Welcome to Michael's Article Collection

Crystal Reports for Microsoft Great Plains

Microsoft Business Solutions – Great Plains is designed to meet and extend the needs of small and mid-size organizations for its business success. Its comprehensive accounting and business management applications also provide businesses with capabilities to customize various modules of the Great Plains software to fit to their specific needs. Because of these potentials, Great Plains has been t. . .

Have you let a spy into your computer?

Yes, it's true. You may have inadvertently invited a spy into your computer. This spy is known as "spyware, adware, or trojans", and once it is in your computer it starts taking statistical information as you travel the Internet. In some cases, it may send you pop-up ads and slow down your computer. A wired.com article, mentions it "could even collect your credit card information". How did you . . .

ANTI-S*P^A#M: Protecting Your Web Site's Email Address(es)

Did you know that there are software programs that view web sites and steal email addresses? It's called "harvesting" because they're harvesting your email address from your site. This may be one of the reasons your web site email address is receiving more s*p^a#m than wanted email.When I first started teaching web design classes, I strongly suggested that students place their email address on . . .

Sending SMS in Foreign Languages For Example Arabic, Gree...

Mobile phone penetration is increasing globally. With the increase in handsets, being able to communicate with the handset owners in their own language is something that is becoming increasingly important. The first question that comes to mind is how it works when foreign languages are sent to mobiles from a web site. Based on the fact that computers fundamentally just deal with numbers, letter. . .

The Hidden Benefit Of Computer Certification

The web is covered with stories regarding the benefits of professional computer certification, and most of them are backed up with salary surveys and the like. While there’s certainly nothing wrong with making more money and having better job prospects, there’s one benefit of certification that many candidates forget about.Confidence.You can’t pay your rent with confidence; you can’t pay for g. . .

Spyware Programs Are Out To Get You

The average computer is packed with hidden software that can secretly spy on online habits.The US net provider EarthLink said it uncovered an average of 28 spyware programs on each PC scanned during the first three months of the year.There are currently over 38,000 spyware and adware programs that are infecting innocent Internet users such as yourself through downloadable games, music, screensa. . .

Web Site Hosting For Your Business – Free or Paid?

It’s time to choose! Should you spend some money to get a web hosting solution for your business or get one for free?Yes, the big moment has finally arrived. Your business is now on the verge of taking the next step forward. It will establish a web presence. This is an important step as from now on your business is able to reach more customers, is able to get more exposure, and hopefully enjoy . . .

Imaginary Reality

Our once concrete world is now dissolving into a realm of intangibility.It's interesting to consider the ways in which the computer and the Internet have changed our lives. Tasks that once required visiting certain locations and interacting with specific people, such as booking a holiday or accessing your bank account can now be performed online. Often when you do go somewhere to talk to an ass. . .

Beware of Spyware

One day, you suddenly realize that your computer started to work noticeably slower than it used to. You decide to run de-fragmentation of your hard drive and add more virtual memory to the system. No luck! May be, it’s probably some viruses, you reckon turning on your virus scanning software. Even after running the anti-virus program you notice that the problem won’t resolve. Not understan. . .

Why Build Your Own Gaming Computer?

The best way to get the gaming computer that you want, that will provide optimum performance is to build your own computer. If you think you do not have the technical knowledge or are not capable of building a computer you are wrong. I'm pretty certain that I could teach my mother (who has a hard time working a VCR) how to build a computer. If you can plug a sweeper into a wall outlet and use a. . .

Bluetooth Now Poised To Fulfill Its Promise

No question about it, Bluetooth is very handy thanks to its improved integration with computers, cell phones and automobiles.When Bluetooth first appeared about five years ago, the hype far outstripped its usefulness. The ability to eliminate the tangles of cords and cables was very alluring. Unfortunately, cost and complexity almost brought the technology to its knees. Now its back, alive and . . .

Microsoft RMS and Crystal Reports

Microsoft Retail Management System (MS RMS), formerly known as QuickSell 2000, is an integrated retail management software designed to help small and medium-sized retailers to automate their business processes. It runs on personal computers and can be used by practically any type of a retail environment: sporting goods, hobby stores, convenience food stores, appliance stores, liquor stores, jus. . .

Pointers in FRx Financial Reporting

Microsoft Business Solution – Great Plains is an integrated business solution package targeted for small to medium-sized businesses in the US market. Its many features combined with customization capabilities make it one of the best ERP software packages available today. Great Plains uses the ODBC drivers installed by Microsoft SQL Server, making data accessible from each of its modules to be u. . .

