It’s easy in times of economic crisis to start chopping marketing budgets, however we believe the web is a solution to survive economic hard times, not a budget item to cut. Simply put, the web is more important now than at any other time. Here are some reasons why:

• The web is cost effective. A typical website costs roughly the same as a large advertisement in a daily newspaper. A newspaper has a limited lifetime, whereas a website is longer term.
• The web adapts and grows with you. Using a Content Management System, you can build content over time. A website is organic in growth, not once-off like other traditional media.
• The web is timely. You can keep a website up-to-date far more frequently than traditional media. You can test and adapt your message daily, if need be.
• The web is measurable. Using traffic analysis, you can get a clear idea of the visitors to your website, and what they view. No other medium shows you such results based detail. What you can measure, you can test and improve.
• The web is improved communication. Using the web, you can engage in direct conversations with your customers and build a stronger, more loyal following.
• The web is now expected.
  More and more businesses and consumers are using the web to find suppliers or products. Not having a website in this age is akin to not having a telephone.
• The web reduces customer service costs.
  How much of your staff time is taken up answering typical questions? Your website can answer these in more depth and with better results, over and over without the costs.
• The web improves systems.
  From downloadable forms, to internal and external communications, to streamlining payment and other systems, the web costs less than paper shuffling and telephone calls.
• The web builds brand awareness.
  People use the web to speak about products or services irrespective if you have a website. Using the web, you can join and engage the community.
• The web is global.
  You can sell to your town or city, or you can use the web to sell globally. The web is an exporter’s dream platform.
• The web is local. If your market is local, you can exploit local search, mobile web, social media to build your local business. Google Places is one such local marketing resource.
• The web works whilst you sleep.
  The web is 24 hours, seven days a week. Your office or shop isn’t. Why should you stop selling or marketing when you go home at the end of the day?
• The web is faster.
  Using blogs, email newsletters and campaigns means instant communication, not time lagged direct mail or traditional advertising.
• Your competition is already here.

If you don’t have a website, we can assure you, your competition does. Why let them have the advantage?
It’s time to embrace the web!
If you currently have a website that needs embracing, or you require a new website, speak to your web company, or contact the team at CoolBalance Inc.

The Squirrel Application Server

(called the Squirrel Host) runs under Windows XP or Server and communicates with Microsoft SQL Server and the Squirrel POS Workstation applications. It is also the hub for communication with Payment Processors (and other third party systems such as Hotel Property Management Systems, Kitchen Video Systems etc).

Custom Interface/Connection to Payment Processor

Custom Receipts and Vouchers

WorkFlow

Develop your Own Interface or Hire an Expert

Payment interfaces are conceptually simple. Squirrel requests the interface to accept or reject payment for a specific dollar amount. The interface communicates with the Payment Processor and sends the approval/rejection back to Squirrel. The details of implementing this and all of the different variations and additional features Squirrel requires can make this a much more complex task. That is where having an expert develop your interface has many advantages. Items to consider are:

• Do you need a custom voucher/receipt or is the default Squirrel Credit Card Voucher adequate?
• Do you want your custom voucher to coexist with another custom payment card voucher at the customer site?
• Do you know how to handle realtime voids/reversals, alternate IP paths
• Partial Authorizations
• Duplicate Transactions
• Documentation
• Installation

Our companies, Cool Balance Inc and Adept Computing Inc are experts in developing payment interfaces for the Squirrel POS System. If you are a payment processor or a customer that wishes a customized integration I would encourage you to consider directly contracting the services of Cool Balance Inc or Adept Computing Inc. We have over 20 years experience in developing Payment Interfaces for Squirrel POS Systems and you will not find anyone that has more expertise in this field. Contact Greg Bruce, Managing Director of CoolBalance Inc. to discuss your needs and request a quote/proposal.

