Starting a small business or working from home takes time and costs money. After you have done all the groundwork, such as a business plan, marketing strategy and finances, you will probably start thinking about the cost of PCs and software licenses. At this stage, you might have just quit your day job, have no customers, no income, and a whopping-great bank loan to keep you awake at nights.

Buy the right computer at the right price

Before rushing out to your local computer store, it’s worth making a checklist of tasks you are likely to need a new PC or notebook to perform. This requires no technical knowledge whatsoever. Any decent computer sales person will be able to translate your needs into features and functionality. The Internet provides a wealth of opportunities to compare prices, brands, delivery schedules, special offers and freebies. And don’t be afraid to haggle, even online. The PC market is highly volatile and extremely competitive. Everyone wants to make a sale. Of course, if you just want a bog-standard, cheap PC then visit Dell.com online or give them a call.

The software dilemma

Having wrestled your PC out of its cardboard and polystyrene cocoon, assembled it and switched it on, you now have to consider what software applications and utilities you might need. In an ideal world your software choices would be determined by your business needs rather than the depth of your pockets. However, the reality is that most small businesses simply cannot afford everything they need. Instead, they tend to purchase ‘point solution’ products that meet specific needs; buy cheap alternatives to familiar brand names; or use illegal, pirated copies of popular applications such as Microsoft Office Suite (a path we strongly recommend you avoid). But there is an alternative.

What’s all the FOSS is about

As your monitor flickers into life, it will be immediately clear what operating system your computer uses. My Dell, for instance, came loaded with Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition. Having established what operating system your computer uses, you can now go in search of Freeware and Open Source Software (FOSS). Freeware is proprietary software offered for free by the vendor, usually under certain terms, conditions or restrictions. Open Source is a community or movement of not-for-profit programmers, developers and users dedicated to sharing, developing and improving the code or DNA of an application for everyone’s benefit. To learn more about FOSS visit the Free Software Foundation website at www.fsf.org or the Open Source Initiative: www.opensource.org.

Assuming your using a Windows operating system, your computer will need to protect itself from viruses, hackers, spyware and adware. Your computer might have come bundled with any number of applications including free firewalls and anti-virus software, which is great. If not, then before you do anything, especially venture onto the Internet, you will need to get some protection.

Free Safeguards

The Internet is teeming with a whole multitude of nasties, such as destructive, self-replicating viruses, vicious migrating worms and deceitful, back-stabbing Trojans. You will also have to contend with insidious, sneaky spyware and adware.

Adware, as the name suggests, infiltrates your computer and displays annoying pop-up advertisements without your consent or control. Spyware is designed to collect and send your personal information to third parties without your knowledge. These applications can be after anything from data on your purchasing habits to stealing your credit card and bank details.

Before you use the Internet it’s advisable to protect yourself and your computer from attack. Of course, you won’t have to worry about viruses if you have already plumped for a Linux operating system.

ZoneAlarm stops intruders from accessing your PC; makes your PC invisible to hackers; and blocks spyware and Trojans from communicating with the Internet.

ZoneAlarm: www.zonelabs.com

AntiVir Personal Edition is a virus scanner that detects and removes more than 50,000 viruses. AntiVir is also available for Linux.

AntiVir: www.free-av.com

Microsoft Windows Defender (Beta 2) is a free anti-spyware program. It’s quick and easy to install, and allows you to scan your system manually and automatically for contagion. The software then isolates suspect programs allowing you to quarantine or remove them.

Microsoft Windows Defender (Beta 2): www.microsoft.com

Lavasoft Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy offer genuinely free downloads of their popular and effective anti-adware and anti-spyware products plus regular updates. One word of warning, only install anti-spyware from a recommended, legitimate provider. Some spyware is packaged and peddled as the cure rather than the cause, so be on your guard.

Lavasoft Ad-Aware: www.lavasoft.com
Spybot Search & Destroy: www.safer-networking.org

Free Internet Window Washer 1.2 sponges away the tracks you create every time you use your PC and venture onto the Internet. Free Internet Window Washer 1.2 erases Window’s temp folders, run history, your browser’s cache, cookies, visited URLs, and much more besides. An added benefit is that Free Internet Window Washer 1.2 also releases valuable disk space.

