Top 10 Cloud Applications for Small Business

The role of cloud computing for business is more and more prominent. Indeed, cloud computing is probably the most buzzed tech today. The cloud has proven that it can help small businesses to cut costs, while improving productivity.

New cloud applications are being introduced to small business on regular basis. There are plenty of alternatives for small business owners to choose. Unfortunately, choosing the right cloud apps for your business need is rather trivial.

To clear the mist a bit for you, let me offer you a list of cloud apps I recommend (not in particular order):

1. Google Apps for Business: Google is the household name, and it has all needed to offer a reliable and secure online office tools – even before the cloud is as popular as today – Google Docs, Google Calendar, Gmail, etc. – you can access all of them in a secure and private environment with 24/7 support. The “personal” version is free, while the business version is offered at $50 per user per year.
2. Skype: Forget the latest historic downtime – Skype is one of the most trusted and reliable cloud-based companies offering free Internet call, with Pay As You Go and subscription-based plans to call on any phones to meet your small business needs.
3. SalesForce: A household name in cloud computing for customer relationship management (CRM.) Also one of the front-runners in the cloud, SalesForce is growing its arsenal of cloud apps: Sales Cloud, Force.com, Service Cloud, and the latest, Database.com. SalesForce can help your small business to manage everything related to your sales-generating activities in a centralised “dashboard.”
4. Basecamp: One of the leaders in online collaboration and project management. It can help your stakeholders to discuss, update, upload/download, share – anything you can think of – in one single web account, in real time. Basecamp claims that there are over 5 million people worldwide who are using it.
5. Quickbase: This online database software can help your small business tech team to create online database application from scratch or use more than 200 templates. Don’t have someone to build database app, yet? Intuit’s Quickbase can recommend you one of 160 partners to help you out.
6. Box.net: A cloud storage service provider allowing you to share, manage and access files and folders online in a secured and private environment. You can also collaborate to update documents on the fly with your business team members or clients.
7. Outright: If you are like me, you’ll gonna like this cloud finance app – Outright will help you with your business accounting by allowing you to track income/expenses, tax obligations, and profits/losses in real time, online. No more hiring/firing bookkeeper for your business finances.
8. Evernote: I call Evernote a “cloud reminder” or “cloud scratchpad” if you will, simply because of what it does best – it helps you to store your ideas, notes, reminders, schedules, to-dos, audios, images, videos, etc. for you to recall and review later on.
9. Mozy: The industry leader for online backup of any kind of data and information – images, documents, audios, etc. You can use Mozy cloud app to back up your entire business, regardless of your business’ size. With Mozy, you are not location-constrained – you can backup and access your backup remotely.
10. SiteCloud: Cloud hosting is great to host your small business website because it’s on-demand and scalable – in real time. You are guaranteed service availability due to the nature of the cloud – no issues regarding a sudden surge of web traffic to your site. You can switch plan anytime you want, without service interruption.

I recommend you to make use of the free plan or free trials offered by the cloud apps – trying the services is the only way to make sure that you choose the best for your small business. If you would like to learn more about the cloud, log on to my cloud business review blog for cloud business reviews, trends and tips.

how to get study visa for U.S.

We have received many questions from people who would like to come to the U.S. to study .

The most common way to come to the U.S. is to be accepted by a U.S. school, get an I-20 from the school, and apply to the Embassy or Consulate for a student visa. Getting a high school student a visa is more complicated and I’ll discuss that in a different blog.

The Embassy explains the procedure at http://tokyo.usembassy.gov/e/visa/tvisa-niv-fm.html and it would be basically the same for other countries.

The problems we see are outside the normal system and are as follows:

• The student wants to visit some schools before applying to them, and wants to start school after being admitted and doesn’t want to go home right after acceptance

Many potential students don’t know what school they want to attend and, in this situation, the normal process is more difficult.

Of course, the potential students can come either on the visa waiver program (VWP) (or B2 tourist visa if he or she from a country not included in the VWP) and then return home, apply in the normal way, and return with a new student visa stamp and start school.

But, many don’t want to spend the money to fly home and wait.

There is another option.

The potential student can apply for a B-2 tourist visa and come to tour potential schools. Once accepted the student can file to change his or her status in the U.S. from tourist to student and can start school as soon as the requested change is approved by Immigration.

