How to lock an encrypted drive without rebooting windows 8 everytime

Windows 8 Bitlocker : Locking the drive without rebooting PC

Steps :

Step 1)      Press the ‘Windows + X’ key on the keyboard.

Step 2)      Select “Command Prompt (Admin)” option.

Step 3)      Note: If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

Step 4)      In the Command Prompt window, type the command below and then press Enter key.
manage-bde -lock X:

Note: Here “X” is the drive letter that you want to unlock.

Building a website : beginners perspective

In todays day and age,where computer users are increasing by large numbers monthly,the website has developed as a means of self expression or as a launch point for business pursuits.

There are countless ways of learning how to make a website using such tools as the
WYSIWYG(What You See Is What You Get)HTML Editor.This is basically a point and click to create program.If you want a website fast,try it.
Good places for these are myspace.com or your internet service provider.They can provide you with a free website where you can really be creative with there (what you see is what you get editor)

HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and was the standard language when the graphical user interface(GUI)was implemented
into the windows operating system.
There are other languages that can be used to make a website,such as Flash,xml,dhtml and a few others.In my opinion,the most flexible language and most easy to learn is html.
A great online source to learn html is html goodies(http://www.htmlgoodies.com).The online tutorials found here are second to none and range from basic to advanced.This is where I learned basic html and I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn the language.

Lets talk about the basic layout of your first page of your website.
Is this a personal website? Will it be a website showcasing products that you intend to sell?
If this is a personal website,You can start by having all your links on the left side of the page,your text content can be in the middle with images if you like.On the right side of the page can be more links and images.You will need to divide the page into 3 sections to accomplish this.It can be done with table commands or with the divison command.Please go to the html goodies(http://www.htmlgoodies.com)site for futher explanations of these and future terms in this article for the best clarification possible.

Now,lets say you want to make a website for your small business that your starting.For example,your going to be selling computer games.
You will want people to know about your website and this entails submitting your website to the major search engines and directories,such as google,yahoo.msn,altavista and others.
Here is a great list of directories,both paid and free.
(http://www.seocompany.ca/directory/web-directories.html)

It is most advantageous for new online business's to register a domain name.This is important for two reasons. First,with a .com domain,your business will look professional.Secondly,from a search engine prospective,a domain name with a .com suffix is more prudent.
You need to pick a domain name that is the most relevant to your business.For example,your selling computer games and accessories.
How about http://www.best-computer-games.com ? You can do a search for available domain names at http://www.namesearch.com
Relevancy is a big factor in how the search engines will rank your site,so keep this in mind when choosing a domain name.

You want your small business website to be informative,to the point,and to keep your viewers interested at all times they are on your website..Nothing turns off a website visitor more than the link to a page they click on(yours)to be slow loading into there web browser.

There are ways to speed up the loading process of a webpage into the web browser.If you have alot of images on your website,you should always denote the height and width of the image in the link.
An Example: after the second quotation mark in the word alt.The opening tag is < This goes right by the letter i in the word image. If I do that in this article,I will receive an error becuase there is no such file,its just an example to show you.
Doing this will make your web pages load very quickly into the site visitors web browser.Have a question about the alt""? Ok,I will explain this to you.Lets say your image is of a computer game.
If you would type inside of the quotes of the alt command:
alt="This is the best computer game" Now,when the page loads and someone puts there mouse over the image,what you typed in the alt command will be displayed as text.You can type whatever you want in the alt command,but if your looking for search engine relevancy,I would type in one of your keywords thats relative to the product that displays as the image.
As mentioned before,for further clarification of images,go to the html goodies site(http://www.htmlgoodies.com)for there image tutorial.

To keep the viewer staying on your website,you need to make sure all your links are operational and not dead links.Meaning,there is a page not found error(404) that displays when someone would click on one of your links from your main page.

Meta tags and Keywords are important so your site can receive the highest possible ranking and relevancy. To learn more about meta tags and keywords,go to html goodies(http://www.htmlgoodies.com)This is another topic all together that I wont go into in detail in this article.

I would just like to say that The WYSIWYG(What you see is what you get)html editors are good for the quick fix website,I dont get the gratification of building a website using that method. I code all my webpages by hand in windows notepad. This will take longer but I do receive more satisfaction designing my webpages this way.

Windows 8 V/s Android

 

So many things have been said on different websites and blogs about windows 8 since its launch. Bloggers and technologists have studied every feature of windows 8 and drawn a comparison with ios and android.

This blog does not cover technical aspect of windows 8 anywhere. This post draws comparison between both FROM USERS’ MINDSET.

