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SalonBiz Light – Free Software for the Beauty and Spa Salon

When I repair and upgrade customers computers, occasionally I become familiar with specialized software and databases they might need reinstallation or backing up before doing work. I recently worked on a system for a small independent hair salon in midtown Tucson that ran the business part of the operation on her laptop computer. This allowed her to have more time with creative work with clients hair as well as marketing her business.

She used a software from a company called Neill Technologies which is part of the Neill Corporation, one of the largest Aveda distributors in the United States. What surprised me about the software SalonBiz Light was that it was a free program she downloaded from the SalonBiz website. Usually when a person or company tells me they downloaded a free software program from the internet, red flags are raised and I begin to get concerned for my customer. This was not the case after looking at the reputation of Neill Technologies and the products they market. According to the Director of Sales for Neill Technologies Jill Gentry, they decided to offer the SalonBiz Light for the salons that may be running  4 stations or less that need to have an organized system for charting appointments, job tickets and keeping track of inventory.  

The software even for being a Light version, is rather full featured. There are certainly good reasons for upgrading or subscribing to the Full version however for the start-up or non-computerized, this is a great way to get ramped up. The full version offers marketing features such as emailing customers to remind them on appointments or sending out announcements of specials. Full Support and webinars are available with at your own speed online training as well. Online appointments can be made by the Salon or Spa professionals appointments with a WebBiz 2.0 product that plugs seamlessly into your website.

If this is your business or you know somebody that works as a salon professional, have them take a look at http://www.techtalkradio.com/software/salonbiz.html. I interviewed Jill Gentry from Neill Technologies who shared with me some of the finer points of the SalonBiz Light program as well as new technology including an iPAD application for the full users of SalonBiz. Be sure to check out the website for the company at http://www.salonbiz.com and the Blog at http://salonspabestpractices.com

If your business uses a special software program geared at your operation, we would love to know about it and possibly feature it in one of our segments on Industry Software.

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System Mechanic 10 Featured Review and Interview

Photo of Box for System Mechanic 10
Review and interview on the New Version
There is something quite nice about unwrapping the sticky plastic protector off a brand new PC. The smell of the new system wafts into your nose as you hook up all the connectors to the colored tabs. Once completed you gently press that power button with hesitation, it’s great feeling.
Seeing that Logo come up on the screen is the first sign that everything is OK and then, slow down mode. We all have to go through it with a Manufacturer’s PC. We have to enter settings, log-in info, name and address for warranty and activation and then countless screens of information to make the experience better. I’ve always felt that this is like opening the doors to a candy shop and holding the kids back until all the lights are on. <Suddenly I am hungry for Candy!??>

Unless you have built a custom PC, you really never get to see your PC working at its optimum. After you have gone through the process of loading all the extra software, trials, help programs and connection wizards – your system is already taking a hit with unneeded and resource hogging software. I really have nothing against the manufacturers of PCs but honestly, they want to give you a ton of software so you’ll be able to boast to your friends and neighbors how many different wonderful things your computer can do.

I spoke with Abbas Mehdi from iolo technologies LLC about the latest System Mechanic software version 10.  The software is designed to optimize the computing experience and give the system a like new feel.  Even for new computers the software can streamline the start up and provide a faster boot time to begin working or playing with your new computer.  Abbas told us of the new licensing plan for the program which now enables the entire home to use the license for System Mechanic 10 .  Technicians in the labs of  iolo technologies recently published a report of the 9 root causes of PC slow down.  From window start-up bottle necks to fragmented system files,  System Mechanic 10 examines these causes and corrects them easily.  Listen to our interview with Abbas Mehdi at http://www.techtalkradio.com/software/systemmech.html and read our review on the same page.

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Nero Multimedia Suite 10 Platinum HD

Box Shot of the Nero 10 Multimedia Suite Platinum HD
Nero 10 Multimedia Suite Platinum HD

  Craig shared with TechtalkRadio about the new features of this Suite including a Plugin called the Move It Plug-In which gives users the ability to move content such as Music and photos as well as Video files to and from mobile devices easily. This feature is found in the MediaHub, a part of the new Nero Multimedia Suite 10 Platinum HD. Andy also found out about some new templates and a Creative Collection Pack that is available in not just the Multimedia Suite 10 Platinum HD but also the new Nero Video Premium HD.

