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talibro.com – Cloud Accounting for Small & Medium Businesses
Tailbro.com is a US based company that released on October 16, 2012 an online accounting suite – Talibro.com which targeted at Small & Medium businesses. Talibro.com is an intuitive and full featured online accounting software for small & medium businesses, and requires no learning curve to do professional accounting.
The differentiating features of the product is it’s intuitive navigation, feature-rich offering for a reasonable price, powerful tools for accountants and yes it is a double-entry system. Talibro.com is developed by accountant-developers. Yes, that means developers with a good knowledge of accounting principles developed the whole product from scratch. Purpose of creating the software was to introduce a useful accounting suite, so that:
roles and permissions.
Questions we have for Talibro.com
What type of security mechanism is implemented to insure all data are secured and protected? software based cloud service that requires clients to send and receive data must use encryption methods to protect important information from hackers. Is there a Two-way authentication process?
The Health Care Start-Up World: A Game of Thrones
Unless you’re living under a rock you will already know at least one of the three things I am about to share with you.
1. Our nation’s health care system is basically as organized as a contestant’s house on Hoarders.
2. Health Care Start Up companies, websites and mobile apps are going to make people Mark-Zuckerberg-rich in the next 5 years.
3. People are freaking crazy about Game of Thrones.
With these factoids in mind we’ve figured the best way to share our story as a true health start-up website would be by making some “Stark” comparisons to the HBO series many Americans can’t stop talking about. While the race for the crown in Game of Thrones is a bit more of a bloodbath than the world of health care start-ups, what with HBO’s writers killing off most characters right when they start to be endearing, there are certainly some similarities in the way we do battle. There are large and small houses companies competing for the throne, but what is important to note are the processes those companies go through and how they provide value.
We’ll parallel our start-up, Save On Medical, to the House of Stark. Similar to them, we have a large, noble idea of what we’d like to accomplish in our kingdom industry. Our goal is to change the way patient-consumers shop for healthcare, giving them the appropriate tools and transparency to make their own self-governed decisions. The Starks value the kingdom and are focused on preserving what is best, just as everything we do is to benefit our patients.
One of the most important steps in becoming a successful start-up is bootstrapping and fighting the small battles successfully, while building resources for success. We did this by leveraging what we had; knowledge of the radiology industry, access to a network of providers and an experienced team dedicated to showing that a transformative application like ours could benefit providers and patients alike.
In Game of Thrones, the House of Stark toiled in the North for King’s Landing because they knew that in order to protect the kingdom they had to be successful there first. The radiology industry is our King’s Landing. This is where we have perfected our application model and built a foundation for growth into new areas of health care. Start-ups have to have a niche, a place where they can show proof of concept and succeed before they try to tackle larger markets and take on stronger battles.
We don’t want to rule the world though, we’re not Lannisters. Big businesses, large carriers and payers and health care systems? Those are the Lannisters, wanting to control the “gold.” They keep themselves a class apart to maintain control. This is why the health-care-world-Lannisters have convinced the media and patient-consumers that transparency into health care is simply impossible, because they do not want to give it. Well we’re here to tell you that transparency is possible and it’s for the best of the kingdom, so we’re giving it to you.
No more crying that “winter is coming” because, newsflash, for our health care system, it’s already here. Think about it: 48.6 Million uninsured, Medicare and Medicaid turmoil, health care tax debates, not to mention the astronomical prices we are paying for health care services, procedures and coverage. Don’t even get us started on the challenges of understanding those prices. Ladies and Gents, we’re in the Darkness and we just don’t have the ups to get back from North of the wall without the help of transparency and better patient education.
This is how we provide value. When patients are as in need as they are with this economic climate, we’ve tried to become a savior of sorts. To be a valuable start-up you have to be saving the day in some way. You don’t have to revolutionize the wheel, just build a better bridge to drive over. That is how we’ve been able to set ourselves apart from other sites like ours.
Here’s what we’ve done that other royal houses big companies aren’t even trying to do:
Full price transparency.
How we do it: Show average pricing in the region, which has been collected from extensive market research and secret shopping. Providers then list their Save On Medical self-pay rate directly on the site. This eliminates the need to call around to a number of facilities being transferred to 75 separate people only to hang up with inaccurate pricing.
Quality physician grading.
How we do it: All of our providers have been evaluated based on over 50 assessment points. These grading metrics take into consideration an aggregate of components including convenience, technology, patient satisfaction, report turn-around time etc. The grade is out of 100 and allows for easy patient comparison.
Online payment for better collections.
How We Do It: This allows patients to lock in the discounted Save On Medical rate by paying online ahead of time with a credit card or PayPal account. It is a win-win because the provider is able to collect the payment upfront without having to worry about collecting payments down the line and patients have less stress the day of their procedure.
