If you have been using a computer for very long, you are well aware of Microsoft Office’s big stranglehold on business productivity software.

After all, what kind of communication, mailing or other business document ISN’T created by typing in Microsoft Word, adding and subtracting in Microsoft Excel or publishing a presentation in Powerpoint?

Microsoft Office has become the de facto standard in office productivity software (except for some places in the legal profession, where Corel’s Word Perfect is still considered standard) all across the world. Most businesses would come to a screeching halt if their copy of MS Office were to disappear from their machine.

While a business owner can be extremely productive with MS Office, that productivity does come at a price. Right now, that price is hovering around $370.00 for ONE copy of Office. Not bad if you are a solo entrepreneur, but what if you have 10-50 employees? $370.00 here and there and pretty soon you’re talking some real money…

There is a new player on the scene now and it’s called OpenOffice.org. It is a spinoff from software originally written by Sun Microsystems and is designed to be a replacement for MS Office (Word, Excel and Powerpoint).

What’s the difference between MS Office and Open Office?

Well, one costs $370.00 and one costs $0.00.

Can you guess which is which?

One of the two releases upgrades every few years and charges you full price for them. The other also releases upgrades every few years and gives them away.

Which one sounds better to you?

If you are a business owner responsible for outfitting 5-10 or 20 computers with productivity software for wordprocessing and spreadsheet work, you can’t afford NOT to take a look at OpenOffice.org for your business.

Apart from the price benefit, here are some other huge benefits to using Open Office:

• PDFs are a cinch. Right now, MS Office can’t turn your documents into PDFs without the help of third party software. Perhaps the next upgrade (and YOUR next $370.00) will provide this functionality, but right now you’re out of luck. In Open Office, creating a PDF is as simple as clicking one button.

So what if you own a Mac? How do you get your hands on a copy of Open Office? Open Office is available for you in a slightly different flavor called NeoOffice. You can download it here:

http://www.neooffice.org

And now, the answer to the big question you are probably asking…

Can I open Word documents and Excel spreadsheets with Open Office?

YES YOU CAN! With all but a very few exceptions, all versions of MS Word and Excel and Powerpoint documents will open without incident in Open Office. If you are in a highly specialized industry and use a lot of Word macros and advanced layout features, just do a quick test. Most likely, things will be fine…

So where do you get Openoffice.org?

The name says it all…

http://www.openoffice.org

Get your copy today!

Jason Leister is owner of Computer Super Guy, LLC, a Chicago based technology consultancy specializing in helping professional service businesses use technology to GROW their businessess. He is also publisher of the free eZine, ProfIT, each issue of which is packed with technology tips for professional service businesses.

Microsoft CRM was designed to be easily customizable. Microsoft CRM Software Development Kit (MS CRM SDK) which you can download from Microsoft website contains descriptions of the objects or classes, exposed for customization. It has sample code in C# and partially in VB.Net. In Visual Studio.Net you can analyze all the classes, used by Microsoft developers to create MS CRM - you will discover that most of them are not documented in MS CRM SDK. Microsoft will not support your customization if you use undocumented class or do direct SQL access to CRM database.

Let us describe you - programmer, software developer typical cases of MS CRM Customizations.

1. Integration with SQL Server application. If you have legacy system on MS SQL Server - let’s say you are transportation company and have in-house developed cargo tracking database. Now in MS CRM you want lookup the shipments for the customer (or account in CRM). This is SDK programming and calling SQL stored proc to retrieve cargo info. Instead of SQL Server you can have other database (ORACLE, MS Access, PervasiveSQL to name a few) - you can access multiple Database platforms via ADO.Net connection from your .Net application, which is easily integrated into MS CRM Account screen.

2. Email capturing in MS CRM. You have customer with email Bill@customer.com. Now you want all the emails that you receive from customer.com domain to be attached to Bill who is account in CRM. This is more difficult customization - you have to create MS CRM SDK web service, that one will be creating email activity and call it from COM+ application - Microsoft Exchange event handler (ONSYNCSAVE database event sink). This example maybe complicated with the following requirement. Imagine that Bill, instead of answering to your email (sent from CRM and processed by CRM-Exchange connector) sends you new message from MS Outlook. Then this email will not follow into MS CRM (because it doesn’t have GUID in the header and so is ignored by CRM Exchange connector). If you want to capture these emails - you have to do it in Microsoft Exchange event sink. There maybe scenario when you want to capture and analyze in the sink all the outgoing emails - this is even more complex - y!

ou have to place the sink on transport event.

