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Windows Vista sure looks nice, but wait…

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We recently received our Microsoft Action Pack Vista “Upgrade”, and I was quite eager to test drive Window Vista Business Edition. Our accountant/marketing person has a pretty beefy system, so she was the perfect candidate for the upgrade… or so it seemed.

Here’s the recommended hardware requirements for Vista Business:

  • 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
  • 1 GB of system memory
  • 40 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
  • Support for DirectX 9 graphics with:
    • WDDM Driver
    • 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum)
    • Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware
    • 32 bits per pixel
  • DVD drive
  • Sound Card
  • Internet

Other than the graphics, these requirements aren’t a powerhouse by most standards, but they are more than adequate resources for most business uses. Note the requirement for a DVD drive, as opposed to a regular CD drive. Windows Vista only comes on DVD. In addition to the hardware considerations, the software and peripherals that your business is using need to be evaluated as well. After some research, it was determined that IE 7 and, consequently, Windows Vista, won’t work with Continue reading →

Are you getting the most from software you already own?

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Like most small businesses, we have Microsoft Office software installed on all of the workstations in our office. A wide variety of information that is vital to the day to day functioning of our business is stored as Word documents and Excel spreadsheets. Much of this data is used for contact management, marketing, customer service management, transaction processing, and other important administrative functions.

In the course of business, we often see our new customers failing to utilize the full functionality of software already installed, particularly with Microsoft Office. For instance, we have seen new customers take 6 to 8 hours of labor to mail targeted materials to 300 customers. The materials and postage costs are unavoidable but the labor costs associated with compiling mailing lists and the time involved in sorting data based on customer type or zip code, not to mention personalizing each letter and addressing the envelopes, can be significantly reduced by utilizing the software that your business probably already owns.
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