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1476

General Software Discussion / Re: Today is Document Freedom Day! (March 31)

« Last post by JavaJones on March 31, 2010, 03:06 PM »

Haha. I actually really like (or at least *want* to like) OOo. I even migrated my whole office, 20+ clients, to it for several years. In the end though we went back to MS Office. As a non-profit we got enough of a discount to make it worthwhile. Without that I'd have stuck with OOo and slogged through the problems. Many of the issues were honestly due to user perception or mistakes, but these are practical parts of any software deployment and they're often even more challenging to address than technical issues. Amusingly enough now that we're back on MS Office there are still complaints about features and functionality, even though everyone believed beforehand that all their document formatting problems were "Just because we're using a non-standard program". Some people are even missing features that OOo had (e.g. Calc) that MS Office is apparently lacking.

Anyway I digress. I am very happy about the existence of OOo and ODF, I just wish they developed faster. It's also just a tad depressing to see a new and theoretically superior, unencumbered format like ODF still having formatting issues between relatively minor versions of the flagship app that supports it (we seriously saw differences between OOo 3.0 and 3.1 - wtf?).

- Oshyan

1477

General Software Discussion / Re: Simple CRM and biz management tool for a small business?

« Last post by JavaJones on March 31, 2010, 03:02 PM »

Thanks, I appreciate your perspective on the problem, and that you see the complexities and challenge here. I agree that on both sides of your point that perhaps there is an opportunity here to develop software to fit this niche, yet at the same time many businesses need different workflows. That being said, two thoughts occur to me on that.

First, at least in the case of this flower shop and, I'd wager, many other very small businesses (that are nonetheless needing or at least wanting to start using more advanced tools to help them focus on the really important and unique parts of their business), it seems very probably that they could be made to adapt to a certain approach to their business flow, provided it was clear and simple to use. If a static approach provides enough other benefits (e.g. universal data synchronization, workflow automation, etc.), then it can still be embraced despite requiring changes to existing work processes. And I realize in fact that many businesses do adjust how they do things to fit existing solutions when they see that solution as "the" way to do things, for example Quickbooks. While it's a somewhat flexible tool, it still enforces certain ways of doing things (partly for legal reasons, partly just because it has its particular approach to things). I've heard many times from small businesses owners "Well we do that because that's how Quickbooks codes it" or whatever. Probably that rings a bell for you too. Even if it's not Quickbooks, it's *something*. So arbitrary constraints can be adapted to provided sufficient incentive.

The second thought that occurs to me is some kind of easily and fully customizable system might be used by IT consultants to make a custom(ish) solution, but without breaking the bank. If you want a custom solution from any of the major CRM manufacturers, it is usually major money. An open source customizable solution that could be setup by a competent IT person and not require any significant new coding to establish e.g. a particular workflow, or change the names of primary fields, or whatever, could cost small business owners far less. If it was done right, with lots of modular bits and plugins, all of which could still be updated easily through a central update system (think Linux package manager, or Ruby Gems or similar), it might be a very functional solution, allowing reasonable customization by non-coders (still requiring "experts", but at a much lower and less costly level), maintaining ease of upgrade, and getting people the functionality they need.

I think though that the first approach is really the most practical and I'm quite interested in considering it further. I still maintain hope that someone out there has made the defacto "This is the best way to organize your business, and our tool makes doing so very easy so use it!" system and we can just buy it, I can train them, and then they'll be off and running. I'm quite sure if I gave them a system that allowed them to manage all their contacts, accounts, associated tasks and documents, was accessible from the web remotely, from their blackberry, and integrated/synced with their web store and Quickbooks, they'd be happy to take some time to learn how it worked. They might occasionally curse the rigidity of the system, but 90% of the time it'd be making their work faster and easier.

- Oshyan

1478

General Software Discussion / Re: Today is Document Freedom Day! (March 31)

« Last post by JavaJones on March 31, 2010, 12:48 PM »

Sounds good. But sadly I think we're a ways off from achieving most of those. Even different versions of OpenOffice handle its own ODT format differently!