3. ASP Application integration. You have legacy ASP application, where you capture orders from your customers and you want these orders be transferred to the CRM as activity. Here you understand that ASP doesn’t deploy Active Directory security - and the best way is to create HTTP handler and call it from your ASP page. This HTTP handler in turn will call MS CRM SDK web service with predefined (web.config) Active Directory credentials.

Some cautions. Never create your custom SQL objects (like stored procedure, SQL view, table) in MS CRM database. Instead, create your own database and place your objects there. When you see the first caution - you will never try to alter existing CRM objects, like adding new field to the table.

Happy customizing! if you want us to do the job - give us a call 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, based in Chicago, California, Texas, New York, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, Oregon, Arizona, Canada, UK, Australia and having locations in multiple states and internationally (www.albaspectrum.com), he is Microsoft CRM SDK, Great Plains Dexterity, SQL, C#/VB.Net and Crystal Reports developer; akarasev@albaspectrum.com

When a Software product has to be developed, one of the first tasks in the Project Manager’s schedule book is Requirements Analysis.

What is Requirements Analysis?

Simply put, Requirements Analysis process aims to identify and document the customer’s requirements for a proposed system. A trained software practitioner called the Requirements Analyst(RA) communicates with knowledgeable user(s) to understand what the requirements are. Most times, the client will have a brief idea of what they need in the proposed system.

The Analyst’s job is to flesh it out, add implied requirements and mandatory or regulatory requirements the client may not be aware of and create a document called the Software Requirements Specification or SRS.

At the end of the process, the SRS turns out to be the blue print of the product. A reference point for the client, the project manager, the tester and the designer. The SRS should ideally restrict itself to specifying "what" the product should do rather than "how" to do it. Never include implementation details such as database structure, architecture and so on.

What should the Software Requirement Specification include?

Ideally, an SRS should include at the least the following information.

Functional requirements
Functional requirements are the "features" a software has. Example Requirements for a shopping cart are Browse Shop, Detailed product view, checkout, View cart, My Account.

The analyst should also identify requirements that the customer has missed or those that are required to support the main features. These requirements are called Implied Requirements. For example, if the client has asked for a Shopping site, the analyst includes requirements for the Shopping cart such as the View cart, Checkout and Delete from Cart.

Non functional requirements
How efficient is the Software product? Is it high performance, is it reliable, how fast is it, does it consume a lot of system resources. These are aspects dealt with in the non functional requirements. Novice programmers generally fail to address these requirements. These requirements directly affect the quality of the product.

Regulatory requirements
In many industries, there may be regulations within which the software product should comply. For example, the tax laws of the country in which an accounting product has to be deployed. Language preferences, password encryption laws, URL standards, email standards. These are some of the regulatory requirements which the client may not be aware of. The analyst has to include these requirements if applicable to the industry or country in which the software product is to be deployed.

External Interface Requirements
Will this product interact with other software or hardwares? The analyst need to list the minimum requirements of these interfaces.

Acceptance criteria
Finally, the acceptance criteria has to be stated. What criteria will confirm that the software is working as per the client specification. Usually, the tested specifications will be the functional and non-functional requirements stated in the SRS.

It is important that all requirements should include the Feature Number. This improves traceability of each feature throughout the project lifecycle. At the design, construction and at the testing phases, the project members know that they are designing, coding or testing Feature No. FE-2 or FE-45.

Prioritizing Requirements
The SRS should include priorities for each feature. Clients may ask for some features to be completed early on. A carefully Prioritized requirements document leads to quicker development of the more important features.

Isn’t the Software Requirements Specification (SRS) a waste of time. Who benefits?
Thats a fallacy. The SRS is useful to everyone who has anything to do with the project. The project manager knows what to plan for. The designers know what to design. The testers know how the product is expected to work. All with the SRS.

Finally, the SRS helps the customer the most. The customer knows what he will get in the end. Generally, development starts only after the client reads and approves the SRS. For example, if the customer wants the Shopping site system to include a Wishlist, he can quickly scan the SRS and ask for the Wishlist to be added if it is already not there. Increased customer input so early on in the project, helps everyone know what is to be developed and what needs to be developed first.

Review Software Requirements
Getting the requirements right in the first place costs 50 to 200 times less than correcting code. It is important to review the SRS before it goes into the next stage.