Brought to you by CoolBalance Inc

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

1. It’s got to be a BIG idea that you, your team and your customers can “get” in seconds.
2. Strive to create 10x — 100x in value for any price you charge. Your rewards are always proportionate to the value you provide.
3. You must charge a premium price so you have a large margin to provide an extraordinary value & experience.
4. Provide a ‘Reason Why’ customers should do business with you and pay you a premium.
5. Get paid before you deliver your product or service. And when possible figure out how to create recurring revenue from transactions.
6. You get to make the rules for your business. Don’t let industry norms dictate how you’ll work or who you’ll work with.
7. Create your business around your life instead of settling for your life around your business.
8. Consistently and constantly force yourself to focus on the ‘critically few’ proactive activities that produce exponential results. Don’t get caught up in minutia & bullshit.
9. Seek to minimize start-up risk but have maximum upside potential.
10. Get your idea out there as fast as possible even if it’s not quite ready by setting must-hit deadlines. Let the market tell you if you have a winner or not. If not — move on and fail forward fast! If it’s got potential — then you can make it better.
11. Find partners and team members who are strong where you are weak and appreciate being paid on results.
12. Your reputation always counts. Honor your obligations and agreements.
13. Never, ever get paid based on hours worked.
14. Leverage your marketing activities exponentially by using direct response methods and testing.
15. Measure and track your marketing so you know what’s working and what’s not.
16. Bootstrap. Having too much capital leads to incredible waste and doing things using conventional means.
18. Your partners and employees actions are their true core — not what they tell you.
19. Keep asking the right questions to come up with innovative solutions. “How?”, “What?”, “Where?”, “Who Else?” & “Why?” open up possibilities.
20. You’ll never have a perfect business and you’ll never be totally “done”. Deal with it.
21. Focus most of your time on your core strengths and less time working in areas you suck at.
22. Make it easier for customers to buy by taking away the risk of the transaction by guaranteeing what you do in a meaningful way.
23. Always have something else to sell (via upsell, cross-sell, follow-up offer, etc) whenever a transaction takes place. The hottest buyer in the world is one who just gave you money.
24. Always go back to your existing customers with exceptional offers and reasons they should give you more money. It’s 5x less expensive to sell to happy customers than go find new ones.
25. However the flip side is – fire your most annoying customers. They’ll be replaced with the right ones.
26. The marketplace and competitors are always trying to beat you down to a commodity. Don’t let that happen.
27. Develop and build your business’s personality that stands out. People want to buy from people.
28. Create your own category so you can be first in the consumer’s mind.
29. Go the opposite direction competitors are headed — you’ll stand out.
30. Mastermind and collaborate with other smart entrepreneurs if they have futures that are even bigger than their present.
31. Celebrate your victories. It’s too easy to simply move on to your next goal without acknowledging and appreciating the ‘win’.
32. Make your business AND doing business with you FUN!
33. Do the unexpected before and after anything goes wrong so customers are compelled to ‘share your story’.
34. Get a life! Business and making money are important but your life is the sum total of your experiences. Go out and create experiences & adventures so you can come back renewed and inspired for your next big thing.
35. Give back! Commit to taking a % of your company’s sales and make a difference. If this becomes a habit like brushing your teeth pretty soon the big checks with lots of zeros won’t be scary to write. If you think you can’t donate a percentage of your sales simply raise your price.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

~ Rumi ~

(The Essential Rumi, versions by Coleman Barks)

This extension will work with Squirrel version 1.4x and above.

Installation is simple. Copy the SecurityLock.class file to the c:\Squirrel\Program\pos\extended folder and then create a file named c:\Squirrel\PosData\SecurityLock.config which the list of badge numbers allowed to access whatever button(s) you are protecting. List one badge number per line.

Now in the Squirrel Explorer, go to “Daily Setup” and the “Point of Sale Screen Setup” and enter SecurityLock as the name of the “Pre Execute” function.

Please note that you must enter “SecurityLock” exactly as it appears here, with a capital ‘S’ and a capital ‘L’.

Contact your reseller or Cool Balance for support. You can use the contact form on this site.

Update: Thanks to a comment from Joe Lowe of Pismo Technic Inc. I checked out his product for mounting Virtual CD’s/DVD’s/Zips etc. Definitely preferable to what I originally blogged about.
Check out my posting on this here.

I want a virtual CD, to be able to mount the ISO file as a drive. Well, this has proven painful to find. It turns out that Microsoft has an unsupported utility that let’s you do this. It was difficult to find, but here is the link for the download.
link for the download from download.microsoft.com.
Installation is easy, even if it’s not automated completely.
I’m using this on Windows XP Home without any problem so far. I’ve loaded DVD’s and CD’s this way. Cool!

THIS TOOL IS UNSUPPORTED BY MICROSOFT PRODUCT SUPPORT SERVICES

System Requirements
===================
- Windows XP Home or Windows XP Professional

Installation instructions
=========================
1. Copy VCdRom.sys to your %systemroot%\system32\drivers folder.
2. Execute VCdControlTool.exe
3. Click “Driver control”
4. If the “Install Driver” button is available, click it. Navigate to the %systemroot%\system32\drivers folder, select VCdRom.sys, and click Open.
5. Click “Start”
6. Click OK
7. Click “Add Drive” to add a drive to the drive list. Ensure that the drive added is not a local drive. If it is, continue to click “Add Drive” until an unused drive letter is available.
8. Select an unused drive letter from the drive list and click “Mount”.
9. Navigate to the image file, select it, and click “OK”. UNC naming conventions should not be used, however mapped network drives should be OK.