Free Internet Window Washer 1.2: www.eusing.com

Also see my article: Making SOHO a safer place of business.

Free Office Tools

Having made your computer safe from potential threats, it’s time to get your hands on all those everyday office applications a business needs, such as a word processor/desktop publisher, spreadsheets, multimedia presentation, graphics and database packages. OpenOffice.org 2.0.2 is an excellent freely available productivity suite that can do just about anything a small business or home office user wants.

OpenOffice.org 2.0.2: www.openoffice.org

Free Email

Well, having a Windows operating system you should have Microsoft Outlook Express email client already on your computer. An alternative is Mozilla’s Thunderbird 1.5 email, which is safe, fast and easy to use with intelligent spam filters, quick message search, and customizable views. Best of all, it’s completely free.

Thunderbird 1.5: www.mozilla.com/thunderbird

Of course, the moment you have a business email address you’ll be inundated with spam. That’s e-junk mail. Not the canned luncheon meat stuff. As already mentioned, you will find that Thunderbird 1.5 offers good anti-spam and anti-phishing protection. Phishing is a term used to describe those scam emails that try to con you out of your bank details and PayPal passwords. However, if you happen to be one of those paranoid types or prefer to use another email client then you can always try MailWasher Free 5.1 anti-spam software.

MailWasher Free 5.1: www.mailwasher.net

Free Contact Management

If deciding when to emerge from the duvet each morning is your idea of time management then your new venture might be in trouble. Working from home requires discipline and routine, as well as motivation. Always be at your computer by 9am, for example, and dedicate 2 hours everyday to making sales calls. Plan and organise your calendar of activities. To help you, try ClickTray Calendar. It’s a handy desktop calendar/diary and reminder program in one.

ClickTray Calendar: www.waseo.de

As your contact and time management needs change and grow, you will need something a little more comprehensive than a desktop calendar and reminder. Essential PIM Free is an award-winning, absolutely free personal information manager. It’s supported by a large community of users, and has been widely acknowledged as one of the best desktop contact managers available.

Essential PIM Free: www.essentialpim.com

Free CRM

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a pretty big topic, and tends to inspire a great deal of heated debate and argument amongst the global business community. CRM is a business process, philosophy or guiding principle. Not to be confused with CRM software packages, which are the tools that enable businesses to implement their preferred CRM strategies. In a nutshell, CRM is about attracting, building and retaining profitable long term relationships with customers. To achieve this aim a business must gain valuable insights into what its customers want today, and establish an on-going dialogue whereby it can accurately predict their changing needs tomorrow.

Historically, small businesses have viewed CRM software as unnecessary and expensive. By their very nature, small businesses tend to serve local markets and so are closer to their customers. However, the Internet has changed all that. Nowadays small businesses have to compete globally as well as locally. Technology has also had a profound affect on business communications. You can telephone, fax, email, post direct mail, publish immediate response landing pages, and send SMS text messages. If not properly equipped, even a small company with a limited customer base can easily lose control of its business communications. In fact, Royal Mail research shows that UK small and medium-size businesses (SMEs) are losing over £3bn a year as a result of poor business communications.

Most small businesses grow organically. Processes and procedures evolve over time, and software is purchased to provide specific ‘point solutions’ to accountancy and stock control issues, for example. The problem with this ‘just good enough’ evolutionary process is it makes small businesses inefficient, slow and vulnerable to attack from larger, more resourceful competitors. The inability to coordinate, monitor and measure advertising, marketing and sales activity will cost a small enterprise time, money and customers.

CRM offers the opportunity to capture customer information and understand the impact of marketing and sales activity on your customers’ purchase decisions. This valuable customer insight and campaign tracking ability enables you to continually refine your marketing and sales offer to different customer segments, and quickly identify new sales opportunities. CRM can also benefit small and medium-size businesses by streamlining workflow, reducing paperwork, saving time, improving efficiency, and reducing operating costs.

A final note of caution: remember that successful CRM take-up is based on a coherent, shared and understood CRM strategy before you start looking for software.