Typically, a review session will include at least 3-4 experts and will be held for a maximum of 2 hours per session. The attendees will read the doc prior to attending the meeting. A good review will unearth about 60-90% of the defects in the product.

Some software development companies ignore this crucial meeting leading to disastrous consequences. A simple requirements review will result in a Net Schedule savings of 10-30% . And yes, these inspections are about 20 times as effective as testing the product. It comes as no surprise that each hour spent on review avoids an average of 33 hours of maintenance.

Managing requirements change
No project is static. Requirements may change and a good Project Leader should learn to anticipate that. However, each change in requirements costs time and money, especially if crucial changes come up during Coding or testing and worse if it comes in after development.

The Analyst "has" to try to minimise late changes as far as possible. The best way to do that is to show the customer what he is going to get using small prototypes and the SRS. Customers can easily see what they are going to get and ask for changes much before any development has begun. This way the analyst manages to reduce cost for the customer.

In case changes do occur, during or after coding, the Project leader has to ensure that these changes are controlled. All changes in the specification should be approved by the customer and should be reviewed by team members. All team members should get copies of the latest specification.

Most projects generally experience a 25% change in requirements. Good requirements methodlogies will reduce the No. of changes and cost per change. For example, if the RA could reduce number of changes to 10% and the cost of change by a factor of 5 or 10, the combined effect would be really huge.

Can’t you code without requirements analysis.
You can code without any analysis, design or even testing. This is what most programmers do.

Customers, project leaders and coders generally under-estimate the value of good requirements analysis and give it the go by because a software product "can" be developed without proper requirements, design or testing.

But problems start surfacing in several unrelated incidents.

For instance, tester claim they have completed testing and submit the project to the customer. The customer says "Hey this is not what I wanted. I wanted the shopping cart to be stored in case the shopper decides to complete the ordering process after 2 days?" The tester may not even have known of this requirement, the coder wouldn’t have known, the project leader wouldn’t have known. Finally everyone works overtime to develop this new feature. The coder will claim that it is impossible to develop this feature with the existing design. Then the designer has to twist the design to somehow include the new feature. Will it be optimum design? Well who knows? No one has the time to find that out. Eventually after all that confusion, the customer is given the new feature which is poorly designed and executed.

Is requirements analysis important in smaller projects.
In smaller projects, the same person could analyse, design and code. As the project size increases, all that happens is that the roles are taken over by different people. What is small project? Any project over 2 weeks duration should necessarily include the requirements analysis process.

When a Software product has to be developed, one of the first tasks in the Project Manager’s schedule book is Requirements Analysis.

Microsoft bought Navision, Denmark based software development company, along with Great Plains Software. Now Microsoft Business Solutions offers following ERP applications: Navision (former Navision Attain), Microsoft Great Plains (former Great Plains Dynamics/eEnterprise), Solomon, Axapta. Formerly Navision had strong positions in Europe. Now it is promoted in USA and Europe. Navision has pretty advanced manufacturing module.

We would like to give you: programmer, software developer, database administrator the orientation in Navision customization tools

• C/SIDE (Client/Server Integrated Development Environment) - The core of Navision is the C/SIDE. C/SIDE is the foundation for all the business management functionality of Navision. It is made up of five building blocks, called object types, which are used to create the application. These five object types are shared throughout Navision to create every application area, and give it a unified, consistent interface. This powerful language allows for the internal construction of new business logic and sophisticated reporting. Because of the internal nature of modifications it’s highly recommended that you develop all your code in “processing only” report objects and called from the native code base. By grouping all your code in logical units, upgrades and additional modifications are easier to manage.

• C/ODBC and C/FRONT - Both C/ODBC and C/FRONT enable you to easily use information from Navision in familiar programs such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. The Open Database Connectivity driver for Navision (C/ODBC) is an application program interface (API) that provides a way for other applications, such as the entire Microsoft Office Suite, to send and retrieve data to and from the Navision database through the ODBC interface.

• External Tool: Navision Developer’s Toolkit - The Navision Developer’s Toolkit enables your Microsoft Certified Business Solutions Partner to upgrade your Navision solution to the latest version. It is used to analyze and upgrade customer and vertical solutions

Reporting Options - Aside from the powerful internal reporting tool which requires an in-depth knowledge of C/SIDE to make it useful the other options are:

• Jet Reports- Jet Reports is a complete reporting package utilizing Microsoft Excel. Using Excel you can create reports on any table of data from within any granule in Navision.