To start with the comparison, I would like to throw a question here:
“Is there any comparison between Linkedin and Facebook”?

Although comparison has been drawn many a times between these two by many people. But my answer is a plain “NO”. while linkedin is targeted at business users, whereas Facebook is targeted on casual users. Although facebook has tried to make space into business users by “facbook pages”, but users are using these two with a clear mindset.

Now come to the point “Windows 8 vs android”…

In a similar fashion mentioned above, we cannot draw a comparison between these (A BIG WHY…).

1.       Android is in the market since a long time and started its journey as a mobile platform. Whereas although windows 8 is launched just now BUT living in people’s mind since a long time as a “Default Platform” for computers (Yes, read it DEFAULT).

2.       Google tried to enter into PC market with “Chromium”, but till the date, not much PC’s are coming preloaded with this OS.

3.       Android perceived synonymous to games, more off a fun value is attached with android. Whereas Since ages office users/business users are using windows as a serious platform (Read it just work platform).

4.       As Google is trying to enter into serious business with “Chromium”, With “Windows 8”, Microsoft is trying to enter into fun business. 

Both of them are trying hard to change people’s perception (At least Windows 8)
(See recent adverts of Windows 8,in which it is very clearly targeted).

The road for Microsoft is comparatively easy. Let’s see, who wins the race.

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Best Target market for online shopping portal are smaller cities?

Is this true that best target market for online shopping portal are smaller cities….YES

The main reasons for expected growth of shopping carts in Indian smaller cities can be cited as follows:

•  Non-Availability of major brands in smaller cities.
•  Even if brand stores are available, wide variety of goods are missing. Looking at the buying capacity, companies don’t put complete variety there.
•   It is easy for companies to put product images on the online shopping cart instead of keeping dead stock on all store locations.
• Comparison shopping is available without moving at so many places (applicable for non-metros as well as metros).

COD (cash on delivery) has emerged as most favourable buying method in online shopping portals. The Indian mentality of buying is feeling of the product. Until we could see and touch the product, we won’t be buying the product. Although the fear factor of online shopping companies regarding COD had stopped them since a long time. But the major companies could sense this feeling of Indian buyers and has added COD in their shopping carts.

Emerging credit card/debit card availability: Earlier credit card/debit card were not available widely in smaller cities and people were not keen even to use the electronic cards. Indian railways instigated people to go for online shopping card. Keeping themselves away from burgeoning lines on railway counters, people started using cards.

Multi brand vs single brand stores: Most of the famous stores flipkart, jabong, myntra, snapdeal etc. are multi brand stores, where the brands are running their single brand stores too.

During a survey for manufacturing companies in some major cities, we found that people are planning to go for their single brand stores. The major reason found to be was:

• On multi brand stores, the competitive company’s products will be shown along your side.
•  On single brand store, once the customer is convinced, he is going to make purchase decision. Whereas on    multi brand store, he will search the products, where a good deal is available.
•      Mostly bargain hunters are going on multi brand stores, whereas single brand store are creating loyal customers.

The manufacturers are still thinking whether they should adopt this model or not. The reason came out are as follows:

• Their existing dealer network will be hampered.
•  They are not being able to gauge, whether they should implement COD (most successful shopping cart model)

     Our shopping cart solutions "Shopping Cart Plus" & "Shopping Cart Lite" has emerged as leading shopping cart solutions to many companies.

    Want to know more: mail us at enquiry@softwarehouse.co or drop your queries on our social media pages.

Tips for creating successful email campaigns

Email marketing can overcome many traditional marketing challenges because you can target audience segments effectively, it’s cost-effective, and the results are easy to track. Consider email marketing to be part of an holistic marketing strategy.

This document provides an overview of established best practices and the newest strategies for improving email response rates. Don’t waste your marketing dollars—or your credibility—on email campaigns that don’t produce results. Instead, improve your list-building techniques and email marketing process in ways that generate the greatest ROI by following these 9 tips.

1. Use targeted lists – Start by creating lists that segment your
audience into target groups. Use criteria such as locale, company,

industry or size, job titles, past purchases, and demographic information. If you can’t segment your leads and customers along those lines today, start by creating custom fields on the lead and account records to come up with these or other meaningful segments.
 2. Target your content – You’ll want to send out a lot of emails—but not the same email to everyone. You’ll get the best results by tailoring your message and content to appeal to each audience by following these tips:

• Don’t send out generic emails – Use short, personalized messages without graphics, sent by the salesperson or lead owner.
• Include a call to action – For example, provide a link to an article, whitepaper, or recording. You want to get the prospect to your Web site by providing something that’s valuable to him or her.
• Use industry-specific key words – Speak to the audience in their language.
• Experiment with rich text HTML and plain text formats – See which gets the best response.

