We are looking for Homeless Businesses to help

May 5th, 2011

As a result of the recent outbreak of tornadoes in  Alabama we have pulled together office space for homeless service business that need a place to work.  We have various size spaces geared toward small businesses . We are pricing the spaces as reasonably as possible depending on their need.

If you know of anyone that just wants space we can provide that, if they need more we can provide the following as well:

Internet
Phones
Computers
Furniture
Programs
Moving services
Computer repairs
and much more.

If you know of a business that needs a temporary home, please have them call us. We are ready to act quickly.

Below are descriptions of the offices we have available immediately. Located at 400 and 402 Office Park Drive, Birmingham, AL 35223

400 Building
3rd Floor
Suite 310 – 455 SF with one large office with two other rooms in front of large office for waiting room and copy room.
Suite 300 – 922 SF two private offices with receptionist area and mail room

402 Building
1st Floor
Suite 100 – two empty private offices (about 15X10 each) and could share the common area and a part time receptionist
Suite 110 – 200 SF single office with a window.
Suite 104 – 264 SF that is two private offices on the interior so no windows.

We do have some layout drawings of some of these spaces so let me know you need to see more detail.

We also have some spaces in Montgomery as well.

We are not a leasing company or a landlord. We do not own these spaces but we have partnered with the owner of the 400 and 402 building! We are a computer services company that is seeing a need and trying to fill it. We have pulled together many of our friends that have the various services and space and packaging it to make it affordable for displaced small businesses. We all benefit if these companies stay solvent and can continue to provide their services.

Rob Saunders
Saunders Business Solutions
400 Office Park Drive
Suite 303
Birmingham, AL 35223
(205) 408-0600
(205) 222-7712 Cell

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The future of Computers – iPads – Smart Phones

April 26th, 2011

Where are we heading? First of all, I do not think that the desktop is going away any time soon. With the large monitor and the ability to have multiple programs open and showing at the same time, I do not think we will give that functionality up easily. The boxes may get smaller, we may even get to the point where we could plug in our monitor, mouse and keyboard into the Smart Phone or iPad but we will still work at our desks – when at work. Keep in mind that the “Baby Boomers” are still around, getting old and cannot see as well as they used to. Small or tiny screens are not OUR friends.

All that being said, mobility is the key. We want to take it with us. We want to be able to do anything we need to do, where ever we are. As the App developers get smarter and the technology gets better, we will see greater capabilities with our mobile devices. Will Apple be the winner with their i-whatevers or will another player come in and replace them as the dominant portable device? I don’t know but Apple is clearly the winner at this time. I say that as a sideline observer. The last Apple computer I owned was an Apple IIc. I do not even have an iPhone, I have an HTC – but for sure the Apple products are cool – and that will keep them on top. That and the “ease of use” that has always been the Apple tradition.

So what is going to happen? Over the next 5 years, desktop computers will be kept longer, they will not be replaced quickly because all we will really need them for is to get on the Internet and to have somewhere to plug in our monitors, keyboards and mice. Phone technology and wireless technology will continue to improve at a phenomenal pace and soon we will be able to “almost” anything on our portable device as we can our desktop. Very soon, all of our electronics will communicate with us via voice. We will not give up the ability to communicate when driving, as as the laws get more strict, the technology will improve so we can continue to use them without fingers or eyes.

Within 10 years, I believe the keyboard, mouse and pointing devices will be obsolete and will be replaced with some combination of voice and some other form of information input (not through some form of thinking – that will come later) Beyond that, who knows, we will see.

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I hate computers – You should to, if you don’t

April 18th, 2011

I used to love computers until lately. I have come to understand the truth. Landscapers do not love their shovels, carpenters do not love their hammers and I do not love my computer, it is a tool, a business tool that may or may not benefit my company.

Why do I say that I hate computers? A friend of mine, Brad, used to be in this business and he would say this all the time. I thought he was crazy but I now understand. Computers are purchased for the purpose of making us more productive. Do they, or do they become a crutch to help us limp along making excuses on why we are not successful? We often think that computers are the answer, we send out e-mail blasts, print reports, make lists and enter data thinking that it is all going to make our business successful.