• C/ODBC - Using the ODBC driver, the entire Microsoft office suite and programs such as Crystal Reports can access the database. I would recommend using this tool for occasional reporting requests only. If you need to pull data out of the Navision database on a regular basis one of the other options is a better choice

• Business Analytics (SQL Server Required) - Using Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) from Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000, Business Analytics organizes all of your business data into information units called cubes. Using a familiar Microsoft Outlook®-style interface, Business Analytics presents this information to your desk top where easy to use analytical tools allow you to carry out targeted analysis that is tailored by you, for you

• XBRL - Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) for Navision enables simple and dependable distribution of all a company’s financial information and ensures smooth and accurate data transfer. XBRL is an XML-based specification that uses accepted financial reporting standards and practices to export financial reports across all software and technologies, including the Internet

Good luck in customizing and reports design and if you have issues or concerns – we are here to help! If you want us to do the job - give us a call 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com

About The Author

Robert Horowitz is Certified Navision Specialist in Microsoft Business Solutions Partner Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Navision, Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, based in Chicago, California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, New York, Georgia, Washington, Colorado, Canada, UK, Australia, Moscow and having locations in multiple states and internationally (www.albaspectrum.com). You can contact Robert: welcome@albaspectrum.com; roberth@albaspectrum.com

Patch management often presents conflicting demands on IT organizations charged with ensuring system security while optimizing system reliability and integrity. Because the time between discovering a system vulnerability and the emergence of an attack is declining, IT organizations are under pressure to apply patches before adequate testing, and without system downtime. A sound patch management strategy is a critical part of any secure enterprise.

Baseline the Environment:

Developing any patch management plan begins with a firm understanding of the current enterprise. Data must be gathered on the configuration of every server, workstation, and network component in the system. Such data is necessary when evaluating the risk and therefore the necessity of particular patches.

This baselining may be performed as part of a larger configuration management and risk assessment effort. Although data may be gathered manually, automated tools exist which will do the same work while also keeping the data current. Vulnerability scans can be used to discover services that should be removed or disabled.

Once data is gathered, machines should be brought to the same benchmark security risk level. For servers, an assessment must also be made of their criticality to the enterprise. Change control documents and procedures should be developed, particularly if server hardware and operating system maintenance is performed by one group while software application maintenance is performed by another.

Identify, Evaluate, and Plan:

Keeping current with system updates and patches can be overwhelming. Not only are there often many, but decisions about which are critical, which are merely useful, and which are unnecessary or even potentially harmful, must be made quickly.

Automated tools can make the identification and evaluation stage easier by monitoring the current patch status of the server or workstation (or scanning it on demand) and comparing the status with the ideal configuration for the system, producing recommendations for patch installation.

Perform Test Deployment:

Before deploying patches to the wider enterprise, deployment should be conducted in a test environment that mirrors the production environment. At a minimum the environment should represent all critical applications, and ideally, all enterprise platforms. If replication of the production hardware is not possible, at least patch compatibility with operating systems and applications should be tested. Test deployment should begin with the least critical servers first.

Deploy and Report:

New tools for patch distribution can greatly simplify deployment. Tools such as the Microsoft Systems Update Services audit the enterprise, download patches from a central database, and manage their installation. They may also analyze dependencies and provide rollback features. Patches can be advertised, downloaded, and installed by clients according to security settings determined by a group security policy. Such solutions exist for Windows as well as UNIX/LINUX systems; cross-platform patch management solutions are also available for heterogeneous enterprises. Enterprises without these tools can use login scripts or place patches on intranet sites for users to install themselves. Patching of mission-critical servers should be done manually during off-peak hours in case recovery is necessary.

Jonathan Coupal is the Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of ITX Corp. Mr. Coupal manages both the day-to-day and strategic operations of the Technology Integration Practice Group. Among Mr. Coupal’s greatest strengths are evaluating customers’ unique problems, developing innovative, cost effective solutions and providing a “best practice” implementation methodology. Mr. Coupal’s extensive knowledge and experience enables him to fully analyze client systems to recommend the most effective technologies and solutions that will both optimize their business processes and fulfill immediate and future goals. Mr. Coupal and his team build a high level of trust with clients, establishing ITX as their IT partner of choice. Mr. Coupal holds certifications with Microsoft and CompTia, including MCSE, MCSA, Security+, Linux+ and i-Net+, and served as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) for the development of the CompTia Linux+.