- Oshyan

1479

General Software Discussion / Re: Simple CRM and biz management tool for a small business?

« Last post by JavaJones on March 31, 2010, 12:31 PM »

Thanks for the continued input. App, the included mailing tools of the Cream CRM you mentioned in that post look promising. Good recommendation.

40hz, I'm very familiar with dedicated mailing solutions (and I found iContact to be rather crappy honestly, but none of the several big ones I've tried have impressed me actually), but there are a number of problems with them, especially for this level of user, that I think recommends against them in this case.

The biggest hurdle is data exchange. There is the obvious problem of getting your contacts out of the CRM and into your mailing tool. No problem, CSV export, right? Sure, maybe they can be trained to do this. But my experience with dedicated mailing tools shows that dealing with multiple lists (e.g. individual exports for different client segments, or just different mailings) can be confusing, especially when the lists are derived from imported files. Maintaining them over the long-term becomes a hassle. This vs. just having mailing integrated with your CRM, where you can click one button or do a quick search, find all "Corporate Clients" and generate an email to them easily.

Even worse, if you want to correlate any of the mailing list tracking data with info in your CRM, it needs to be done manually, which is tedious and error prone. Not to mention returning e.g. bounced email addresses, unsubscribes, etc. to your CRM so the info is updated properly. For example let's say you use your CRM tool, either on its own or connected to a dedicated email tool, to send other customer communication. So you send out an email using a separate tool, 50 of your 1000 addresses bounce. Now you have to export those addresses, then find a way to import them into your CRM in such a way that they are removed or marked as "bad" addresses. A tool with this kind of functionality built in to the CRM system would make this a lot easier, turning something that is basically not feasible for the average business owner to do into something that's automated and fairly simple. So again, if a tool like this doesn't exist, it damn well should.

I can hear you saying it now "If they can't be trained to do simple CSV export/import, what makes you think they can learn to use a CRM?", but speaking from experience it's never as simple as that, and it never ends there. Maybe they can be trained to do some data import/export, but the tools will never be fully utilized that way. There's no good reason a mailing list system can't be well integrated into a CRM tool (and many such tools seem to have them, just in the higher end versions).

Not to mention that most mailing list tools are going to be an additional monthly fee, something I'd like to avoid if possible. I can use something like PHPList, DadaMail, or another self-hosted tool, but the data interchange issues remain. Whether or not the supposed deliverability advantages of large providers are real is questionable to me as well from personal experience with a list of around 15,000 subscribers. It's probably irrelevant anyway as the business in question would have such a small list that it's unlikely to trigger spam filters just from sheer volume.

All that being said again I really appreciate the suggestions and input. I'm just surprised a more streamlined solution doesn't exist for this level of business.

- Oshyan

1480

General Software Discussion / Re: How long is 'temporary'?

« Last post by JavaJones on March 31, 2010, 11:59 AM »

Hold on a minute, is this an issue with a poorly coded app installer (in which case I'd report it as a bug to the developer), or does MS's installer (MSI handler) actually put installer/uninstaller files in the temp folder by default!? If so, terrible behavior!

- Oshyan

1481

Living Room / Re: Yay, Upgrade time! - Inspire me with hardware I can buy =-D

« Last post by JavaJones on March 31, 2010, 11:57 AM »

If you want a quiet system, without fans, you can go crazy and get water cooling or something. But I think another thread in discussion here might have just the ticket, which is lower power systems that don't even need active cooling: https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=22270.0 The fit-PC2 should be particularly interesting.

- Oshyan

1482

General Software Discussion / Re: Simple CRM and biz management tool for a small business?

« Last post by JavaJones on March 31, 2010, 01:24 AM »

Well, Maximizer looks promising, but really not much more so than e.g. SugarCRM, and it now bills itself as a "CRM" product anyway (with a feature set and UI that seems to match that description). Cost is fine for the Entrepreneur version, but unfortunately like almost all these programs, for some reason they only include mass mailing in the higher-level packages. This kind of marketing tool is becoming so vital for every business these days, that I think it is pretty unfortunate not to at least offer it as an optional add-in for the lower-end versions. Everyone seems to bundle it with their higher level product tiers which do have lots of features a small business *won't* need. But emailing is definitely something many will need, so I don't get why it's shoved into the higher level packages, unless it's just to get the small businesses to pony up for the more expensive versions. The problem with that is it also comes with added and unwanted complexity...

