Lately I have been using a new burning application; InfraRecorder is an open source cd burning application. This application doesn’t have all the bells and whistles but if gets the job done. Plus its cheaper then lets say Nero or EasyCD Creator; FREE. Check out the website to get a copy and/or donate time/money to the project. Below you’ll find a feature list:

• Create custom data, audio and mixed-mode projects and record them to physical discs as well as disc images.
• Supports recording to dual-layer DVDs.
  
• Blank (erase) rewritable discs using four different methods.
• Record disc images (ISO and BIN/CUE).
  
• Fixate discs (write lead-out information to prevent further data from beeing added to the disc).
• Scan the SCSI/IDE bus for devices and collect information about their capabilities.
  
• Create disc copies, on the fly and using a temporary disc image.
• Import session data from multi-session discs and add more sessions to them.
• Display disc information.
• Save audio and data tracks to files (.wav, .wma, .ogg, .mp3 and .iso).

Lets jump right in.

2. Another way you could connect to your customer to offer remote support is using online Web Meeting Software. There are tons of them out there, GoToMeeting, Webex, Live Meeting, and Yugma. There are some draw backs to this option. For instance most of these applications require some type of software to be installed and your web browser to allow activex controls. We all know what a pain in the butt it is to try and walk a user though finding a little yellow bar across the top of the window. Also, each one of these solutions cost money, some of them over $100 a month. But, you have to spend money to make money right? What are the advantages? Well for starters I would much rather walk a user though the yellow bar of fun then trying to walk them though opening ports on their router. My choice, would be with Yugma, at a low $99.95 a year you can have all the features you need. The only additional software the end user would need is the Java Runtime and it works on Macs and Windows, soon Linux as well.

Now what software to offer an utilize for home and small business? Aside from the microsoft products, which don’t get me wrong, these products are developed, maintained, featureful (I just made that word up) and offer telephone support. There are others that do the same thing in most cases. Oxygen Office or Open Office, Zimbra, ClamWin, Winpooch, Paint .Net, Fendora Directory Server, MySQL, OpenRPT,KeePass Password Safe the list goes on and on at osalt.com. Some of these I may do some mini reviews on so keep checking back.

-Bryan

So I was talking to a friend this weekend about business, focusing on primarily services and support. How do you out geek the geeks; which in all reality shouldn’t be that difficult right?

I think aside from the steep pricing and not so, ah. . . lets just call it honorable, practices it can be done quite easily. However, don’t limit yourself to home users there are all kinds of small businesses out there and they need support and services too. Alright so enough jabber first how do you accept payment? Well the obvious and easiest way is to go cash/check, but what about when your at home and you need to support personal or how about the small business startup that have a business credit card they would like to use?

There are couple ways to do this, You could purchase a credit card processing machine pay alot of fees and start processing. Or you could process credit cards online with little or no fees at all. Google Checkout and Paypal Checkout are the best choices. They both offer similar features, web store integration, email invoices, phone support and both except most major credit cards. However, I believe the best way to go, for now anyways, is with Google checkout. There are various reasons why, but the major ones are: they are currently offering free processing until 2008 and starting 2008 its only %2 and $0.20 per transaction.

Next, when you’re not making house/business calls how do you support the end user over the phone? Lets face it your going to have to draw a line in the sand somewhere. At some point you going to have to tell a customer that you cannot troubleshoot their problem over the phone and that they will need to schedule on-site time or drop off their device. But back to the original question how do you support them without going on-site? Two ways:

1. For option one your going to need to have install or serviced the end users router and it will also have to be a Linksys 54g or gs. You will have had to install an upgraded firmware on this device, DD-WRT. NOTE: you can not charge someone for this software it is released under GPL and is free for anyone. Although, you could charge for installation/service, just make sure you note it on the invoice, software free, service $X.XX. Now you will need to setup something to update the ip address when it changes and log the domain name with the customer. Lets take care of the domain and worry about storing somewhere later. Suggestion, no-ip.com use this service and the upgraded routes software to maintain an updated ip address so you can connect to the user later. Next you will need to setup your incoming connection. You could open some ports pray they don’t get DOS’d and install UltraVNC or utilize built-in RDP. Or Now you can use your spiffy new DD-WRT software on the router to setup a simple pptp VPN server. This will give you access to the users entire network. So how do you connect? RDP is free, easy to use, an built in to most Windows XP based systems. An alternative would be UltraVNC again, its free, easy to use and will install on most PCs. Plus UltraVNC has extra features like, screen sharing and. file transfers. Again VNC is free so don’t try and sell it. With this installed, and you VPN’d into the network you can begin supporting your client.

I yammered on for a while now so look at it, give me feedback and I will work on part two for tomorrow.

-Bryan