BNI Tech
Alliance, Bellevue Group
Tech Tips for March, 2006
Ruben Jeffries, Mac Daddy.
Tech Tip: Fry's Electronics is selling a $7.00 LED insert for 2-AA maglite flashlights.
Jim Rosemary, NewTechWeb
Marketing Tip: I-Our-Us Disease: "we were started...", "our product line...", "our president...", "I have been in business ..."
Better wording: "You will prosper/benefit/receive such-and-such services from us..."
Tech Tip: seeing a gradual increase in Email problems, caused by DNS issues. www.DNSstuff.com for checking
CheckDNS.net checks out discrepancies between DNS 1 and DNS 2, for example.
InternetFrog.com does DNS information, NSLookup in the background. you can act like you are in the perspective of Comcast.net, for example, and make sure that the Comcast.net users are being seen correctly by the Net.
Book Tip: "The Power of Personal Accountability", Authors Samuel & Chiche
Gordon McCallon, does very good Ink Jet Cartridges, find him on BNINW.com.
Target Service and Supply, Bothell 425 820-6042
Tech Tip: for Spam and Fraud (Phishing) filtering, try CloudMark from CloudMark.com. Works with Outlook and Outlook Express.
Barbara Harmon
Tech Tip: NoloPress.com, lots of downloadable contracts and legal forms.
Tech Tip: seeing lots of PayPal Phishing attempts. Very hard to tell the difference. PayPal
Bob Woodward
Tech Tip: trial software ("foistware") should all be removed from new computers, before installing anything else.
Tech Tip: for designing a database, a graphical tool is nice. DBDesigner version 4, but it hasn't been maintained for several years.
on SourceForge, there's another called Druid
Tech Tip: plastic bags for sale at Boeing Surplus, sold by the pound.
used for organizing documents.
Ron Hayworth, Geeks on Call.
Tech Tip: while un-infecting a machine, turn off System Restore, and remove all previous Restore Points. Also boot up in Safe Mode, and run your AntiVirus program against the box.
Also, Microsoft has just released their Windows Defender, Beta 2 (formerly Microsoft AntiSpyware, Beta 1)
www.microsoft.com home page, under Popular Downloads
Tech Tip: Assassin 2.0. Chases down processes, similar to Hijack This. majorgeeks.com/Assassin_d4794.html
Tech Tip: D-Link Gamer's Lounge, a high-end router, available in both wired and wireless versions, has configurable rules for prioritizing various kinds of traffic on your network.
Tech Tip: D-Link SecureSpot, $100 firewall for home.
dlink.com/products/securespot/
Tech Tip: Avast AntiVirus
Andrew Bond, Rain Networks
Tech Tip: a lot of people have questions about VoIP, there's about 3 versions. Vonage not appropriate for businesses. not good for more than 60 users. True business solution = SpeakEasy.
Christine Elly
Tech Tip: if you need to use Crystal Reports, it costs $195.00, but it comes FREE with "Maximizer", that's the Full Version of CR.
Tech Tip: Skype is now owned by eBay. Christine uses it a lot to talk with friends/relatives in England and Australia. Skype can give you a local number in London, for example, and it can forward to your Skype software on your computer, wherever you are.
Tech Tip: use "Confer" with Skype for remote-control of PCs. $20/month, or $200 for a lifetime subscription.
Tech Tip: Microsoft Server 2003, a Microsoft blogger, at StewedPrunes.com
Scott Wenger, WebProdigy.com
Tech Tip: Epson printers: he tried a no-frills Ink Cartridge refill, not very impressed with the results. Cheap ink, wasn't being absorbed into the paper.
Steve Hartley, Mugshot Caricatures
60-70 caricatures an hour.
$150 an hour, 2 hour minimum.
Fastest Caricature Artist in Washington.
23 years experience.
Tech Tip: great printer: $1000 business cards, $40, OvernightPrints.com
Bob Hanley, Act! Certified Consultant
Act! for Palm 8 is being released.
if you have a BlueTooth-enabled Phone, and your PDA is BlueTooth-enabled, you can click on the contact on your PDA, and it will dial the number on your phone.
Tech Tip: sending large files thru AIM Instant Messenger. 80 meg in 10 minutes. Just drag it to the AIM icon. Other user has to also be online.
Allen Otto
Tech Tip: www.AtomicPark.com
for software prices. Microsoft, Symantec. Excellent customer service.
Tech Tip: a couple of clients needed remote assistance, no way Allen could get to them. Had XP Home, not Pro. Asked the users to email a Remote Assistance, but it wouldn't come through the firewall. Had the client make a HotMail account, got MSN Messenger started, had the request come through Messenger.
Tech Tip: new Spyware, Spy Falcon, tells the user they are loaded with spyware, "come to our site", etc.
tried Safe Mode, Hijack This, whacked out NAV 2005
Used Panda Titanium 2006, that killed it. had it on disk.
Bill Thomassen
Tech Tip: watch out for bogus Domain Name Renewal letters to your clients re: their Internet Domain Names.
Christine is our presenter tonight.
she is showing Maximizer, which runs with SQL in the back-end.