*sigh*

- Oshyan

1483

General Software Discussion / Re: Simple CRM and biz management tool for a small business?

« Last post by JavaJones on March 31, 2010, 12:39 AM »

Great input 40hz, once again. I will say though that my hope is a CRM-type app would *enforce* an organizational scheme on them. I just want it to be one that's easy to learn and adapt to, and sensible for their business. I honestly don't expect them to be able to organize their business better without a tool, they're just too scattered. They have adapted to the limitations (and capabilities) of their tools in the past and I think they can do it again. Now I just need to find the right tool. I will definitely check out Maximizer. Do you know where I might find other options for such "small CRM/advanced contact manager" apps? e.g. a Wikipedia comparison matrix or something?

Where are you located btw?

- Oshyan

1484

Living Room / Re: Low energy use always on pc -- what's better, a laptop or a mini (htpc) pc?

« Last post by JavaJones on March 31, 2010, 12:31 AM »

Oh wow, fit-PC2 is cuuute! It's the size of a small router for god's sake! And 8W *under load*? I think we may have our winner. I wish the Phoronix review had power measurement and comparison with their reference system though. I'm curious just how much more power a dual core Atom with ION uses. If it's just a bit, then I'd be inclined to go for that since it's still ultra low power, but more capable. Still, the fit-PC2 is awesome for most needs IMO.

40hz, I've resisted saying this in the past when others have done so, but now I am compelled: you really do know something useful about everything, don't you?

- Oshyan

1485

General Software Discussion / Re: Simple CRM and biz management tool for a small business?

« Last post by JavaJones on March 30, 2010, 11:53 PM »

Well I'm thinking more and more there may be a big opportunity here to provide such a tool to small business owners. Most of the systems I see, even if they're functional for small businesses, are marketed so clearly above them that they're not relevant anyway. I'll keep looking, but if I don't find something soon it's going on my list of stuff to develop.

As for SugarCRM, if it can be slimmmed down so as not to overwhelm these guys, then that's good. I'll look at it further. I think there are some options for Quickbooks sync. It's not so much the one-time syncing as the regular, daily or weekly syncing that is a problem. You do want to keep them in alignment. Now if there are web store systems that integrate with Sugar...

- Oshyan

1486

General Software Discussion / Simple CRM and biz management tool for a small business?

« Last post by JavaJones on March 30, 2010, 06:26 PM »

Hello mighty DonationCoder community! I beseech you to turn your powerful and all knowing gaze toward this simple problem which presently confounds me.

I find myself the sole, voluntary IT support for a friend's small business, a simple 2 person floral design studio and flower shop. They mostly do weddings and corporate clients, with infrequent in-person sales, and so far no online sales. They use Quickbooks Pro 2010 and have 1 desktop and 1 laptop system they use for all their work, both running Windows 7.

When a previous laptop recently crashed, I found myself waste-deep in a tangle of horribly organized documents and inconsistent business practices while recovering their data. I felt I had to do something about this. So, what they need is a simple, easy to use system for managing customer relationships, sales, simple marketing efforts, appointments and tasks, etc.. Preferably the system should have all those parts integrated, and also integrate with their existing Quickbooks data. Ideally it would also be relatively inexpensive as they are a small business without much money to spend at the moment; in fact they're in a bit of a financial pickle, though they're managing to stay afloat. They desperately need more customers though and providing tools to let them more easily run marketing campaigns is a part of this whole project.

