Praeses, LLC is happy to announce that this year it will be celebrating its 25 year anniversary of being in business. As we reach this incredible milestone, we look back on the journey that has led us here (the great moments and the growing pains) with a smile. We certainly have changed as a company over the years and will continue to do so as we strive to adapt to the ever-shifting business and technology landscape. However, we take pride in being able to stay true to our core company philosophies:

1. Everything we do is for a reason.

2. We always bring more value than we cost.

3. Our value is in our people.

With these core principles guiding our business, we will go forward with eagerness and anticipation into the next 25 years. We will continue to strive towards excellence and providing our customers with the most innovative, simple, and successful software and service solutions to meet their needs. We hope you will continue to grow with us and we would like to extend a thank you to all of our employees who have made the past 25 years so special and to our loyal customers who we could not have been successful without. This post will be the first of a series of “25 Years” posts. These posts will examine our company’s history, provide thoughts and news on our future, and keep our readers informed of all events associated with our 25th year in business. We hope you join us for the ride.

Working in the cloud—accessing documents and applications through remote servers over the Internet rather than on a personal computer or a local server—frees up time and resources. Business owners around the world are moving the responsibility of managing software, hardware and document security to the cloud so they can focus on running their companies.

The cloud is flexible and affordable. Read the answers to the following cloud questions to see how else businesses are benefiting.

Why should I use the cloud?

Working in the cloud allows you to access the software and services you need when you need them, from any Internet-connected device. Rather than paying for software and hardware you might access only occasionally, you pay only for the services you use—allowing your company to work more productively and cost-effectively and to gain the capabilities of a larger business.

What can the cloud help me do?

Cloud providers offer applications and services that can help with the most important tasks involved in running a successful company. This includes accounting systems to manage finances and billing; customer relationship management programs to track contacts and sales leads; document sharing systems that let employees collaborate on documents in real time from different locations; and human resources applications that help with employee records and training.

Is the cloud easy to use?

Your company starts using cloud-based programs and services simply by signing up. The cloud provider runs everything so there is no hardware to configure or software to install. This “on-demand” quality makes it easy to ramp up or reduce your use of services as your business needs shift.

How can the cloud help me save money?

Cloud computing offers new opportunities for businesses with limited access to resources. With the cloud, you can access services to run your business without having to purchase and maintain extra hardware or pay for software licensing fees. You typically pay a low per-use fee or a low monthly cost based on the number of employees using the service.

How can the cloud make my team more productive?

A key benefit of cloud computing is that you and your employees can access programs, documents and e-mails at home or on the road simply by logging in from an Internet-connected computer or smartphone. This provides added flexibility to help meet deadlines. Documents are stored online, so there’s no danger of losing important files. Cloud-based conferencing services give access to virtual meeting spaces almost instantly so you can connect with employees and clients around the world and collaborate on documents, brainstorm ideas or present new products or services to remote clients.

How does the cloud allow for growth?

Cloud-based resources are scalable, which makes them easier to support growth and accommodate high-demand periods. For example, if your website needs to accommodate spikes in traffic, having it hosted in the cloud allows you to add extra capacity when you need it. This can help prevent the site from going down during a peak sales period or if too many visitors access the site at the same time.

What factors should I consider when selecting a provider?

Cloud service providers have the resources to keep data and applications highly secure through high-level encryption, guarded data centers, continuous server monitoring and other measures. This helps protect your information from outside intruders and ensures its safety in case a fire, flood or other disaster strikes your facility. The risk of losing sensitive customer data is less because the information is stored in the cloud and not on your laptop or a USB stick. Before committing to a cloud service provider, be sure to ask about the specific measures they use to keep data safe. 

What if the cloud service goes down?

Applications and services delivered through the cloud are often faster and more reliable than in-house ones, particularly if your servers or other systems are aging. If an outage occurs, cloud service providers can usually resolve problems more quickly than small businesses with limited IT resources. Many providers have multiple data centers to help ensure that your information is always available so you experience less downtime.

Reprinted from an article by AT&T on PC World Magazine – September 29, 2011

All the buzz these days seems to be about HTML5. Web designers and techies everywhere have very strong feelings about HTML5 and either love it or hate it depending on who you talk to.

