By deploying cloud based IT solutions from Paragon and Thinkgrid, business will drastically reduce the complexity and cost of their IT, while gaining the security and reliability that had previously been reserved for only the largest of corporations with the biggest budgets.  With out the risk of long term commitments and huge capital investments small to mid sized companies can now take advantage of geographically dispersed fully redundant data centers to deliver highly reliable  server and desktop solutions to their employees.

Email us at cloud@paragonsystemsolutions.com if you would like to know more!

About ThinkGrid!

Founded in 2008, ThinkGrid is headquartered in the UK, with offices located in London, Edinburgh, Chicago and Subotica by experienced IT entrepreneurs. Thinkgrid operates Tier 3 & 4 data centers across the world that run a state-of-the-art, fully scalable IT infrastructure underpinning their services and platform providing low latency, to their partners.

Over 1000 organizations rely ThinkGrid’s services on a day to day basis, powered by apartner ecosystem which encompasses over 100 partners who deliver and resell ThinkGrid’s services, packaging them for different vertical markets.

About Paragon System Solutions

Paragon System Solutions was founded in 2004 on the vision of delivering technology solutions to our clients that increase efficiency and productivity, leading to higher profitability. To achieve this vision we form strong partnerships with our clients and develop a deep understanding of how they do business and more importantly generate revenue. This partnership ensures that IT investments are directly in line with achieving company goals.

Netbooks and Netvertables

Netbooks sit somewhere in-between a laptop and a cell phone.  You can get them real cheap from a cell provider like the Samsung Go from AT&T (No, I don’t get paid.  Maybe I should, but I don’t) for $199.00!  That’s just under a third of the retail cost for an ultra portable laptop that is always connected to the net. I think for some this will replace the need for a laptop all together.  You are already used to texting on your tiny little cell phone pad, using a device like this to take notes and use your SAAS based applications like Salesforce.com and Google Apps will be a breeze in comparison.  All these years the laptops have been getting smaller and smaller, I think we have finally found the ultimate evolution.  The performance on these devices can be a little sluggish for some tastes but the portability, price and convenience make up for it.  They come with Bluetooth, so you could even install Skype and use it as your cell phone very very cheaply.  Where these devices get me is in the “Netvertable” category.  These are essentially mini Tablet PCs like the Lenovo S10-3, you can have a detailed look at one here on Engadget.  I am very interested in pen computing.  Some of my clients prefer me not to be clacking away at a keyboard in a meeting with them.  Plus I recently saw a study on Tablet PCs in schools that showed that a laptop monitor acts as a barrier to collaboration and that students were more productive in teams using tablets then using standard laptops.  This little bad boy would do the trick for me.  And if that is too small for you there is always the standard 14 inch Tablet PCs, but I have always found those to be a bit pricey. And just so you know both Amazon and Barns and Noble have free downloadable E-reader applications for PCs, Macs and Handhelds and I am sure Apple’s isn’t far off .  Having a Netbook or Netvertable would eliminate your need for a Nook or Kindle.

Slates, Tablets and E-Readers

There was a whole lot of buzz about Apples “Tablet” on the internet months, maybe even a year, before it was released.  And then in the week before the launch I must have seen at least a hundred articles and blog posts on the thing.  For me, it’s kind of a dud. It is more then an e-reader, less then a Laptop and expensive.  Now, I am a resent convert from an Apple hating maniac.  The I-Phone and the latest OS X versions have really made me rethink my whole stance on Apple and Mac’s all together.  That being said, they did not impress me here, I’ll wait for Dell’s Android powered Streak. As for e-readers I am sure they have their place for folks out there, but I just see them eventually gathering dust once the novelty wears thin and your back to whatever other device, your laptop or cell phone, that you normally use.

In the End, It’s a Matter of Taste

When all is said and done, almost anyone could get a lot out of any these devices.  But really, do you need a third device? Do you need an E-reader a Cell Phone and a Tablet?  I don’t think so.  In fact I think a good Tablet or Slate PC could take the place of all three!  Wouldn’t that be nice?  Just one device to lug around instead of two or three?  Next we won’t even need a Tablet or Cell phone, we’ll just have little wireless communication devices embedded in our heads.  But I’ve said too much already.