 3. Alert sales – Whenever you execute a campaign, alert sales so they’re ready to respond quickly and appropriately to the resulting leads.

 4. Integrate with your Web site –Use Web-to-lead forms to capture prospect information from visitors to your site. And check out the marketing automation apps on the AppExchange to discover other ways to shorten the time between an inquiry and response. For example, Eloqua makes it possible to score prospect activity and send hot leads to sales through Salesforce CRM.
 
 5. Develop a social media strategy – Use social media to increase visibility, reinforce your brand, educate prospects, and establish yourself as a trusted advisor and expert. Encourage prospects to participate in your social media channels and use those channels to drive opt-ins for your email database.

6. Drive traffic to your social media channels
– Use the networks you use every day to share messages with friends and your larger network. Ask members of your communities to participate in groups and discussions.

• Engage with prospects through LinkedIn groups.

• Facebook groups are becoming widely used for business marketing. Consider starting a group for your company.

• Use Tiny URLs on Twitter to redirect prospects to a micro-site or landing page.

• Start a blog. It’s one of the best things you can do to help search engines find you. Then use that blog to generate leads and activities for sales. Include links in your emails to drive prospects to your blog.

7. Don’t spam –

Respect your prospects. Your goal is to have a conversation over time—a single email is not a conversation. And pay attention to local laws. For example, the United States has the CAN-SPAM Act, which sets the rules for commercial messages and gives recipients the right to opt out. Every country has its own laws banning email spam. Check out these resources on the topic of spam and permission marketing.

8. Track results –
To keep refining your tactics for increasingly results, you must measure how users respond. Think about what you want to measure and then identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) you want to track. Common metrics for evaluating email campaigns include unique open rates, unique click-through rates, delivery success rates, lead conversions, unsubscribes, and spam complaints. Please note that although you can get insight into lead conversion rates via standard reports, many companies work with AppExchange partners such as Birst and Omniture for more advanced ROI analytics.

9. Nurture campaigns –
Lead nurturing can have a dramatic effect on your sales pipeline. Of course, it’s important to alert your reps to follow up on leads being nurtured. One method to use is lead scoring, which assigns every lead a score, depending on activities such as opening an email, going to your site, or responding to calls to action (CTAs).

Be sure to share high-scoring prospects with your reps. Or simply track such activities and then notify the reps when someone responds after receiving an email; for example by downloading a whitepaper.  
 
 

Build a Project Schedule in 5 Easy Steps

Congratulations! You've been assigned your first project and your boss wants to see a project schedule at next week's status meeting. Hearing of your new promotion, the PC support team has installed Microsoft Project on your desktop so you're ready to start building a project schedule! Unfortunately, your Introduction to Microsoft Project training class isn't schedule until next month and your boss is expecting a full schedule by next week. Fortunately, if you have a book on Microsoft Project and this article, you'll be able to complete your assigned task.

 

 

 

According to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), there are five key processes to developing a project schedule. PMBOK's Time Management knowledge area explains each of the inputs, tools and techniques and output in detail so you should consult the PMBOK for supplemental information. Knowing that you need to get started with developing a project schedule, let's start with the five key steps.
 

Step One: Define Activities

The goal of the activity definition step is to identify all the tasks required to accomplish the product. This frequently results in identifying all the work products and deliverables that comprise the project. These deliverables are found as the components of a Work Break Down structure (WBS). The project schedule further decomposes these deliverables into the actual activities required to complete the work.

If the project team doesn't have an established scope statement, WBS, or sufficient scope definition, you may need to host a workshop or two to gather the requirements and further develop the project schedule. Since you need to produce a project schedule by next week, you will likely create tasks in your project schedule for "Analysis" or "Scope Definition". At this point in the project, it is OK to not have all the project details. You can build activities in your project schedule to gather the information. It is perfectly acceptable to build a plan for the analysis of the project before committing to the implementation or delivery phase of the project.

Assume for now you either have a WBS available or have enough information to build a sample set of tasks to further define the scope. Once you have all the activities defined, the next step is the sequence the activities.

