Efficiency through Technology and Quality by HPD Global SaaS Solutions

These days it is most important to take the business battle to strategic design. Some concerns with the Economy as it is are to find cheaper ways to increase efficiency without hurting quality. Technology is one strong avenue to do that through. Some careful attention should be given by management into various areas surrounding this. Consider the following:

What areas of your work flow can be automated?
How utilized is your present technology?
Have you considered efficiency through leverage of technology?
Could you double your output with quality by doing things different?

These questions help us better determine as management what areas we should push to resolution on a more level approach. I am going to make a bold statement about our present economic situation. I believe that the businesses the utilize creativity, strategic design, and technology toward doing things smarter (different) will be the companies that take us further into the new millenium and will be tomorrow’s successful companies. You have heard that the best way to win is thinking outside the box. Technology when implemented successfully with intelligent engineers will not only yield success but a peace of mind. You will want to ensure that you deal with solid Technology Experts when making these changes. To an extent it will involve vision and entrepreneurship, but it can be done. So this will be an area that all technology management will face if they have not faced it so far. It is the dynamics of where Global Business is going, you just have to think outside the box and be the first to the fight. HPD Global has multiple SaaS solutions you should contact us to save money.

Using Ubuntu Server as a Desktop and Cost Savings

Cost Savings and Technology advantages of Ubuntu Server

Most of you are familiar with GPL/GNU Open Source Software. I wanted to recommend a highly stable and cheap to free open source server. Ubuntu meaning ethic or humanist philosophy focusing on people’s allegiances and relations with each other. The meaning behind the them is something quite intrinsic to the creation of the technology. In a humanity sense open source software allows individuals, groups, or entire communities to contribute in some way to the development of the software. The overall output of the product is of higher quality, testing, and also more in line with what the user wants.

Since Ubuntu open source you have the option to change it. So yes this is Linux. I wanted to state however that Ubuntu is the most supported version of Linux out there, and that you can do anything with it as you would a Windows Server. You have have the option to turn it into a desktop with a simple command line entry such as this:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

The wonderful thing about open source is you feel or get empowered through the transparency of what you observe. Also how you can customize and change things to better suit the needs of your IT department or Organization. So now on to the advantages. Ubuntu is a light weight server out of the box, or you can make it more robust. It can easily be converted into any type of back end server ie: File, Web, Email, Media, Authentication, Proxy, Code Repository, Load Balancing. Just about anything you want it can be turned into that. So let me point you to the documentation for reference so you will be able to observe and learn or consider the cost savings you can benefit from.

Ubuntu Home Page

At HPD Global – VIT Cloud Services we run Ubuntu and several other open source solutions on top of traditional Microsoft Windows Server. We feel this brings greater value to our customers as they have the option to tailor the technologies we offer to better suit their needs. Contact us today for more IT Profitability.

Multiple Desktops in Windows

( Linux / *nix ) feel in Windows

Making Windows feel like an open source environment

There’s a cool app that helps you multi-task in an organized and efficient way in windows.  If you have used Freebsd, Suse, Slackware, DSL, Fedora, RHEL, etc.  They all have a few things different that Windows does not have, that is that they allow you to have multiple desktops.  Now that is a good idea that allows efficient work to be done in each desktop.  It helps to be able to track what you are triaging or working on.  Here is a program that gives windows that functionality as well:
https://www.hpdit.com/sysinternals/Desktops.exe
Pretty cool…

Removing Artio . cz and / or Kanga Internet . com meta tags / link from your Joomla pages

The Issue:  A spammer places their Website links in all your page’s metadata
The problem with Joomsef is that although it is great it has a down side SEO. The standard Joomsef component has advertising used in it and this is produced in the form of the Meta Generator tag in the pages displayed. This can affect website ranking in search engines. It also bloats the meta tag information with no relational ad content. There can also be output at the bottom of the pages that have a link to the Joomsef website, in my case Kanga Internet.
The Joomsef 1.5.1 version still has a file called signature.b64 included with it. This file is checked in every call or click on the website links. The signature file is a base 64 encoded string that, when decoded, contains the a HTML link to Artio. Simply removing the base 64 file will not work and removing the mention of the base 64 file from within the calling PHP code will not work so I have modified the code to not even look for the file and removed all checking for it. The code is quicker as it doesnt do a all the processing, decoding, placement, checking and the display of the advert that would normally happen on every click.

After locating the file signature.b64 open it for edit.  You will want to copy the entire text string then commence decoding of Base 64.  It should look something like this:

PGJyIC8+PHNwYW4+PGEgaHJlZj1cImh0dHA6Ly93d3cua

2FuZ2FpbnRlcm5ldC5jb21cIiB0aXRsZT1$

There are many Base 64 decoders online as well as downloadable programs+source code.  Use one of them to decode the string and you will see it reveals clearly what these spammers seek to spam your pages with:

Now like some of you I am sure you went and installed KangaInternet’s solution under misleading pretences from KangaInternet.bomb (hopefully) that they were providing us a wonderful service by riding the software of Artio.cz’s spam, well not only did they do that, but well like Gollum’s love for the ring they also could not put down the spamming and well in my case they opted to put their own website link, which really upset a lot of web masters developers including myself.  I don’t know about you, but no one likes to be mislead into thinking someone is giving the community back a solution only to find out that they have been tricked into having a very similar spam problem from in this case kangainternet.  Plus, Kanga internet didn’t write the code, Artio did, also what relational content does Kanga Internet provide to my website, so yes having these foolish tags in your pages will simple hurt your ranking in Google and boost some dumb chap’s shoddy company, I would call these acts grayhat SEO, some might say blackhat.  Anyways what a relief it is to not have that junk in my pages.