In today’s economy we need to go back to basics, using a tool called a computer but not depending on it. We need to go visit our customers, not send them e-mails. We need to ask them what they need from us, not send surveys. We are losing touch with customers in the name of efficiency. I don’t really hate computers, I just hate what they have done to us and our businesses. Unfortunately, we do still need to use them but we need to USE them not live in front of them, look to them for solutions to our business needs.

For 22 years, I have been sitting in front of a computer. Over the years, I have spent more and more time with my hands on the keyboard and mouse. It is time to change. I have a list of customers that I printed out and instead of sending out an e-mail blast, I plan to call them, visit them and see what their computer needs are and then see if we can help them with those needs.

I will keep you informed.

Rob Saunders
(205) 408-0600
Saunders Business Solutions

 

Posted in Computer Maintenance, Computer Productivity | No Comments »

Help! I spilled coffee on my laptop!

March 31st, 2011

I’m afraid way too many of us have been in this situation.  Fortunately, if you are prepared for liquid spills, you can greatly reduce or even prevent damage from occurring.  The #1 rule to remember with liquid spills is that you should immediately remove the battery.  Alternatively, if you spill something onto a desktop computer’s keyboard, you should unplug it.  This is the only thing that is imperative for saving your electronics from a liquid spill so if you walk away from this with anything, it should be that the power source should be removed.  By power source, I also mean any sort of plug-in power, since it is not liquids alone that damage electronics, but the liquids shorting out electrical connections.

Additionally, if you spilled a great deal of stuff on your electronics, you might want to rinse it off.  I would recommend rinsing with rubbing alcohol, after applying some in an out-of-the way spot to make sure that the alcohol won’t damage the electronics’ finish.  Disassembling whatever you spill onto helps, too, but don’t go overboard.  Just remove what you already know how to, even if it is just the battery.  Also, you could rinse it off with some distilled water if the alcohol doesn’t cut it, but this is a little riskier, since the water is conductive, and there might be parts that are still retaining an electrical charge.  After cleaning, sit your device in front of a fan.  Do not use heat; we just need cool air blowing over it.  The norm would be to give it three days to dry, though it could take a week if the device has not been disassembled.  Just don’t forget to take out the battery, clean it as best you can, and give it sufficient time to dry, and you will have a very good chance of rescuing your electronic device.

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What performance tweaks actually work?

March 28th, 2011

What do you do when you are waiting for your computer to work on something or load something?  Do you stare at it angrily?  Or try to be nice and coax it into going faster?  I hope you don’t hit it, because that never seems to make them go faster.  How about some ideas for quick ways to make your computer go faster?  I know you’ve probably heard plenty of these that don’t work at all, but I’m about to give you few tried and true ways to see much faster performance out of your computer.

I might sound like a broken record here, but being mindful of security and staying secure against virus and malware (MALicious softWARE) attack is a surefire way to keep your computer’s performance where you want it.  More often than not, when I help a client that is complaining of a slowly performing computer, it has been infected by something.  A bad virus can slow your computer down worse than anything else as it takes over and possibly damages its software, so be sure you have adequate virus protection, keep all your software updated, and practice safe browsing and downloading.  By safe browsing and downloading I mean staying away from sites that are not trustworthy, and not downloading anything unless you trust the website it came from and the people who made it.

Once you are sure your computer is not being slowed down by malware, we can move onto the real performance tweaks.  First off, you should find out if you have a video card or not, because if you don’t have a video card, or a processor or motherboard that mentions containing specific graphics chip, I have a performance tweak that could really speed up your computer.  Look at the back of your computer, and find where your monitor is plugged in.  If you can’t find it, follow the wire to your computer.  Now, check if it is plugged in higher up on the back of the computer next to a bunch of other connections or wires, or lower on the back of the computer away from other wires.  If it is lower down and away from other wires, you have a video card and may skip this performance tweak.  If your motherboard or processor’s manufacturer mentioned a specific brand of “integrated graphics,” your graphics chip is fast enough and this tip will not help you either.  Right click anywhere on your desktop.  In the context menu that pops up, click “Propterties”.  Now click the “Advanced” button after clicking on the “Settings” tab.  If you have a graphics card or integrated graphics, slide the slider all the way to the right or leave it like it is.  If you don’t have powerful graphics chips, slide it all the way to the left, or the notch next to all the way to the left.  Now you will have vastly improved graphics, so you can do things like watch videos without having to worry about your computer running them too slowly.

