Intuit (the Quicken people) have moved further into web based software and they are now offering an impressive online software web solution and application that features the capbilities of very large systems at a subscription price. They offer a product called QuickBase. It has multiple functionalities because at its core its a database and many applications or programs require a database to function properly (just like this blog, which runs on MySQL).

QuickBase is

• Database
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application
• Project Management application
• and more all rolled into one.

Now, I can count up on one long spreadsheet with several tabs of pivot tables the hundreds of thousands of dollars that companies that I have worked for have spent on meetings debating the right systems and the wrong system and how many millions or hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on the system an implementation. We had endless meetings raving about our need and how desperate things were because the need continued to go unfilled and the company never did anything because the upfront cost for the software and the consultants and the IT support for years would easily cost millions of dollars.

Enter QuickBase

QuickBase offers the capability of these systems and more. They charge a monthly subscription rate that starts at about $249 for 10 users or about $25 per user as compared to anoterh popular online CRM only tool that costs $100 per user. But in addition to CRM you get Project Management Software (compared to MS Project at $500 - $1000 a license) and you get a powerful database system (which can cost anywhere from thousands to millions). But the hidden benefit is the IT support. Companies using QuickBase do not have to pay an army or even a couple gurus of IT people to investigate, learn, train, plan, implement, deploy, assess, beta, modify, test, repair, upgrade or anything else with the system as that is covered by Intuit’s tech support. They maintain the software on their servers. That means the experts that would normally provide the training to your IT people are the ones actually handling all the work and upgrades which centrally managed is much more efficient and helps keep the cost down significantly saving a fortune in headcount and system and software expenses.

The Key is Speed with QuickBase

Companies can save a fortune from a monetary perspective with this system, but the key is the speed in deployment. Business users with a need can literally sign up for the 30 day free trial and commence to organize their projects, their contacts and more right away. You don’t have to waste an hour, a week, a month or a year in meetings and with emails and a hundred other items thinking and talking about what you need. You can just start doing what you need to do with what you need provided immediately with QuickBase!

Expense of buying online CRM subscription through other guys $100 per month

Expense of buying Project $500

Expense of installing ERP system $100,000

Expense of installing Hyperion or Oracle $1.5 million

Getting started doing the work you need to do with all of the benefits of the systems above . . .

Priceless and fearless too with their free trial

Note the free online database trial does not require a credit card to sign up just your business information address, email phone number. This information is required as QuickBase provides a very hands on training process online through customer representatives to insure that you do not get stuck along the way. So again, you don’t have to schedule a meeting with the IT department meeting scheduler to hopefully some day talk to an IT person about getting approval for training. Instead you can get training from a QuickBase expert online in the comfort of your office or cubicle within a day or two!

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The LinkyLoveArmy.com is launching a beta program this week.  Today, they released several insights into their Internet marketing 2.0 of strategies.  They are forming an army of bloggers to leverage the numbers of bloggers and blog campaigns in the direction and shape reminiscent of a wedge formation.

You lazy this type of structure they hope to penetrate advertising campaigns and in particular keyword searches that generates large amounts of traffic such that the bloggers can directly market to business-to-business and business-to-customer groups.

Up until this point in time, those Internet marketing 2.0 firms have offered up a bit of a free-for-all where advertisers come to purchase reviews with contextual links inside of his and bloggers respond acting as individuals in the marketplace offering up individual benefits.  The LinkyLoveArmy hopes to organize those bloggers with a much more focused strategic objective and at the same time harness a new revenue model for bloggers yielding a higher return on effort.

Here is a short video that they are offering on their website today:

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Education Only Takes You So Far

I have a double major in finance and accounting and I’ve taken close to 25 graduate hours of course work in both areas of study. Plus I have a Masters in International tax and financial planning.

Experience Far Out Weighs Education

With that disclaimer, I can unequivocably state that even though I’ve studied the principles associated with trading futures, derivatives and various forms of options, I have no experience in actual trading. Years ago before I actually started trading stocks, I gained a great deal of experience and practice trading stocks in a simulated fashion. In fact I first was exposed to this concept in sixth grade before Internet Stock trading had even been considered. We used a simple old-fashioned newspaper to track stocks and trying come up with an investment portfolio strategy.

Learning to Invest From Simulations

Years later when I was in college and studying finance and accounting, the Internet Stock boom of the 90s was just cranking up and I picked up a great deal of experience trading stocks through fictional portfolios on several different systems. That experience gave me the knowledge and confidence to trade the real thing online with my own money and do it effectively.

I’ve studied options and futures and currency markets in great detail especially from the perspective of an accountant attempting to track and account for valuations of these assets, however it wasn’t until recently that I found a service that provides some very interesting online tutorials and trading simulations that investors can utilize to hone their trading skills and prepare for advanced trading mechanisms.

FOREX Simulations through Global Futures Exchange & Trading Co

Global Futures Exchange & Trading Company offers an arsenal of tools that investors can utilize to engage in forex trading and other forms of derivative or options trading. I was especially impressed with their tools for the relative novice (and I use the word novice here rather loosely to refer to people that have a good deal of education in this area as well as a good deal of experience trading stocks or bonds and possibly commodities as well, but like myself no experience in FOREX trading.)

They offer five differentonline simulation tools that you can runto learn your way aroundthese markets and the way they work online.In addition they also provide a number of tutorials, video courses, and other courses that you can take in order to be guided through this market.

I am definitely a proponent of the benefits of learning from simulations. If you are new to Forex trading and you are looking for the knowledge necessary to proceedin these markets, I would highly recommend combining your study and analysis with the simulation programthat can help youbut the big pictureto workin a simulated model.With simulations it’s always important to go back and analyze the results and test the variables.

Simulations can also be worthwhile for seasoned investors that are looking to test drive a new system or service that they have not worked with in the past. You would not want to buy a Ferari without test driving it first only to learn too late that you don’t even fit into the car!

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As I continue my test with Dragon NaturallySpeaking, I have recently come up with a list of several words that dragon was unable to interpret correctly. Some of these are rather humorous and some of these are little off-the-wall but I thought I’d share it in context with several of my other reviews.

I should point out that in each of the cases were these mistakes of come up I’ve gone into trained Dragon to get right the next time, and that usually works. On occasion Dragon is completely unable to differentiate between some words. I think you might see some reasons for this based on the words in this list and the way they sound compared to the words that should have been chosen by Dragon.

The list will contain the words that dragon chose incorrectly, and the words that dragon should have chosen instead.

1. Videos on rubber vs Videos on Revver
2. Rubber Account vs Revver Account
3. Butter and returns vs better in regards
4. See Alice pills vs Cialis pills
5. eight Mr. he vs a mystery
6. apologize for that in a dance vs apologize for that in advance
7. beat us typical vs the occipital
8. verb raw vs vertebra
9. in the this vs Adidas

Note. There were a couple mis-translations that would not have been appropriate for this blog.
I have also noticed that Dragon NaturallySpeaking does not work well with some HTML editors that have WYSIWYG text editor’s such as Microsoft’s Windows Live Writer and Macromedia’s Dreamweaver.

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