Performance tuning the Windows System Drive

From time to time the old issue of alert or log spamming will come up.  With it the usual performance degradation and CPU throttling issues as well.  During these times, it is best to find the large temp or log files and remove them from your Windows System Drive, for return to performance stability (RTPS).  This can be done through Windows Search.
 
Press Windows Key then press S
 
If you have downloaded Windows Search you will need to on the left side select Search Companion.
 
Click all files and folders
 
From there then:
Click What size is it? Double arrows to expand
 
Then you can put in the size of the files.  You can search for different file types as well such as (*.tmp, *.tpm, *.chk, *.log)
 
Select all (ctrl+a) then shift+del.
 
Also you can modify system paging to use one file rather than many when creating the paging file.  This will help improve drive performance as well as minimize on orphaned files.  That can be done in System Properties – Advanced – Under performance click settings – than advanced tab – click change – set the minimum and maximum to 1.5 times the physical memory – click set – reboot for changes.
 
This should help you remove unnecessary files while optimizing system performance.

SaaS: Software as a Service

Thanks to the internet, high speed connectivity, and rapid development of applications over the internet, we have the birth of Virtual IT – Cloud Services.  Imagine if you will the ability to have your IT Department totally running from the cloud for a flat rate?  Its happening.  A lot of services can be provided through SaaS (Software as a Service) via the Internet, these being:

1. Backups
2. Security Baseline
3. PC Optimization
4. Malware removal
5. Remote Desktop Troubleshooting
6. Analysis
7. Web Development
8. Internet Marketing SEO/SEM
9. Programming
10. Patching

Most of your Help Desk, IT Administration, and whole IT Department functions can be outsourced with high ROI.

Would you like to outsource your IT to a well reputable 100% usa firm?  We are making that happen for many.

Ramp up Excitement for CES 2011

This year HPD Global IT Consulting has been chosen as an Industry Analyst to contribute blogger coverage on the great event of CES 2011.  In the meantime we will also be networking and forming valuable business connections/alliances.  What we are hoping to cover will be Virtual and Mobile technologies essentially the way of the future.  We are starting to see many of the technologies featured 2 years ago starting to take shape in the market today.

We bring real market experience and knowledge to CES and have assisted other established Corporations in being legally and marketable at CES.  It is certainly and expensive show, and requires a large investment for most small businesses, but if networking is done correctly one can forge alliances for years to come.  We anticipate some of the mobile technologies we will be covering will be HTC, Windows Mobile Xbox 360 lite gaming for mobile devices, laptop innovations, cutting edge technologies by way of mobility and remote working.

By covering these areas of interest, we believe that we are paving the way for understanding of the importance of mobile and virtual tech support and service. 

Virtual IT (VIT) Cloud Services

Hello World most see as a build verification test after the successful coding completion of a program.  The context in which I wish to use it today is in relation to Virtual IT (VIT), Cloud Services, SaaS, SOA.  HPD Global IT Consulting has always believed in being 100% US Owned and Operated while providing solid, sustainable and effective Virtual IT.  So let me show you how we do that for you, we live eat and breath in the Internet which is all you have to worry about, for example we come to you over the Cloud.  Our cutting edge solutions will guarantee removing headache out of IT, we do this by automating intuitive and smart actions in response to routine day to day IT Business practices in the ideal IT department.  See we have modeled and fine tuned best practices so we understand IT so well we can provide and replicate IT success and ROI virtually over the internet as we have done many times before.  So what this means is huge cost savings to you the Business Owner and sustained affordable IT.  Our goal is really to not sell you anything additional like many other IT consultants, our goal is like yours, affordable cheap IT.  Would you like to have the feel of a performance stable Fortune 100 IT Department?  Would you like to know that your IT works properly and is accessible when you need access?  Are you tired of paying high amounts of money when a system breaks and a technician has to come out on site to repair it?  Partner with us and let us compliment your existing IT Department.  Although we operate 100% virtually, we are very real and can prove to you solid ROI.  Sign up or give us a call so we can answer all your questions and give you more information about how we can make your IT make more sense.

Forget writing down your passwords, Encrypt them with Keepass

Forget writing down your passwords on a piece of paper under your wallet.  You can just store them in a free as in Open Source software program vault called Keepass.  This is definitely a solution I will continue to consult on, but wanted to share how cool it was.  You can neatly store your passwords in a categorical manner so it is easy to retrieve.  You double click your password and it copies it to clipboard without showing the password to should browsers.

So take a look if you need some immediate security and organization of your passwords.   We offer encrypted cloud password storage.  We can help you set it up, contact us.