Search the Community

My Potential Extremely ROUGH Idea: So in a brief nutshell, I have been throwing around an idea I have had for a while now. My idea would be to provide a secure off-site location for people to store there encrypted, password protected off-site drives. I would provide people with the software required to encrypt and password protect either there own drive or I would also offer to provide a drive and the required software to encrypt and password protect there data. All off-site backups would like inside a secure fire proof safe and I would provide a few different teirs for them to choose from. Eventually I would also provide a service that would allow users to have there own dedicated computer that would integrate with a service such as Dropbox, and this would allow the user to backup there Dropbox data automatically to there dedicated server. So this would allow the user the user to backup there data simply and easily "on the fly" so to speak. As I stated above, this would be a VERY small business in the beginning and I currently have NO business plan etc. As I am literally just "airing" my thoughts so to speak. To say this idea is in its infancy is an understatement. I have done no due diligence etc. Or much research to be honest at this point. With that all said, I guess I was just looking for any and all constructive criticism, feedback, comments or suggestions etc. Please be nice Thanks so very much in advance P.S. - I AM NOT TOO SURE IF I HAVE POSTED THIS IN THE CORRECT CATEGORY, SO IF I HAVEN'T, I AM VERY VERY SORRY, AND IF A MOD WOULD LIKE TO MOVE IT TO THE CORRECT PLACE, I WOULD GREATLY APPRECIATE IT - Thanks so much again

Hey all! My Fiance and I have recently opened our own small business, It is a Sole Proprietorship here in the states. I am the man behind the curtain per-say and I am looking to get some insight or suggestions on software I can use to help me be incredibly efficient at helping her behind the scenes. She is a Professional Cosmetologist, so she does the booking and the Labor basically, and I manage the finances, website, advertising, and in person contract style labor(the handyman shit).... So far I find myself in search of some of the following -Application to plug in our expenses and or inventory to keep track of what was sold, and how much we made on it vs the cost(something that could be connected to the internet to give an average consumer sale price so were not overcharging) -Mass Text communication/marketing application that is either free to use or is incredibly cheap or a program that can be purchased one time.(have found plenty of email marketing apps for low to no cost so were good in that department) -A decent free website builder, that doesn't look generic(wix) if I don't buy the domain. -Any Other influential or Helpful applications to help with a small business like this get off the ground. NOTE: I do want to point out that, I am looking for free or extremely inexpensive software. However I do intend on purchasing programs in the future that are much more "well rounded" or "have more features and appendages" once we get this baby off the ground. It is our first Legitimate Registered attempt at a small business so I would love to see what I can use to help us as much as possible with as little cost as possible, and if ANYONE would want to network and connect feel free!! We are located in Nashville, TN area. Anyone looking for any help or that would want to network with anything, pm email, or message me on twitter!! Thanks Lads and Lasses!

Hi there, so it been few years I ve watched an video that I remember thatas talked about, but forgot the video. It is about business, so got that there are websites where you can post like fundme post, and for what you want people to help you. For example, I have business where I need 5k$ to pay for making an mobile app. And people would donate to help me achive it. If someone know, write down. And explain how it works. TY

Hey guys I'm 25 I graduated 6 month ago and I'm looking to go all out for youtube. It'll be a Business that delves into counseling, self development, etc. I was waiting for the Samsung viewfinity s9 5k. But after hearing the poor audio it kind of ruined it for me . What is the absolute best visually 5k monitor?

Hello Everyone, I have a small Business Running in India, I am looking to build a new server, where I need to deploy around 10-15 RDS Clients running an accounting software whose each open instance takes up quite a bit of ram and processing power (about 500 MB of ram each instance and about 5-10% CPU Resources), Each Client Will be opening about 2-3 instances of this Software, the Data stored in the server would not be more than 4-6 TB at max and most of the data would be the accounting software. I am in need to build a server with redundant storage , ECC memory , and possibly Rackmount. Also Please Suggest if Dual Processors can be Beneficial. My budget is around 3000$. Current Server Specifications : Processor : Intel Xeon E3 1225 V5 (3.3 GHZ) Ram : 8 GB DDR3 OS : Windows 7 Pro My suggestions for the New Server : Processor : Intel Xeon E5 2630 V4 Ram : 64 GB DDR4 ECC OS : Windows Server 2016 Please Help ! and Correct me if I am wrong for my new server suggestions. Thank you very much.