Microsoft Navision and Crystal Reports - An Overview

Microsoft Business Solutions – Navision is an integrated solution for small and midsize companies looking to expand their business operations without much interruption to its existing processes. Microsoft Navision enables businesses to alter as much or as little of its existing system, integrate add-ons and vertical segments of its development. It integrates every aspect of your organization, f. . .

Dexterity in Great Plains - An Overview

Microsoft Business Solutions – Great Plains has captured the US market with its integrated business applications for small and mid-size organizations. Its comprehensive accounting and business management capabilities provide businesses with tools to customize various modules of the Great Plains software. These tools have been proven to have contributed to business growth and tighter control ove. . .

IT Skills for MS Great Plains and CRM

Microsoft Business Solutions products and services are targeted to integrate operations of small and mid-size businesses and divisions of large enterprises. Microsoft Great Plains has been the ideal application for today’s market because it can handle a wide variety of customization.As an IT Director or Department Head, one should foresee the positions to fill to cover Great Plains ERP and CRM . . .

Keyword Prices Decline 3.0% in the First Quarter of 2005

An analysis of web’s most popular 20,000 keywords by TopPayingKeywords.com, found that keyword prices dropped 3.0% from January 2005 to April 2005 from an average bid price of 58.9 cents to an average bid price of 57.1 cents. The 20,000 most popular keywords are distributed in pricing as follows:Keyword Price…# of Keywords$20.00-$49.99…20$10.00 - $19.99…123$5.00 - $9.99…660$3.00 - $4.99…923$1.. . .

Microsoft CRM Integration & Customization: SharePoint Doc...

MS CRM is very close to document workflow automation, including Microsoft Office documents: Words, Excel, etc. The document workflow was perfectly automated about 10 years ago in Lotus Notes Domino. In this small article we describe the solution based on MS CRM integration with MS SharePoint. Microsoft CRM is new player on CRM applications market and it is gaining its market share. Having diffe. . .

Reclaim Your PC from the Internet Spies

Viruses are, however, not the only malicious software programs out there. The newest addition to the evil software family is the so called Spywares and a good anti-virus program or firewall is not enough to safeguard against these clever programs.Spywares are known by many names such as adware, trojans, malware, browser hijackers etc. The thing they all have in common is that they will transmit. . .

Tools for Customizing Great Plains

Microsoft Business Solutions – Great Plains has captured the US market with its integrated business applications for small and mid-size organizations. Its comprehensive accounting and business management capabilities provide businesses with tools to customize various modules of the Great Plains software. These tools have been proven to have contributed to business growth and tighter control ove. . .

Making Internet Radio Work

When I was 13 years old there was a movie that came out that literally changed my life. It was 1973 and the movie was American Graffitti. I quickly fell in love with the music and the 50's subculture and 30 some years later I still haven't shaken off that genre of music. As a kid I tuned into the local station KRLA in Pasadena, California, an oldies station at that time. While others were tunin. . .

Managing Project Risks and Issues

What is the difference between a project risk and a project issue and what different types can I expect to encounter? What tools can I use to manage the risks and issues on a Project? This article offers some possible answers, drawn from experience on Intranet Portal deployments and the PRINCE methodology.Inherent (or Business) RiskInherent Risk is the risk that exists in the environment arou. . .

Consumer Review on CallWave Call Alert Service

Missing phone calls while you are online?Are you thinking of getting a private fax number for your business?Can't afford an extra phone lines for your business?If you answer ‘yes’ for any one of the questions above, then CallWave might be what you are looking for. CallWave internet calls alert system is specially dedicated to all the internet users, cell phone users, and business owners. It is . . .

Intranet Portals – Collaboration through Team Rooms

In this article, David Viney looks at how collaboration between and amongst teams can become a killer application on your Intranet Portal. How can you get the best value from such an investment and achieve a step change in knowledge management and knowledge sharing in your organisation?Knowledge Management for beginnersKnowledge Management (KM) can be defined simply as the process through whic. . .

Implementing Microsoft CRM: setup and configuration – not...

Microsoft Business Solutions CRM is web-based CRM application, deploying all the spectrum of recent Microsoft technologies. We’ll try to analyze different needs and implementation scenarios attributed to specific industries and business types, based on our experience.First we would like to emphasize the increasing role of in-house IT department in the strategic decision making. Looking back t. . .