So far I have spent a lot of time looking at dedicated CRM applications and systems like SalesForce, SugarCRM, etc. I've also looked at separate components like Google Apps for contacts, docs, and calendaring, mailing list tools for marketing, etc. The problem with the full-blown CRM systems is they seem way too complicated. They need something that replaces a bunch of separate Word and Excel docs in a unified system (e.g. imagine trying to search for past customer transaction info if your receipts are all separate Word docs, many of which have different formatting). So the Google Docs approach is also non-ideal. It solves some of the problems, but doesn't really focus on customer relationship management at all. They'll be using Gmail and Google Calendar regardless, but as far as building a customer database with good info, and then leveraging that database for ongoing marketing, they're lost with current tools. Ideally it *would* be an online tool like this so they could access it anywhere, even from a mobile device (the manager has a Blackberry), but a desktop Windows app would suffice if price and features were a better fit. They have web hosting and I can install any web apps for them.

In searching for something that could work for them it really struck me how difficult the world of the small business owner is, especially if they're not super technically minded. They are in a strange limbo world where they're big enough to want dedicated tools to keep them organized and, especially, to help them *grow* their business. At the same time they're not big enough or technically savvy enough to really make use of something like SalesForce or other complex CRM packages, nor can they necessarily afford the versions they might need. Just as an example, they want to start email marketing, which seems like a virtually essential thing these days. The version of SalesForce that has this integrated is $65/mo per user (potentially $130/mo if they both need access), which seems like relatively small potatoes I admit, but is still a lot considering what they're doing now is free.

I'm willing to try to sell them on the financial benefits of better organization and marketing tools (if they get just 1 additional customer from it, it could arguably pay for itself). Still they are somewhat in a panicky state as far as finances go right now, as I mentioned.

Any help and info greatly appreciated!

- Oshyan

1487

Living Room / Re: Low energy use always on pc -- what's better, a laptop or a mini (htpc) pc?

« Last post by JavaJones on March 30, 2010, 06:04 PM »

none of you have actually addressed my 2 explicit concerns:
1) power usage? (is one much higher than the other?)
2) longevity of device? (is one more likely to outlast the other if they are on 24/7?)

the portability and built in screen on a laptop is a plus, but not a showstopper.

since the device does not have to be placed in a really tiny space, i dont need a really tiny beagleboard type thing; in terms of size, a mini-itx would be fine, as would a laptop.

-mouser (March 30, 2010, 05:16 PM)

Well, it's a tough thing, hehe. Here's my best answers:

1: Generally speaking an equivalent laptop hardware-wise is going to use less power per component because they're all optimized for super low power, *including the PSU*. So an Atom-based laptop or netbook will generally use less power than a desktop of equivalent specs, *especially* one with a separate LCD monitor. That being said, if you go for all low power desktop components, you can get close or perhaps even beat a laptop, with a carefully configured build.

The average laptop uses between 10 and 20 watts of power at idle, some less. That goes up to 30-60-ish when under full load, depending on the laptop and CPU. When charging and running at the same time, it's more, but that's not likely to be a common thing in your usage scenario.

Atom-based netbooks/laptops generally use even less, of course. Idle is 5-10 and load is up around 20-25. e.g. http://reviews.cnet....-2.html?tag=txt;page
Asus Eee is the stand-out here at least than 20w at load:
http://reviews.cnet....-2.html?tag=txt;page

Remember also that these numbers include the display! A comparable desktop, even super low power, will use similar levels of power *without the display*. Cnet actually has some good power usage info in its reviews, as you can see above, and they do desktops too. Here's an Atom-based desktop review and you can see the power usage is actually fairly comparable, but again remember this is without the monitor:
http://reviews.cnet....-2.html?tag=txt;page

Here you can see an all-in-one Atom-based system with very low power use, and it includes the monitor of course. Still more than a netbook, but the screen is probably larger, so that may account for some: http://reviews.cnet....-2.html?tag=txt;page

2: Unfortunately point #2 contradicts #1 which is that laptops tend to be less reliable over the long term *and* are more expensive and more difficult to fix if they do break (generally speaking). Still, most of the wear of a laptop is in moving it around and having exposure to lots of dust on a regular basis. If you keep the air paths clean, keep the bottom and sides well ventilated, and don't move the laptop around much, it has a good chance of surviving for an acceptable amount of time.

