Software | WindowsTalk.org

Jan

E-Commerce Software Fuels Order Fulfillment Success

E-Commerce software, once rudimentary venues that helped fledgling companies sell products and services via the ‘Net, have morphed into highly sophisticated vehicles for e-sellers. Along with highly accomplished shopping cart functions, high level sensitive information security protection, state-of-the-art hosting platforms, and order fulfillment services, cutting edge e-commerce software also offers cloud functions that protect all manner of data.

You might even want to use the cloud to host your site. There are now some e-commerce platforms that offer cloud hosting for those who want to “pay as you go” and save dedicated server space. In some cases, you can select a combination of cloud and more traditional managed hosting programs. Some services even allow your company to access a “private cloud” to securely manage your e-commerce site, integrate supply chains and streamline order fulfillment functions.

Should you employ multi-channel operations, there are equally sophisticated e-commerce platforms that offer the tools you need to coordinate all features of your business. As more e-sellers feel the pressure of thinner profit margins, product quality, pricing and order fulfillment become even more significant components.

How effective e-commerce platforms drive sales

The combination of outstanding e-commerce platforms and willing buyers helped online retailers experience a highly successful holiday shopping season. 2011 also recorded more than five $1 billion (yes, with a “b”), online sales days. Yet there is widespread concern that e-sellers must remain diligent with operational efficiency controls, superior supply chain management and high quality customer service.

While many e-retailers are becoming more concerned with their fiscal ability to make new investment in e-commerce platforms and more efficient website development, revenue and profit generation, as usual, will enhance or decrease this ability. The classic retailer mantra, “It’s the price you pay, not the price you charge,” still applies.

Saving money with savvy branding

However, the importance of successful branding has never been higher. While smaller e-sellers face challenges achieving the highest levels of branding success, e.g., Nordstrom, using the best e-commerce software, suppliers and order fulfillment services they can afford will help reach the revenue goals and profit margins they desire.

Those companies contemplating some budget tightening should do their homework. With branding, quality customer service, and order fulfillment occupying influential positions, cost cutting in these areas can be self-destructive. Similarly, your company needs to employ the most effective e-commerce software the budget permits. Cutting back on IT, call centers, order fulfillment or e-commerce platforms might dangerously affect revenue levels.

Creating a winning marketing combination

Feeling comfortable with every aspect of your business efficiency has never been more significant. Utilizing e-commerce software features will help you “ride the wave” of holiday season success into the New Year.

Should you be a bit uncomfortable with one or more of these crucial components upgrade them—do not shrink their budget levels. If you had a successful holiday shopping season, you simply cannot afford to intentionally support a decline in these functions, all of which contribute to your customer satisfaction.

Remember, these components must all integrate and function well. Think like a football coach. Assume you have a great quarterback, but no talented receivers, running backs or offensive line. Your quarterback (company) cannot perform well without an effective supporting cast.

Investing in the optimum e-commerce software, without quality products, efficient supply chains or professional order fulfillment services may fit budget constraints, but will not increase revenue or profitability. You need the full menu of features, working together, to achieve your goals and objectives.

Do you have any outside the box ideas that might help you achieve the success that you crave? Are you bullish on a 2012 continuation of e-commerce success? Are you pleased with your e-commerce software, supply chains and customer service? If you are, maintain your course. Should you have some concerns, invest in more efficient systems, people and services.

Categories Blogging, General, Software, Technology
Comments (5)

Jan

5 Programs to Speed Up Your Windows PC

by Contributed

Is your computer becoming more and more sluggish every day? Do you have problems like blank screens, slow downloads and super-long load times? If you do, here are five easy to use programs that will help your computer speed up.

