with it.

offsite file storage/access

Just saw a new device that is not even out yet but it looks promising.
PogoPlug
The idea is a small unit (L x W x D): 4" x 2.5" x 2" , that plugs into an outlet and has two ports on it.
One ethernet to plug into your router, and one usb to plug into a usb hard drive.
They claim that simply plugging it in makes it live and you can login via a web interface to access your files from anywhere in the world.
If this thing works like they say it does I am seeing some good ways to save money.
Many businesses pay for offsite backup of their data, a quick and dirty approach is to backup data from your office to your home nightly using this device.
Total cost under, $200 for the pogoplug and a 500gb hard drive.
If anyone has used this thing yet I would love to hear from you.

Best desktop and laptop deal for the week

The queston I get asked the most is what is the best desktop or laptop for my money right now.
90% of the time this is for average office/home use, office apps , internet, e-mail , etc.
If you need a system for high-end graphics , video editing or gaming then you might need something with a little more horsepower.
Please remember that the best system for your money changes at a minimum weekly if not more often than that.

Desktop - Dell ( online )
Dell Vostro 220 with 19in LCD $399 plus tax.
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic, Service Pack 1
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E7400 (2.8GHz, 3M, L2Cache, 1066FSB)
1 Year Basic Limited Warranty and 1 Year NBD On-Site Service
3GB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHZ - 1x2GB 1x1GB
Dell 19 inch E198FP Analog Flat Panel Display
Single Drive: 16X (DVD+/-RW) Burner Drive
250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
Integrated Video, Intel® GMA X4500HD
Integrated 5.1 Channel Audio
Dell USB Keyboard
Dell Optical USB Mouse
Vostro 220 Mini-Tower
Intergrated PCIE 10/100/1000

Laptop Dell ( online )
Vostro A860 $449 plus tax.
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic, Service Pack 1, English
1 Year Basic Limited Warranty plus 1 Year Mail-in Service
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5470 (1.6GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB)
2GB,DDR2,800MHZ
8X DVD+/-RW
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 Blue
250GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
Wireless Networking 802.11b/g
Modem, 3-1 Reader, 1394 Firewire, PCMCIA Included
Wireless Bluetooth Internal (2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate)
15.6 inch Wide Screen HD LCD Display
6 cell Lithium Ion Battery
Windows Vista® Basic

Best internet for the money

Many businesses feel they must go with a t-1 for their internet connection. Although this has been the industry standard for years it is not always the best option and it is almost never the cheapest option. Unless you are in a rural area you should have internet available from your local cable company , dsl from your local phone company or if you are lucky FIOS broadband internet.
Just for comparison with average monthly cost and speeds.

t-1 1500 kbps down / 1500 kbps up cost $350
Cable 10000 kbps down / 5000 kbps up cost $ 60
DSL 6000 kbps down / 1500 kbps up cost $50

Let's take the conventional wisdom that a t-1 connection is more reliable than a cable connection ( although in my experience that is not true ) is it worth 6 times the cost for way less speed just to pick up a very little amount of uptime ?
In fact if you just have to have 100% uptime get cable and dsl , have higher speeds, a backup connection and still spend way less money.

E-mail at your company's name

The best place to start this blog is with the #1 problem area with most small business's.
E-mail with your company's name.
The problems I see most often fall into two categories.
#1 Using generic e-mail .
Having an e-mail address with yahoo, gmail , hotmail or even your isp (internet service provider) bellsouth, comcast or dare I say AOL.
#2 Paying too much for e-mail service.
Getting an exchange server for $2000 or more , a linux server for $500 or more or even paying someone to host your e-mail , even at the low rate of $10 a month is not the best use of your money. For those that say a linux server or exchange server are very feature rich you would be correct but for most SOHO's or SMB's they are both overkill.

Solution ?
Google Apps for Your Domain !!!!
For the cost of a domain ( $10 a YEAR !!!) you can have your own e-mail @yourcompanyname.com for every employee with a 7gb mailbox per user. Plus google docs which is an online office suite comporable to Microsoft Office.
Setup is a breeze for anyone with basic computer skills but if you need help shoot me an e-mail and we can get you setup in about an hour.
For those of you wondering , yes you can still use outlook or the e-mail client of your choice but you still have access to your e-mail away from the office using google's great webmail service.
As you can see there is now no excuse not to have a professional e-mail address for your company.