I am starting a PC building business and need some community feedback and research. The survey is quick and should only take 2mins. Thank You.

Hello everybody , I started working in a small/medium business with a 10Gbit fiber connection and they asked me if I could think of some upgrades/changes to make to our networking since all PCs or Access Points are only putting out around 8Mbps and I would like to make it atleast x10 faster than that. I wil also post photos to maybe understand better the situation .Of course the cheaper the better .At the moment this is the config that is running : CISCO ME 3400E SERIES SWITCH -> USING GE PORT INTO 2X HUAWEI ROUTER AR2200 SERIES -> BOTH GO INTO A CHECK POINT 770/790-WIFI FIREWALL -> 1 DLINK DGS-1210-28 SWITCH -> 1 NETGEAR FS726TP SWITCH . Those 2 final switches then spread into 5Cate ethernet cables into our offices.We have around 25 PCs ,1 IBM System server that is accessible to other offices from other cities in the country , 3 nas servers ,all workers need poe for their telephone,survaillance cams ,around 6 printers,3 access points to cover the area . I noticed that by connecting directly to the huawei router my laptop finally sees the connection as a Gbit one , other than that it shows as 100Mbit .Thank you !

Hi everyone, Currently I run a link sharing platform that is used by hundreds of people and some pay a monthly subscription to access pro features while the rest use the free version. However, someone I know that is interesting in helping the business grow has an idea to open the site fully and when people signup they are required to input their bank details as in a year from their signup date, they will be charged a monthly fee to use the service. As a business person I see the benefits to the business for revenue but as a client or user, would you enter your details to use a service that is powerful? Also do you think if doing this route the person signing up should have the option to now enter their details? I'm conflicted on the idea and would like some feedback from you guys on what you think. Thank you in advance.

Hi all, I am currently looking for a new notebook for about 1500€. I mostly use my laptop for work and sometimes for gaming. I was looking for something like this: - 32 gigs of RAM - i7 (or even i9) - 1 TB SSD - Windows 11 compatibilty - keyboard with backlighting But I realized that I don't know much about hardware, therefore I came here. What kind of graphics card do I need and what are other important features I am missing right now? It would be awesome if you could give me some suggestions for this notebook.

I need a new laptop for work and it needs a pretty heavy GPU, however that means I'm limited to gaming laptops. If you were in a work meeting and one of the suits in the room had an Asus G15, how would you react? All rgb off and the red plate switched for the more neutral one. Or should I spend more money on a crappier power draw GPU and get the g14 in black?

A friend of mine who is preparing a small business store asked me for an advice, and I'm asking you, the community, for help.In short, He wants 8 speakers which are easy to use and permanently connected to power. He is planning to use them mostly for ambient soundscapes (nature and birds.) His budget is $800 US. Also, he wants the option to add more in the future. What do you you recommend. I'd really appreciate if you could help.