CCleaner – Formerly called Crap Cleaner, this program deletes junk files that slow down your computer. It also finds registry disputes and solves them for you. It is free and easy to download and works wonderfully. It can even wipe your free space if you want it to, though that tends to take some time. Just visit http://www.piriform.com/CCLEANER for your free download today!
Defraggler – Your computer could be working slower because your files are fragmented. Clean it up and make your system more efficient with another free download from Piriform. Compact and quick, Defraggler works great, plus you have the option of just defragging the files you use most often. What could be easier? Visit http://www.piriform.com/defraggler for a free copy.
Firefox or Chrome – Rather than using Internet Explorer as your web browser, try Mozilla’s Firefox or Google’s Chrome. Much quicker load times, superior add-ons and a more secure framework make these browsers a necessity. Plus, they’re free. Be mindful that some websites do not work as well in them, so keep IE installed for backup, just in case. Download Firefox here: http://www.mozilla.org. Download Chrome here: http://www.google.com/chrome.
Recuva – Have the problems with your computer developed to the point that you’ve lost files? Did you inadvertently erase your digital camera’s memory card or MP3 player? No problem! Just use Recuva to recover your files. Get it free at http://www.piriform.com/recuva.
Revo Uninstaller – If you’ve ever had to add or remove programs on your computer, you know how time-consuming the process can be. Not only is it time-consuming, but a lot of the files from the uninstalled programs are never deleted. For a quicker, stress-free fix try Revo. This program is easy to use and much quicker. It also explores your computer for hidden files and deletes them- truly uninstalling the program. Try it free for 30 days here http://www.revouninstaller.com.

There you have it; five simple programs to get your computer purring! So whether you have a laptop, a desktop, or a mobile phone, keep these programs handy and keep your computer running fast.

This is a guest post from Laura Backes, she enjoys writing about all kinds of subjects and also topics related to internet service in my area. You can reach her at: laurabackes8 @ gmail.com.

Categories General, Software, The Desktop Experience
Comments (25)

Jan

Computer Maintenance That Kills!

by Mitz

Most people don’t do enough computer maintenance—but a few people get overzealous in their computer maintenance and start to do things that are harmful to their computer. Here’s a list of a few things you shouldn’t do if you want your computer to keep running smoothly.

Free PC Performance Scan

Computer Maintenance Doesn’t Require Memory Optimization

There are a bunch of programs out their that claim that they’ll optimize your memory. Other programs claim to defragment your memory. All of these programs imply that they’ll make your computer run faster.

I’m not sure that claim is correct. Even if they do optimize your memory, the speed increase is probably quite small.

But if the gain is small, the risk is high. Messing with computer memory puts every program on your computer at risk. That’s why, in normal operation, only one program is allowed to allocate computer memory—the operating system, Windows.

Memory optimizers may make your computer unstable. I’d especially mistrust shareware memory optimizers or those produced by a non-brand-name company.

You don’t need memory optimizers to perform good computer maintenance, so I suggest that you just avoid them altogether.

Good Computer Maintenance Gone Wrong

One very useful type of computer maintenance is cleaning your Windows Registry. Back in the Windows 95 and Windows 98 days, registry cleaning was practically mandatory at least once a year. These days it’s optional, but I still recommend it.

What I don’t recommend is using a disreputable registry cleaner. There are hundreds of registry cleaners on the market and the vague generic ones often can’t be trusted.

Cleaning your Windows Registry is a lot like purging old records from your home file cabinet. You wouldn’t let some random stranger clean out your file cabinet—he might get rid of something that’s very important to you.

Likewise, you shouldn’t use random registry cleaning software—not even if it’s a free download. Many major and reputable software companies produce top-notch registry cleaning software. It costs a little more money, but it can save you from having to reinstall all of your programs.

The Top Computer Maintenance Mistake

A tiny little mistake can kill your computer. That mistake is misreading or not following the version instructions for your computer maintenance software.

Software which fixes your computer on one version of Windows can easily break your computer on another version of Windows. Newer software is usually smart enough not to run on older versions of Windows, but older software might break modern versions of Windows, so be very careful.

How To Ruin Your Hardware

In most cases it’s nearly impossible to ruin computer hardware using software. In the typical worst case scenario, when you break your computer with software you just need to reinstall Windows and restore all of your data from backups.

But I can think of at least one case where routine computer maintenance can ruin your hardware—when you excessively defragment a Solid State Drive (SSD).

Most solid state drives are small and portable. They’re the Secure Digital (SD) cards or the USB thumb drives. Some larger SSDs are used in netbooks and small portable drives with between 32 gigabytes and about 500 gigabytes.

All disk drives wear out, but solid state drives wear out quicker if you write to them a lot—and defragmenting your disk drive requires a lot of writing operations as it moves data from one part of the drive to another.

