Posts Tagged ‘networking’
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networking
Thursday, April 28th, 2011
As mentioned in some of our other blog articles, social media is a great resource that every business should be using in some form or another. Social media and networking sites offer unlimited opportunities for business and not only provide a communication outlet for consumers but help develop a stronger business presence as well.
Social media and networking sites assist millions of users in the production, contribution, and education of new ideas and concepts each and every day. Social media has the potential to play a huge role in any business, large or small. Companies that utilize social media outlets are often able to see an increase in brand recognition and web traffic. By providing simple easy to use communication platforms, social media assists companies with proactively monitoring and controlling their customer communication and perception. The following is a short list how using social media can potentially help your business.
- Share content, by sharing your content you can build your brand recognition and company’s reputation. The more thoughts, concepts, and ideas that you express while using social media the more your online presence will increase.
- Learn from your competition, keeping up with social media lets you see what other companies are doing, how they are doing it, and how you can benefit from similar concepts.
- Learn from your customers, not only can you learn from your competition but you can develop product ideas just from listening to the needs of your customers. Social media sites can provide insights into what the customers really want and allows you to develop products that are in demand
- Develop customer relationships, being in continuous contact with your customers enables you to solidify your presence and generate a positive customer perception.
- Provide quick customer support, providing a method of immediate feedback enables a business to quickly address the concerns of their customers.
- Self promotion, a business can express new concepts, promotions, and events with a global approach that is both free and effective.
- Acquire more customers, because your business gains more exposure using social media it can quickly lead to new clients.
- Allows you to save money, most importantly social media is free and can generate the same attention as a costly advertising campaign.
With all of these reasons to use social media it is not surprising how many businesses are beginning to or have been utilizing these types of sites. If not for these benefits it is still crucial for a business to use various types of social just to keep up with their competition. So, what social media sites should your company be using? The following are the top most influential social media outlets on the internet today.
“Millions of people use Facebook everyday to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.” (From Facebook.com April 28, 2011)
“Is a real-time information network that connects you to the latest information about what you find interesting. At the heart of Twitter are small bursts of information called Tweets. You can share a lot with a little space! You can tell your story within your Tweet, or you can think of a Tweet as the headline, and use the details pane to tell the rest with photos, videos and other media content.”(From Twitter.com April 28, 2011)
“Over 100 million professionals use LinkedIn to exchange information, ideas and opportunities. Stay informed about your contacts and industry, find the people & knowledge you need to achieve your goals, and control your professional identity online.” (From LinkedIn.com April 28, 2011)
“Allows billions of people to discover, watch, and share originally-created videos. YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform, and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small.” (From YouTube.com April 28, 2011)
“Digg is a place for people to discover, share, and promote content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our community.” (From Digg.com April 28, 2011)
“Reddit is a source for what’s new and popular on the web. Users like you provide all of the content and decide, through voting, what’s good and what’s junk.” (From Reddit.com April 28, 2011)
“Delicious is a Social Bookmarking service, which means you can save all your bookmarks online, share them with other people, and see what other people are bookmarking” (From Delicious.com April 28, 2011)
”StumbleUpon helps you discover and share great websites. As you click Stumble! We deliver high-quality pages matched to your personal preferences. Rating these sites you like automatically shares them with like-minded people and helps you discover great sites your friends recommend.” (From StumbleUpon.com April 28, 2011)
“Squidoo is the popular publishing platform and community that makes it easy for you to create “lenses” online. Lenses are pages, kind of like flyers or signposts or overview articles, which gather everything you know about your topic of interest–and snap it all into focus.” (From Squidoo April 28, 2011)
“Tumblr lets you effortlessly share anything. Post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos, from your browser, phone, desktop, email, or wherever you happen to be. You can customize everything, from colors, to your theme’s HTML.” (From Tumblr April 28, 2011)
“Disqus is a comment platform that helps you build an active community from your website’s audience. It has awesome features, powerful tools, and it’s easy to install.” (From Disqus April 28, 2011)
These are just a few of the many social media and networking sites out there. You are probably missing out if you’re not already using them so, what are you waiting for?
Did your favorite social media site make our list? If not share it below!
Thanks for Reading have a Great Day!