About ITX Corp:

ITX Corp is a business consulting and technology solutions firm focused in nine practice areas including Business Performance, Internet Marketing, IT Staffing, IT Solution Strategies and Implementation, Technical Services, Internet Services, and Technology Research. To learn more about what ITX can do for you visit our website at http://www.itx.net or contact us at (800) 600-7785.

Have you ever noticed that when you look at your browser favorites menu or the address bar, some entries have their own little icon beside their URL?

It’s called a "Favicon" (a graphic file with a .ico extension) and it’s placed in the root directory of the web site. Everytime you bookmark a site that has its own favicon.ico file, it is added to your browser, and it will be visible from then on in the favorites menu and in the address bar.

At the beginning, only large websites had a favicon, but now you too can create one and use it to brand your website. The first thing you have to do is to create your favicon. To be displayed by browsers, it must have a size of 16×16 pixels. To create one, you can use a graphics program called Icon Forge (you can download a free trial version in CNET):

http://download.com.com/3000-2195-10128559.html

You can either create an icon from scratch, or import a 16×16 ‘.gif’ or ‘.jpg’ file and save it as a ‘.ico’ file.

You will then have to save your icon with the default name of ‘favicon.ico’, and upload it to the root directory of your website (where your index page is). Finally, after that, you must associate your icon to your web page. You do that by including the following HTML code immediately after the HEAD tag of your page:

link REL="SHORTCUT ICON" HREF="http://www.yourwebsite.com/favicon.ico"

Once you’ve done that, that’s it. To try it out, go to your web page and add your page to your favorites. You should be able to see the favicon next to your bookmarked page title. Also, the next time you type your URL in the address bar, you will see your favicon to the left of the URL.

(Favicons work with Internet Explorer 5 or newer, and with recent versions of Netscape.)

——-

You can freely reprint this article. Just include the following resource box at the end:

About The Author

Mario Sanchez lives in Miami, Florida, where he publishes The Internet Digest ( http://www.theinternetdigest.net ) a website and newsletter that gives you free advice on web design and Internet marketing.

Now days you might have take notice of a threatening word “Spyware”. Spyware software is becoming annoyance for the companies. Spyware is likely to be verified as a great damager to the companies. It is not so noticeable like spam and virus assaults to the systems. Spyware could be destructive and cause financial losses.

Spyware, it is almost an invisible software programs that collects and transmits personal or company’s important data through the Internet without being noticed. The transferred data could be used for smashing up your company’s credit or might hard hit its profits. Spyware is also commonly acknowledged as Adware, Malware, Sneakware and Snoopware

Entrance ways: Spyware could enter your network by auto-download software that automatically downloaded to your network, even without user’s acknowledgement. It could also enter with software, which is downloaded by user that includes Spyware program. Most common entry of this software is pop-ups, which appears while opening any site. The pop-ups are very attractively designed to allure user to click it.

The Spyware software is not even blocked by firewall programs, as user itself allows it, of-course, due to unawareness. Similarly, the usual antivirus programs are also unable not block it, due to they don’t seem as wicked as viruses.

Safeguard against Spyware: User should completely read and understand the license agreement before downloading any software. Avoid downloading unknown and fallacious software from the internet. Keep away from clicking pop-up that put forward mouthwatering offers.

The constant use of anti-Spyware software: It could prevent entering such harmful programs to your network. The best precautious step is that, a user could apply to block Spyware access via gateway security solutions like the NetApp Internet access and security (IAS) solution, which stops admittance to Web sites offering Spyware.

There are several anti-spyware programs available out there. These programs search and eliminate Spyware and adware. They can detect and sweep off huge number of adware files and modules. Some of these programs also clean program and web-usage path from your network that is very helpful if the system is shared. There also some free downloadable software on authentic sites like www.download.com, www.mcafee.com, www.spywareinfo.com, www.all-internet-security.com, www.tucows.com etc or you can use keyword “free antiSpyware download” in search. But make sure you do not download or buy any anti-Spyware program without checking its authenticity, at least now onwards.

Allen Brown is a freelance writer for http://www.1888SoftwareDownloads.com , the premier website to find Free Software Downloads including free anti-virus software, free spyware detection software, free toolbars, free chat software and more. He also freelances for http://www.1888FreeOnlineGames.com.

In this article you will find some background information about screensavers and their history. You will also learn how Windows screensavers differ from other programs and how you can use it to your own advantage. Also there are some tips for users owning laptops, notebooks or CD-burning devices.

