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Small Businesses need to be experts in the leverage game. What do we mean by that? In order to do everything on your to-do list or meet your quarterly objectives, you have to be focused and you must use resources wisely. Sometimes the best resource is one that may not be on your payroll.
Partners and partnerships have been vital to the success of many small businesses. All Covered firmly believes that. We have recently partnered with two companies that can assist us in better serving you – MicroAge and Administaff. As a client, you can come to All Covered, as your trusted advisor, for assistance in a broad range of areas where you need expertise or help. We will find a partner that can fulfill that business need. Why not leverage All Covered as your business and IT resource?
As always, we're eager to hear what you think about this issue and what topics you'd like to see covered in future issues. Please send an email to Newsletter Comments.
Thank You,
All Covered
Taking Away the IT Procurement Headaches
Let All Covered and MicroAge Do the Hard Work
Do you spend precious time searching websites for information on hardware and software? Our procurement services and partnership with MicroAge can help you focus on your important tasks.
Read more…
Macintosh Corner
Font Management
Font management on a Macintosh can be a real challenge. Read this primer on font management so you're prepared the next time you think about removing a "duplicate" font.
Read more…
Partner Spotlight: Administaff
Aligning Company Goals with Employee Goals
How do you connect the work that employees do every day to company goals?
Read more…
Tech Tip
Creating Secure, Complex, and Memorable Passwords
How do you balance the need for secure, complex passwords, yet are easy for users to remember?
Read more…
Coming Soon
A Special Focus on Security
In the coming months, All Covered will have a special focus on security. We will have web seminars, a whitepaper and a summary from our recent security survey.
Read more…
Taking Away the IT Procurement Headaches
Let All Covered and MicroAge Do the Hard Work
Do you struggle with the vast selection of hardware and software required to support and grow your business? Are you overwhelmed by the numerous options when it comes to buying servers, routers, antivirus software, remote access software or even which desktop or laptop computer to provide your employees?
All Covered can help with this sometimes daunting task with assistance throughout the purchasing process. First, we will assist you in determining which category of product is the right solution for your problem, and then help you select the right the items. Next, we will assist you in purchasing the product and track its delivery to your location. Finally, if there are any issues with the order, we will take care of the return or expedite getting a replacement.
All Covered has recently entered into a strategic partnership with MicroAge, a company that is an expert at customer service and product sourcing. They have been in the industry for over 25 years and have a strong reputation for sourcing even difficult to find items. This new partnership provides you with the following benefits:
When procuring hardware, software or networking gear, there may be hundreds of choices at your fingertips. It is possible to find a "dirt cheap" solution on the Internet, however, we think you need to consider the following questions if you are thinking about doing your own procurement:
Wouldn't you rather spend your time on your core competencies versus evaluating, sourcing and buying hardware and software? Let All Covered and MicroAge handle all your technology procurement needs. We have the knowledge and expertise to make this process as painless as possible.
If you need a quote or assistance in selecting the right product, contact your consultant or Client Operations Representative today and they will setup an account with MicroAge and start you on the pain free path to IT procurement.
Macintosh Corner
Font Management
Why do Mac Professionals take a deep breath when you ask them about font management? It's probably because Macintosh has been the preferred desktop publishing platform for the past 20 years and there's a lot to talk about.
Basic Font Management Concepts and Practice
We will discuss Font Management and how it relates to Mac OS X, but let's first focus simply on the concept by which fonts are being addressed. If we reduce the complexity of font management to an analogy of putting pegs into holes, there are many pegs (fonts) to choose; however, the holes can be only be filled (or fonts can be activated) once. So if Gil Sans is installed in multiple locations on the hard drive, the first location will be used and subsequent ones will either be ignored or present a conflict.
Unless we have the hierarchical concept down, fonts can get pretty tricky. So why would Apple introduce such complexity? Simple: scalability.
