By adding iPad support, LiveChat fits naturally into today’s mobile workflow and lifestyle. Support personnel can respond to website visitors and supervisors can keep track of website traffic and monitor chat sessions from virtually any device they choose.

LiveChat is a real-time, live-chat software tool for ecommerce sales and support that is helping ecommerce companies create a new sales channel. The company serves more than 1,000 businesses large and small, including Linens ‘N things, Adobe, ING, Orange Telecom, Better Business Bureau, and Air Asia. LiveChat products are simple to use, integrate, and customize so companies can quickly start increasing sales, offering support, and monitoring the web.

“We’re continually extending our mobile strategy since we believe that putting LiveChat in your pocket makes it even easier to provide a great ecommerce experience,” said LiveChat’s CEO, Mariusz Cieply. “Our goal is to make it as seamless and affordable as possible for ecommerce teams to be available for their website visitors at all times, and freeing support personnel from the desk is the best way to accomplish this.”

The new release is a universal app that supports both iPad and iPhone devices. The application can work in the background on these devices, automatically notifying the user whenever there’s an incoming message from a website visitor. The iPad app supports the major LiveChat mobile features, letting users:

• Preview website traffic in real-time
• Invite website visitors to chat and respond to customer-initiated chats
• Chat with multiple users at the same time, including the use of canned responses
• Monitor any ongoing chat (supervisors)
• Review sneak-peeks of customer messages, as well as survey results and client status and details (supervisors)

With LiveChat’s support for simultaneous multi-device sessions, users can be logged into LiveChat on their laptop, iPad, and iPhone all at the same time. This flexibility gives support personnel the freedom to use their preferred device at any given moment…from answering chats while working on a computer in the office, an iPhone at the bus stop, or an iPad while resting on the couch at home.

“Whether I am on the road or sitting in the office, my LiveChat iPad app is running in the background, keeping me up to date and in touch with my customers,” said a beta user of LiveChat’s iPad app, Sam Akbari, Managing Director at Webitecture (an Agile Corporation Company). “Just the other day, I used the app to convert a web visitor to a lead during my train commute to the office.”

The LiveChat for iPad app, along with all LiveChat mobile applications, is free for active LiveChat customers and is also available for use with the LiveChat trial. LiveChat starts at $36/month for a single agent, with additional discounts available for larger plans. For more information, visit http://www.livechatinc.com.

Adding to the confusion, some software vendors give the impression that free or basic security will provide adequate protection against all types of online threats, thereby creating a false sense of security among those who use their products. However, free offerings can put consumers at risk and be more costly in the end.

An Answer
A comprehensive, up-to-date security suite can protect your computer from the latest viruses and other malicious programs that can cause it to perform slowly and your programs to crash.

Security software also protects important personal data on your computer from being stolen, exploited or used without your permission. That could lead to your losing irreplaceable data, such as photos and videos or credit card information. Most people understand the value of the information on their computer. When Norton, a leading provider of Internet security products, asked people if they would accept $1,000,000 in exchange for allowing strangers unlimited access to their computer, 71 percent said “No way!”

Fortunately, a comprehensive Internet security suite will protect your personal information against the threats of today and tomorrow.

When picking out security software, keep these tips in mind:

Identity protection features are critical for protecting against cybercriminals stealing your money and identity. Ensuring your security keeps your identity safe as you shop, bank and surf online.

Look for products that provide proactive protection against known and unknown threats such as viruses, spyware and phishing attacks before they do damage to your computer. Key words to look for are “proactive protection.”

Choose a product from a trusted brand known for its expertise in security and buy from a trusted source. Hackers and cybercriminals are constantly evolving their methods and a well-known provider will have the resources and expertise to keep up. The security software from Norton offers comprehensive protection based on the way users actually behave online.

Now compatible with Outlook 2010, Single Click Filing is a clever new email organizer add-in that allows Outlook users to file their email with complete ease. The application is available on a 14-day free trial and is available for purchase for just $9.95.

About Single Click Filing
Single Click Filing was born out of the recognition that most Outlook users, for most of their messages, primarily use a handful of folders and Outlook lacks the basic functionality to make email filing quick and easy. Single Click Filing allows the user to easily define up to 10 folders and create a filing button for each folder on the Outlook toolbar. The ability to use the Backspace key to file to the most frequently used folder adds to the ease of use. The net result of using Single Click Filing is increased efficiency and ease of email filing resulting in greater control over the inbox

New features:

• Configure Backspace Key to easily file messages into your most frequently used filing folder – makes it easier to keep your Inbox uncluttered

• Compatible with Outlook 2010

• A new button ‘Any Folder’ (Alt+Z) has been added to allow filing into any Outlook folder.