Hiya I am wondering if anyone has had any experience with what I'm trying to do or if anyone is able to offer up any advice... All of this is in the context of a small business with roughly 6 employees (pc based). We currently have a windows 10 desktop PC acting as our primary server. From this PC we manage our databases, store all of our files and run our proprietary software for our employees (as it needs live access to the databases). All of our company data is stored on and backed up to this server and from here we backup to another on-site physical device which is hidden in an undisclosed fire-proof safe which in turn backs up to the cloud. 3 users have physical desktops on which they work and access the server. We have a 4th desktop pc for processing and specific tasks and then 3 users who access the server via laptops either connected to the network physically or remotely via RDP/VPN. For particular security, legislative and efficiency reasons, we need to do a fairly large upgrade which would involve new windows licenses, new hardware etc. In evaluating my options, there are two main options I see solving the problem. Upgrade the server and all physical desktops. Upgrade the server and set up VM's for all users, on-site and remote. (has particular security features I'm very interested in and also less to break or upgrade in the future.) Cost isn't really a big concern although it needs to be justifiable. I have no experience with VM's. My concerns/questions: Can we configure the VM's to run on the existing desktops/laptops? For basic operation, office suite, adobe acrobat, very low demand proprietary apps and basic web browsing (mostly simultaneous) what would the requirements be for each user in terms of CPU and memory allocation? Or rather, if all 8 users (and server overhead) were running, what would the ideal/min server hardware specs look like? I estimate on average 4GB memory making 32GB total? CPU something like an i7 (gen?)? In the event of a hardware failure on the server, how quickly/easily could we have it back up considering we have data backups and potentially replacement hardware? Would I need to purchase a copy of Windows for each VM or is there a way around that? Would Windows 10 be suitable for the server itself or would I be considerably better off with something else? My hope is that we would have a similar cost input to upgrading the physical machines with the added benefits of security, less physical hardware to break, better future upgradability, scalability etc. I chose Hyper-V because it's made by Microsoft and seems the best fit. Please feel free to leave your thoughts or make other suggestions.

Business-y question here... Got a 5 user business currently running a Sonicwall that is coming to it's very expensive license renewal. Keep looking at the Ubiquiti USG (the small one, not the big rackmount pro model) as an alternative. 80Mbps down, 20Mbps up Very flat network, no fancy VLANs, Port forward or NAT rules, just internet straight out.

i'm looking for some tips for starting a small PC interrogator business. i'm starting with 2 PCs 1: PCPartPicker Part List Type Item Price CPU AMD Ryzen 3 3200G 3.6 GHz Quad-Core Processor $169.00 @ Austin Computers Motherboard Asus PRIME A320M-K Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard $79.00 @ Amazon Australia Memory G.Skill Aegis 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 CL16 Memory $46.20 @ Newegg Australia Storage Western Digital Blue 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive $85.25 @ Amazon Australia Case DIYPC Solo-T2-BK Black USB 3.0 ATX Mid Tower Case $41.80 @ Newegg Australia Power Supply Gigabyte P-B 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply $59.00 @ Umart Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts Total $480.25 Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-10-15 10:21 AEDT+1100 2: PCPartPicker Part List Type Item Price CPU AMD Ryzen 5 2600X 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor $240.00 @ Skycomp Technology Motherboard Asus PRIME B450M-K Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard $99.00 @ Amazon Australia Memory G.Skill Aegis 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 CL16 Memory $46.20 @ Newegg Australia Storage Western Digital Blue 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive $85.25 @ Amazon Australia Video Card Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB WINDFORCE 2X Video Card $599.00 @ Umart Case DIYPC Solo-T2-BK Black USB 3.0 ATX Mid Tower Case $41.80 @ Newegg Australia Power Supply Gigabyte P-B 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply $59.00 @ Umart Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts Total $1170.25 Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-10-15 10:22 AEDT+1100 i live in australia.