You may now use the drive letter as if it were a local CD-ROM device. When you are finished you may unmount, stop, and remove the driver from memory using the driver control.

My Needs

I’m a software developer. I write some of my own software and write software for others on a contract basis. I need to keep backups of my work, both historical and ongoing. I also have invoices and receipts that I don’t want to lose, as well as my correspondence. Like everyone, I have personal email, photos, videos, ebooks (both fiction, marketing, software etc), software applications etc that I don’t want to lose. At various times I’ve made lists and links to software I use, however I never manage to keep track of them. I also have sensitive information I definitely don’t want anyone else seeing (bank account info etc).

I have my own domain and a couple of web-hosting accounts. So I want to be sure I don’t lose that information.

My Strategy

As a software developer I use SubVersion as a Source Code Control system. I originally used just a local file system repository. I could have setup a file based backup for this, however I never did get anything setup. Now I’m collaborating with two other developers and so I’ve moved my source code repository to my webhost (Site5, which I’d recommend) which I access using an SSH link using a private key access unique to each developer. That’s working well so far. I’m also relying on the Site5 backup. I’m going to be adding in the open source package Unison File Synchronizer to keep that repository synchronized with either a desktop backup or with my laptop. I might also check out the Subversion repository mirror facility. I do plan on using Unison to keep the website backed up (less the databases. More on that strategy later).

I’ve been using the free version of Mozy for online backup for my laptop. (My Referrer code is 7G2K76, I get a little extra space if you give me credit for referring you) This is pretty good with 2 GByte of free backup. I’ve got my essential files backed up there. Some of them at least. The paid version seems well worth the $5/month it costs. What I backup at the moment is my current development directory as well as my documents and invoices. I’m close to the 2Gig limit. Expect that I might signup for the Home version.

I’m also going to try using the Unison File Synchronizer” to keep a local copy of the website on my laptop. I’m rethinking this option as it must be installed on both the server and the desktop, and that is looking like too much work to setup. I’m checking out FTP synchronization software to see if that might be an option.

Finally, I think the most important part of the strategy is using an external USB hard-drive (easy and inexpensive, I have a Trek 250gig portable and a Lacie 500gig usb desktop drive) to keep an image of my hard drive. This will insulate me from the potential hard drive failure, handle issues where I might lose my laptop (theft) or have to take it in for repair. My wife had her laptop in for repair and the tech kindly reformatted the hard drive. We had made copies of the essential files, however it took additional effort to reinstall everything, and of course we missed a few things. I’ve checked out a few open source applications, however I’m a bit concerned with the problems that some people have had with them and the apparent lack of responsiveness. I’ll do some more checking, however I’ve chosen the Acronis True Image Home 11 image and backup package. It’s a great deal at $49.95 and will be useful for migrating from computer to computer as well. You can also try out the Acronis True Image 11 Home Trial Download to see if this strategy works for you.

The other part of my strategy is to use online apps. I use gmail for email. Love it. I use google docs to keep important word documents and spreadsheets and for collaboration. Finally I have a wiki at wikidot.com.

There are a number of interesting points, from taking mini-retirements every year (or few months), to using outsourcing to free up your time, to making less money from a business if it means giving yourself more time for other things (hence paying someone else to do something).

He has a number of examples and practical suggestions on how to build a web-based business and have it run by others while you monitor the important parts. Of course it’s still work and planning on your part to bring it all off.

All in all I highly recommend this book to anyone. It’s a great opportunity to examine your life, inspire yourself to more, and setup some new goals and actions.

Find this at your local library or bookseller.

ps. You should also visit http://www.fourhourworkweek.com

It’s more or less a book form of an essay, seeking to show that the best promise for the future for the United States (and the world for that matter) is “entrepreneurial capitalism”. Which is a fancy way of saying encouraging entrepreneurs, both nationally, and inside large corporations. How to do this, teach more about running a business in school, the basics, like basic accounting, risk assessment.

What struck me was how to apply it to my life and future. It certainly was a reinforcement of my desire to make my business flourish, and to focus on being agile and responsive. At the same time, I don’t take much time to think and plan strategy for the future. The best security is knowing what I can create myself.

Check out www.kauffman.org the author’s foundation website.

If you are interested in the book, here it is at amazon. The Entrepreneurial Imperative