If you use solid state drives, be careful. Don’t defragment your drive more than once a month, or you could perform the kind of computer maintenance that kills your computer.

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Categories Software, The Desktop Experience
Comments (24)

Jan

New DVD to Android & iOS Converter

by James M. Fisher

If you have been looking for an easy software that converts your DVD movies or video files into the proper format and size for your Android or iOS gadgets then read on. Our friends over at BurnWorld have just received a few dozen licenses for a new software called 123 Movies2Android which is an easy to use 1 click video converter.

Here is a detailed list of all of the features that you can benefit from:

Software Features

Transfer DVD movies to your smart phones, tablets and mobile video players.
Use movie only mode to copy just the feature film or go advanced to copy your favorite bonus features.
Transfer HD Internet videos and watch them wherever you go, without going online.
Download Internet Videos – YouTube, Google Video and many more video websites supported.
Copy downloaded HD video files to many different file formats that can play on your PC,smart phones, tablets and mobile video players.
Supports MPEG4, WMV, AVI and more.
All major smart phones supported including the iPhone, Blackberry smart phones, Android smart phones, iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab and many more.

Here is a quick video demo showing this software in action:

If you are interested in a software tools like this be sure to take advantage of their $20 pricing made for WindowsTalk readers. To take advantage of this offer or to learn more about 123 Movies2Android head over to their site now.

Is UltraViolet the Answer to a Digital Copy of a Movie? (burnworld.com)

Categories General, Software
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Jan

Get Your Free PDF Editors

by Roger Corwin

To upgrade, maintain, and stay at the top of things when it comes to your computers is truly essential. That’s why many online sites offer you free PDF editors that you can try for your own use.

While some of your friends may suggest that you use one of the ever reliable programs known as the Adobe Acrobat Reader, you may choose to explore your options and increase your chances of enjoying more features that may not be offered by this type of program. If you would notice, you actually do not have the feature of editing PDFs with the Adobe Acrobat Reader.

That’s why the best thing to do is to get your hands on the freebies offered online for PDF editors that offer you great features.

While there are many free PDF editors around on the Internet, most of the ones listed at reputable online sites are the ones considered to be among the cream of the crop. And since most online techie users already know the other offers of this online site, you may be rest assured that most of the pros and even beginners make a quick stop at these online sites, and avail of the tips or offers that can be found here.

To mention a few, here is a short list of what you may want to learn more about:

The Bluebeam PDF Editor

This type of editor is not only deemed to be the most powerful among the others of the same nature. It is also considered to be the strongest. One of its best features is that it does its work with a high level of accuracy. It can also do file conversions. Such files include .docs and .txts that are converted into .pdfs.

The Foxit PDF Editor

Here is another helpful type of editor that is offered with a free trial of the program. You can easily download this and try if it suits your preferences. This, by far, is actually the latest program available. It has various features that deal with picture implementation, editing of text, insertion of hyperlinks, formatting of texts, and other helpful features that you may be happy with.

The MicroAdobe PDF Editor

If you are hoping to have a touch of professionalism, perhaps, you would be more inclined to go for the MicroAdobe PDF editor program that is also highly available online for downloads. Most who tried using it may be happy to tell you that it is actually one of the easiest programs to use. Aside from being conveniently simple to use, you may also like the various features that it holds. Some of its features involve those for removing or adding pictures, editing of fonts, changing of background, and hyperlink insertion features.

The VeryPDF Program

Aside from those aforementioned, you can also try the VeryPDF version. With this program, you can easily do many things such as editing, printing, viewing, and even manipulating the PDF files, and have much fun with it. The possibilities are endless!

Free PDF editors, as mentioned, can be garnered from many reliable sites on the Internet.

Categories Software
Comments (15)

Jan

Do You Use Windows Disk Cleanup?

by Alan Tay

The Windows Operating System is one generous operating system for it comes built-in with lots of optimization tools that can really help you to have a better Operating System. Better here means faster, less space wasted, fast boot up, and also fast shut down.

Today I am going to talk about one of the optimization tools which had helped me a lot throughout my time when I suffered from insufficient hard disk space. The tool I am referring to is the Windows Disk Cleanup. Basically, the Disk Cleanup tool helps you to delete unused files such as your temporary files, unused system files, garbage inside your Recycle Bin and many more. So, why do you need to use the Disk Cleanup?