 

 Step Two: Sequence Activities

At this point you've entered all the task names and have further decomposed the deliverables listed in the WBS. The next step is to sequence the activities with dependencies. During this step, you'll identify any dependencies of related tasks and document them in the project schedule. You'll need to analyze each of the tasks to understand which task has a dependency on additional tasks. In your favorite project schedule development book, be sure to read about the different types of dependency relationships include Finish-to-Start and Start-to-Start dependencies. These relationships will impact your task start and finish dates.

 

Step Three: Estimate Activity Resources

The next step is to identify the resources and their availability to your project. Remember that not all team members will be 100% available to your project as some team members will be working on multiple projects. In this step, you'll also assign resources to each of the tasks. I usually assign resource to tasks using the standard Gantt Chart view in Microsoft Project. For each task at the lowest point in the WBS, click on the drop down box in the Resource Names column and select the available team member.

I recommend breaking down the tasks so you can assign one task to one resource to avoid adding multiple resources to a given task. It creates a larger project schedule, but it allows me better control in allocating and tracking resources as the project executes.

 

 

Step Four: Estimate Activity Durations

With resources assigned, the next step is to estimate each task's duration. The activity's duration is the number of working periods required to complete the task. In Microsoft Project, this can be defined in days, weeks, and even months! It is also important to understand the difference of the different duration types including Fixed Work, Fixed Duration and Fixed Units. Selecting the correct duration type impacts the resource availability and the forecasted task end date.
 

Step Five: Develop Schedule

The next step is to analyze the project schedule and examine the sequences, durations, resources and inevitable scheduling constraints. The goal of this step is to validate the project schedule correctly models the planned work. In this step you'll not only validate the duration estimates are accurate, but validate the resource allocations are correct.

Resource leveling is a key step in ensuring the project dates are realistic and the resources are appropriately assigned. Microsoft Project has an automatic resource leveling feature but I recommend against using it. Instead of automatic leveling, I recommend using a manual process to resolve resource overallocation. This manual process of resource leveling is time consuming but it results in a better end project with realistic end dates.

Once you've completed the schedule development, you'll be ready for a review with your boss for initial feedback. Once you meet with your boss to review the schedule, obtain his feedback and make the necessary changes. You'll want baseline the project schedule before you move to schedule execution. This will ensure the original dates are saved in Microsoft Project and you can compare the planned versus actual dates as the project progresses.

The next step in the PMBOK is Control the Schedule which will be the topic of a future article! I hope these simple steps have helped you get ready for your upcoming meeting. Good luck on the project!

Dr. Andrew Makar
 

 

Importance of Communication in an Organization

Communication is one of the basic functions of management in any organization and its importance can hardly be overemphasized. It is a process of transmitting information, ideas, thoughts, opinions and plans between various parts of an organization.

It is not possible to have human relations without communication. However, good and effective communication is required not only for good human relations but also for good and successful business.

Effective communication is required at various levels and for various aspects in an organization such as -

For manager – employee relations:
Effective communication of information and decision is an essential component for management-employee relations. The manager cannot get the work done from employees unless they are communicated effectively of what he wants to be done? He should also be sure of some basic facts such as how to communicate and what results can be expected from that communication. Most of management problems arise because of lack of effective communication. Chances of misunderstanding and misrepresentation can be minimized with proper communication system.

For motivation and employee morale:
Communication is also a basic tool for motivation, which can improve morale of the employees in an organization. Inappropriate or faulty communication among employees or between manager and his subordinates is the major cause of conflict and low morale at work. Manager should clarify to employees about what is to be done, how well are they doing and what can be done for better performance to improve their motivation. He can prepare a written statement, clearly outlining the relationship between company objectives and personal objectives and integrating the interest of the two.

For increasing productivity:
With effective communication, you can maintain a good human relation in the organization and by encouraging ideas or suggestions from employees or workers and implementing them whenever possible, you can also increase production at low cost.

For employees:
It is through the communication that employees submit their work reports, comments, grievances and suggestions to their seniors or management. Organization should have effective and speedy communication policy and procedures to avoid delays, misunderstandings, confusion or distortions of facts and to establish harmony among all the concerned people and departments.

Importance of written communication:
Communication may be made through oral or written. In oral communication, listeners can make out what speakers is trying to say, but in written communication, text matter in the message is a reflection of your thinking. So, written communication or message should be clear, purposeful and concise with correct words, to avoid any misinterpretation of your message. Written communications provides a permanent record for future use and it also gives an opportunity to employees to put up their comments or suggestions in writing.

So, effective communication is very important for successful working of an organization. Business writing software with grammar checker and text enrichment tool, which enhances a simple sentence into more professional and sophisticated one, can be used for writing effective business communications.

 Stephen Thomson