Referring physician portal. COMING SOON!
How we WILL do it: We’ve created a platform for referring physician users so that they can easily refer their self-pay patients to the best provider for them, bridging the gap between referrals and scheduling. We’re working out the kinks with some test markets, before we make it available to the masses. It’s always important as a start-up to have some guinea pigs to help you out.
It hasn’t been an easy road, getting from point A (the idea of a great start-up) to point B (a valuable application adopted by your market.) A lesson learned from Lean Startup has helped us along, though. Always remember to build, measure and learn, then start the cycle over again. This process has helped us to evaluate our assumptions in light of successes and failures, recognizing when it is time to pivot or adapt.
Sara McFarland
http://Myatlantichealthsolutions.com
Dublin Web Summit 2012 – The Diary Of Rolio, A First Time Summit Attendee
Some of the biggest names in technology descended upon Dublin recently for the Web Summit, joined by 250 startup exhibitors in an event that has well and truly marked itself on the annual tech calendar. The event was quite an adventure for us, team Rolio, as we were successfully accepted to exhibit in the Startup Village from over 600 applicants. In addition to this, Rolio was shortlisted as one of 100 finalists in Electric Ireland Spark of Genius startup competition. The competition had over 1000 applications from 36 countries, all vying for the €100,000 prize.
Having only launched in July 2012, this would be our first time representing Rolio at a conference. This is our story of the Web Summit 2012.
Preparations were intense; ranging from the Spark of Genius presentation, the creation of posters and bagging packs of Rolo chocolates to give away at our stand (Rolio – Rolo, see the link?). As the Web Summit approached our overriding emotion was a nervous excitement due to the uncertainty ahead of us. We arrived in Dublin the night before the Summit and were pleasantly surprised to see the helpful Web Summit team had a stand at the airport arrivals section to greet us.
The following morning we made our way to the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) and breezed through registration. Armed with our conference passes, drinks vouchers for the evening’s social events and a program schedule, we proceeded to our stand with a sense that it was all official now. The Startup Village consisted of two levels, the ground floor and the balcony; Rolio was positioned in the latter. We were a stone’s throw away from the refreshment point which served complimentary beverages, croissants, cakes and fruits. We setup our stand and shortly after greeting our fellow startup neighbours we received our first passer-by enquiring about Rolio. Our schedule for the day consisted of pre-arranged meetings with investors, the Spark of Genius presentation on stage and, of course, providing demonstrations of Rolio at our stand.
We hoped to fulfil our main goals of (a) improving recognition and exposure of our brand and product, (b) discovering how attractive we were to investors, and (c) gauging the general face to face feedback from people at our stand.
The Web Summit organisers had arranged a series of short meetings for Rolio with various investors, so we headed over with real anticipation for our first meeting. Unfortunately our excitement soon turned into frustration as we saw a hoard of eager startup founders besieging a single organiser, who was holding a laptop and frantically trying to direct people to their assigned investors, some of whom (including ours) were sadly no-shows. Thankfully, the afternoon session involved a simple queuing system for each investor and a two minute pitch. After pitching to one investor you could queue up and pitch to another investor. Despite the sometimes lengthy queues, this system was far more organised than the manic morning session. As for the meetings, think of them as a speed dating type process where you have two minutes to pitch your product and hope to spark some interest.
The time soon came for our participation in the Spark of Genius competition – a four minute presentation to the audience and a panel of judges, followed by two minutes of Q&A. Given the location of the pitching stage within the hubbub of a busy conference floor, it was definitely a nervous wait for our turn, but it was a fantastic experience. It was a great honour to be selected as a finalist and despite not progressing further in the competition, we were grateful to have received the opportunity to participate in such a competitive field.
Following the presentation, we grabbed a quick lunch in the food hall which served both hot food and a wide variety of salads and sandwiches. Overall, the catering throughout the Web Summit was excellent and complimentary.
At around 5pm we packed up for the day and there was an air of excitement amongst conference attendees about the planned evening events, especially on Twitter. The evening consisted of a group of venues (bars) which were exclusive to Web Summit attendees. The programme mentioned “You never know who you might bump into…” and this proved to be true. We recognised quite a few faces ranging from editors of TechCrunch, to judges and on-stage speakers whom we had seen earlier in the day. With five venues to choose from, we found the atmosphere relaxed in each with lots of interesting conversation and good music, including a selection of live bands. It’s an amazing sight witnessing techies attempt the Gangnam style! Once the midnight hour had arrived our tanks were running low and, with a long day ahead of us, we returned to our hotel for a well-deserved sleep.