Another trick you can do that may help your performance is defragmenting your hard drive.  All you need to do is click Start, then click Run.., type dfrg.msc and hit Enter.  Now click the Analyze button.  If your hard drive sees fragmentation, then the diagram will have a lot of red in it. Otherwise, the hard disk diagram will have more blue in it and you do not need to defragment at the time.

One other idea is you could use the program Ccleaner to get rid of errors and bad registry entries so you can get sped up and get more speed.

The last ditch to speeding up your computer when all else fails is to reinstall everything.  This means backing up your data, formatting your hard drive, installing Windows again, and restoring your backup.  Don’t worry, if you can’t do this, we can.

Posted in Computer Maintenance, Security | No Comments »

My 10 year old computer needs a new operating system!

March 23rd, 2011

If you have had the same install of Windows on your computer for years, it very well may need re-installation.  After 5 years or so of using the same install, a re-installation will become more important than any other maintenance because of the massive performance increase you will see upon re-installing Windows.  This necessity is due to a slow degradation of Windows registry files we like to call “Windows rot.”  Alternatively, a re installation might be necessary to repair damage done by malware, since viruses and the like will sometimes damage your Windows beyond repair.  No need to worry though, re-installing your Windows is not as difficult as it may seem to a layperson.

The key to a re-installation going smoothly is adequate preparation.  Before deleting and reinstalling your old Windows installation, you are going to want to make sure you have everything you need to restore your system to the way it was.  This means backing up any files important to you, locating drivers, and locating program installers.  Drivers, the software on the disks that ship with your hardware, are essential to proper hardware installation, so you will need to find disks for all the hardware you have installed, or a disk with all your drivers that your computer’s manufacturer will have given you.  You will also need to make sure that you have recorded or copied all the settings within the programs that are important to you.

Once you have completed this important preparation, you can go ahead and put the Windows disk into your CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive and restart your computer.  So long as your BIOS is set up correctly, you should be prompted to “Press any key to boot from disk.”  If you don’t see this message, press the appropriate key, usually Delete, during start up to access your BIOS setup.  Once you press a key, the Windows installer will start working.  It will ask you various simple questions, and prompt you as to whether to reformat your hard drive, which you should.  You will want to click the appropriate hard drive on which to install and continue answering the questions Windows asks you.  After about 35 minutes, you will be done and have a fresh new Windows install!  Now all that’s left to do is install all your drivers, copy your backed up files to where you want them, and set up your programs like you had them.  Once this is complete, you will have a fast new installation of Windows.

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Is this $200 computer any good?

March 17th, 2011

In today’s economic environment, “special” deals are becoming more and more prevalent.  Unfortunately, these deals are oftentimes not special at all.  It is common retail practice to market a slight discount of merely a few dollars or full retail price as a major discount.  This is another situation where using Google or whatever search engine you like can be immensely helpful.  All it takes is a quick search to find out if a retailer’s price is actually low compared to other sellers of the same product.  Furthermore, if you have a smartphone, you can scan a product’s barcode with a barcode scanning app like Google Shopping and bring up prices of similar products.

Another thing to keep in mind here is that you get what you pay for.  It is usually more cost-effective to buy something that will last a long time and require very little maintenance than to buy a cheap, short lived, and high maintenance alternative.  For example, wouldn’t you rather buy a high quality car than a lemon?  So be sure not to buy a lemon of a computer.  Using your search engine, enter the computer’s manufacturer and model number, and check out what people have to say.  If you see that people are having problems with it, than you just saved yourself a whole lot of trouble by not buying it!  You see, companies may think they can cut costs by putting faulty products or products with buggy software on the shelves, but if you do a little back-checking in this manner, you won’t have to bear the brunt of someone else cutting corners.

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Do I need to upgrade my hardware?

March 14th, 2011

When you are thinking about buying computer hardware, there is an even better question to ask than the one posed in this title.  The answer to the question “What do I want to do?” will give you more insight to whether you should be upgrading than leaving yourself open to the tempting impulse buy.  In today’s technological environment, there is an amazing variety of hardware present that can enable you to do practically anything you might want to do.  When upgrading your computer, printer, router, or even your cell phone, it would be a wise decision to consider the capabilities you currently have, and the capabilities that an upgrade could give you.  If poorly performing or outdated hardware is holding you back and performing so slowly that it’s costing you money, by all means, upgrade now!  If your situation isn’t quite as urgent, you might want to compare the benefits of just upgrading your software to that of a hardware upgrade.  Could you accomplish the same end with simply changing out your software and keeping your current hardware?  A good example would be a situation I’ve seen quite a few of my clients in.  They are having issues with an install of Windows that has been damaged by viruses or deteriorated over time, and are considering replacing their computer, when, in fact simply reinstalling their Windows would accomplish their same goal of a faster computer so they can go back to doing the same tasks they have been doing more quickly and efficiently.