CRMLogix is a free customer relationship management system (CRM) that automates the workflow of customer-facing organisations, as well as ensuring a uniform approach to sending correspondence. CRMLogix main features:

Network and multi-user ready

User-definable user groups, permissions and system users. Assign each of your sales force a user name and a password, and do reporting on the basis of users

User-definable workflow processes

Link external processes to your workflow processes

Define standard template documents using Microsoft Word

Link predefined templates to workflow processes, project a professional image to your customers

User-definable workflow pools and allocation of work to pools

Sales-force automation

Generate quotations

Generate orders

Financial cost control

User-definable reporting

CRMLogix is supplied in two versions, both of which can exist simultaneously on your network. The first is a standalone Windows Administrator and operational program, and the other is a Microsoft.NET Web server application. The latter allows customer service agents, salespeople and call centre personnel to access CRMLogix via their web browser, which greatly reduces your administrative overhead.

CRMLogix: www.svggis.com/crmlogix.asp

Hipergate is a completely free Open Source web based CRM application suite. Hipergate offers an extremely rich choice of functional modules.

Collaborative tools and Groupware Module

Private and/or shared calendar and diary.

Discussion open forums or moderated.

Frequently Asked Questions manager.

Employee’s directory.

Reservation of shared resources (rooms, equipment).

Contact Management Module

Clients, Suppliers, Competitors and Partners.

Personal and group contacts.

Multiple addresses per contact.

Local offices management and separate storage for each one.

Sales Pipeline Management (Business opportunities)

Different kinds of distribution lists.

Import from Windows Address Book (Outlook Express)

Import from data files (text, Excel).

Project Management and Support Issues Tracking Module

Hierarchic projects tree.

Pending tasks tracking.

Issues control.

SLA and maintenance contracts.

E-Shop Module

Multiple product catalogues.

Unlimited hierarchy of products.

Custom attributes per product.

Stock management, with multiple warehouses.

Order and Invoice management.

Modular and extensible Payment Processing.

Content Management Module

E-mail templates.

Website templates.

Electronic forms.

Web based outgoing fax.

Can include rich media (video, flash).

Categorized contents management.

Portlets library for content dynamic presentation.

Massive Email Module

Multiple e-mail management addressed to distribution lists.

Message reception statistics.

Corporate Library

100% web based virtual disk.

Role based security for all files.

Can read and index OLE documents properties.

Shared bookmarks.

Bookmarks Import/Export.

Hipergate CRM: www.hipergate.org

Open For Business (OFBiz) is a suite of enterprise applications better suited to larger businesses built on a common architecture using common data, logic and process components. The loosely coupled nature of the applications makes these components easy to understand, extend and customize. OFBiz offers an incredible array of features and functionality including content management, marketing, contact management, product and service catalogues, order processing, shipping, workflow, accounting, human resources and much more besides.

OFBiz: www.ofbiz.org

More FOSS
Having protected your computer from cyber-attack, set-up a productivity suite, organised email communications, installed a calendar or contact manager, and chosen the right CRM package to maximise sales, here are just a few more useful FOSS desktop applications.

Free PDFs
PrimoPDF 2.0 converts documents to PDF (portable document format) from any application. Simply install and send to print to perform the conversion. You can even encrypt documents for added security. Primo PDF 2.0 is an excellent free application. You can also pick up the latest PDF Adobe Reader free from www.adobe.com

PrimoPDF 2.0: www.primopdf.com

Free Graphics
The GIMP graphics package is probably the best known of all free Open Source applications. It is a freely distributed piece of software for tasks such as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages. The official GIMP website has plenty of information and resources. Of course, if you have Windows XP Home Edition then you already have a graphics manipulation package called Paint available. Just click Start, Main Menu, select All Programs, select Accessories and scroll down to Paint. The Microsoft website all offers an extensive free library of clipart and photographs. Visit: http://office.microsoft.com/clipart

The GIMP: www.gimp.org

Free News & Information
Streaming Stats is a free news application that will keep you up to date with headlines, sports scores, statistics and stories as they happen. This unique software application can sit at the bottom of your desktop and stream information to you all day. It’s a handy way to keep informed, however the free version does require you receive advertisements. Alternatively you can buy the ad-free version for just $5.00.