Unsurprisingly, the second day of the Summit started slowly, with many recovering from a late night! Things soon became busy again, and the day followed a very similar pattern to the first. Our biggest breakthrough came with the placement of a stand-up advertising banner which we brought over with us from England. Although we were initially told that the use of the banner would be permitted at our stand, this was subsequently prohibited by the organisers, most likely due to the 4000+ attendees who were expected. After some deliberation, we decided to ask Microsoft if we were able to place the banner on their stand, given that we are sponsored by them under their BizSpark Plus program for high potential start-ups. Microsoft kindly agreed and before long the Rolio banner stood in prime Web Summit real estate on the ground floor, where foot traffic was at its highest. The moral of the story, if you don’t ask, you don’t get! Again, we decided to end our Web Summit visit at 5pm and packed up with a sense of content at how our first tech conference had gone. We bade farewell to our neighbours and celebrated our hard work with a well-deserved night out in Temple Bar sampling the busy bars and nightlife Dublin had to offer – definitely recommended.
Startup Web Summit Top Tips
As a first time attendee at a tech conference, we thought we would provide some tips that we hope others will find useful for future events.
Business Cards – We cannot stress the importance of carrying business cards at all times. “You never know who you might bump into” and it is essential to have a quick and easy medium of exchanging contact details.
Use available resources – Be sure to use all available avenues for communication with people or companies you would like to speak to. E.g. Twitter, LinkedIn, E-mail, Facebook or specialist conference software like Bizzabo which was the networking partner app of the Web Summit. We discovered that contacting particular media attendees personally was a successful way to get them to visit our stand.
Be organised – Inevitably, you will meet and exchange contact details with lots of people and companies. Do not just collect the business cards into a pile – write brief notes with key information that may be useful in any follow-up communication. We found that we had a number of meeting commitments throughout the day so we would highly recommend a schedule of some sort to keep track of when and where these meetings are.
Preparation – We would highly advise attendees to take time to prepare. Most will have posters, giveaways or branded clothing for example, so don’t be the odd one out with nothing! It is also very important to have planned responses to important questions (e.g. facts and figures) that can be thrown at you.
Backup Plan – Always ensure you have a plan B. For example at our stand, we relied on the Summit’s WiFi connection to conduct live demonstrations of Rolio – this connection proved to be extremely intermittent on day one of the conference. Luckily we had created a short video of our application which allowed us to demo it without an Internet connection.
If you don’t ask you don’t get – A prime example of this was the stand-up banner which was kindly given prime placement in the Microsoft stand area.
Attend organised events – The evening’s events at venues in Dame Lane were very well attended. The relaxed environment away from the hustle and bustle of the RDS made it easier to talk to people, including those who may have been busy with their own commitments during the day.
Overall, the Web Summit was a huge success and full credit is due to Paddy Cosgrave and the whole team involved. The Web Summit is growing yearly and has certainly cemented its place as the biggest tech conference in Europe with over 4000 attendees from around the world.
We would like to thank everyone for being so welcoming and accommodating during our first tech conference. An experience we have thoroughly enjoyed and one that we will utilise as a springboard for future conferences. We hope to build on the contacts and connections made during the two days and hope to return to Dublin for the Web Summit in 2013, which will inevitably be bigger and better than ever before, giving its rival conferences across the pond a serious run for their money. Dublin, a Tech Capital? It certainly is. Dublin, THE Tech Capital, it certainly has potential and one day may well be!
Rozbeh Nassab & Myuran Balendran
http://www.rolio.com
IT Jobs in Decline?
The recent U.S job report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed a surprising drop in the U.S national unemployment rate from 8.1% to 7.8%. The sudden and unexpected drop in the unemployment rate since the start of the great recession brought many theories about the timing and the scope of the unemployment numbers and their relation to the upcoming U.S presidential election which will be held in less than a month. Theories ranging from accusing the labor department of fabricating the numbers to boost the current president chances of re-election to other theory which explains the numbers were not accurate because many people gave up looking for jobs, therefore they were not counted as unemployed.
The September job report showed a surprising job lost in the IT field and that marks the first monthly decline since August 2010. The IT industry lost total of 1,700 jobs, but analyzing the results there were jobs gain in the Computer Systems Design/Related Services segment. This category gained 2,900 jobs in September, marking the 24th consecutive month of job growth. On the other hand, In the Management and Technical Consulting Services category 1,800 jobs were lost following 17 consecutive months of job growth during which a total of 95,400 jobs were added.The telecommunications and data processing sectors also posted a loss of 2800 jobs. Will that be a continuing trend for the IT industry? Many experts believe that will not be the case.