June 19 2019 IBM completed its acquisition of Red Hat. Nearly a year and a half later the company has so much confidence in RedHat's parent devision, The Cloud Devision, that they no longer want to be associated with Mainframes and other Infistructure services. The Cloud Devision is the only growing devision inside IBM. Due to massive cost cuts in R&D, labor, and investment as well as using creative accounting practices IBM was able to delay some of the huge issues its been facing since the 90's at bay until around 5 - 6years ago. The traditional mainframe devision has been threatened by basic x86 servers for decades, and the last decade of evolving cloud hosting companies has effectively nailed closed most of IBM into a weighted coffin and tossed them into the ocean. IBM has been a long time investor in Linux, but also a sort of fair weather friend in regards to percentage of spend reletave to size of company. Remember in 2009 IBM was the forth largest company in the world. And its Linux investments have played critical roles in the early years. IBM invested a billion dollars in 2000 on Linux, but has since been easily overshadowed by others Including Facebook who has spent an estimated 16billion dollars on open source technologies. It's presumed that IBM both hopes to jump the stock price by changing their narrative, and change the management focus of the company and investors into greater R&D spend. Other more successfull Coud Giants like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are heavily invested in A. I. and open source. P. S. Open source is not necessarily a silver bullet for every Cloud company, at least in my opinion. But it's hard as a private company to get free spec work if your customers and enthusiasts can't see your code. Summary 10 Years of declining infrastructure management, (aka mainframe,) services sales and IBM has decided to spin off the division into its own company. Quotes My thoughts Layoffs, outsourcing, and massive cuts to R&D for decades led to little room for new internal business growth. If they wish to maintain the growth of the Cloud Division, aka Watson and Redhat, then they need to kill off the old guard. Hopefully they stop the disorganized cost management at all costs strategy and turn around like Microsoft has under Satya Nadella. It would suck to see RedHat, formerly the largest open source company and the birthplace of kvm*, crumble like the rest of IBM has. Sources . https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/08/ibm-shares-surge-on-plans-to-spin-off-unit-into-separate-publicly-traded-company-.html . https://www.theregister.com/2019/07/18/ibm_q2_fy2019_decline/ . https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-21/ibm-beats-estimates-ekes-out-revenue-growth-on-cloud . https://www.redhat.com/en/about/press-releases/ibm-closes-landmark-acquisition-red-hat-34-billion-defines-open-hybrid-cloud-future . https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/IBM/ . https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel-based_Virtual_Machine . https://itsfoss.com/ibm-invest-1-billion-linux/ . https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/2020/08/facebooks-long-history-of-open-source-investments-deepens-with-platinum-level-linux-foundation-membership/

I work for a small (less then 10 employee) Business and am looking for a solution to an issue we are having. At the moment we only have a single method of contact for the company as a whole and its also used for dispatch to send employees to customer sites. I understand that call forwarding exists but that does not solve two distinct problems I have.... That some of our customers send us only SMS or Txt messages to start tickets, and that there is not a way to centralize the record or have two different employees view call logs and or conversations with the customers for billing and accountability. Does anybody have a solution that has worked and or a good place to start?

I've watched many of the LTT videos, and as much as I enjoy watching the videos about gaming computers (I still don't understand threads, or cores or anything), I haven't seen a video about how to build a computer for regular everyday business activities for people such as myself (Especially with a lot of people that are having to work from home now). The only thing I know about computers is that they turn on and magic happens. I'm not a gamer, just a project manager. 98% of my day is excel, and I have found that I am going to need 4 monitors (I'm currently using 3). The spreadsheet that I formatted uses 3 separate excel files. With that being said, I need some advice on what I should look for in a computer. I'm replacing my laptop and docking station for a desktop. I do have one in mind, but I'm always welcome to opinions and advice from people who know a lot more than me about computers and tech. Many thanks in advance.

I have convinced my management to let me spec a desktop/rackmount server rather then using my laptop. I work as a bench technician repairing mining equipment. My aim is to be able to run 10 VM's+ or containers from this machine each VM/container with it's own dedicated expansion card that has Ethernet, USB, RS232, and most optimistically CAN. (power comes from a seperate 24volt power supply) The aim is to be able to set up 10+ units returned for repair. Power them up, reprogram and test them all simultaneusly to then have them all ready to be physically repaired once fault finding is complete. My challenge is finding a mother board with enough PCI slots to accommadate all the expansion cards and to find an expansion card that actually includes the interfaces I am looking for. I'm pretty sure I can twist their arm into giving me $5000 once I convince management of the improved repair rate as I won't be hitting a bunch of limitations of my work laptop (DELL Latitude 7490 with a DELL K17a dock and USB to RS232 adapters etc) needing to use adapters all the time and stoping one task to be able to do another etc. My thoughts for CPU are threadripper, the 24 cores alocating 2 to each machine would give me 12 simultaneus repairs which would be great. However, I am lost for most the other hardware and could really use some suggestions. e.g most suited chassis, manufacturer, virtualisation tools. Also note that different units I am repairing use debian Linux and Windows CE... workspace is best suited on windows at the moment. And note nothing i'm doing is really cpu intensive, just a whole lot of multitasking. Thank you in advance

