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Ten Reasons Why Your Small Business Should Establish A Web Presence
Ten Reasons Why Your Computer is Slow
::: Ten Reasons Why Your Small Business Should Establish A Web Presence :::
“But mine is just a small business,” you might answer when asked about establishing a web presence for your enterprise.
Though such a reply is expected, it is often justified with facts. The truth of the matter is, even if your business is not big enough to warrant a Fortune 100 citation, it will greatly benefit from all the advantages that the World Wide Web can offer. Turning down those advice to acquire your own domain name and to create a website under a professional web hosting service can cost you immeasurable losses you may not even realize.
Let us take a look at 10 compelling reasons why you should avail yourself of a well positioned web presence in this, the digital age.
1:: The world – the ENTIRE world – can become your market. Indeed, whatever audience you’re catering to right now would fall pale in comparison to the global market that the Internet can open up for you. Imagine taking potential orders from people, unbounded by geographic borders and restrictive economic systems. The Internet makes laissez faire look like child’s play!
2:: Your products can be exposed to 50 million people. Studies show that there are 50 million people online, at any given time. All of these people are your potential customers, and all of them can possibly get to know about your products.
3:: Increase your sales. Since you’ll be catering to more prospects, the chances of bagging a sale or a deal would be better. It’s a number’s game, and you’ll be turning things to your favor.
4:: Market your goods or services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Your website can become your digital store that will operate on auto-pilot. You could log off the Internet, and your website can still promote your products, process payments, instantly deliver items, and even take care of some post sales concerns. No need to hire human assistants whom you have to pay some overtime and night shift differential salaries.
5:: Add to the professional reputation of your business. Establishing web presence, especially with a sleek, easily navigable, and professional-looking website, would greatly help build your brand and increase costumer confidence.
6:: Delivery is no longer a problem. The advent of the Internet has totally revolutionized the way courier services conduct their business. Nowadays, they could deliver items to the farthest corners of the Earth. You won’t have to worry about the location of your customers. Anything, and we do mean ANYTHING, can now be delivered right in front of their doorsteps.
7:: Convenient payment processing options. You don’t have to settle for checks or money orders that take some time to mature, though they will always remain as options. There are a lot of merchant accounts available that would allow you to process credit card payments instantly, and the funds you will receive can be transferred to your bank account.
8:: Security is no longer a major concern. With SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encoding, you could protect your transaction pages against unwanted intrusions.
9:: A lot of marketing tactics can be availed of for free in the World Wide Web. Strategies like viral marketing, article marketing, forum marketing, membership marketing and the likes often require no financial investment, or at the very least, a minimal amount to get you started. The results they promise, however, are quite amazing.
10:: Correspondence with your prospects as well as your existing customers would be made easy. Digital delivery of messages is instantaneous, you’ll receive them the moment that they are sent!
Though change can bring about a lot of uncertainties, especially in business, it should not be outright dismissed. Establishing a web presence, regardless of the size of your business, can only offer a world of benefits for your industry.
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::: Ten Reasons Why Your Computer is Slow :::
1. System Start-up packed with too many applications (Start-up overload)
Over time, as you add more and more programs to your computer, many of these applications automatically add themselves to your Windows Start-up folder. Additionally, these applications can add themselves quietly to a hidden area of your Windows Start-up system. (accessed via the MSCONFIG run command). In extreme cases your PC will appear completely frozen.
To check for programs that are launched at startup, click Start ==> Run ==> type msconfig ==> click on the Startup tab.
Make sure you do not stop your Antivirus or other important programs from starting.
Limiting the number of applications loading themselves at start-up can speed boot times considerably and increase overall system performance.
2. Spyware
Malicious programs that stealthily embed themselves into your Windows Registry and core file system are the number two most common cause of a slow PC or poor PC performance.
These applications are usually installed without your knowledge or consent during the installation of a “free” application you’re trying out, or pushed out automatically in the background when you visit websites that engage in this practice without the user’s knowledge.
These spyware programs must be removed as soon as possible to return your PC to top running speed, and before they damage your file system.
In some cases they can be removed by manually editing the Windows core file system and registry or by using an automatic spyware remover like ADAware (www.lavasoft.com), our favorite pick for spyware removal and cleaning.
3. Corrupted/Bloated Windows Registry
The Windows Registry is the master control center for your operating system and applications it runs. Corruption or overload registry issues can cause all sorts of pc performance problems, including poor application startup times, slow Windows start-up, extremely slow shut down, inability to resume from computer sleep and more.
Cleaning, compacting, and optimizing your Windows registry can go a long way to dramatically speeding up your computer’s performance, start-up and shutdown speed.
Advanced Windows Care has a really good registry cleaner.
(http://www.iobit.com/advancedwindowscareper.html)
4. Badly Fragmented Hard Drive
The sixth most common reason for a slow PC is hard drive and file system fragmentation. Over time, your computer’s files can be scattered into bits and pieces located all over your hard drive. This is called fragmentation. Windows has a built in tool to help you with hard drive defragmentation:
Start ==> Programs ==> Administrative Tools ==> System Tools ==> Disk Defragmenter
5. Poor Security Software that is stealing system resources
Unfortunately, a large number of security software programs and suites out there demand a huge portion of your system resources and memory. This can lead to sluggish performance from the rest of your PC while your security software is constantly scanning and monitoring your computer for threats.
While threat detection is essential, some security vendors go overboard with their approach and drag your PC down with them.
To see how much memory and system resources your security software is using, download Process Explorer from Microsoft
(http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx). This is a handy tool to have in your software tool box.
6. Remnants of uninstalled programs
Uninstalling an application either via the control panel or the application’s start menu folder has been known to leave behind remnants of the uninstalled program. These remnants can slow down your computer while Windows tries to figure out what to do with them. Additionally, residue of old program stays behind in your system registry, clogging up your PC’s core.
If you system will not uninstall a program, get this util from Microsoft,
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301
7. Pagefile
The Windows page file is a temporary area of memory that your computer uses to move files around while it processes functions. Basically, it’s a buffer that your computer uses for wiggle room. If your Pagefile is too small, your operating system won’t have enough room to move and you could end up with poor performance and error messages.
To increase the size of your Pagefile:
- Right-click on “My Computer” and go down to “Properties”
- Click the “Advanced” tab
- Click “Settings” under the “Performance” section
- Click the “Advanced” button
- Click “Change” under “Virtual Memory”
As a rule of thumb your Virtual memory should be twice your physical memory.
Your pagefile can also become very fragmented, to fix this run PageDefrag at every boot, you can find it here
(http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897426.aspx)
8. Hard Drive getting full and too many Internet temp and windows temp files
If your hard drive has less than 10% free space, you will experience a dramatic slowdown in the performance of your PC. To improve this, free up some space by removing old documents you no longer use or programs that are no longer needed.
Advanced Windows Care has a really good temp file cleaner.
(http://www.iobit.com/advancedwindowscareper.html)
9. Virus
Closely related to Spyware, viruses can wreak havoc on your system’s performance and severely limit your PC’s ability to do what you ask it to.
Typically, viruses get onto your computer via infected email or instant messages, although they can also be installed via applications or files that you download from file-sharing networks and other non-trusted web sites.
10. Hardware Problems
The fourth most common cause of a slow or freezing computer is gradually dying internal hardware components. These can often show up in the form of slow boot and shut down, as well as poor program launches riddled with errors.
There are very few hardware diagnostic utilities out there, so we recommend careful removal of any newly installed pc components to see if they are causing a problem or incompatibility. Other than that, taking your PC to a certified, trusted hardware repair shop is usually a good idea.
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