Have you ever asked yourself a question like "What is a screensaver actually?" I did. And now I will gladly share the results of my investigation. As you can see easily, splitting the word "screensaver" into two words will give us the phrase "screen saver". This isn’t a rocket science and it’s clear that the phrase suggests our subject somehow saving the screen. So the word "screensaver" can be applied to some sort of good things that save the screen of our so much beloved baby-computer. But what does it mean exactly? Who is going to harm our computer screen? Who could be such a bad person? The answer lies in the exact definition of screensavers.

If you are a meticulous person then you can search the Internet and come up with some of the existing definitions. But don’t hurry. I will list some of the most often found. Here they are:

The picture is getting clearer, isn’t it? Let’s make it plain. The "burn in" or "damage" used in these definitions refer us to the time before 90-ies. At that time many cathode ray tubes in TVs, computer monitors or elsewhere were prone to be damaged if the same pattern (e.g., the WordPerfect status line; the Pong score readout; or a TV channel-number display) was shown at the same position on the screen for very long periods of time. The phosphor on the screen would "fatigue" and that part of the screen would seem grayed out, even when the CRT was off.

TIP: Be careful when using a screensaver on a computer with an LCD screen (most laptops and notebooks). A pixel on an LCD screen is on when it’s dark; therefore, blacking the screen as some screensavers do would cause more damage.

Eventually CRTs which were resistant to burn-in (and which sometimes went into sleep mode after a period of inactivity) were developed. But in the meantime, solution was found: home video game systems of the era (e.g., Atari 2600s) would, when not being played, change the screen every few seconds, to avoid burn-in; and computer screensaver programs were developed.

The first screensavers were simple screen blankers - they just set the screen to all black, but, in the best case of creeping featurism ever recorded, these tiny (often under 1K long) programs grew without regard to efficiency or even basic usefulness. At first, small, innocuous display hacks (generally on an almost-black screen) were added. Later, more complex effects appeared, including animations (often with sound effects!) of arbitrary length and complexity.

And now we live in the world full of fun and entertaining screensavers. Many of them produce amazing and very attractive effects. You can find a screensaver on any theme you like, download it, install and enjoy.

This means that a typical screensaver is a program. And it really is. But isn’t there something different? Is there something that distinguishes a program running as screensaver from other typical programs? You’re right, there is a bit of mystery. In order to demystify it we should plunge deeper into screensaver mechanics. But don’t be afraid. It isn’t complicated at all.

First, as you already know, screensavers are launched automatically by the operating system.

TIP: Be careful if you use CD-Burning devices regularly and your system is configured to launch screensaver after some period of inactivity. Some screensavers produce very sophisticated effects but for the price of intensive CPU load. If you leave your computer while CD-Burning software is working, screensaver will be launched. This can sometimes lead to the CD-R/RW disks burned improperly.

During their installation process screensavers are copied to the system directory (years ago users had even to copy screensavers by themselves). Once they are there, Windows finds them and puts in the list of available screensavers. You can see this list in the Display Properties dialog. But how does the system know that the program in its system directory is a screensaver? The answer is simple. Any screensaver program has a name ending with ".SCR" extension, while a typical program has the ".EXE" extension at the end. This is the first difference.

Second, almost every screensaver has a bunch of settings allowing you to change its appearance in many ways. This isn’t a much difference because many typical programs have options and settings too. The difference lies in the way the user invokes configuration dialogs. Windows provides the only way to do it. It’s the Display Properties dialog mentioned above. Other programs usually have their own buttons or menus to do that. Why are we talking about it? It’s simple. The whole process means that the system has a way to communicate with screensavers: to launch them, preview and configure on your demand while other typical programs don’t have it. Usually they are simply launched and that’s all. This is the second difference.

So what? How can we use it to our own advantage? Imagine yourself downloading a new screensaver, running it and finding it rather amazing. The screensaver can be so amazing and entertaining, that you would like to show it running on your screen to the friend of yours. But wait. How do you do that? What if your system is configured to launch the screensaver after 5 minutes of inactivity only? Or after 10 minutes or even more? Will you wait for this eternity? You can say that there is always a way to launch the screensaver from the Dialog Properties. But in order to do that you should launch the dialog, find the Screen Savers tab and click the Preview button. Quite a lot of things to do. And if you are willing to demonstrate two or even more screensavers the things get complicated even more. And what if the screensaver you’ve found looks best when the whole desktop wallpaper is seen on the screen? The Display Properties dialog will simply destroy this unique beauty you were willing to share.