• Folder tree displays the list of Most Recently Used filing folders for quick access.

Download today and try for free for 14 days:
http://www.singleclickfiling.com/download.php

For a look at what’s new in v1.2:
http://www.singleclickfiling.com/whatsnew.php

About Caelo Software B.V.
Caelo Software B.V. (pronounced Kay-lo) is dedicated to developing software productivity solutions to help people cope with “email overload”. Visit http://www.singleclickfiling.com for more information.

“I am so excited about this tool. I have never seen an online merchant provide immediate monetary incentive to customers to Facebook Like their products. With our new Facebook Like & Save Feature, all of our clients have a new tool to take their online sales viral. If you think about the concept, it just makes sense. I suspect that one day this will be a standard feature in the ecommerce industry. For now, I pleased that we are the only ecommerce provider offering it because if gives our clients a competitive advantage,” explains Craig Ross, VP of Sales at Nexternal.

The tool is easy to use for both customers and merchants alike. When a customer visits a product in the merchant’s online store they will see the Facebook Like button and the sharing discount they receive for simply liking the product. Once they select the Like button they will instantly see their discount in the shopping cart. At this same point, the Like notification will instantly appear on their Facebook News Feed with a direct link back to the merchant’s online store. With a simple click the customer has posted product info on their Facebook News Feed because the savvy merchant provided the incentive for them to do so.

For Nexternal merchants, simply select the checkbox for Facebook sharing and in the preferences specify the Sharing Amount. Turning on Facebook Like & Save is that simple. Not only does this tool provide an instant source of links into a merchant’s store it also makes a merchant’s products more attractive to the search engines now that social signals are a factor they use in their rankings.

Napa Valley’s Goosecross Cellars was an early adopter of this marketing technology with the intent of enhancing communication and enriching the overall customer experience. Owner and President of Goosecross Cellars, David Topper, states, “We have been using the Facebook Like button in our Nexternal powered store for quite some time to successfully increase brand awareness. Now that we can provide added value for our fans with an immediate incentive, I think our Facebook Likes will grow exponentially. We love the fact that we can now reward our customers automatically for posting links about their favorite Goosecross wines and sharing their experience with others. This is a clever concept and is just another reason why we continue to partner with Nexternal.”

About Nexternal
Nexternal is a leading provider of web based ecommerce software. Founded in 1999, the company’s unique ecommerce system is used by hundreds of clients in many diverse industries. Nexternal’s software features an always-on screen shopping cart with integrated marketing and fulfillment tools allowing merchants to maximize revenue while minimizing operating costs.

Nexternal’s software was rated five out of five stars by Internet.com and is a three time SIIA Codie awards finalist for Best E-Commerce Software. Clients include Weyerhaeuser, USA Today, Ste Michelle Wine Estates, Taser International and Hershey. With locations in Carlsbad, CA, and New Canaan, CT, Nexternal provides industry leading customer service. For more information, contact Nexternal via phone at 800.914.6161 or visit them online at http://www.nexternal.com.

Let technology simplify your work life with these free software programs. Each offers the ability to get work done on your own time and from anywhere.

Skype. Sign up for a free Skype account, then send instant messages or make calls from your computer. It helps if you have a microphone and video camera connected to your computer. Try it out at http://www.skype.com.

join.me. This program lets you share your desktop. Once you sign up for the free account, you can send up to 250 colleagues to http://join.me. After they enter the nine-digit code that you provide, they can see your desktop and files. This is great for meeting, training and group editing.

Open Office. Build documents, spreadsheets and presentations without the expense or megabit-girth of Microsoft Office. Download Open Office onto your computer, and use the free suite of open-source software as if it were Office. It can save and open Office files, so no one will know the difference. More details are at http://openoffice.org.

Google Docs. Google Docs allows you to host documents for free, so everyone can have a look. Go to http://docs.google.com to download your file, then share it as a link or send an e-mail to collaborators. You can change the settings to allow users to edit the document (you can track changes) or limit them to viewing only. You do not need to have Gmail, though you will need to create a free Google account.

Tungle.me. Among Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar and iCal, you might have trouble sorting through your date book. Tungle.me lets you sync these calendars and provides a place where people can schedule time with you — without your involvement. Go to http://tungle.me for more information.