Streaming Stats: www.streaming-stats.com

About Charlie-the-Copywriter

Charlie Trumpess is a marketing communications copywriter with over a decade’s corporate experience. Today, as Charlie-the-Copywriter, he provides copywriting and marketing services to small and medium size businesses across the globe.

Visit http://www.charlie-the-copywriter.co.uk

Fleet Maintenance Management is a critical position in any company that has a number of commercial vehicles. The individual responsible for the management and maintenance of fleet vehicles performs a variety of functions. It is imperative that companies such as delivery drivers or even taxi services know what is going on with their vehicles at all times. Preventative maintenance, order/vendor logging and fuel economy are among a few of the issues that fleet maintenance managers deal with on a daily basis.

One of the most important duties of a fleet maintenance manager is the maintenance of vehicles. With the number of vehicles many companies have on the road each day, maintaining quality vehicles is important. Regular and controlled fleet vehicle maintenance can assist in more efficient and lower cost repairs, fewer technical problems and more efficient tracking, management and budgeting of the fleet. An outstanding fleet vehicle maintenance program can save time and money by ensuring that vehicles are safe and on time.

Repairs and downtime for fleet vehicles can cost your company a considerable amount of money. High-quality fleet vehicle maintenance can mean the difference in your company’s reputation being one of top-notch service rather than undependable service. Preventative maintenance and scheduling routine maintenance or repairs can extend the life of your fleet vehicles. Many fleet vehicle managers find that using a specialized software program is the best way to organize these needed elements.

With the high cost of fuel today, fleet managers also take into consideration the fuel usage among the vehicles. Fleet maintenance software programs often have features that enable the manager to appropriately budget for gas. The ability to log and track the mileage of drivers can give the manager a good idea of the average fuel consumption of each vehicle in the fleet.

Fleet maintenance managers occupy important positions within a company. Most managers within top U.S. companies recommend the use of high-quality fleet maintenance software programs. These programs enable the fleet managers to keep detailed records and logs of everything that happens with each vehicle. For companies whose primary service depends on well-maintained vehicles, organization and tracking of the fleet and expenses is obviously a key responsibility. Your company’s business reputation is important and it is essential that the fleet manager is able to accurately maintain an exceptional level of quality of all vehicles in your fleet.

With all of the products available on the market, the fleet maintenance management needs to examine the company’s needs to find the product best suited for them. The manager may choose to examine some of the top products by taking advantage of free trials offered by most companies. During the free trial, you are generally capable of performing the full range of functions in order to get a good feel for the product. This is a critical first step in choosing the software program that is right for your company.

Fleet Maintenance Software Info provides comprehensive information on fleet maintenance software, reviews and programs for commercial vehicles. Fleet Maintenance Software Info is the sister site of Preventive Maintenance Software Web.

Barcode modules and extensions for Great Plains are a bit confusing and multiple options exist on the market. Barcoding is hardware as well as Great Plains Dexterity software development & customization oriented.

• Warehouse Management. Either Microsoft Dexterity or SQL Store procedures or even more complex - .Net web development is required

• SOP Module Extensions. Market has multiple out-of-the-box and ready-for-tailoring SCM solutions, developed in Dexterity, SQL Stored Procedures, VBA/Modifier and eConnect to fit end client supply chain management and inventory control needs

• Scanner and Hardware analysis. It is always good idea to preserve legacy company investment into barcode scanners and software. In some cases it is advisable to do hardware revision and upgrade, in our opinion – specialist help is the must

• eCommerce. eConnect software development is current trend for Microsoft Great Plains 9.0 (new Project Green name is Microsoft Dynamics and Great Plains is now Microsoft Dynamics GP as well as Microsoft Navision is Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Axapta is Microsoft Dynamics AX)

• Third Party Extensions. Fast Shipper from Alba Spectrum or scanner recommended coding are probably the options you should consider first

• eConnect Project. Microsoft Project Green or its newer name Microsoft Dynamics (GP) will recommend you to stick to eConnect VB or C# .Net development