As for size, it's not the fact that the small boards are small that makes them appealing, it's just that a helpful byproduct of size is generally lower power use as well. Hence the mini-ITX approach vs. full-size ATX. The tiny size is not a requirement, but smaller size does enable as well as generally go along with lower power use in the market.

If it were me I'd get the laptop just for versatility, unless you already have one, or you really want to tinker with a hardware project. The laptop option will generally be faster and easier and get you closer to the results you want in short order, but the hardware build would be more challenging and potentially enjoyable. If it's the software side of things you really want to tweak, the laptop will give you the quickest, easiest platform to do that.

- Oshyan

1488

Living Room / Re: Low energy use always on pc -- what's better, a laptop or a mini (htpc) pc?

« Last post by JavaJones on March 30, 2010, 05:10 PM »

Eoin's example is exactly the direction I was going in until you said you wanted basically a low-power general purpose PC with standard OS. You could run Linux on the BeagleBoard, but not Windows (well, except WinCE), so it may be a bit limiting.

So my vote would probably be for a "tiny PC", probably Atom-based, like f0dder said. That's as long as you really have no need for the portability of a laptop, and particularly if you have interest in more flexibility and customization down the road.

A big question is what you'll be using for display. If you're putting it through a TV, the screen on a laptop will be a waste. So might as well go with the small PC option. However if you'll need some kind of display and it won't be an existing TV, then the laptop option starts to sound better.

- Oshyan

1489

Living Room / Re: New hardware recommendations?

« Last post by JavaJones on March 30, 2010, 04:26 PM »

Hehe, yes, you'll note I said if you're looking for pricey, then look at VAIO, but I *wouldn't otherwise recommend them*.

It sounds like your needs may indeed justify as good a CPU as you can get right now. Just keep in mind the laptop i7's are rather slower than the desktop versions.

- Oshyan

1490

Living Room / Re: Low energy use always on pc -- what's better, a laptop or a mini (htpc) pc?

« Last post by JavaJones on March 30, 2010, 01:16 PM »

Ok, so you don't have a specific enough idea of the use to be comfortable getting anything less than a fully flexible system? i.e. you don't want some kind of embedded, purpose-built, or otherwise non-standard system?

- Oshyan

1491

Living Room / Re: Low energy use always on pc -- what's better, a laptop or a mini (htpc) pc?

« Last post by JavaJones on March 30, 2010, 01:07 PM »

Ok. And do you want it to run Windows, or would Linux, etc. be fine?

- Oshyan

1492

Living Room / Re: New hardware recommendations?

« Last post by JavaJones on March 30, 2010, 12:42 PM »

If the router problems are recent and getting worse with time, you're probably right that it could be hardware. But on the off chance it's not, you might want to try DDWRT (or at least make sure your official firmware is up to date):
http://www.dd-wrt.co....php/Linksys_WRT350N

As for the laptop, unless you do a lot of performance computing with the thing, it's not worth getting an i7 IMO. Newer Core 2-based laptops with Win7 and a decent supply of RAM can be quite speedy. An i7 is really only necessary if you're a gamer, or doing some rendering or something.

As for brand, Dell's are actually fairly decent price-wise. We've got quite a few of them at my office (both laptops and desktops) and they've been reliable overall. I'm also a fan of Toshiba. Not so much HP, Gateway, Lenovo (Lenovo really makes odd decisions on its hardware design!). If you want pricey, check out Sony's VAIO line. But I wouldn't otherwise recommend them. If you want max customization and potentially best pricing, try http://www.powernotebooks.com/

- Oshyan

1493

Living Room / Re: Low energy use always on pc -- what's better, a laptop or a mini (htpc) pc?

« Last post by JavaJones on March 30, 2010, 12:36 PM »

So you definitely need a general purpose system for your needs? Perhaps you can give a more full outline of the things you'll be doing with it?

- Oshyan

1494

Living Room / Re: Which is better windows mobile or android os or iphone os?