Here are the top 10 e-mail features your business needs to succeed:

Security—Viruses and spam can slow down e-mail, steal confidential information and use your computers to attack websites. Ensure that your information is safe with built-in anti-virus and anti-spam filters that are constantly updated.

Reliability—Growing businesses can’t afford downtime. Insist on 99.9 percent uptime with a financially backed guarantee.

Backup—Losing information due to a power outage or accident can be catastrophic to a business. Make sure your provider routinely backs up data to multiple geographic locations.

Support—Problems arise with any system. Confirm that you have round-the-clock phone support for your e-mail.

Storage—For many, e-mail is a default storage system. Look for systems with generous e-mail box sizes in the 20-25 GB range and the ability to send and store large attachments.

Compatibility with mobile devices—With more and more phones able to connect to e-mail, it’s important to ensure they’ll work well with your business e-mail system. Make sure your e-mail provider has support for Windows Phone, iPhone, Android and Blackberry, among others.

Web access from different browsers—Particularly if you travel, it’s important to make sure your e-mail system allows easy access from a PC, phone and a variety of Web browsers including Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox and Chrome, so you have uninterrupted access.

Offline support—If you use Microsoft Outlook, make sure your provider has full support for its features, including offline access, so you can continue to be productive even without an Internet connection.

Control—It’s your e-mail, so even if you don’t manage servers in-house, confirm that your e-mail system gives you the ability to manage things like security settings, distribution groups and shared address book information over the Web.

Easy to use—For a tool you use every day, it has to include features that make your life easier. Look for the latest features, such as:

• Ability to sort e-mail the way you normally work-by date, sender or subject;
• Shared calendaring, so users can see their colleagues’ schedules to book meetings;
• The ability to include conference rooms and equipment when scheduling meetings;
• Shared mailboxes that multiple people can access and respond to, such as customer service e-mail accounts.

Free e-mail systems generally don’t provide the security and reliability needed for business e-mail, but Microsoft has recently made available new versions of Microsoft Exchange Server and Exchange Online, part of the Microsoft Online Services suite. Exchange Online is their hosted e-mail that offers secure, reliable e-mail for businesses for as little as $5 a month.

By making sure your e-mail makes the grade in these categories, you can have the confidence of knowing your system is secure and will run smoothly while you get on to the more important work of growing your business.

More information is available at http://www.microsoft.com/online/exchange-online.aspx.

“Saying no to PowerPoint solves the problem for a week. Training people to use PowerPoint solves the problem for a lifetime,” says Bruce Gabrielle, author of Speaking PowerPoint: the new language of Business. Gabrielle’s book, Speaking PowerPoint, cites dozens of research studies showing presentations that include PowerPoint make audiences more likely to understand and agree with you, when used correctly.

Gabrielle’s book helps readers discover how to make their slides clearer, more convincing, and built in half the time.

Learn a new method for business managers who want to use PowerPoint at work to drive strategy. The Mindworks Presentation Method is based on 40 years of research in brain science, instructional design and information design and will help you to

• Eliminate time wasters and complete PowerPoint decks three times faster
• Enhance your credibility by creating visually pleasing slides using simple graphic design rules
• Make complex slides easier to understand and avoid “Death by PowerPoint” forever
• Make audiences more likely to agree with you by applying the proven principles of master persuaders

In the first book of its kind, author Bruce Gabrielle reviews 40 years of research from fields as diverse as information design, neuroscience, cognitive science, education, advertising, graphic design and the legal profession to learn the secrets of using visual communication to powerfully influence in the boardroom.

Based on how the mind works, the MindWorks Presentation Method shows you how to create business slides that are clear, professional-looking and convincing, and can be your secret weapon for selling ideas like never before and winning in the idea marketplace.

“PowerPoint is not the problem. The problem is people approach it like a grade 3 art project or just mindlessly start filling in the PowerPoint bullet point template. That’s not the right way to approach PowerPoint.”

Tips to Improve Your PowerPoint Presentations:

READ a book on how to use PPT better. If you develop PowerPoint slides for internal business presentations, Gabrielle recommends any one these: Speaking PowerPoint, The Visual Slide Revolution, The Seven Slide Solution, Information Dashboard Design and Advanced Presentations by Design.

PLAN your deck on paper before you start creating slides. This will help slide creators resist the impulse to just use bullet points.

WRITE your slide title out as a full sentence, so the audience doesn’t have to guess what point the speaker is trying to make.

USE ONE LESS visual ornament. Remove any one of these (your choice): busy template backgrounds, color backgrounds, drop shadows, pointless animations, WordArt.