• Microsoft Business Solutions tactic. It is recommended to check with Microsoft Business Solutions/Microsoft Dynamics/Project Green subdivision on the barcoding selection, just in case – our time is very turbulent

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM integration. We know that MS Dynamics CRM is taking large companies CRM market and integration is very actual. Please, if you are on MS CRM 3.0, check out Scribe integration (might be expensive for smaller clients). Standard GP – MS CRM Integration is now in the development phase and actually competing with scribe, which might be purchased my MBS/Dynamics subdivision of MS

If you need help – give us a call USA 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, Europa: +44-20-8123-2580, +45-36-96-5520 or help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is ERP consultant at Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com http://www.greatplains.com.mx http://www.enterlogix.com.br ) - Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, Navision, Axapta, MS CRM, SAP Business One, Oracle Financials and IBM Lotus Domino Partner, serving corporate customers in the following industries: Aerospace & Defense, Medical & Healthcare, Distribution & Logistics, Hospitality, Banking & Finance, Wholesale & Retail, Chemicals, Oil & Gas, Placement & Recruiting, Advertising & Publishing, Textile, Pharmaceutical, Non-Profit, Beverages, Conglomerates, Apparels, Durables, Manufacturing and having locations in multiple states and internationally.

We are serving Europe: Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, USA nationwide: CA, IL, NY, NJ, FL, TX, NM, WA, Canada, Australia, NZ.

Fundraising software lets you connect with donors in a way that is unlike any communication you’ve ever had before. You can diversify your fund raising efforts with software and manage all of your day-to-day activities. There are many companies that sell fundraising software suitable for your organization. Much of the software is capable of helping you in different ways and it is available at different prices. However, you can get free software for small non-profit organizations.

Some of the software on the market is designed to help you with free fundraising ideas, while other free fund raising software deals more with accounting. You can generate thank you letters with the software for your fund raising needs showing the donors that you really appreciate their support, yet you do not have to spend time drafting all the letters because the software does it for you.

Some of the free fundraising ideas you can get by using fund raising software have nothing to do with selling any items. The software gives the donors the option of making a donation electronically on a recurring basis. This saves you the hassle of having to make phone calls every time your organization has a fundraising campaign.

One special feature of fund raising software lets you send reminder emails to donors of upcoming fund raising events. Not only this software help you get more donations through fundraising ideas, but you might also get volunteers for your events as well. These donors might also give you other free fund raising ideas that you might never have thought of.

Using fund raising software takes you from a desk job to dealing with the public where most of your fund raising takes place. This is sophisticated system that has features such as:

· Internet usability

· Simple maintenance

· Requires very little training

· Full Integration with your website

· Secure site for making donations online

You can store all your donor information and free fund raising ideas for new campaigns. It is one piece of software that your charitable organization can’t afford to be without.

Fund raising software can save you a lot of time.

For a website totally devoted to Fundraising visit Peter’s Website Fundraising Answers and find out about Fundraising as well as Charity Fundraising and more, including Cheerleading Fundraising, Church Fundraisers and School Fundraisers.

Accurately tracking vehicle mileage is often overlooked in small business accounting and tax preparation. Either mileage is underreported due to lack of records or a fear of being audited, or it’s over-reported, also due to lack of records, or a "I know how much I drove" attitude.

Although it’s best if taxpayers have a small notebook in the car to record actual odometer readings each time a business trip is made, this is cumbersome, and most people don’t want to do it. Accurate records are a must, because mileage deductions must be able to stand up to scrutiny in the event of an IRS audit.

QuickBooks can help. Use the following steps to generate and record vehicle mileage.

1. If you do not have any mileage records already recorded in QuickBooks, proceed to step 2. If you do have a few mileage records recorded in QuickBooks, go through them and make certain each one has the trip destination recorded in the Notes field, such as "ABC Printing" (from the Company menu, select Record Vehicle Mileage, then page through the records to check them). Then, generate a Mileage by Vehicle Detail report (from the Reports menu, select Jobs, Time, & Mileage, then select Mileage by Vehicle Detail). In the Dates field, select This Tax Year to Date. Using the Modify button, eliminate all columns except Vehicle, Trip End Date, Total Miles, and Notes. Print this.