Andy Taylor talked this afternoon with Craig Campbell, Technical Director at Nero on the companies announcement last week of two new products for the Multimedia Enthusiast which will be available later this month.

 

“With more consumers adopting Blu-Ray capable video cameras, this is a great solution for those looking for ease of use as well as step throughs in accomplishing various task’s which might have  previously been geared strictly at the professional user” says Andy Taylor of TechtalkRadio. Tune in to listen to the interview with Craig Campbell of Nero and learn how you can take the two software releases “Nero Multimedia Suite 10 Platinum HD ” or “Nero Video Premium HD” for a test drive. Be sure also to listen in for information on the set of tools that can assist on backup and restoring data with the “Suite within a Suite” Nero’s Back It Up and Burn which is also available in the Multimedia Suite 10 Platinum HD. 

Check out the Interview at http://www.techtalkradio.com/software/nero.html

Andy Taylor1 Commentsoftware, TechtalkRadio, TTR Website

Free Email Programs

Had a Radio Listener Instant Message me today on Facebook wondering if I could recommend a Free Email program. She stated that she had previously used MSN but had been hacked into and got rid of the program. At the top of my mind, I recommended Gmail. The program comes from Google which offers a wide range of tools that you may or may not use from Google Voice, Talk to Picasa to email with Gmail just to name a few.

As soon as I had typed my suggestion for Gmail I received a response right back, “Can’t use that – friend had hers hacked..” I was beginning to see a pattern here. The thought came to mind about delivering a smart alec answer of “Maybe you should use the postal service” but then thought, she might come back with “somebody stole the mail out of the box!”

This of course for those of you looking for a free email program or using any type of service on the web brings the reminder to make sure your passwords are difficult to crack. Using words like password, dog, admin or pass are easily guessed and could open up your Email or any kind of program requiring a login to problems.

Another reminder is to not use the same password for multiple services. While this can be more difficult as more services require user names and passwords, this can help protect you in the case a system is compromised with personal information and associated passwords.  There are some programs and even hardware on the market to help not only create passwords that would be very difficult to crack but also store passwords for multiple sites. One of those companies is ID Vault found at http://www.idvault.com/ 

If you are looking for some ideas on how to create a viable password, a good rule of thumb is make the password more then 8 characters. There are some password cracking programs that can quickly uncover a password in less then an hour when the password is less then 5 characters. Using Lower and Upper Case along with punctuation and numbers is also a great way to make the password more difficult. Many will recommend using a favorite term or saying to help deliver a strong password. Maybe you enjoy eating at Five Guy Burgers (Plug Bell Please). How about taking the term “I Love Eating at 5 Guys Burgers!”  This could be translated to Ilea5GB! – We have upper Case, a Number and  Punctuation mark in the password.

It’s also good to remember safe computing as well. If you get email from unknown users asking you to click on something, do you really have to? Do you have to open a file from a known user that you haven’t talked with in awhile? Do you have a good anti-virus program? There are some free ones that are quite good on the market however, having the security of a program that is constantly testing and delivering solutions to its users with a paid subscription to updates will provide more protection again new viruses. Isn’t it worth the 30 or 40 bucks a year?

So please remember, in most cases – if your Email was hacked – there was probably a step here and there that was missed. Clicking a link, no protection on your system, using a public computer and not logging out or a system already infected with a keylogger or a password that can be guessed at or easily figured out. Also, don’t write your password under your keyboard or on a post it note attached to the monitor. Yes, I’ve seen that before.  For more information on Virus Protection take a look at http://www.symantec.com The Makers of the popular Norton Anti-Virus or http://www.eset.comthe makers of one of my favorites Eset Nod32.  More tips on Password Creation can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/protect/fraud/passwords/create.aspx

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until Sept. 15, free software

Until September 15th, YouTube Music Downloader is free!

“YouTube Music Downloader is an easy-to-use windows software to download YouTube Music videos and convert them to MP3, AVI, WMV, MOV, MP4, 3GP formats. Users can download…music from youtube and listen them on their iPod, MP3 Player or watch them on your PC, iPod, iPhone.”