Hi all! I'm trying to find out some information pertaining to companies that provide top of the line cybersecurity to online businesses that are based both in and outside of the US. I am based in the Caribbean and there aren't much if any IT companies that provide this feature. I hope someone can help.

How to start a business around tech?

Hello, I want to make a small website for a hobby ecommerce "business". I considered eBay, but I've had issues with PayPal and their ID stuff... chargebacks etc. I looked at shopify, and square space to build my "business"/hobby. I would perfer to not have to send my ID, I don't feel comfortable doing so. Does anybody know a website for me? I just need to be able to accept credit/debit etc. As it's a hobby, I expect to be selling around $500 worth of scarves per month at the most. Thank you for your help! I wasn't sure where to post this, so admin please move it if needed.

I just found out that I'll be getting far less hours for my summer job than expected and I need money for a laptop next time school starts. My solution: starting a very small business, but ideas are not flowing. So far I realize that I'm good with tech (identifying good specs, building pcs, etc.) and graphic designing, but I have no idea how to turn these skills into a potential business! All I'm asking are simple suggestions I could develop. I appreciate the help!

So let me start off by simply saying that I have no idea what I'm really looking for so I'm going to have to ask this question in a pretty broad manor and I hope this is the right place to ask. Basically, the small business I'm working with has two locations about 500 miles apart and they need to keep in touch with each other. One location keeps track of incoming product and specifications of said product and the other location has to use that information pretty much as soon as it can. Currently, the setup we are using is through Google drive because we need the availability to edit on both sides and the live update/ sync and to be able to view what another user is typing is key. However, if this method worked well, I probably wouldn't be here asking this question. What we're looking to do is upgrade to have a small business server, either physically in our office or elsewhere. We would like to use that server to have excel spreadsheets that live updates like google sheets does but that also has the ability to utilize macros. We basically need it to update as immediately as possible and to be reliable. Looking into it briefly, a few people have recommended using sharepoint but I'm not sue what that is or how that program works. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Hey guys, I'm trying to upgrade a network for a medium sized business (1 main store and 2 branches) which is also looking to expand sometime in a few years and one of the upgrades are the servers. Each store will have their own server connected to the main store's server. The server from the main store will contain the database and other important files so the other 2 servers will update the main store constantly. What I want from the server is that it is able to upgrade its storage size later on as well as being reliable and has high bandwidth to handle all the traffic. Thanks Also, my budget is less than or equal to 5k for each server

I just got hired in a company working as their It-supporter. Previously I primarily worked with level 2 support, and I have never really worked in debt with servers. But I am a quick learner and i am sure I will be able to work this out, but I do need some sort of advice because I haven't really heard about this particular problem before.. So.. The company I am working for (I'll call them Alpha), recently bought a part of another company (I'll call them Beta).. My company - Alpha overtook computers, furniture, servers and so on.. But... The domain, the server provides is owned by Beta. Every user at work still uses their credentials connected to Betas domain. The server computer is also connected to Beta's domain - therefore Beta won't give me any passwords for the server computer. Today Beta chose to shutdown our connection to their domain. Resulting in every employee being unable to login to their computer. I think that my only solution is to buy a new server and begin from scratch, creating a new domain controller, a new AD and new file server etc.. But I need some advice.. Thx