The next time the student leaves the U.S. they must return home and apply for a student visa stamp in the normal way, but they don’t have to do this before starting school.

There are a few important points about this option:

The student must make two trips to the Embassy, first to apply for the B-2 visa before coming to the U.S. and second, when he or she returns the first time after becoming a student. Some people don’t want to bother going twice.

• The student needs to tell the people at the Embassy his or her plans. If the Embassy staff approves the student’s plan they they will put some special notes on the student visa stamp. These notes can be important later.
• After the student gets accepted into the school he or she has to file a form (I-539) with Immigration in the U.S. by mail and wait until Immigration approves the request. This approval can take up to two to three months and there is no way to speed it up. The student can’t start school until he or she gets approved, thought they can wait in the U.S. for the decision. The student can’t work while waiting.
• This won’t work if the student comes to the U.S. on the VWP. The student has to get a B-2 visa from the Embassy before coming to the U.S.

I want to study, but the best place I want to go can’t accept foreign students. What can I do?

Generally, a potential student can’t go to a school if it cannot accept foreign students (this means give an I-20).

There is one exception. If the traveler can successfully explain to the people at the U.S. Embassy that he or she is coming to the United States primarily for tourism but will also incidentally enroll in a short course of study during their visit he or she can get a B-2 visa and attend the school.

The difficult is that there is no definitions of what “ primarily”, “incidentally”, or “short” mean so it is up to the judgment of the Embassy staff.

Two possible examples I have heard of that might work are:

• A visually-impaired student wanted to go for 9 months to a leading institute founded to help visually impaired people;
• Someone interested in French cooking as a hobby wishes to take a 3 months “restaurant” tour of the U.S. and attend a famous French cooking school to get some tips.

Neither the Institute nor the French school are authorized to accept foreign students so the normal option won’t work.

The potential traveler could apply to the Embassy for a B-2 visa explaining the purpose of the trip is primarily as a tourist and that they will spend a short time studying as a part of the trip and that study is not the main purpose of the trip.

If the Embassy accepts their idea they will give them a B-2 visa stamp with another special note on their stamp and the traveler can come to the U.S. and attend the classes.

This will option will not work if the traveler comes on the VWP.

We hope this helps you plan to come study in the U.S.

Extreme Piercing at Vegetarian Festival Phuket

Probably the most fascinating and also somewhat gruesome festivals in the world, the Phuket Vegetarian Festival is best known for its aesthetic displays of unusual body piercings. You may see devotees with tire irons through their cheeks, or large spikes driven through their tongues. The festival is held for just over a week annually during the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar, falling somewhere in October. This year it runs from the 11th to the 19th of October.

The Phuket Vegetarian Festival and its rituals are thought by many to bring good fortune to religious followers. Phuket residents of Chinese ancestry, called Hokkien Chinese, follow a strict vegan or vegetarian diet for 10 days for the purposes of merit-making and spiritual cleansing. This is accompanied by sacred rituals at Chinese temples and shrines around the island. Stalls of vegan food are set up throughout Phuket City, and even non-vegans will be suitably impressed by the delicious selection.

The festival started in 1825 the paricipants are not allowed to eat meat or have sex at the time of the festival. For obvious reasons participants are asked to use only sterile blades, spears and guns. According to physicians there is a risk of HIV and hepatitis.

Perhaps the most visual of these rituals are the displays of extreme body piercings with large objects that can range from knives to umbrellas. Devotees, called ma song, may even partake in walking over hot coals barefoot or climbing up ladders that have rungs made of knife blades. Visitors can see the ma song walking in their trances during long parades through the streets on every day of the festival.

Creative Anti-Smoking Ads

Over the past 40 years, smoking has declined by about half, thanks in part to anti-smoking media campaigns.

But anti-tobacco messages and ads often face fierce opposition from the cigarette manufacturers who have worked vigorously to diminish their impact

Anti-smoking ads began in the late 1960s when the FCC deemed cigarette smoking controversial and therefore subject to the Fairness Doctrine, which requires opening the airwaves to public service messages on opposing viewpoints. The ads were very effective in reducing smoking, despite vigorous counter-advertising by the tobacco companies. (According to a 1972 study, anti-smoking ads cut cigarette smoking by 531 cigarettes per person per year, while tobacco company advertising increased consumption by only 95 cigarettes per person per year.)