For those who manage a team of people, or an entire company, Gabrielle has three additional suggestions:

CALCULATE how much time people are wasting on PowerPoint. Gabrielle finds training can cut in HALF the amount of time persons spend in PowerPoint. Says Gabrielle, “How much would that save your company?”

HAVE A MEETING after calculating potential savings, and decide if your company can afford this waste. “Don’t just tolerate bad PowerPoint in your company,” advises Gabrielle, “just as you wouldn’t tolerate poor customer service, slow internet connections or unproductive sales reps.”

CONDUCT A WORKSHOP. Hire a trainer and have them educate just one group in your company, and see how much their PowerPoint improves. Gabrielle even offers free one-hour workshops for businesses in the Seattle area.

Says Gabrielle, “PowerPoint is not going away. It’s a critical business skill for the 21st century that combines the persuasive power of pictures and text leading to clearer communications and better decision making.”

More information about Bruce Gabrielle, and the book Speaking PowerPoint, can be found at http://www.speakingppt.com.

The software can backup in iPad/iPod/iPhone to PC or iTunes; file transfer from PC to devices in high-speed; CD/DVD/audios/videos convert to iPad/ iPod/iPhone music/movies; online videos download and convert from top online video websites; excellent iPhone ringtones create from audios/videos; PDF/EPUB books move to devices and so on.

The multifunctional iPad manager can also help to connect multiple iOS devices simultaneously and transfer files between them freely, and allow users to preview and export photos and videos shot by iPhone.

Manage files between devices (iPod, iPad, iPhone, DVD, CD) and PC.

• Transfer music, movies, photos, PDF and EPUB formatted books and iPhone ringtones between iPad/iPod/iPhone and PC.
• Backup files in iPad/iPod/iPhone to iTunes library, support latest iTunes 10.
• Rip CD/DVD, including ISO image files and IFO folders to iPad, iPod and iPhone compatible music and movies
• Convert audio and video to iPad, iPod, iPhone music & movies, including formats like M2TS, MTS, AVI, MPEG, WMV, DAT, TS, MPV, NSV, MOV, QT, H261, H264, WMA, AAC, AIF, AIFF, AC3 and so on.
• Preview and export pictures taken by iPhone camera.

Download online videos

• One-step to download and convert online videos from top online video websites.
• Include YouTube, Metacafe, Dailymotion, Break, Vimeo, Revver, Blip, Vidilife and Stickam.

Editing

• Add, edit, remove Apple devices playlists and photo albums
• Make iPhone ringtones from chosen audio and video segment
• Edit iPhone ringtones with fade-in-n-out effect and adjust volume so easy.
• Edit the bit rate, frame rate for target format professionally in setting options.

4Media iPad Max Platinum will not only let you transfer music, but it will also backup all iPad files to your computer and other devices including iPad Wi-Fi, iPad Wi-Fi+3G, iPad 16GB, iPad 32GB, iPad 64GB, iPod, nano (5th Gen), iPod mini, iPod shuffle, iPod classic, iPod touch, iPod touch 4, iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4.

Flexible File Transfer
Whenever iPad users connect to their computers they may end up transferring unwanted files — creating a lot of time wasting. This solution enables you to choose only the files that you want — to select all of your files, check “Select all” to transfer from or to iPad and computers, no matter which computer or iTunes library that iPad is associated with.

Download Online Video
Directly download online videos including the YouTube HD videos to Apple devices with 4Media iPad Max Platinum, and other online video service as Metacafe, Dailymotion, Break, Vimeo, Revver, Blip, Vidilife and Stickam.

For more information visit their website.

Because of low entry and exit barriers and low marginal-production cost, new-product development takes place rapidly in the software industry, says Shang. However, the industry’s bankruptcy rate of 15.9 percent is much higher than the rates in other industries. For example, the bankruptcy rate in the pharmaceutical industry is 4.7 percent.

Shang and her colleagues examined software-company data collected between 1995 and 2007 from 870 firms. The collaborators looked at three aspects of internal business capabilities-marketing, operating, and research and development. They also examined two types of competitive actions: those that were innovation-related (product and marketing actions) and those that were resource-related (capacity and scale expansion, operations, service, mergers, and acquisition). They found that a higher operating capability has the greatest influence on a software firm’s chance of survival. Firms with a greater emphasis on innovation-related competitive actions have a greater likelihood of survival, and this likelihood increases when the firms also have higher marketing and operating abilities.

