Eden – The Electronic Data Extraction network:  ”The Electronic Data Extraction Network is a national community that provides unified, reasonable and practical solutions to e-discovery challenges related to litigation, compliance inquiries and internal investigations.”

After a short interview they have featured us in the membership spotlight. CompuNetPro drives into connecting with other start ups or smaller business to help bring those underdogs up in the ranks.  http://edenhub.com/spotlight.html

As the economy slowly begins to cure itself, more and more people are starting a new business venture. In the begining of this business venture start up money is hard to be found. Some people may think they need to pay so much for software but in fact there is a lot of free software that can get your business started efficiently.

Starting with the computer. The new netbooks going for around $350 can definitely get you on your way. Most of these netbooks, if configured properly, can run office a few web brower pages and outlook quite efficiently. The next thing would be the blackberry which for the extra $40 bucks a month for a data plan can save lots of time and provide efficeiency which we all know. The more imporant thing to this article is the complete set up of all these tools. The peice missing for the computer and blackberry is the exchange server. The coporate world lives off of this software and service. Well there are many hosting providers who will host an exchange account for your business for quite cheap. $6.29 per month for 12 months sound good? It gets even better, you get a free copy of outlook for your laptop. Now, what this exchange server does is syncronize both your email, contacts and calendar so you have idenitcal and back up copies on your blackberry and laptop.  The last bonus to this exchange server is that it can easily be upgraded and whoever is link to this exchange server can then share contacts and calendars within the company.

The Microsoft  office suite can get expensive at times and it is hard to replace its capabilities. For most small businesses the complete suite is not need to create simple spread sheets and word documents. The substitute to this suite would be google docs. Google docs is a small online “office suite”  where one or several people create word, excel and powerpoint documents online. The company can then store and share these docuemnts with whom they choose. All the capabilities aren’t there like office but can be sufficient in most cases. Also being able to access them from anywhere @ anytime is a bonus. The recently added sharing folders which is quite a nice feature when working with large amounts of docs.

With these simple tools and services a new business venture can turn into a a successful one. With all these items totaling under $550 it is within anyones reach to start a business. The only thing that is left is the suite ofcourse.

Windows 7 Media Center along with its many attractive features that no other media center can match has taken a large step from its underdog windows vista. Take a look here to see a full review of some of the latest features in windows 7 by Engadget.com

As your inkjet printer needs decommissioning and need to replace it with a new shiny printer, asses your businesses printing needs before purchasing a new one. It always best to consult with a person who is savvy in the printer industry, but it is important to note that you can save quite a bit from investing a few more $’s. See what smallbusinesscomputing as to say here

Windows 7 will be available to the public 10.22.09. New hardware requirements for this software may or may not apply to your machine. Does your machine have the required hardware? Click  here to see if your machine is capable. For optimal performance hardware must exceed minimum requirements.

Welcome to the CompuNetPro Tips & Tricks Blog. Posts will be added frequently to help you keep up to date with the latest tips in the IT Industry.