If your only interests lie in browsing the web, e-mailing and creating Office documents, like most of my clients, you will not need particularly powerful hardware to get that done.  For tasks requiring few computing resources such as those, any computer that can run its operating system should be more than good enough.  If you are doing things like video editing, photo editing, computer aided design, gaming or computer animation, however, you will need a good bit more processing power.  If you are doing tasks like these, and your computer is having a hard time keeping up, you might want to consider upgrading your computer, your video card, or your memory.  A good rule to go by is that your hardware is inadequate if its specifications start falling behind the minimum requirements listed on the boxes of the software you are trying to use.  You can find these specifications about your hardware by right clicking the “My Computer” icon in your Start menu and then clicking “Properties.”If it is below the minimum requirement, you will have a very difficult time getting that software to run at all, so your hardware would be a limitation.  If your hardware is above the bare minimum, that merely means that it is capable of running the software, and is not a guarantee that its performance will not be sluggish.  If you keep these tips in mind, though, you will have no need to worry about poor performance

Rob Saunders
Saunders Business Solutions
(205) 408-0600
rob@saundersbusiness.com

Posted in Computer Maintenance, Computer Productivity, Security | No Comments »

How do I sync data on my computer with my phone?

March 10th, 2011

Some computer users would like to know how to get data such as contacts, appointments, e-mails and tasks from their computer to their phone.  Although the process differs from phone to phone, it is relatively straightforward, and it will safe you time in the long run.

Smartphone users will have an easier time syncing their phones because these devices are designed to sync with and complement computers.  First and foremost, remember not to plug in your phone until your installer or instructions prompt you to.  This way, you will avoid installing the wrong drivers for your phone.

If syncing to Google Calendar a Gmail account would be satisfactory to you, then Google Sync is a must-have application.  There is a version out for every type of smartphone, and there is even a version for people with ordinary phones.  All you need to do is create a Gmail account, and download the software appropriate for your phone.

Blackberry, Windows and Palm users have it particularly easy- they will just need to go through the installation wizard for the included software and follow its instructions for syncing capabilities.  It is also important that you have the latest software before installing it, since it is so common for buggy software to be released with subsequent bugfixes in later versions, so double check on your phone manufacturer’s website to see if your software is up-to-date.  After installing the appropriate software, you can load your calendar and contacts onto your phone.

If you have an iPhone and don’t want to use Google sync, then you can always plug it into your Mac sync it with iCal and your Mac’s contact list.  Better yet, you could set up a MobileMe account to greatly simplify the process.  You will need to create a MobileMe Account, and enter your account info into, set to push, to your Mail, Contacts, Calendars in the Settings menu.

Another option for people with ordinary phones is an app called Pleex.  This is a Java application so it will run on almost any phone.  You will just have to register on their website, download the application to your phone, and log in on your phone and you should be good to go.  There are other similar applications out there, too if you want to use any of them.

Rob Saunders
Saunders Business Solutions
rob@saundersbusiness.com
(205) 408-0600

Posted in Computer Back-up, Computer Maintenance | No Comments »

When I push the power button nothing happens.

March 7th, 2011

This is a bit of a more difficult problem than others addressed in this blog because there is a very wide variety of malfunctions that could cause this to happen.  What we try to do in the IT world, however, is to eliminate the most common causes for a problem like this, and then try out the more obscure theories as to its cause.  The first thing to try is checking all your connectors; you will need to make sure that there are not any cables that are damaged or broken and that there are not any loose connections.  If you still can’t turn on your device, try plugging it into a power outlet you know is working.  Failing that, you might want to try and find a reset button using your device’s manual, and push it.  If all of these measures fail to remedy the problem, you most likely have a problem with your hardware, which we can remedy for you.

Rob Saunders
Saunders Business Solutions
rob@saundersbusiness.com
(205) 408-0600

Posted in Computer Maintenance | No Comments »

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