Dustin
CDTek.com
Tags: business, Communication, content, customers, networking, share, social media, social media sites, Social Networking
Posted in Blog, Business Tools, Communication | No Comments »
Friday, September 10th, 2010
 Hello and welcome to Chesapeake Digital Technology´s blog. We’re an information technology firm in Maryland. We provide 2 services, Internet Marketing / SEO and Technical Support to small and medium business. Okay, so you know how shipping ports work, right? Ships come into certain ones, while others are reserved for other types of traffic. This is analogous to how ports work when talking about exchanging data via the Web or your local network. Now, a good firewall will block the superfluous ones for you, but you might find you need to fine-tune it a bit. There’s also a great chance you’ll never have to deal with any of this. That’s what IT people are for right? Well, in the likely chance you’re going to be making decisions affecting those people, and the rest of the company, here are a few ports to know.
Port 110/25: POP/SMTP (E-Mail)
These ports are designed to have e-mail exchanges funneled through it. I won’t get into how traffic is sorted, but suffice it to say that this is the port universally agreed upon to get email. Make sure it is left open. POP and SMTP are two different ways to fetch email, and either one might be in use for your email client.
Port 443: SSL (Secure Web Connection)
We’re all seen the little lock, castle, whatever at the bottom of our browser when we go to check our bank account info. This means that the connection is secure, because the data being sent back and forth is encrypted. Port 443 is reserved for this, so make sure it is open, or you won’t be able to go anywhere that requires a name and password.
Port 80: HTTP (Web Browsing)
Straightforward web browsing is relegated to Port 80. All of your connections, usually just Internet surfing, that use HTTP go through here. If this port is closed, you won’t be able to get outside of your network for Web access. Good for tight lockdowns, bad for just about everything else.
-Josh
CDtek
Tags: blog, firewall, internet, mac, networking, PC, port, Security, TCP ports, web
Posted in Internet | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 1st, 2010
Hello and welcome to Chesapeake Digital Technology´s blog. We’re an information technology firm in Maryland. We provide 2 services, Internet Marketing / SEO and Technical Support to small and medium business.
Paying for information technology hardware and software can be costly. Okay, it is costly. Getting your business the tech it needs to thrive in today’s economy is necessary to success. However, odds are you don’t have the budget for several servers, a full time IT guy/gal, and all the other things that go along with it. Enter, Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas).
IaaS allows for companies to outsource their need for technology to bigger companies. It’s a lot like renting, except there is rarely physical hardware involved on the client’s end. IaaS uses Cloud Computing methods to connect the client, you, with a networking infrastructure somewhere else. That’s right, it uses the Internet.
Now, the benefits here are obvious. You get virtual machines that behave like physical machines, only for a fraction of the cost and sometimes, with little or no software maintenance required. That’s a big perk. You get reliable service combined with systems that you only pay for when you use them. Savings = huge. However, there are also downsides.
Okay, well I say downside(s), but the biggest one you have to worry about is availability. While the company you’re contracting is certainly going to guarantee you almost non-stop access, what you need to worry about is your own Internet access. The fact of the matter is that if the Internet connection goes down between your home/office/moonbase and theirs, you are without your precious service.
All in all, you need to examine what works best for your company. If you can’t afford to upgrade your tech right now, maybe consider IaaS as a good stopgap. Some of the major cloud computing service providers include Amazon, Google, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Skytap
-Josh
CDTeK
The major cloud service providers include <a href=”http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/” target=”_blank”>Amazon</a>, <a href=”http://code.google.com/appengine/” target=”_blank”>Google</a>, <a href=”http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/cloud.html” target=”_blank”>HP</a>, <a href=”http://www.ibm.com/ibm/cloud/” target=”_blank”>IBM</a>, <a href=”http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/” target=”_blank”>Microsoft</a>, <a href=”http://www.salesforce.com/cloudcomputing/” target=”_blank”>Salesforce</a>, and <a href=”http://www.skytap.com” target=”_blank”>Skytap</a>
Tags: Cloud Computing, networking, Utilities
Posted in Business Tools, Computers, Internet, Small Business Tips | 1 Comment »
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
 Hello and welcome to Chesapeake Digital Technology´s blog. We’re an information technology firm in Reisterstown, Maryland.. We provide several services, likeInternet Marketing and Technical Support to small and medium business.
So you own a small business. That’s great! You’re getting ready to rent some office space for you and your employees and the time has come to purchase your technology. For Internet/Network access, you have two basic options. You can go with a Wireless Network or a traditional Wired Network. There are pros and cons to both, so read on as we explore some key factors.
Wireless
Pro – Unfettered access around the office. If you are looking to provide your employees with the ability to move around the office/workspace freely, WiFi will provide a good foundation for this. Especially given the advance of tablet computing and handhelds, WiFi might be a good idea if your employees need access to data while away from their desks.