Web Development Processes and Technical Environments

The process of Web application development is critical to the success of web-based projects. The proper processes can not be enforced unless technical environments are properly setup. Technical environments are required for development, test and production. Web applications architecture ( http://www.sysoptima.net/architecture/technical_architecture.php ) is typically in 3-tiers. Applications ar. . .

Microsoft Great Plains SQL Reporting and data fixing

This is beginner level SQL scripting article for DB Administrator, Programmer, IT Specialist Our and Microsoft Business Solutions goal here is to educate database administrator, programmer, software developer to enable them support Microsoft Great Plains for their companies. In our opinion self support is the goal of Microsoft to facilitate implementation of its products: Great Plains, Navision. . .

How To Avoid Becoming A Victim of Identity Theft

With identity theft statistics currently at an all time high, and climbing, it just makes sense that we should all be doing everything we can to protect ourselves.One of the most prevalent yet overlooked ways your personal information and passwords may be being compromised is through the presence of Spyware on your computer.Note these very disturbing Facts about Spyware and Identity Theft: 27.3. . .

Defend Your Thank You Folders From URL Guessers

If you sell downloadable products, you're going to have a thank you page (a URL where the buyer is redirected after a sale). With just a couple lines of HTACCESS code you can make that folder airtight. You shouldn't be putting a buyer through a mandatory signup process to download the product. They already paid, just give them the file right away and offer a chance to opt-in for updates later. . . .

CRM and Customer Life Cycle

Customer Relationship Management or CRM is a combination of enterprise strategies, business processes and information technologies used to learn more about customers' needs and behaviors in order to develop stronger relationships with them. CRM software systems automate many customer-related business tasks. CRM applications are traditionally developed as client-server software which incurs high. . .

Email Etiquette

Today we are going to discuss one of my pet peeves, and learn about email etiquette. Those who don't BCC send, an email nightmare. When you send your friends an email showing all email in the to: or CC line and those people forward that email to their address book of friends, suddenly 500 people now have your friends email addresses.These email addresses remain in the email, because most people. . .

Displaying RSS Feeds

RSS offers webmasters a unique opportunity to display fresh content on websites. While publishing an RSS feed is a great way to generate site interest and increase communication, syndicating and displaying feeds from related relevant sources can also generate interest, increase traffic and improve search engine ranking.RSS RadarsWebmasters with limited time or capacity can syndicate related con. . .

Microsoft Great Plains 8.0 Brazilian version – overview f...

Microsoft Great Plains has substantial mid-market share in the USA plus due to the marketing efforts of former Great Plains Software (now part of Microsoft Business Solutions) in Spanish Speaking South America, South Africa, United Kingdom, Middle East, Poland – we see strong position of Microsoft Great Plains in these regions (on these markets MBS promotes two mid-market ERP: Great Plains and . . .

How to Backup a PC

Everyone thinks, ‘it won’t happen to me’. But what if it does? All your files, pictures and documents gone, in an instant. Sure, you can reach for the disks that came with your computer to reinstall the applications but what about the most important component, your data? Data backup is something too many computer owners ignore.There are a number of things that can bring down your computer, some. . .

Backing Up Your Data in Windows XP

If you haven't backed up your important data at least to a CD, you should do so IMMEDIATELY! A computer, any computer, can crash at any time, whether it's a new computer, an old computer, a really expensive computer, or a cheapy.This article will teach you how to back up your My Documents folder on a CD, since the My Documents folder is where people usually keep most of their important stuff. I. . .

Cisco CCNP Certification: Introduction To BGP

Cisco certification candidates are introduced to BGP at the CCNP level, but the reaction to its introduction always reminds me of something I see often as the CCNA level.Whenever I teach distance-vector protocols in my Ultimate CCNA Boot Camp or Fast Track classes, I make sure my students understand the many rules of distance-vector routing thoroughly. After that, we move on to OSPF and link-st. . .

Graduate Degree Programs

There are a number of online graduate degree programs that are available on the net. You can virtually get a graduate degree program in each and every discipline you wish to search. These anytime, anywhere courses cover topics from business and management education to film production and journalism. You can even get graduate degree programs for fields such as fashion designing. Many universitie. . .

Microsoft CRM Integration with Microsoft Office documents...

Microsoft CRM is CRM application, maintained and supported by Microsoft Business Solutions. Microsoft CRM utilizes majority of the Microsoft technologies: Windows Active Directory, SQL Server, MS Exchange, BizTalk (integration with MS Great Plains, and soon with Navision), Message Queuing, .Net web services to name a few. There is market demand on the efficient integration of MS Office docume. . .