2. Generate a Profit and Loss Detail (from the Reports menu, select Company and Financial, then Profit & Loss Detail). Set the date range for This Fiscal Year to Date. Using the Modify button, eliminate all columns except Type, Date, Name, Memo, and Amount. Print this.

3. If your company is the type where you drive to see customers, generate a Transaction List by Customer report. From the Reports menu, select Customers & Receivables, then select Transaction List by Customer. Using the Modify button, select the Filters tab. In the box labeled Filter, select Transaction Type. Change the Transaction Type from All to Invoice. Click Ok, then print the report.

4. Compare the reports. Look at every line item to see if it represents a place you actually drove, either to purchase something, have services rendered, or perform work for a customer. If there are destinations missing in the Mileage by Vehicle report, enter them (from the Company menu, select Enter Vehicle Mileage). Don’t forget to include the trip destination in the Notes field. Consider using one of the online map sites (such as Yahoo! Maps or Mapquest) to generate printed information about the distance between your office and the destination. Save the reports and the printed map information for your tax file.

Caveat

I am not asserting that this method will definitely stand up to IRS scrutiny. However, this is certainly better than going into an audit with no mileage records. Here’s a quote from IRS’s Publication 17 for 2004, from page 193 where it discusses Adequate Records: "Documentary evidence ordinarily will be considered adequate if it shows the amount, date, place, and essential character of the expense." As long as you can produce the receipt or invoice showing the trip, and the map information showing the distance, this method fulfills these requirements.

Nobody wants any of their deductions disallowed for lack of evidence. If you can’t bring yourself to use a mileage notebook in the car, this method will help ensure that whatever mileage you do claim is well documented.

About the Author:

Jennifer A. Thieme is dedicated to helping small business owners get the most from their accounting software. She’s the owner of Solid Rock Accounting Services and has been in the bookkeeping, income tax, and payroll business for nine years. She’s a Certified QuickBooks Pro Advisor, and a Registered Tax Preparer. Jennifer specializes in diagnosing and resolving accounting and QuickBooks issues, and also offers training, general bookkeeping, income tax, and payroll services. Call or email today for free QuickBooks software trials, free payroll quotes, and a free initial consultation. Visit her link above for contact information.

You have gotten those E_Mails buy software at deep discounts. It is very tempting to save 85% to 95% on your favorite Software Titles. Why would you pay $279 for Windows XP when you can pay $49. Most of the times these are Pirated copies of the Software. You can run into huge problems later when you seek upgrades, Support or Security patches.

Anyone can rationalize buying Pirated software. Who are you hurting? Bill Gates is so rich he can afford to loose a few sales. No you won’t hurt Bill Gates to much. But what about the Microsoft Employee with a wife and a Child or 2. If Microsoft looses enough sales tom these pirates who do you think will be laid off. The Working Man with a wife and children to support. The single mom trying to make a better life for her and her children. People much like you are going to suffer the most.

If ethics alone are not enough to keep you from buying pirated software how about the fact that Microsoft is now verifying that you have a legal copy of their software before they allow you to download updates. Updates that are often meant to plug security holes in the software that leave your computers fair prey for worms. Viruses and Adware.

You will want those security updates. Buying Pirated software will cost you more in the long run because you will need to buy a Microsoft version to get support and upgrades

About The Author:
Mike Makler has been Marketing Online Since 2001 When he Built an Organization of over 100,000 Members

Get Mike’s Newsletter:
http://ewguru.com/newsletter

More Articles by Mike:
http://ewguru.com/tips

Permission Based E_Mail Marketing Methods
http://ewguru.com/hbiz/amazingoffer.html

Copyright © 2005-2006 Mike Makler the Coolest Guy in the Universe

Do it yourself! It’s so easy!

The advertisements make it all sound so simple. Just click here, type some information there, click again here, type a little more there. Presto! You’re finished, and it’s accurate!

Yea, right.

