While WinWeb itself is the biggest victim of the ‘winweb security’ malware, it has responded to over 10,000 partly angry and abusive enquiries and sent out information on how to uninstall the malware each time.

Google ‘winweb’ and you can see why WinWeb.com is still victimized for the criminal and illegal use of it’s trademark. Even months after the virus has passed and any good anti-virus software can handle this virus, the first page of the google search is putting winweb.com in damagingly bad company by name association.

WinWeb learned first hand that if you want to hurt your competition, you just spread a virus with your competitors name on it. I am not saying this is what happened here, I have no proof of that, it is still true that the mere name association is extremely damaging. I also do not encourage you to try doing this as it is a criminal offence.

Never the less WinWeb is still helping one or two individuals per week and should you have an issue with the virus, please go to WinWeb’s Website and press the ‘SUPPORT’ button on the left side of your browser window, mention the Winweb Security virus and WinWeb will help you to get rid of the menace.

This however is one reason why SaaS software is often more secure than running software on PCs. Unfortunately Microsoft with it’s windows operating system has been infected by many thousands of viruses over the years, and there is no end in sight. Other operating systems like Apple’s Mac OS X and Linux have done a much better job to keep their customers safe and sound – maybe something to think about, the next time you’re looking for a new computer.

How safe is your computer? Have you checked lately? –ST

Again I had several questions regarding “crisis planning“, “disaster planning“, “data-security” and “data-backup“, so I will cover all of them in this post.

When I started thinking about WinWeb’s Small Business Infrastructure, we always knew we had to do something about data-security and data-backup. The truth of the matter is that most small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer- or Personal business, like professional, contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants, do not have a coherent data-security and back-up strategy. To be perfectly blunt about the subject, it is not made easier by confusing technology and more to the point terminology, that even we have difficulty understanding some time. So I believe:

We should not expect business start-ups and small business in general to be accountants, bookkeepers, IT specialist, lawyers, marketing & PR gurus and so on. We should provide small business with an infrastructure in which it can concentrate on core business tasks, while at the same time enabling the business owner to stay informed of all relevant business facts like cash flow, sales, HR issues, tax position and more. This will enable him / her to make informed decisions, maybe with the help of an external advisor.

I formulated at the beginning that one of the benefits of using WinWeb’s OnlineOffice would be:

No security problems. No business interruption problem.
Your data is continuously backed up onto multiple RAID-5 data servers in multiple physically and network secure data centres – if that is not enough you can make a copy of your data anytime onto your PC or a CD. Should your computer crash or get stolen – no problem, just log on to another computer and keep working – can your competition do that?

So that takes care of the data security and back-up problem. To give you a little example, one of our clients is a web-designer for a niche market, he lives in an area which was flooded earlier in the year. His computer equipment gone, but all his data, addresses, email and work was safely stored in our OnlineOffice. He moved to his parents for a time and was back working within a few hours – not everybody was that lucky.

A burglary or fire would do the same – and can be dealt with quiet easily. This is not so easy when you have a business that manufactures goods, even when you do it from the kitchen table, you will incur “business interruption“. You will need a plan for that too – insurance may be the first step.

But loosing customers and with that revenue is not something an insurance is going to cover you for. So you need to plan ahead, ask yourself the following questions:

• Is there somewhere else I could work from temporarily? Parents, friends, short term office hire, etc.
• How long until I can get my raw-materials again? Maybe you should require your supplier to get a certain amount in stock for you, make a contract.
• Could you hire machinery until you can replace your own? Find suppliers now.
• Could my staff work from home if necessary? Online technology will help with that.
• Could I outsource some work temporarily? Have a look at virtual assistants in your area.

There are other questions you could ask yourself, just take 30 minutes, get a piece of paper and imagine your business, office, house, kitchen just burned down – trust me – the questions will come, and so will the answers. Oh, just to mention it, a disaster plan in a burned out house is of no value to anyone, keep it online or safe elsewhere.

Answer: YES, a small business needs a disaster plan, just like any other business. ST.

Disclaimer: As with any of my readers questions, I do not have all the answers and here on my blog I can only give you some ideas, since I know very little about your small business. If any of you can add anything here do so for the benefit of my reader, who asked the question and everybody else, leave a comment below – I’d be most grateful.

Starting and running a small business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal business today, is all about staying focused on the small business and not on running your office. WinWeb’s Software as a Service applications allow you to do exactly that. Below you will find some of the benefits detailed to help you make up your mind if this kind of technology is for you.

