How many passwords do you have?
Does someone have your password?
How do you protect yourself from this?

Passwords are a big deal!!!  They control access to everything in our lives.  This means we should be as secure about our passwords as possible.  Most people have a tendency to have a low, medium, and high security password.  This is a great theory, but a very misguided thought process.  Computers have a lot of horsepower now and the time to break a password is trivial.  Add to this that Google will tend to have a LOT of information about you, makes passwords easy to guess.

Example: a child’s name password
Low - ben
Med - Ben72
High - @Ben1972!

All of these passwords are valid.  The question is, where did you use these passwords?  If you use them on a network that is not secure, or a service such as POP email, then you may not be the only person that has these passwords.

Human nature is to keep passwords simple. But in a world of computers, simple passwords don’t help.  The other trait of people is to have a password we can remember. If it is too hard to remember we simply write it down and leave it on our desk.  Well people will look at your desk and see your password taped to the monitor and now have access to your data.

There are several ways to fix this:

1. Never reuse your passwords (there are programs that will make every combination of passwords available from your lowest level password).
2. Keep passwords in a secure location.
3. A recommended method of the above solutions is to use something like lastpass.com’s password manager from http://lastpass.com. The free or premium both work well.  Another great product is Keepass from http://keepass.com.

The advantage of these products is that they will give you a random password and the ability to both store it as well as simplify the logon process by putting in your logon and password and you only need to remember 1 password.  Which you wont’ give out!!!

Happy and Safe Surfing!!!!

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Barry is an open source application that allows you to tether your Linux machine to your BlackBerry for Internet access, to synchronize data, backup and restore, and program management.

Here is a list of Barry’s possibilities from their website:

• Charge your Blackberry’s battery from your USB port.
• Retrieve Address Book, Email, Calendar, Service Book, Memos, Tasks, PIN Messages, Saved Email, and Folders.
• Export Address Book contacts in text or LDAP LDIF format.
• Make full data backups and restores of your device using a GUI.
• Synchronize contacts and calendar items using the OpenSync framework.
• Use the Blackberry as a modem.

To download Barry to your Linux machine, click here.

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Our team helps you identify your needs, specify requirements, and design a system that will assist your team in optimizing their efficiency and profit margins. Custom software, web applications, Intranet portals, eCommerce solutions, and content management systems are just a sample of what we can do for your organization.

Let’s talk more about your eBusiness needs. Contact our team today.

Photo credit: teamnetworkpower

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The purpose of a brand strategy is to identify and map a plan for the executional development of a solid brand in order to increase the level of revenue and profits. The brand strategy should be guided by the principles of provider differentiation and consumer appeal.

The brand strategy should influence daily business operations to ensure consistent brand behavior in the marketplace and consistent brand experiences for your consumer.

Want to know more about establishing an effective brand strategy for your business? Contact us here and let’s sit down and talk.

Photo credit: Fast Company

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Marketing research is a marriage of science and art. Its roots are planted in the social sciences, where sociologists, anthropologists, demographers and psychologists developed formal and objective procedures for studying people. These days research is evolving in step with advances in the understanding of neuroscience, physiology and the psychology of emotions.

In many ways, commercial marketing research is still a young discipline. The lessons learned from social scientists transitioned into the commercial marketplace in the 1940s and 1950s when the big American advertising agencies realized they needed a better understanding of consumers and consumer behavior. They created research departments, staffed them with social scientists and used research to direct their advertising campaigns. Their clients, impressed by the success that came from the application of sound marketing research, spread the word around the world.

As commercial marketing research matured as a service category, questions arose about the objectivity and possible conflicts of interests involving in-house research departments. As a result, most of the big ad agencies began to spin off their research operations into independent, freestanding businesses.

Today, research firms come from all shapes and sizes. Some aspire to retain a foot in the academic world. Others are distinctly commercial.

For all of the advances in modern marketing research, though, it’s important to remember that good research is almost always a mix of science and art. As much as we may try at times, the behavior and decision making processes of human beings are far too complex and nuanced to reduce to simple stereotypes and generalizations. The art of marketing research is a function of the experience and the interpersonal, listening, comprehension and analytical skills of the researcher.

Photo credit: Billy Currie

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I don’t remember jokes easily. But one I recall from my childhood was about a hotel company executive who’d been invited to speak on national television. (In those days, when you were lucky to get three channels of television, being on “national television” was about as big as you could get.)

People wondered what the hotel exec would say. Would he talk about trends in travel, the dynamics of hotel finance or the importance of quality control?

This is what he said:

When you stay at our hotels, please keep the shower curtain inside the tub.

I was reminded of that line when I was recently asked to speak to a group of marketing people about getting the most from their marketing research. I could have talked about “A Control Function Approach to Endogeniety in Consumer Choice Models,” a topic big among researchers at the moment. Instead, like the hotel executive, I wanted to talk about the basics because it’s confusion about the basics that keeps a lot of people from getting the most out of their marketing research.

Photo credit: ChernobylBob

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