Mac OS X Font Folders
A computer running Mac OS X has three locations in which it looks for fonts to load. These locations are looked at hierarchically and in a given order: (~ represents "currently logged-in user's home folder" as in /Users/username/)
| ~/Library/Fonts | "User" |
| /Library/Fonts | "Local" |
| /System/Library/Fonts | "System" |
These font folders exist on every installation of Mac OS X. If the computer has a Classic System Folder (Mac OS 9) and is part of a managed network, the number of available font folders increases to:
| ~/Library/Fonts | "User" |
| /Library/Fonts | "Local" |
| /Network/Library/Fonts | "Network" |
| /System/Library/Fonts | "System" |
| /System Folder/Fonts | "Classic" |
Third-Party Applications increase complexity by adding their own font folders, some required by the programs and some simply provided to make developer-provided fonts available only to their specific applications:
| /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Reqrd/ | "Adobe" |
| /Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Office/Fonts | "Office"* |
The Adobe Folder may be placed in the user's Library folder if that user is a standard (not administrative) user. *The Office Fonts folder is the source folder from which Office installs fonts into either /Library/Fonts for administrative users or ~/Library/Fonts for standard users.
Required Fonts
Mac OS X can be installed with over 120 included fonts, but requires a few fonts to be installed and active to operate properly:
| Font | Notes |
|---|---|
| Courier.dfont | |
| Geneva.dfont | |
| Helvetica.dfont | Most Apple applications need this |
| Keyboard.dfont | |
| LastResort.dfont | |
| LucidaGrande.dfont | |
| Monaco.dfont | Terminal.Application needs this |
| AppleGothic.dfont | Avoid odd error messages, failed installations and program crashes |
| Arial Arial Black Tahoma Trebuchet MS Verdana Webdings | Microsoft applications need these |
These fonts are located in /System/Library/Fonts/ The Mac OS can experience issues if system fonts are moved or deleted.*
Font Management with Font Book
Apple's Font Book is now in its second revision under Mac OS X 10.4, and is fine for non-intensive Desktop Publishing environments.
Font Book allows a user to add fonts to the Local Font Library or a particular user's Font Library. Adding fonts is simple, either through the application or by double-clicking on the fonts. Font Book does not discriminate against known fonts types, but anecdotal evidence suggests some issues with PostScript Type 3 fonts.
In Mac OS X 10.4, Font Book has changed the way it handles closed fonts. Previously, it would delete the fonts from the active font folder when you disabled them. Its new method is to leave the fonts where they are and use a separate internal function to denote that they are closed.
As of this writing, this causes problems with many third party applications. Since the fonts are left in a Fonts folder, the underlying Unix system still considers them active. In almost all non-Apple applications such as those from Adobe, Microsoft, or Quark "disabled" fonts will still appear. There is no workaround at this time other than to discontinue use of Font Book and use a third party font manager such as those listed below. This change in Font Book is something Apple is requesting that developers work into their applications so that they recognize which fonts are disabled according to Font Book. But, it may be some time before all OS X applications are compliant with this procedure.
Third-Party Font Management Solutions
Although Apple's own Font Book is a great effort by Apple, third-party developers have an edge when it comes to professional font management. Although Adobe dropped their Adobe Type Manager solution when Mac OS X became mainstream, other companies took up the torch.
Extensis took up development of SuitCase, bought Diamond Soft's Font Reserve and most recently came out with Fusion (a fusion of the two). Insider Software has made great strides in the development of Font Agent Pro, and even LinoType has re-energized development of their own Font Explorer X, the only freeware solution in the marketplace. These comprise the main body of individual font management solutions.
In a networked small-business or enterprise workplace where the number of font-managing workstations increase, server-based font management (especially for administrators) are much preferred to individually-managed solutions. Insider Software has their Font Agent Pro Server, while Extensis (as of this writing) still has Font Reserve Server and SuitCase Server, but should shortly be releasing a Fusion Server product to manage their Fusion client.