1. No More Software Installation.

Since our software comes to you via your internet browser, there is no need to install anything. Your printer will also work with our software without installation or any modifications. Our software works with any web browser, Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox etc.

2. Our software is always up to date.

This really is one of the main benefits of SaaS. We make all the software updates on our servers, so you don’t have to do anything. No update hassle and worry anymore. There are no “Update available – Please download” messages and no CDs / DVDs updates arriving in the mail.

3. Never pay for software “updates” again!

No matter if we update or bug-fix, you will never have to pay for them again, it is all part and parcel of our service. Artificially accelerated software cycles are a thing of your past.

4. Fully Compatible with any Operating System.

Our software runs on any Operating System (OS) with Linux, Mac, Windows and some others – you login and use it.

5. Work and collaborate with anyone, anytime and anywhere.

Our software allows you to work with your accountant, colleagues, virtual assistants and others in real-time at anytime – whatever your business needs.

6. No commuting. No time wasting.

With online technology you can work from anywhere, so no need to travel to an office. Run your small business from home and benefit in terms of time, money and investment.

7. No security problems. No business interruption problem.

Your data is continuously backed up onto multiple RAID-5 data servers in multiple physically and network secure data centers – if that is not enough you can make a copy of your data anytime onto your PC or a CD.
Should your computer crash or get stolen – no problem, just log on to another computer and keep working – can your competition do that?

8. 24/7 Live Support 365 days a year.

We believe that you will be busy during the day with your clients and with working on new projects and so you should – after the phone stops ringing you get down to your admin work. So we thought we better be around in case you need some support for any of our products. It would be no good if we weren’t around now, would it?

9. No contract needed.

No minimum term, cancel anytime, no contract needed and you can test drive any software for a minimum of 30 days free of charge. This puts you in control. Unlike the boxed software you buy, once you paid for it, it’s yours including the problems. Not so with our software.

10. ClimateByte™ Technology

Our environment is in trouble – by using our on-demand Small Business Infrastructure™, you can help to reduce your carbon footprint and help our environment – we are dedicated to develop our future products and services with this in mind.

Our Software as a Service products provide your small business with a on-demand Small Business Infrastructure™ helping you to concentrate on your business, while we run your office and IT. This makes your business more mobile and competitive while saving you time, money and helping the environment.

When you run a small business and personal business, like contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants you probably benefit even more from using SaaS technology – program your business for success.

I get regular questions about what we really mean by WinWeb’s Small Business Infrastructure?

On-demand Small Business Infrastructure™ centers around the idea that business start-ups and growing small businesses need help with numerous administrative tasks that are not core to the business success – such as bookkeeping, it services, internet services, call handling and other such services.

These services – if performed by the business owner – cause a great deal of time wasting – while the fixed cost of a business is still accumulating. This is in our minds a fatally floored business model and can easily be remedied with our infrastructure approach.

We should not expect business start-ups and small business in general to be accountants, bookkeepers, lawyers, marketing & PR gurus and so on. We should provide small business with an infrastructure in which it can concentrate on core business tasks, while at the same time enabling the business owner to stay informed of all relevant business facts like cash flow, sales, HR issues, tax position and more. This will enable him / her to make informed decisions, maybe with the help of an external advisor.

Based on these facts, we have devised a six point on-demand Small Business Infrastructure™ concept, which consist of:

1. WinWeb On-Demand Software Solutions – Anywhere At Anytime.

AccountsOffice and OnlineOffice are our two software offerings, which are based on the SaaS – Software as a Services model, to allow for the following key business benefits:

• tight inclusion of business advisors from the start,
• cultivating outsourcing techniques at the outset, i.e. virtual assistants,
• no IT knowledge needed and hassle free operation,
• real-time multi-user access from anywhere, increasing mobility.

2. WinWeb 24/7 Live Support – We Are Here For You Always.

Providing customer care and support only during business hours is not acceptable to our clients. Experience has shown us that most admin work gets done by small business before nine in the morning or after five in the evening. This practice is essential if the business is to survive it’s early years.

This is why we have provided our much acclaimed customer support for 24 hours a day, seven days a week from the outset. Saving our clients wasted time and money – while setting new standards in customer support. No manuals need to be read – all problems can be solved in real-time online.

