If you are considering using online small business accounting software to help get your business finance into shape here are points to consider before deciding which provider to go with.

Working at an online accounting provider has given me an insight into some things that you may wish to check. This article is written with the view that the company buying the SaaS accounting app is a small sized business owner or decision maker.

Data Storage:

Where is your data stored? In today’s world we are more than happy to submit our data to online stores, surveys and hold our email conversation data in the cloud. The majority of the time your data is going to be securely held on a securely housed server either in house or by a third party like Amazon (for example). However you should always be careful to check that the server is monitored 24 hours a day and has limited personnel access to the server (for large third party providers this will be the most basic level of protection). Another thing to consider is if the data is stored on a self hosted server, you need to make sure the data is backed up off site as well. I am not an expert in the way that data needs to be stored; however I do know that these are a few factors to question before subscribing to a small business accounting service. Continue Reading »Points to consider when choosing online accounting software

As a programmer or database administrator, you’ll need the ability to manage databases for your applications. photo credit: sermoa

A good SQL editor is usually required to run sql queries for all sorts of functions such as adding and editing data, adding and dropping tables, etc.

Each database usually has it’s own set of client based SQL editor tool which allows a client machine to connect to the database server to perform database administration work.

All you need in order to log into the database is the correct credentials (username and password).

Sometimes, the client tool for the database may not be available and you need the ability to quickly access the database to check some table records.

If this is the case then here is a list of free or open source SQL editor tools for you to begin running SQL queries against your DB. Continue Reading »List of free or open source SQL editor tools

Today I’ll start of by showing you an animated video which I created online. Simply click on the the red play button to begin the movie.

To my email readers, if you don’t see the video loaded on your email client, please visit this web link.

To create the above animated video, all I had to do was to select my preferred cartoon characters, background image, music file and simply type out some text as the script and Walla! the video was created for me! Quite cool huh?

Before I proceed to mention this cool SaaS web app, I think videos are a great way to convey a message as it grabs users attention easily. The following are some ways on how you can benefit from creating an animated video for your business:

• A business proposal to get new customers.
• An introduction about your company, who you are and what you do.
• Animated videos on frequently asked questions (FAQs). Definitely beats reading lots of texts.
• A customer enquiring about your products and services while your sales person provides some detailed explanations (Q&A type).
• And lastly, to show off your creative skills where it matters mosts.

The web app used to create the animated video above is called xtranormal Continue Reading »How to create an animated video online

Recently a friend ask me if there is a way that he could host a Joomla CMS web application without having to purchase a new server. photo credit: dabidmp

He needed to run the open source CMS on a trial run just to get feedback from users before purchasing and setting up on a real production server.

I asked him if he has any existing servers in his office which isn’t loaded heavily with other apps.

He has a file server which acts as a file repository for everyone in office.

So I told him that he could consider installing a virtual machine software such as VMWare Player or VirtualBox on the file server and run a virtual appliance containing the LAMP stack so he could install Joomla CMS in it.

He then asked me for more info on how virtual machines works and what’s the cost associated to running a virtual appliance? It’s FREE, I said.

In fact he can just download the entire virtual appliance with everything already installed such as:

• Ubuntu operating system
• Apache web server
• MySQL database
• PHP language
• Joomla CMS version 1.6.x

Wow! That’s great he said. Now where’s the download link?

Simply head on over to Jumpbox! Continue Reading »Download prebuilt virtual appliance from Jumpbox