Con – Security Concerns. Wifi does make a network’s reach greater, though it also lets other people see it. There are ways to make your Wireless network incredibly secure, but if you don’t have the time/backgroun knowledge, Wifi might just be a data loss waiting to happen. Many places offer free WiFi for visitors and this is also a concern. One option here is to have a hardware (physical device) Firewall installed to direct traffic from visitors directly to the Internet. This keeps your network safe while preserving hospitality.
Wired
Pro – Security – Physical Connection Required. Since a wired network requires a physical connection to a data line, it’s going to be a lot harder for someone to break into your network. This, coupled with the fact that data lines are usually not available in areas like lobbies, etc, makes for a positive aspect of Wired connections.
Pros – Speed – Data connections via a LAN cable (Cat 5) are at about 1Gbps. This is far faster than standard Wireless G (54Mbps). If you are constantly moving data around your facility, at least for important connections like data backups, a wired connection is best here.
Cons – Physical Limitations – If using a wired connection, you are limited by physical restrictions. In essence, the cables have to go somewhere. With a wireless solution, this is much less of a concern. If your workplace is going to be fluid as far as organization of furniture, etc is concerned, at least plan ahead for having to move around lots of wiring.
There are many more things to consider when deploying a network infrastructure. Make sure to do plenty of work researching all the necessary pieces before assembling.
-Josh
Chesapeake Digital Technologies
Tags: lan, networking, small business tips, wifi, wired, wireless
Posted in Computers, Small Business Tips | No Comments »
Thursday, May 20th, 2010
 Hello and welcome to Chesapeake Digital Technology´s blog. We’re an information technology firm in Finksburg, MD. We provide several services, like SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and Technical Support to small and medium businesses.
These days, many offices are mixed environments of operating systems. While this isn’t necessarily a problem, it can lead to difficulties if not properly anticipated. The first thing I think of when looking at a network is file sharing. Now, sharing among Windows machines is usually pretty easy. A couple of clicks here and there will get you ready to go in no time. What if some of your users are on a Mac? The solution is not instantly obvious, especially if you aren’t using a domain structure. If your office has 5 to 10 computers, you’re probably just hooking them up to a router. Here is the process for enabling sharing from a computer running Mac OS X to machines running Windows.
First, you’ll need root access to the Mac. Odds are, in a small office, that the user of the Mac has admin rights to their system. Again, this is something that can be more effectively managed via a server, etc, but that’s beside the point. If your account has administrative rights to the Mac, then you are set here. Open up the System Preferences.
Apple setup this portion of the OS rather well, in my opinion. In fact, if you look at Windows 7, they emulate the style. In essence, System Preferences acts as its own program. All the links inside allow you to edit various aspects of your system, but you can always use a “Back” arrow to get back a step or return to the main page. I’m a fan. Anyway, now that you’re here, click on the “Sharing” icon located under “Internet & Wireless”.
Once here, you’ll notice a very simple layout for managing various aspects of your computer’s sharing abilities, as well as the name of the computer. The name you see here will be what others see on the network when browsing for computers with which to share. Don’t be overwhelmed by all the options here. You only want one. Select “File Sharing” on the list.
On the File Sharing screen, you will see a list of shared folders. Odds are that you’ll see a folder with your User Name in front of the word “Public Folder”. For example, I see “Josh’s Public Folder”. It should be automatically selected for you. If you noticed the box on the right hand side of the window, labeled “Users:”, you’ll see the people allowed to access the folder. Under these options you should see an item called “Everyone” and they should have “Read Only” access. This means that anyone who accesses this folder can read what you put in there, but not delete or modify the contents in any way. Determine what works best for your situation here.
Lastly, you need to make sure that everyone can see the folder. Above the “Users” window, there is a button called “Options…”. Click it. Here, you will see the various ways to share the folder. You want to make sure that AFP (Apple File Sharing) and Windows Sharing are enabled. FTP is optional, again, depending on what works best for you. Click “Done” and then close this program. As far as your Mac is concerned, you will now be able to share this folder on your network.
This is a great way to make documents available around the office, but for better availability, reliability, etc, pick up an external hard drive that can plug into a network. This ensures that all users can access the data since the device will never leave the network.
-Josh
Chesapeake Digital Technologies
Tags: file sharing, mac, networking, office, windows
Posted in Small Business Tips | 7 Comments »
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