It clears space by removing unnecessary files

As I had mentioned, it cleans up all the unnecessary especially your temporary files. Those files usually are not needed anymore after certain process specifically Windows Update. I had cleared lots of space after a Windows Update patch process.

Besides, it also cleans up your temporary internet files. If you look carefully, the one advantage here is you save a lot of time simply because you don’t have to manually locate those files to remove them.

Run a Free PC Privacy Scan Now

It clears space by compressing unused files

Just in case you might not know, apart from removing unnecessary stuff to give you more space, the disk cleanup process also compress those unused files so that those files do not consume so much space.

It might take a little longer for you to open back the compressed file, but the tool does not simply compress your files. It only compress those files which have been untouched for probably from months to years.

So, the benefit?

Ultimately, the benefit of performing Disk Cleanup is to free up some hard disk space. There is one thing I need to remind you here is the methodology to free up hard disk space is not just about deleting some personal large files such as movies, MP3′s, or even high quality photo which you think you do not need anymore, but you who knows you might need them later?

The best way to do so is to remove things that you are sure that you don’t need. Even the computer experts who are extremely proficient with their computer skills will use Disk Cleanup to do this tedious stuff, so why not you?

Alan Tay is the author of IT Security Column, a blog that features on IT security news, tips and tricks and also security product reviews. If you are interested to learn more about IT security, pay his blog a visit and subscribe to it by email to get the latest cool stuff about IT security.

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Categories Microsoft, Software, The Desktop Experience
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Jan

New Privacy Software from PC Pitstop

by James M. Fisher

PC Pitstop (the makers of PC Matic) have a new product that they just launched called PC Magnum. They are calling PC Magnum a privacy tool. The reason that this product exists is because Windows is storing gobs of personal information about you, your browsing habits, and loads of other personal information. For example, every web site that you visit for months and sometimes years is stores in your browsing history. There is also a less detailed history of your browsing that can be determined through your cookies. The internet cache stores tons of images from many of these web sites including Facebook. On top of all of this, Windows also keeps a record of many of the documents that you are editing and viewing. This includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and even simple PDF files.

They designed PC Magnum to make it abundantly clear all of the personal information that is stored on your computer and simplify the process for removing this same information. They are even able to categorize each web site (identified in the browser history) into one of 82 different categories such as pornography and online gambling.

Run a Free PC Privacy Scan Now

PC Magnum also uses the same sophisticated scheduling technology that we use in all of our products including PC Matic and Optimize – making it easy to set up regular automated cleaning. Here’s a screen shot of PC Magnum after doing a scan on my laptop (click to enlarge):

Categories Promotions, Security, Software
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Dec

Tweet to Win a FREE copy of TuneUp!

by James M. Fisher

TuneUp Media Contest – Tweet To Win!

Start the new year off right with a fresh & clean music collection! Thanks to our friends over at TuneUp Media, we’re giving away free copies of TuneUp to 3 lucky winners. TuneUp is the #1 plug-in for iTunes and Windows Media Player that helps you manage, organize and discover your music collection like never before.

Here’s how the contest works:

>> Just copy and paste the following (incorrect entries will be disqualified, but you can try again): RT @WindowsTalk: TuneUp transforms your music collection. Automagically! http://bit.ly/vjaEv3.

Then leave a comment below with a link to your Retweet (if you do not know how to do this, see this page at Twitter Support: http://tinyurl.com/dxcn5gb)

Your Tweet is your means of entry. One entry per person. Contest ends Saturday, January 7, 2012. Retweet must be as above. Winners will be picked at random using Randomizer.org and contacted via email.

Sponsored by our friends at TuneUp Media. Don’t forget to Like them on Facebook and Follow them on Twitter!

www.tuneupmedia.com

Categories General, Promotions, Software
Comments (62)

Dec

New Years’ Resolutions

by Contributed

If we make it through to 2012, and on the morning of January 1st, once that lingering hangover has somewhat subsided, and we have yet again sworn sobriety, we should be conscious enough to make at least two interesting observations.
The first, that the predictions of vast Hollywood budgets and exhausting calculations of the ancient Aztecs were, alas, as accurate as the speculated outcomes of Y2K.
The second, that Microsoft will update/upgrade its popular Internet Explorer (IE) browser automatically.