Microsoft Great Plains Customization Localization – techn...

Microsoft Business Solutions has several products, targeted to all the variety of businesses: from small to middles size and large. Microsoft is in the process to transfer all of them to Microsoft SQL Server platform. In this small article we would like to give you highlights on localizing Microsoft Great Plains, former Great Plains Dynamics / Great Plains eEnterprise. If you are programmer,. . .

Writing Tips for Your Website

Now that your website is up and running, it's time to add content. Fresh content will make your site interesting and keep people (and search engine crawlers) coming back. In order to achieve optimal web success, your site must be informative, relevant and written the way that people read the web. Here's a few tips to get you started. Get to the point--FAST. Just ask internet usability consultan. . .

Three Things You Can Do to Keep Your Computer Running at ...

Although there are many things that can affect the performance of your computer, there are a few simply things you can do each month to help keep your computer running at maximum performance. This article will focus on two problems that impact the performance of your computer and will then explain what you can do about it.Problem #1: Computer Hard Disk FilesYour computer is always writing infor. . .

Web Hosting - Choose Affordable, Cheap Web Hosting

The Basics:Web hosting offers you the opportunity to put your web site online, when you think about it; it’s the only way you can do it. No matter how large or small in content your web site happens to be it has to go onto a web server. A web server is simply a larger and much more powerful computer than your own. Your internet content simply sits on this server for people to access and view yo. . .

Microsoft Great Plains PM: Payables Management

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains is marketed for mid-size companies as well as Navision (which has very good positions in Europe and emerging markets where it can be easily localized). Great Plains Payables Management (PM) module improves control over your payables. With easy access to comprehensive vendor information, payment scheduling and tracking, and up-to-the minute answer to yo. . .

The Online Advertising Scandal

The World Wide Web was an enormous step for mankind, a step not seen since Neil Armstrong sullied the surface of the moon. The idea behind the WWW came across as a veritable information highway where documents, data and info could be rapidly sent and accessed by millions the world over. The potential behind the web is enormous and even now the scope is not fully utilized. The possibilities for . . .

Solve your Spyware and Adware Problem

Having a good Spyware eliminator on your computer is vital now a days with all of the different Spyware, Adware, and other malicious computer parasites that are out there. Most of them are reasonably priced and very easy to use.Two of the biggest things that these Anti-Spyware programs accomplish for you are that they help in protecting your online privacy and they help make your computer run . . .

Microsoft Great Plains Installation, Setup and Configurat...

Microsoft Business Solutions is on the way to popularize it's ERP systems implementation. Right now such products as Microsoft CRM and Small Business Manager (cheap version of Microsoft Great Plains, based on the same Great Plains Dexterity runtime and DYNAMICS.DIC dictionary) are targeted to self-implementation by in-house IT group. This is short article, written in question/answer/FAQ style. . .

Why is GOOGLE Butchering SERP Titles and Descriptions?

Is GOOGLE Butchering SERP Titles and Descriptions or Testing Algorithm Changes?I have just checked SERP Titles and Descriptions for several of my Sites and have come away very disturbed by a new trend.It appears GOOGLE has reverted to DMOZ anchor text for SERP Titles and included all header image “alt” text in the descriptions.These SERP listing methods will hit W3C validated Sites with graphic. . .

Online Coupons Furthering Consumerism

Consumerism is the public face of capitalism. Ultimately, everyone is a consumer regardless of the political system in position - even communists had to buy things. But, consumerism has reached giddy heights in the "West", where the culture itself is one of "I want". Perhaps a more recognizable face of this is the "one up on the Jones'" ideology - the Jones' have a new car, then you had better . . .

Microsoft Great Plains RW: Report Writer

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains is marketed for mid-size companies as well as Navision (which has very good positions in Europe and emerging markets where it can be easily localized). Great Plains Report Writer (RW) module allows for modification and creation of Great Plains reports to suit your business needs. RW is a powerful tool that allows you to draw data from virtually any are. . .

Basic Diagnosis Guidelines for Your PC

Simone is exasperated. She has to work on her university assignment but her PC is not working properly. For example: She would like to open a single Internet Explorer window but a whole series of windows are opening up. Simone is not alone when it comes to this sort of problem. As a matter of fact, most of us will come across these kinds of problems in our life. When you fall sick you go to a d. . .