Now imagine that double-clicking an icon on your desktop could do all this. Simple action, no unnecessary dialogs. Sure, some preparation steps are needed. But they are done once. After that you can enjoy launching screensavers using icons as many times as you wish. Is it worth doing? Try it, the result can be very effective. Once you manage the process, you can proudly call yourself a "Professional Screensaver User". If you like the idea then there’s the way to achieve it:

1. Use Windows explorer to navigate to your system directory. Usually it is C:Windows or C:WindowsSystem if you use Windows 95/98/Me. If you use Windows NT/2000/XP, then you should look in C:WINNT or C:WINNTSystem32
2. Look through the list of programs there. It can be quite large, but you can easily find the name of the screensaver you are looking for. Alternatively you can use the "Find Files or Folders" facility.
3. Once you’ve found it, use the right mouse button to drag the file onto the desktop. After releasing the mouse select "Create Shortcut Here" from the popup menu. The icon for the screensaver should appear on your desktop.

Now you can launch the screensaver at any time. Simply double-click the created icon. Enjoy! I will be glad if you feel a bit more control over the system.

About The Author

Roman Kramar is a software developer who enjoys writing screensavers as his time permits. Visit his site at http://www.elasticsystems.com/ to find out more about screensavers and his work.

webmaster@elasticsystems.com

Business intelligence is the process of gathering information from the business. The gathered business information is transformed into knowledge using business intelligence. Business intelligence will ease the decision making process, helps in understanding the customer taste and market trends. To run the business successfully one should have the comprehensive business knowledge and understanding of our business strengths and weakness. Business intelligence will take into account the internal and external factors of a business.

Business Intelligence Definition

The basic definition of business intelligence "the process of gathering information about a business or industry matter; a broad range of applications and technologies for gathering, storing, analyzing, and providing access to data that helps to make business decisions."

Business Intelligence Includes

Business intelligence (BI) includes software applications, technologies and analytical methodologies that perform data analysis. Business intelligence covers data mining, Web mining, text mining, reporting and querying, OLAP, and data visualization.

Knowledge management is part of Business Intelligence

Knowledge management is one of the methods in business intelligence. Knowledge management has been defined as "the technique and tools for capturing, storing, organizing, and making knowledge" Business intelligence is driven by an objective laid by the company. The duration of the objective may be short period or long period.

Business Intelligence Software

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Do you remember that frustrating feeling when you find an interesting screensaver and can’t install it on your computer? This article will help you to never have it again.

Back to when Windows 95 started to find its home on many computers there was just half a dozen of screensavers preinstalled with the system. All you could do was selecting one of these. It was as simple as boring.

Luckily those times are left behind. Now we have hundreds of screensavers developed throughout the years and available for download. Finding a nice screensaver matching your taste and style can be a hard task. How much disappointing is it when you are unable to install the discovery on your computer then? I bet you know.

Often you come across a screensaver with an intriguing description and no screenshots. You are curios to see it in action. But: SLAP! You can’t figure out the way to make it work on your system and you will never know what you have missed. What a pity! I know.

Well… Enough! Enough of this! There should be a way to make us, screensaver hunters, luckier. Keep reading. There’s something that can open a whole new world of screensavers to you.

First, in order to fight this evil, we should find its roots. Why is it so that we have the problem? Mainly it’s because there are several ways to distribute screensavers:

1. As self-extracting installation packages
2. As ZIPped installation packages
3. As individual .SCR files

The self-extracting packages are the easiest to install. You just download the screensaver and double click it. Then the installation program starts and performs all the steps necessary to install the screensaver. That is, you have it ready for use just with a few mouse clicks.

You can recognize the ZIPped installation packages by their names. They have ".zip" at the end. Double clicking such files will probably get you nowhere unless you are well prepared.

The third category is represented by files with names ending with ".scr". Activating such file usually launches the screensaver. That’s not bad. At least you can see what it’s all about. But this way it won’t appear in the list of available screensavers that the operating system starts if your computer goes to rest. That is, you have to use a little trick if you like the screensaver.

Now that the reason of our problems is a bit more obvious, I almost hear your question. Once the self-extracting packages are the easiest to install, why just not to stick with them? Okay, you are right. It makes a perfect sense. But you forget one important thing. Screensavers are created by programmers.