Go to Amazon and read the reviews for different software packages. If you analyze them, you may notice that there are two types of users: one that loves it, another that complains about it. The complainers can be further split into three groups: those who are upset over paying extra to e-file, those who have tech-support or installation issues, and those who are upset because the program calculated their taxes incorrectly.

I want to discuss those in the last group. You might be one of them, and not even know it.

At the risk of stating something painfully obvious, I’d like to point out that tax software is not human. This means that it doesn’t have a set of trained, human eyes to recognize when things just don’t look right. You know what I’m talking about. It’s the human ability to make a judgement call, the human ability to extrapolate information, the human ability to sense, not on a mental level, but deeper than than, when something is wrong. This ability would have served that last group mentioned above.

From my own practice, I had two clients this season with errors on their 2004 returns. One used software, and the other used an online service.

The first one owned rental property, and therefore had to show the income and expenses for it. Accidentally, he entered the wrong amount for the income, a very wrong amount, way too low for the amount of time the property was rented. Did the software recognize it? No. He filed the return, and this year paid me to amend it after I discovered the error.

The second one entered the wrong amount on an important depreciation form, causing the software to calculate the depreciation incorrectly. Did the software recognize it? No. She filed the return, and this year paid me to amend it after I discovered the error.

These two clients share a characteristic of some of the complainers on Amazon: they are not good candidates for do-it-yourself tax preparation. Their situations are just too complex, and they would have benefited greatly by having a trained set of human eyes examine the return.

If your tax situation is even slightly complex and you use software, you run a risk of paying an incorrect amount for taxes or filing incorrect returns than if you found a competent tax preparer.

America is full of do-it-yourself ideas, and mostly it’s a great thing, but not if your returns are incorrect; not if you pay something other than what you actually owe.

Regarding reviews on sites such as Amazon: I generally disregard one line reviews that basically say, "It’s great," or, "I hate it," especially when written by people who have no other reviews to their credit. Just looks fishy to me.

About the Author:

Jennifer A. Thieme, owner of Solid Rock Accounting Services, is a Certified QuickBooks Advisor and a Registered Tax Preparer. She has been in the bookkeeping and tax field for nine years. She considers the diagnosis and resolution of accounting-related problems her specialty. Her articles have appeard in the Intuit ProConnection Newsletter. Contact her via http://www.jenniferthieme.com with your accounting related questions.

.NET platform does not support multiple inheritance. Do not confuse multilevel inheritance with multiple inheritance. With multiple inheritance we can have a subclass that inherits from two classes at the same time.

Let’s suppose we have an application that has a class Customers and another class Vendors. If you wanted to combine these two classes into one CustomerVendor class it would be a combination of Customers and Vendors just like the diagram below.

Please copy the following URL into your browser to view the diagram: http://www.vbprofs.com/images/Article Images/ThomasArt1.gif

In the above diagram we see how the CustomerVendor class inherits from both of those classes.

Multiple inheritance is complex and can be dangerous. The advantages of code re-usage prevail over complexity is up to your choice.

Multiple inheritance is not supported by VB.NET or .Net platform. Instead of multiple inheritance we can use multiple interfaces to achieve similar effect to multiple inheritance.

In VB.NET all objects have a primary or native interface, which is composed of properties, events, methods or member variables declared using Public keyword. Objects can implement also secondary interfaces by using Implement keyword.

Sometimes it is helpful for an object to have more than one interface, allowing us to interact with the object in different ways. Inheritance allow us to create subclasses that are a specialized case of the base class.

Example

Sometimes we have a group of objects that are not the similar, but we want to handle them the same manner. We want all the objects to act as if they are the same, even though they are different.

We can have some different objects in an application, such as customer, product, invoice etc. Each object would have a default interface appropriate to each individual object, and each of them is a different class. No natural inheritance is implied between these classes. Let’s suppose we want to print a document for each type of object. In this case we’d like to make them all act as printable object. To accomplish this we can define a generic interface that would enable generating a printed document. By implementing a common interface we are able to write a routine that accepts any object that implements a printed document.

To conclude, by implementing multiple interfaces in VB.NET , we can achieve a similar effect to that of multiple inheritance.