So What the Frak is the Cloud?

For many years geeks like me have represented networks; any network, your small business network, the Internet, private networks between office locations, anything with a cloud. In the diagram below you can see that your company’s firewall sits between two networks, The Internet and Your Company Network, represented as clouds.

The term Cloud Computing is overused today and its been said that all forms of computing will eventually be encompassed by the term. All Cloud Computing really means is putting some portion of your computing experience out on the Internet, instead of inside your company network. You have likely used some form of Cloud Computing already and not even been aware. SAAS, or Software As A Service, is one form of cloud computing where the Software is hosted in the cloud and accessed via your web browser. Gmail and Google Apps, Salesforce.com and WebEx are all examples that you are likely familiar with. These software applications are not installed on your PC, but accessed via your web browser. All the hard stuff happens outside your computer and you do not have to worry about it a bit. Another way to leverage the cloud is to host your processing power and data storage space there. Amazon’s web services, Amazon EC2 and S3, are the best known of these type of services. Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) allows you to leverage as much processing power as you need at any time (Thus it’s “elastic” nature) via virtual servers and pay for it by the hour. Another feature of EC2 is the ability to leverage Amazon’s global network to have one virtual server based here in the US and another in Europe providing for greater redundancy and global performance. “That’s great, but what about data storage?” you say (Stay with me folks, it will all come together in a moment) That is where Amazon S3, or Simple Storage Service, comes into play. This service allows you to leverage Amazon’s endless array of global storage resources for a nominal storage fee, and some Tolls for incoming and outgoing traffic. I know it sounds expensive, but believe me it is way less expensive then trying to build this infrastructure yourself and that is really what this cloud stuff is all about, renting services from someone else who is an expert at delivering, instead of reinventing the wheel yourself.

So What? What Does This Mean For My Business?

Only the ability to leverage all the same tools the big boys have, without the big boy budget. Over the years Enterprise software has become very complex and extremely successful at cutting costs and leveraging information within an organization. Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Sales Force Automation (SFA), Enterprise Content Management (ECM) all these three letter acronyms stood for the same thing as far as small business was concerned, TM$ (Too Much Money). But these days you do not need to buy a $10k server and $20k software that is likely overkill for your business, you can whip them up virtually in the cloud and pay for only what you use. A CRM project can cost tens of thousands of dollars and still leave a bad taste in the consumers mouth; trust me I’ve been there. With Cloud based solutions you can skip around, find one that fits or is close enough and get going for $50.00 to $150.00 a user per month. All you need is a desktop, a credit card, access to the internet and your up and running like the big boys in minutes.

Another great example is the new social networking trend. Everyone is trying to leverage our new connected society to benefit their business, simply for marketing or as the basis for their revenue generation itself. There is a book on my reading list, “Six Pixels of Separation: Everyone is Connected. Connecting Your Business to Everyone” that gave me an interesting fact, if Facebook were a country it would have the 6th largest population in the world. If you wanted to build a social networking site today with the expectation of going national or even global cloud computing means the ability to go to market immediately without spending tens of thousands on bandwidth and computing power and scale it as much or as little as you need. If your site goes viral and all of the sudden has a billion and a half hits a day, guess what? You’re covered. If the idea doesn’t take on quickly then at least you are only paying a nominal fee to keep it running until you hit break even or the idea does catch on. Pretty cool huh?

But Why are You Telling Us, Doesn’t This Put You Out of Business?

Heck no! Look, someone needs to help small businesses leverage this technology. All of you are very smart business people or you would not have made it through this last year, but technology for most of you is just not in your blood. We bleed silicone. Our job is to help you best leverage the cloud to improve your business’s bottom line or propel you into the next phase of your business’s life. Do you really need to pay $65.00/month/user for Salesforce.com or will Zoho work for $12? What’s the best way for your virtual team to share its information? Can you go with Google Apps or do you need MS Office? These are all subjects we can work with you on and they have huge relevance to your business today. If you want to know how your business can leverage the cloud for efficiency and profit, please contact us today!