And programmers differ from other computer users in that they see everything from their very specific and technical point of view. It’s not a problem for them to extract files from ZIPped packages as they work with them very often. It is rather natural for them to copy files into secret system folders that 80% of users didn’t hear about and don’t have to.

That’s why they create screensavers and put them on download sites in the form that is hard to install for you. But don’t hurry to blame them. They mostly do it unintentionally, not because they hate people who can’t handle ZIP archives or bare screensaver files.

I know it because I am one of them. In fact (my face goes red here) my Rainy Screensaver ( http://www.elasticsystems.com/rainy/ ) was distributed as a ZIPped package until version 1.7. Thanks to the people who provided me with their feedback. I really don’t see any reason to hurt those who use their computers as tools or source of entertainment. These people don’t have to know all technical aspects.

I hope more and more screensaver writers will understand this and will make their screensavers easier for you to install. Meanwhile you yourself can get the knowledge needed to handle not so friendly installations without a problem. So let’s get back to installing ZIPped packages and bare screensaver files.

* ZIPped installation packages

These ".zip" files are known as archives. It is very popular way to spread software and information over the net. They let you to "pack" many files into one that is much easier to download. They also use special methods known as compression to reduce the final size of the packed files and thus save your time and money spent downloading them.

In order to unpack (extract) files from a ZIPped package you should use a special program. Probably the most popular and easy to use is WinZip. You can download it from http://www.winzip.com. Windows XP has a built-in support for ".zip" files so, if you use Windows XP, there’s no need for additional software.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that a ".zip" package usually contains a collection of files that should be extracted somewhere before you can use them. It doesn’t matter what program you use to extract the files. Just follow its instructions to do it and put extracted files in the place of your choice. It’s better to create a special folder for such cases. Alternatively you can use temporary folder provided by Windows.

Once the files are extracted you should examine them. If you see one named "Install.exe" or "Setup.exe" among them then you can double click it to complete the installation process. Even though archives are very convenient when used on a bunch of files, they can be used to pack a single file to reduce its size. So if you have extracted a single file with its name ending with ".scr" then you should keep reading.

* Bare screensaver files

As I have said before, these files have their name ending with ".scr". They are screensavers themselves. That is, they are the programs that create all these amazing effects when started. You can find some details about them in my article "Windows Screensavers Explained" at http://www.elasticsystems.com/articles.html .

The easiest known way to install ".scr" files is to right click on them and then choose "Install" from available menu options. Once you do this, Windows will set the screensaver as default and open Display Properties dialog where you can adjust screensaver’s settings if you wish.

This way has some disadvantages though. First, you should be careful with where you keep the screensaver file. If you have put it in the temporary folder and it is likely to be deleted or moved somewhere else later, then the system won’t find the screensaver anymore. So you’d better create a special folder for screensavers that you choose to install this way. Second, if you select another screensaver from the list in Display Properties dialog then Windows will forget any screensaver installed using the described method. That is, you will have to right click it and choose "Install" once and again.

Nevertheless, this way is very convenient if you just want to take a look at the screensaver, play with its settings and delete it. If you really like the screensaver and want it to brighten boring cloudy days then you’d better find a cozier place to keep it.

How do you find such place? It’s easy. What you need is to drag the screensaver into your Windows folder. If you use Windows 95/98 or Windows Me then chances are this folder is on your drive C: and has a name of "Windows". If you use Windows NT/2000 or Windows XP then it’s probably on your drive C: and is called "WINNT". Once you put the screensaver in this folder it will be available in the list of installed screensavers in Display Properties dialog. Now you can select it whenever you wish. Furthermore, you should worry no more about reinstalling it every time you change your mind and select another screensaver.

TIP: Sometimes you download a ZIPped installation package for screensaver, extract its contents to some folder and find there both "Setup.exe" (or "Install.exe") and ".scr" files. In this case double clicking "Install" or "Setup" is the preferred way. That’s because the installation program will perform all the steps needed to install the screensaver like copying necessary files, updating system registry, providing uninstaller and so on. Simply copying the ".scr" file to Windows folder apparently won’t do it.

Now that you have a few more useful tricks under your belt, you can install much more screensavers. Add here acquired confidence that those screensavers you like are ready to please you whenever you wish and there’s a good reason to become a bit happier.

About The Author

Roman Kramar is a software developer who enjoys writing screensavers as his time permits. Visit his site at http://www.elasticsystems.com/ to find out more about screensavers and his work.

webmaster@elasticsystems.com