Apple's own Mac OS X Server 10.3 or later can manage fonts to some degree by sharing a folder and categorizing it as a shared library for managed clients (running Mac OS X 10.3 or later). Fonts contained in this folder are available to computers in /Network/Library/Fonts/ and they add another fonts folder whose contents are activated by default, but manageable by Font Book.
Lastly, although there is only one product in this field, Insider Software has released Font Agent Pro WorkGroup Edition, a peer-to-peer font management system that does not require a server.
Partner Spotlight: Administaff
Aligning Company Goals with Employee Goals
They shouldn't be mutually exclusive and they don't have to be... company goals and employee goals, that is. The secret is in connecting the work that employees do every day to company goals that are well thought out and properly communicated on a regular basis.
Turn Daily Actions into Meeting Company Goals
Every level of leadership affects how successfully daily actions are aligned to help meet company goals. Department and process managers must look at every decision before them, ask themselves whether or not what they want to do is in sync with company goals, and then clearly communicate the answers to the employees they are responsible for managing.
For example, let's say your company has a specific goal for net operating income per month. That goal must be considered at every level all the time. First, your employees have to understand that net operating income refers to money available after expenses are subtracted. Next, managers explain to employees that operating expenses have to be kept within departmental budgets in order for the company to achieve its goal. Then, when an employee wants to spend money attending a conference, for example, managers and employees discuss the pros and cons that spending can have. How will the company benefit if the employee attends? Is the topic one the department needs information on right now? If the conference is so expensive that other things must be forgone, are those sacrifices worth what will be gained? By the time the discussion is over, the employee will clearly see that attending the conference needs to support the company's short-term and long-term goals, not just the employee's self-interest.
Blend Leadership Styles
Most of us have been conditioned to believe we should use only one leadership style, or at least only one per occasion or event. But research shows us that top managers blend leadership styles in much the same way that top coffeemakers blend different kinds of coffee beans, balancing each mix to achieve the desired result.
Linking company goals to the daily habits and work of employees calls for a blend of servant leadership to set the behavioral expectation, pacesetting leadership to set the example, democratic leadership to be sure that everyone's concerns are heard, authoritative leadership for persuasiveness and coaching leadership to follow up on how things are going.
Link the work your employees do everyday with company goals, turn those goals into actions and blend leadership styles carefully and you'll find your employees will quickly line up behind you. You won't regret it and neither will your employees.
This article was provided by Administaff (NYSE: ASF), the
nation's leading professional employer organization (PEO), serving as
a full-service human resources department for small and medium-sized
businesses throughout the United States. All Covered has an alliance
with Administaff that enables members to receive valuable human
resources information and save 15% off the enrollment fee when
they become an Administaff client. For more information on the
All Covered/Administaff program, call (866)639-0017, or go to
www.hrpowerhouse.com/partner/allcovered.
Tech Tip
Creating Secure, Complex, and Memorable Passwords
Having a policy that encourages complex user passwords along with a scheduled requirement to change them, is one of the best security investments you can make. However, passwords must be easy to remember to avoid users keeping them on a post-it note next to their monitor. So how can you help?
Suggest that your users select a standard "theme" for their passwords. For example, places you have lived or cars you have owned. Then add at least one non-alphanumeric character, such as !@#$%^&*, and one number. Then, by changing the non-alphanumeric character OR the number, you have a unique, secure password that can be changed and still be remembered.
Another good trick is to take the same theme and substitute a number or a non-alphanumeric character and you have a strong, unique password.
The following examples can easily be updated 25 times by just changing the number or the non-alphanumeric character.
Examples:
Camaro&1
1$OldBylerRd
C&mar0 ... for Camaro
This cycle should get your users through the most aggressive "change your password" requirements, keep your network secure and remove post-it notes from their monitor.
Five Tips for Secure, Complex Passwords
Coming Soon
A Special Focus on Security
All Covered recently surveyed 200 companies about the security of their network. Here is a brief excerpt of some findings:
Stay tuned for more information on our upcoming web seminars and details about how you can get a copy of our security survey results.
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