The reason why this information is noteworthy is not just because the software giant has finally caught up with its competitors (Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, who have been automatically deploying updates for a while now). Microsoft is proclaiming the confidence it has in its ability to patch, and possibly predict, the vulnerabilities of its software and the needs of its users. Microsoft’s reputation for updates has been sloppy (and I dare say, at times even insulting). As a result, I had made it a point to never to install an official Microsoft update until a week after it has been issued. For as long as I can remember, Windows updates have proved themselves extremely efficient at solving one problem and creating another. Whenever I have been notified of an update, I have allowed for a full week to go by, for the innocent unfortunate users to plague Windows’ support with problems, and consequentially for the update to be updated.

On the rare occasion that I had caused my system to hiccup as a result of downloading and installing an update too soon, I was fortunate enough to rely on Reimage PC Repair (a trusty little tool that we use at work whenever something goes wrong) to put things back in order, while still retaining the update or patch.
But this is all in the past. Microsoft has had a very good year for updates and improvements. There have been relatively very few bug reports. Some major updates were installed so smoothly that they went almost unnoticed. Maybe this is a new Microsoft policy, and developers will no longer issue a slapdash fix or patch to temporarily plug up a recently discovered vulnerability. Perhaps it is a ploy to lull us into a false state of confidence, before convincing us to purchase the new Windows 8 (2012)?

Whatever the case maybe, I think that this year I will be allowing automatic updates from Microsoft… and get another annual subscription for Reimage, just in case.

Categories Software, The Desktop Experience
Comments (13)

Dec

Image Viewing With IrfanView

by Contributed

Image viewer programs are plenty in the market. A lot of people prefer an image viewer that not only has a lot of features but also loads up their images quickly. The latter is an important aspect as slow loading of images often kills the whole experience. IrfanView, on the other hand, promises to be much better at those aspects besides more. Let’s see what it offers the user.

Features and Performance

IrfanView supports almost every type of file format association. It doesn’t associate itself with every format though and leaves the choice to the user during installation. After you start IrfanView post-installation, you are greeted by a black viewing window that allows you to open and edit any picture you want. There is also a thumbnail view of the pictures available which makes for easier access of the pictures. The larger viewing window also adjusts to the picture that has been chosen in the thumbnail view.

Loading time of photos with IrfanView is incredibly low. To call it speedy is an understatement. It is almost instantaneous and it’s also quite open to addition of plug-ins related to music, video and some extra image plug-ins.

Earlier versions of IrfanView had a glitch with multi-monitor support. That seems to have been fixed now as images can be easily dragged to the secondary monitor and then displayed full screen. Earlier this full screen display was restricted only to the primary monitor.

Apart from the fast loading time and good thumbnail system, IrfanView also boasts of an impressive screen capture option. There are also many basic picture enhancement functions that allow you to play around with your pictures. The best thing about all this is that IrfanView is completely free. One gripe is the absence of a decent caching system. Developers should take note of this requirement as with a caching option all thumbnails can cached which allows for easier and quicker flipping through folders with a large collection of images. Inclusion of this feature (its already present in ACDSee) will pretty much push IrfanView to the top of image viewing programs for Windows.

There are a lot of other options as well which make the user experience that much better. IrfanView allows the user to save picture files as icon files which is not something you see with every image viewer and editor program out there. Apart from that, IrfanView has great loading speed, supports almost every format you could imagine, allows you to resize, convert, crop or format.

It also offers other effects like blur, edge detection, emboss, explosion, oil paint, pixelize and a lot more. The user also gets to decide the resolution and sharpening adjustments of the image.

Pros

It’s very fast, has loads of features and is a very small sized download. It’s also completely free for personal use. It supports picture, video and music plug-ins which makes it very versatile. Supports numerous image formats.

Cons

The GUI can do with some more polishing. The separate external image viewer is not to everyone’s liking and yes, thumbnail image caching needs to be incorporated.

This guest article is written by Sathishkumar who is the founder of the Internet Marketing company, Worthy Clique. When he is free, he also writes about iPhone 5 news and Virtual Tour Tips.