The researchers divided the software industry into three subsections: sector one, which included desktop suites and other business-enabling software; sector two, which included video games and graphics software; and sector three, which included operating systems and security programs. Depending on their sectors, software businesses need a slightly different approach to investments, says Shang. Firms producing games, for example, must emphasize marketing, whereas companies making products with a long life cycle (such as operating systems) must focus on operating abilities and research and development. Traditional software companies, those producing desktop applications, should follow a strategy somewhere between these two approaches.

“Our research underscores the importance of operating capability in the software industry,” says Shang. “Managers of knowledge-based firms often emphasize big ideas (innovation). Our study shows that operational efficiency is even more important for firm survival. Also, competitive strategies and dynamic actions will have more impact if they are supported by strong capabilities. In short, to improve performance and competitiveness, software companies should focus on synergies between firm capabilities and strategic actions.”

Article by: Amanda Leff Ritchie

by: John Vanover, President of ESBJournal

I’ve been an Mechanical Engineer for nearly twenty years. Over that period of time, I’ve done a variety of different things. One thing that is common amongst them all is the need to be able to communicate technical ideas visually. While I learned technical drawing with a T-square and triangle, today’s students have the benefit of computers — as well as leaps and bounds of progress in CAD software.

For the non-engineer types, CAD is Computer Aided Drafting or Computer Aided Design. When CAD was in its infancy, it was little more than a direct translation of the drafting board tools. Today, though, CAD is a designer’s playground where it is possible to create three dimensional objects on their screen and look at them from any angle.

I hate to say it, but as my roles have changed over the years; my use of CAD has declined — a fact that I regret due to my love of the detail work involved in creating drawings. When Traci asked if I’d be interested in reviewing some new CAD software, I immediately said, “definitely!”

After I downloaded and installed Alibre Design Expert, I thought it might take me a while to really learn enough about it in order to provide a thorough evaluation. I was basing this on some of my previous experience with ProEngineer’s Wildfire version. Turns out, I was wrong.

Alibre Design Expert and ProEngineer are similar products. They both have a series of modules that step you through the creation process. The first step is to build a three dimensional parts, the second step is to take the parts and put them together in assemblies, and the final step is to create drawings from these assemblies and parts. Alibre Design Expert has two other modules, one for creating sheet metal parts, and one for creating Bills of Material from your assemblies.

The first thing I did after installing the software was visit a series of online tutorials provided by Alibre. I’ve described learning new CAD software like learning a new language before. Sometimes it’s easy and sometimes it’s not. But after watching the tutorials, I got pretty good sense of what this dialect was going to be.

The part creation process was fairly intuitive after I got into it. After watching a few short tutorials, and just a few hours’ of work, I had the beginning three pieces of small industrial robot.

To give this perspective, after the same amount of time in ProEngineer, I’d be nowhere near the same spot. ProEngineer has a number of confirmation steps, and its easy to get bogged down in the menus and become frustrated. Design Expert was a completely different story for me. I felt as if I had the freedom to create the part in a way that was natural. The process was more about what I wanted to create, rather than dealing with menus and datum structures. The learning curve was fairly quick, and I was pleased with what I was able to accomplish, considering most other software had taken me hours just to learn the basics of the software instead of actually creating.

Moving on from the part module, I wanted to give the assembly module a try. And again I was impressed with ease of use. Instead of worrying about datums and axis, I was able to quickly think through how things went together, and the software seemed to intuitively know what I wanted to put where with a few clicks. Well done, Alibre.

Next up was the drawing module. I was impressed to find creating a three-view drawing was automated. Start the module, select a part and half the work is done. The dimensioning tools work intuitively, as well. Within a couple of minutes, I was dimensioning away.

One area that I was having trouble with was creating an exploded view of my assembly. However, I clicked on the help menu, did a search and quickly understood what I needed to do. I really have to compliment the team that put the help menus together. If you have a little CAD experience, the tutorials and help documentation will have you creating in no time.

The same care went into the design of the Alibre website (http://www.alirbre.com). You can go to the site and quickly learn that there a variety of version of available from hobbyist to full a full professional level. The site has add-ons and other items such as training and CAM packages available. Contrast this to the PTC website for ProEngineer, and you can see that Alibre might be a smaller company, but they are dedicated to their product and giving the customer what they are looking for.

I really like the fact that there a variety of levels of this product. The advent of computer gaming and 3D printing has introduced CAD to a whole new audience outside of traditional manufacturing and design. While I might not want to spend $1,400 for the full professional version so my son or daughter can create computer game objects, the $99 Hobbyist level version might be just the ticket to get them started. Who knows how important those skills might become in our ever increasingly digital world.