Thomas is an experienced Visual Basic developer, with expertise of 7+ years developing especially financial applications. His main IT skills are VB, SQL, Crystal Reports - should you need a Visual Basic developer for your projects feel free to contact Thomas through his personal website Kaloyani.com or through VBprofs.com - the newest Visual Basic and VB.NET resources portal.

What does TIFF format mean?

.TIF stands for Tagged Image File Format. It is a file format for graphics for Macintosh and Personal Computer (PC) systems. Mosaic also supports .TIF format. .TIF is developed by Microsoft and Albus. The purpose of developing the file format is to store high-resolution images in color, gray-scale and bitmap mode. It is a platform independent file format. You can either create .TIF images in PC and view in Macintosh or you can reverse the process. It was mainly developed for scanning purpose, because in applications high-resolution scanned images are required.

What does PNG format mean?

The file format .PNG stands for Portable Network Graphics. It is an approved file format by the World Wide Web Consortium as an

alternative to GIF files. Since GIF files need a patented data compression algorithm called LZW, it adds an extra expense. Thus .png is promoted by the WWW as it is license free. Although initially .png was not particularly developed for the web but it really fulfills the purpose. It has more compression capability. The file size is much smaller than the GIF files. In .png files you get 2D interlacing and most importantly storing capability of text attached with the image making it much easier for the search engines.

Paul has been providing answers to lots of queries through his website on a wide variety of subjects ranging from satellite phones to acne. To learn more visit http://www.askaquery.com/Answers/qn1653.html

You are welcome to republish the above article only if you add our hyperlinked URL.

Spyware and malware are large problems for Internet users today and can be both annoying and a real threat to you and your computer. There exist a number of different spy and malware of which some are relatively friendly and only spies on your surfing habits, while others like the Trojans can be used to corrupt your hard drive or steal your usernames and passwords. A Trojan can even be used to steal your identity by extracting all necessary information from your computer.

You may think that ad ware might not be that bad, that it is good if the ads are chosen to fit your interests. This might be true if the spy ware didn’t have a number of other negative effects, such as an increased amount of pop up ads, unexplained home page changes, strange results when searching the web and the fact that your computer are being slowed down by the spy wares. These are all very common results and symptoms of spyware and ad ware.

More unusual problems connected with spyware and Trojans are the corruption of the hard drive, the loss and exposure of private information and login information and in a worst case scenario, the theft of the identity of the owner of an infected computer.

Spyware is a large treat to the security of your online privacy.

There are however steps that you can take to avoid suffering the negative effects that spy- and ad ware can bring, and start protecting you computer and building an Identity Theft Protection. The first of these steps are to get a good anti spyware and anti adware program able to remove spyware. There are a number of different spyware removers available and three of the most well known might be Spy Sweeper,Ad Aware and Spybot which are all good programs.

Spyware removal software can scan your computer and successfully remove spyware like CoolWebSearch. Spyware removal software also uses a system monitor that automatically discovers spy ware and prevents installation of spyware on our computer. Spyware removal software is effective for spyware and adware removal.

The active shield uses System Monitoring to in real time prevent new spy- and adware programs from being installed on your computer. This fact combined with the fact that Spy Sweepers uses a constantly updated database of all available spy- and ad wares means that this adware remover can clean your computer, ridding it of any and all spy- and ad ware. Once it has cleaned your computer it can keep it clean and assure that your computer stays clean from ad- and spy ware.

By keeping your computer free from spyware and adware Spyware removal software also protects your information and keeps your identity safe. Spy Sweepers prompts you to update it if it has been to long since it was last updated.

If Spyware removal programs finds a spyware it will immediately quarantine the spyware and disable the spy wares functionality until you can decide whether to delete the file or try to clean the file from spyware elements and return the file to its original place on your hard drive.

Supportcave.com offers new and enhanced Free Spyware Removal Software. Not only will these programs effectively check and clean your computer from Spyware, once installed they will also shield your computer from future Spyware intrusions and browser hijacks - before the malevolent software even have a chance to enter you PC! Spyware Remover Software is an important function all computer users should rely on to ensure their computer is free from nosey software and their privacy protected.