« Last post by JavaJones on March 30, 2010, 12:31 PM »

Yeah, the WebOS card system is pretty slick. That doesn't really make it better at *multitasking* though, it makes it better at task switching... theoretically. But Android has a built-in task switcher, as well as several apps that extend it to similar levels, e.g. basic: http://www.androidap....com/t/task-switcher and a clone of the card approach in dev here: http://www.androlib....162-taskos-pDzE.aspx

I'd actually be interested in seeing *benchmarks* of which handles multitasking better...

- Oshyan

1495

Living Room / Re: Which is better windows mobile or android os or iphone os?

« Last post by JavaJones on March 29, 2010, 01:47 PM »

I'm not sure what the speed, stability, and multi-tasking comments re: Android are based on. From my (admittedly limited and partly anecdotal) experience, the only thing "faster" about the iPhone is some of the UI interaction, and that's by a slight margin and comes down IMO more to the polish of the OS itself, rather than actual *performance*. After all, several newer Android phones have higher specs than the iPhone, so I'd wager in raw computation they'd win. Multitasking they seem fine at. How exactly does the Palm Pre/Pixi beat Android there?

For my part I will probably never get an iPhone, regardless of the possibilities for jailbreaking. It may be easy but I don't want to have to be dealing with the kinks of "alternatives" that are neither supported nor desired by the manufacturer of my phone. Sure, there are other apps that work besides iTunes for music management, but Apple can decide one day that they won't work anymore and at *best* I have to wait for the developer of my app of choice to update it, and at worst it will never work again and I have to switch to iTunes, which I abhor. Same with jailbreaking. It may be easy and "permanent" in some cases, but overall it's a tenuous position that could easily end sooner than later.

I have 2 friends who recently bought iPhones and they're definitely happy with them, I will say that. They're great phones for a certain audience. One of them has downloaded a grand total of 1 app - an electronic level (that he bought for use in mounting *my* TV) - and other than that he is a very basic user and just thinks it's a nice phone. Even he has some complaints though, for example the auto-lock behavior and quirkyness of the slide-to-unlock function. My other friend is a bigger app junkie, mostly games, and she's thrilled with the thing, but I think a big part of that is driven by how much she hated her other phone and how much she can now do with apps at all. And that's something I think you see a lot - people who only ever had basic phones before and now buy the iPhone and equate that with being able to do more than basic stuff. Of course *any* smartphone allows you to do a lot more than you could with a basic phone, and one of these people upgrading to Android would probably be just as impressed.

Anyway, I'm still on a Motorola Q9C, WinMo 6.1, and biding my time until my contract is up and a really outstanding Android phone comes out on Verizon. Droid almost made me spring for it, hehe. But I knew it was really the first generation of the truly iPhone-comparable Android phones, and I want to see the market develop a bit more from that initial breakthrough. Some really interesting phones where shown recently at CTIA...

- Oshyan

1496

General Review Discussion / Re: Opinions on remote PC control software

« Last post by JavaJones on March 29, 2010, 01:21 PM »

New version of TightVNC (finally!) and it's handling some stuff under Vista/Win7 better than my previous favorite UltraVNC. The TVNC 2.0 beta is worth a look. http://tightvnc.org/

- Oshyan

1497

Living Room / Re: Any long-time DC members near a MicroCenter?

« Last post by JavaJones on March 25, 2010, 01:03 PM »

Well, I'll let you know if I'm headed down there. Keep an eye out for some more convenient deals though.

- Oshyan

1498

Living Room / Re: selective attention test videos (students passing a ball, etc.)

« Last post by JavaJones on March 24, 2010, 02:25 PM »

Maybe (just maybe) I should have scrolled down that list of recommended videos...  Thanks!

-brotherS (March 24, 2010, 01:46 PM)

Maybe...

- Oshyan

1499

Living Room / Re: selective attention test videos (students passing a ball, etc.)

« Last post by JavaJones on March 24, 2010, 01:39 PM »

I reckon it's this: http://www.youtube.c...ubNF9QNEQLA&NR=1

Guess how I found it...

- Oshyan

1500

Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking

« Last post by JavaJones on March 24, 2010, 01:33 PM »

Yeah, Project Wonderful is super cool. Similar to an idea I had for a "better ad network" a few years back. Glad to see someone did something about it.

- Oshyan