Enter Evernote

I found Evernote one day while searching online for a replacement for PlanPlus, my former note taking and planning tool, it had just become too cumbersome to use and nearly impossible to interact with on my smartphone. I found a link to Evernote on Lifehack. One quote in particular sent me to the Evernote website. “Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible andsearch-able at anytime, from anywhere”. Evernote is an extremely lightweight, flexible, free and ubiquitous note taking tool. There are Desktop clients for Windows and Mac and smartphone clients for the Iphone, Window Mobile, Palm and Blackberry. For those times (and I find this happens to me often) when you need to take a note down and all you have for tools is a nearby desktop connected to the net there is a web client as well. All of these tools synchronize seamlessly with your Evernote online account. It really is a beautiful system, the developers should be proud.

The first thing I noticed was how fast the tool loads. It is up and ready for note taking in seconds. You can organize your notes into different notebooks, plus use the system’s free form tagging (like a blog, or wiki post) to sort them into categories across notebooks. For research Evernote adds a toolbar button to your web browser and to Microsoft Outlook, so portions or even entire contents of web pages or emails can be added to your default notebook quickly and easily. Evernote also adds a very nice screen capture tool that can be accessed via the Print Screen Button. It allows you to clip the entire application window with a single click, or click and drag to select a portion of the screen. A fast and efficient search tool rounds off the entire interface nicely. Overall, a great system for taking and organizing notes from your desktop.

If Evernote’s functionality ended there, it would still be a great tool. Add to it the fact that from your smartphone you can easily log a note by jotting it down on the screen, talking into your device, snapping a quick picture or simply typing it in. Evernote really is everywhere that you are, always ready to capture whatever it is you want to remember freeing your brain for more important tasks. This has been invaluable to me as it allows me to track with remarkable accuracy what I work on during the day and for how long. Recently our refrigerator decided to die, and while shopping I took pictures of each of the price tags to compare later at my desktop to deals I found on the web. It has endless uses.

Evernote also has a Professional (paid) edition that adds collaboration functionality and the ability to organize files. We have found this very useful for sharing notes on meetings and collaborating on projects. At $45/year per license it is a no brainier given the added storage space (though I have not even scratched the surface of the free account limit), collaboration, security and the ability to store any type of file. The premium version also allows you to search within PDF documents stored in your notebooks.

Conclusion

Evernote is an invaluable tool to me. I am really impressed with its versatility and I haven’t even come across a bug in the months I have been using it. For anyone like me who has problems remembering or getting a handle on all the different tools you need throughout the day, Evernote is a great central collection place for all your pictures, memos to self, business cards and project notes. You can download Evernote here, and check out their blog as well for some great tips on use.

It’s been a long time coming, but I have finally gotten Paragon’s blog up and running. We went with WordPress, as it seems to be the standard out there and we are very happy with it. The hardest part was setting up our theme, or the look and feel of the blog, but once that is done everything else is easy as pie (although, from a cooks perspective pie is not really all that easy, but I digress). WordPress is a great tool and its free, you really can’t beat it. If you are interested in getting your own blog running, please contact us today and we will set you up right away. It won’t hurt, I promise.

We will be posting to the blog pretty heavily in an attempt to keep you all informed on the latest tips, tricks and tools to make your technological life better. We will be talking about the latest trends in small business computing as well software and tools to simplify or enhance the daily lives of today’s small business owners and employees. Coming up will be articles on Evernote (my favorite new software) , Cloud Computing and its effect on Small Business and OpenEMM a free Email marketing tool that will save you thousands over Constant Contact or Ratepoint. So stay tuned, we’ll do our best to keep you interested, informed, and entertained.

Thanks for reading, and keep on coming back it will be worth it!

Signed..
Paragon System Solutions