First let’s take a look at what HTML5 actually is and what it is used for. HTML is a markup language used to design and layout web pages. HTML5 is a new version of that language that has more tags and hence more design options.

Most people can agree more design options is a good thing. The controversy comes in mostly because certain companies like Apple are acting as if HTML5 is a standard when the reality is no browser fully supports it yet.

Essentially that means that for people using certain elements of it they will look nothing like they intended to most of the people who view the pages. So while HTML5 and its applications are definitely going to offer us some much cooler websites it is just not practical yet to use for your web designs.

We tested out a few of the most popular browsers to see how ready they are for HTML5 and this is what we found out. For this test we used http://www.html5test.com which offers an HTML5 testing page and a rating system that goes up to 400 points depending on how many HTML5 features are already implemented into the browser.

Chrome 10.0 was the big winner coming in at 301 points out of 400 possible. They have already implemented most of the functionality to be a compatible HTML5 browser. In addition, many of the features that are not added are partially added. So Google Chrome is definitely way out in front in the race for HTML compatible browsers.

Firefox 4.0 is next in line and they scored pretty decently getting 249 out 400 possible points. They are still missing a lot of key elements but got bonus points for the audio and video implementation as well as their parsing rules.

Internet Explorer 8 is pretty far behind the curve. IE scored a total of 32 points out of 400. Pretty dismal showing for what used to be the top internet browser in the world. Internet Explorer has been playing catch up with rendering design since the implementation of CSS and their poor showing here tells us it does not seem like much will change in the future.

So those are the statistics. At the moment the only HTML5 browser that is going to get you very far is Google Chrome and until browsers catch up with the newer language it is probably a good idea to use it sparingly in your designs until it actually is a true and tested standard.

Reprinted from a post on HTML 5 Tutorial at http://html5tutorial.net/

By Chris Phillips

Fido could care less about fetching your tennis ball.  He really isn’t interested in learning how to open the refrigerators with a towel handle either.  Nope, Fido’s more interested in watching birds and chasing rabbits…in his sleep.  But I bet you won’t throw Fido away.  I bet you keep him and love him as a companion rather than a fearless hunting dog.

Occasionally hard drives fail.  It’s a fact of life no matter the age or hardware usage.  Granted, several factors come into play when speaking of hard drive failure…but one thing is certain…you should never, ever throw a hard drive away or donate to a recycling center without protecting yourself first.  Here’s a good article to wet your whistle: P3.  I doubt any of us have information as critical as this, but the song remains the same.

First, have a look at this program.  It’s a free, quick, light program which is used to recover deleted or lost files.  I’ve used it to assist people whose hard drives have failed under normal operation.  PCI File Recovery is a great tool to recover those irreplaceable pictures of little Johnny’s birthday party, but your neighborhood garbage scavenger could also use it to steal your identity or at the very least he could learn your habits.  At this level, file recovery is often a “crap shoot” so don’t be disappointed if you can’t recover a certain file.  If you’d like to see for yourself, try it!  You’ll be amazed at what is spread across your hard drive and how easy it is to access the “deleted” data.  Here’s how:

1)      Download and install PCI File Recovery linked above; start the program.

2)      Select your language and click the green checkmark.

3)      Click either the green arrow or red + sign to the left.

4)      Highlight a physical drive and click “find logical drives”.

5)      Move over to the logical drive tab, highlight the logical drive that you want to inspect and click the green check mark.

6)      Click the red plus sign, select your min/max and click the green check mark.

7)      Wait for the scan to complete and view the results.  If you want to see the data, right click and save to another location.

-        A couple of important notes here:

a)      If you are recovering data from a failing drive, save it to another drive…not back to the failing drive.

b)      Some of these files may have been deleted for a reason, i.e. virus removal.  Be cautious, you don’t want to re-infect your machine.

c)      If you’re assisting a friend or client, make sure they know this isn’t an exact science at our level.  Meaning, it may or may not work.  Also, they need to know that you might see all of their dirty little secrets; if they have any.

So what’s the point of this exercise?  Take care of your data!  You should see now that you don’t have to be Jack Bauer’s Chloe to recover data.  If you must get rid of a hard drive, do one of the following:

1)      Beat it to smithereens with a sledgehammer (messy, but effective).

2)      Use a program such as DBAN to write over your data (time consuming).

3)      Put it in an incinerator.

Have a great day!