3. WinWeb Live – Networking Community for Small Business Only.

To foster collaboration and outsourcing we have expanded our WinWeb Live™ offering to allow for small business community networking – thus enabling the business owner to make decisions about his / her current needs, with the following benefits:

• timeshare virtual assistants for professional results,
• offer contracts of work to contractors on a case-by-case basis,
• promote the business to a large audience or even locally,
• find new work and contracts online

4. Business Advice

Our On-Demand Small Business Infrastructure™ enables business advisors, accountants, bookkeepers and other advisors to have a “Up Close and Personal” relationship with the small business owner, providing key elements for the success of a small business:

• timely and up-to-date advice from anywhere at anytime,
• more efficient advisor function due to SaaS technology, less travel,
• easily expandable advisor network.

5. Solution Partners

Third parties provide external services to complement our services, such as parcel service, office supply services, printing services. These and other services are provided on a bulk buy arrangements by leading businesses in their respective sectors – to provide the most reliable and up-to date service possible – with the effect of enhancing the professional appearance of our clients.

6. ClimateByte™ Technology – For A Cleaner Future.

Our clients are among the biggest demographics concerned with climate change and carbon footprint neutrality. It is a fact that employing remote working and collaboration techniques drastically reduces the damaging business side affects on our environment. We enable our clients to be more eco-friendly and aware, by providing them with our green technology – an ongoing development commitment of WinWeb.

WinWeb welcomes any suggestion that will further enhance our On-Demand Small Business Infrastructure™ concept – especially the development of even more eco-friendly business processes – to serve our small business and business start-up client-base.

An enormous amount of personal and business information is available on the internet and in the hands of unscrupulous people it could do a lot of damage. Taking the seriousness of this matter into consideration the House of Lordsí science and technology committee published a proposal to protect people against cyber crime and hold start-up-, personal- and small business, and IT security vendors responsible.

The proposal focuses on protecting customers data and personal information. The Lords called for the setting up of an online e-crime reporting system that would include the creation of security breach notification laws and how they will be enforced.

McAfee and Datamonitor, the analyst firm, conducted a survey that included over 1400 businesses. 30% of the respondents said that a major security breach could be fatal for the business.

“We feel many of the organizations profiting from internet services now need to take their share of the responsibility. That includes the IT industry and the software vendors, the banks and internet traders, and the internet service providers,” said Lord Broers, chairman of the committee.

Small businesses, internet services, banks, software vendors and the IT industry need to start taking responsibility for e-crime and protect themselves and their customers against them. Small businesses need to consider outsourcing processes such as accounting that they aren’t comfortable handling. An online shop must take all the necessary precautions to protect its customers.

A On-Demand Small Business Infrastructure can dal with a lot of the security concern small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Personal businesses must have.

Unaware of the IT security risks that they may be placing their companies in employers and employees seem to be indulging in online peer-to-peer file sharing without much thought. While the internet has made life much easier for all of us, especially in terms of communication it has also made businesses vulnerable to hackers and viruses.

Surprisingly a large percentage of small business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer businesses, believe that they are secure and unaffected by IT risks. In research by Websense it was reported that an increasing number of small businesses were accessing unsafe websites and applications and were completely unaware of the security risks involved.

The SMB State of Security (SOS) found that all the firms that participated in the survey felt that they were completely protected from security threats, while 98% of IT managers concluded that their technology and processes were adequate.

One fourth of the respondents felt that peer-to-peer file sharing was essential, while 17% of the free software download websites were potentially unsafe.

In a world where information is everything it is surprising that these businesses are putting personal and business information at risk. Companies need to put in place business infrastructure that would make it easy for employees to share files and communicate and an online office is an excellent step in this direction at the same time the provider of this online infrastructure should also provide all necessary security arrangements, leaving the business owner just to worry about the local workstations.

For me on-demand software has always been about extra IT security for clients – we are asking for business start-ups to be accountants, lawyers, marketing gurus – and now also IT and security experts? What next(?) absolutely ludicrous!

If you're like me you use your credit card online to purchase domain names, update software, purchase new software or online services, buy the odd book here and there, and so on. The convenience of buying online just makes things happen faster – and we're in a time where everyone wants things now.

I received a letter from my bank today advising that someone from SHG.D…. tried to process a payment of SEK$20,338.32 – over $3,000 in my own currency to my credit card. The bank knocked it back, thankfully, and then wrote a letter advising me. Turns out there were several other attempts too, but because there were unavailable funds at the time, they knocked it back. I asked the bank officer about this as I saw no evidence on my account online of any debits and credits corresponding to this. She told me they suspected the attempts were fraudulent and that's why they hadn't shown up. She also said they were from middle Eastern countries and one was from Malta and they were fairly sure that I wasn't over there – nor had any of my previous spending habits shown amounts to these values.

