Alternative Solutions.....

Looking for software that will produce documents, spreadsheets, and presentations without the usual expense? Does it need to be compatible with Microsoft Office?

Look no further than OpenOffice.org. A full featured suite of popular office applications compatible with Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint formats.

The best thing? It is free. Perfect for students needing a solution, yet lacking the funds to purchase other products.

Ask Osage Technical Services about other open source solutions for workstations, desktops, laptops, and servers.

"Because they have a false sense of security and assume they are not at risk, many small-business owners don't adequately protect their computers and networks from spyware, viruses, worms, hacker attacks, customer data theft and other security threats.

In addition, with so many balls to juggle already, entrepreneurs often put computer security far down on their to-do lists--if it makes the list at all.

The result: Nearly half of all small and mid-sized businesses have not taken the most basic security precautions, such as installing antivirus and anti-spyware programs, reports research firm AMI-Partners." Peter Alexander,entrepreneur.com

"Within a few years, our business --every equation and process that gives order to our day and every relation that defines its history -- has been detailed and stored in a computer and represents 1000s of hours of work. It's so unique, recreating it would be debilitating.

One of the biggest problems in small business today is that we under-estimate the value of that data and we have trouble believing anything can happen to those computers - until it does. And, it will."    smallbusinessschool.org

Recently, a small St. Louis County distributor began experiencing significant problems with their computers and network. A quick audit of the system revealed that there was no effective anti-virus product in the system, that administrative accounts had no passwords, and incredibly, that all of their workstations and server were completely accessible from the Internet.

They had developed a small zoo of viruses on their computers.

The evolving technologies and threats that face small businesses can become overwhelming if faced on a part-time basis. A small business manager's or owner's focus must be on customers, inventory, sales, and employees, not on keeping up with these constantly-changing threats.

Many small businesses are playing a dangerous roulette game with their most important data. They somehow believe their hard drives will never die, and yet, of course, all of them do, eventually.

Their most important data is often stored as spreadsheets, text files, or small Access databases spread amongst multiple workstations. The bookkeeper has a couple of spreadsheets with customer or employee information; the sales staff keeps a couple of spreadsheets with customer contacts. Maybe some of this is getting copied to a floppy disk every now and then.

This is a recipe for disaster.

Collect your data into properly designed database tables, put the data on a server, and schedule regular and reliable backups.