October 2007

We are pleased to announce the opening of a new Click Consulting office in Northern California. We are proud to be able to expand our services of both network support and web development to this market. The local phone number is 415-839-6317.

Do you keep your server(s) in a small room or closet at your office? I bet that server room gets pretty hot during the weekends when central air is unavailable. Did you know that heat is a leading cause for computer hardware malfunctions? What can you do? One approach is to buy a portable air conditioner. Not the kind you put in your window in your home. One on wheels that is made for just this type of use. There are two issues to consider. First issue is: where will the hot exhaust air go. Some brands (like APC - www.apc.com) come with an exhaust duct made for venting up through your t-bar ceiling. Other brands assume you will expel the hot air out a window. The other consideration is condensation.

We will be installing a training center in our new office. We are very excited about this since we will now have the ability to provide computer training of all types. Some of the sessions we have planned will be Excel hands-on workshops for a fee, and some technology update courses for free. Stay tuned as we build the training center out.

I know you know about wikipedia (wikipedia.com). However, you may not be aware that wikipedia is only one offering by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit group. Other sister sites include:
- Commons (commons.wikimedia.org) - Free media repository
- Wikiquote (en.wikiquote.org) - Collection of quotations
- Wikispecies (species.wikimedia.org) - Animal and plant library
- Wikibooks (en.wikibooks.org) - Free textbooks and manuals
- Wikiversity (en.wikiversity.org/wiki) - Free learning materials and activities
- Wiktionairy (en.wiktionary.org/wiki) - Free dictionary
- Wikisource (en.wikisource.org) - free content library
Man, I wish I had access to all of this research material when I was in school!

Now that we are all rigged with high-speed connections at home and office, and all of our friends are too, it is time to make use of those connections. One way is by communicating via a video-conferencing system. There are obviously high-end video conferencing systems with a high-end price tag to match. However, there are high-quality free video conference systems too. Internally, we use Skype (www.skype.com), the famous internet-based telephony company, but there are others.

You have probably noticed a new trend in websites: embedded video content. This is very popular now, and fortunately, easy to install into your existing website. What I like about it is that it creates meaningful animation with a purpose. It is not like inserting flash animation just to have animation. Embedded video adds value, and has purpose. Whether it is a customer testimonial, tour of your product, interview with employees, discussions of your product or service details, interviews with key employees, these embedded videos can sometimes communicate a message more passionately and more easily than text.