I check into my account on a daily basis and reconcile my bookkeeping every 2-4 days, depending on how many entries have occurred. As so many of my clients now pay me online I need to be able to keep my ledgers up to date and it helps me see what else is going through the account – any cheques that have recently been processed, a periodic debit that hasn't gone through yet, and so on. It makes good sense to keep up to date with your accounting and the bank officer this morning confirmed it is also a good practice if you're running an online business. Another good thing is that I usually pay by Bpay and only use my Visa for small incidentals such as the items I listed above – another thing that alerted the bank to the large so-called purchases with my Visa card. Something else that assists is that I shift the larger proportion of my cleared funds into another account, which incidentally isn't connected to my Visa, so that has been a saving grace for me also.

I asked her how they got my credit card and she replied that often software is used to try out variations of numbers with expiry dates and when they find some that work they just keep using them – sounds like they must sell these numbers to others too, hence the use in different countries. I am careful about which sites I use my Visa on and was momentarily concerned that one of these may have been compromised but that doesn't appear to be the case.

I'm hoping my post on this topic may assist you, the reader, in developing a regular habit of keeping an eye on your bank accounts and monitoring any activity that may appear to unusual. KMT

credit cards, visa, fraud, fraudulent activity, accounting, buying online

The influence of the Internet on business is changing almost daily. Not only do more companies build their own websites, but they start to understand how to improve communication. Still, too many people consider the Internet as an additional advertising platform or sales channel. Of course, the World Wide Web can perform these functions, but a much more important prospect is often overlooked.

Think about it. You are used to working with the computer. Now you also have a mobile phone, so you can be reached anytime. The next step is a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), which allows you to carry data and in formation without having to carry a laptop. The trend is already visible: Access to vital business information anytime, anywhere. The Internet seems the ideal platform to achieve this goal. The benefits are clear:

• Data accessible and editable anytime, anywhere

• Data constantly backed up in remote location

• Integrated online tools avgoiding data duplication

• Sharing of data between multiple users

• 24 hour access to data for customers and suppliers

• One interface for all your communication

With the speedy development of mobile phone technology it will very soon be possible to access all your business intelligence not only through a PC but also through your phone or PDA.

Winweb OnlineOffice was designed to use the flexibility and accessibility of the Internet for business intelligence. Your small business can now benefit from a sophisticated IT system without the cost of setting up your own in-house solution.

Tags: Accounting, Business Development, Business Infrastructure, Business Start Up, E-Commerce, Home Business, IT, Micro Business, On-demand, Outsourcing, Selfemployed, Small Business, smb, sme, sme-blog, Software as a Service, Web Technology, WinWeb

Welcome to our new small business blog. We hope you will enjoy our rambling & ranting on the subject of small business.

On this blog we will concentrate on providing an inside to our thinking with respect to self-employment, home businesses and small businesses, the so called micro and small businesses.

Some of the areas will include:

• Accountants/CPAs, we believe accountants/CPAs should be more then glorified bookkeepers. They are in a unique position to help small business and start-up business to get the financial and business advice they need to survive long term. We will discuss what to look for in an accountant.

• Banks, they should help you to finance business and NOT overheads. We are going to talk about healthy and unhealthy relationships with your bank.

• Business Start-Up, how to run a business while you keep your job and test the water, before you jump into business and commit your savings and/or borrowed money. Do you really need a VC before you can earn yourself a good living?

• Government, why most government help for small business may be a sincere offer, but in reality is nothing but hot air.

• Marketing/PR, the high tech way to create awareness for your products and services for the small budged.

• Web-Technology combined with Live! services, changes the business dynamic completely, the “In & Out” of on-demand technology and why it helps you.

• Outsourcing & Virtual Assistants, the technology driven way to timeshare professionals and keeping you overheads down.

Let us know what you think and let’s talk business, ……SMALL BUSINESS.

Accounting, Business Development, Business Start Up, CPAs, Data Security, E-Commerce, Exporting, Finance, IT, On-demand, Open Source Software, Outsourcing, PR, SaaS, Sales, sme-blog, Software as a Service, Virtual Assitants, Web Technology, WinWeb