The sudden change in job growth in the IT industry is a temporary market adjustment. Employers are pursuing workers with multiple talents in technology and business. Companies are looking to hire the best and most experienced who can master business and technology so they get away with less employees. Those candidates are very hard to find and companies will have to hire skilled IT professionals to meet their demands. As a result of that many experts believe the September job lost for the IT field will be reversible in the near future and the IT field will anticipate more job growth.
Scavado.com – Discover Talent Everywhere
Scavado.com is a startup that helps recruiters locate the right talents they need. It represents a search engine that connects recruiters with the best talent from all over the Web. The platform scours the Internet for the best talent, looking deep into hidden talent pools to provide recruiters with the best options to reach those top candidates. Scavado does all the complicated search algorithms so recruiters can focus their energy on connecting with top talent, not learning complex search strings.
Recruiters like to find the best talent from all over the web quickly and easily so they can focus on people, not search strings.
Is Your Smartphone Safe?
Since the start of the Smartphone revolution five years ago – maybe it is fair to say it was started by apple when they introduced their first generation iPhone- consumers outsourced many tasks from their PC’s to their smartphones and tablets. Many things that we normally did on our PC’s can be done now on our smartphones such as emails, internet browsing, searching and many more.
Who wouldn’t prefer to read an email in a snap using a smartphone that startup in seconds and not wait for the lengthy startup process of the Personal Computer especially windows based computers just to read an email and perform simple internet browsing. Moreover, smartphones are small, convenient and with capabilities that are comparable with some PC’s. We are not suggesting that personal computers are becoming obsolete yet, there are tasks that require bigger screens and larger processing power that can only be done on the computer especially at the work place.
If we look back at the start of the PC revolution, safety and security wasn’t the priority of those who pioneered the business of the personal computing and the companies who shaped that business such as Microsoft. The nature of the business and competition required them to concentrate on providing consumers with better and faster software and hardware before the next guy can. In the mixed of that, bad guys decided that they deserve a piece of the pie and they started to look for ways to exploit the system to hack it and score some gains. As a result of that software security and later cyber security fields were born and companies started to catch up to secure their products and their consumers. Smartphones are no different, as more consumers moving to smartphones and many software applications are being produced, security vulnerability will increase. Security become a major issue for smartphone users, service providers and manufacturers which will lead us to discuss the security vulnerabilities that faces smartphones and the possible fixes.
Smartphones Security Vulnerabilities
• The major security risks come form consumers habits and the way they use their devices. Users often don’t deploy the built in passwords system to authenticate and control access to data stored on their devices. Additionally, if users do use a password or PIN they often choose very weak passwords that can be easily determined or bypassed, such as 1234. In the event that those mobile devices are lost or stolen without passwords or PINs to lock the device, unauthorized users could view sensitive information and misuse the mobile devices.
• Have you wondered how secure were your online banking transactions when you accessed your bank account from your smartphone? Luckily almost all banking institutions use strong encrypted mechanism to transfer banking data from and to clients. However, wireless transmissions are not always encrypted and many applications do not encrypt data they transmit over the cellular and wireless networks such as emails.
• Malwares also can infect smartphones the same way they infect PC’s. Malwars are a security challenge for computer users as well as smartphone users when they download applications that contain malwares. When a user download an application such as a game, security patch and utility, the malware can be hidden within those applications . It is difficult for users to tell the difference between a legitimate application and one containing malware.
• What about a security and antivirus software for your smartphone? Mobile devices often do not use security software. Unlike personal computers smartphones don’t come with preinstalled security software that protect against viruses, malwares and spywares.
• Operating systems for smartphones don’t get regular security patches or fixes. It can take weeks to months before security updates are provided to consumers’ devices. For example, Google develops updates to fix security vulnerabilities in the Android OS, but it is up to device manufacturers to produce a device-specific update incorporating the vulnerability fix, which can take time if there are proprietary modifications to the device’s software. Once a manufacturer produces an update, it is up to each carrier to test it and transmit the updates to consumers’ devices.
• Internet connections mostly open for mobile devices without firewalls. Many mobile devices do not have firewalls to limit connections. Without a firewall, the mobile device may be open to intrusion through an unsecured communications port.
• The method of modifying the smartphone by jailbreaking or rooting with which users can remove the limitations on the device placed by the carrier to install new applications can cause a security risk. If the device is rooted it will lose the warranty from the carrier and will not receive security updates.
• Bluetooth can be unsecured communication if it left open or in discovery mode. A hacker could use the open channel to install malwares and trojans on the smartphone.
• Unsecured public wireless Internet networks or WiFi spots could allow an attacker to act as the man in the middle and intercept the transmitted data or connect to the device and view sensitive information.
What steps can we take to secure our smartphones?
• Try to enable the security access and authentication mechanism by placing a stronger PIN. Devices can be configured to require passwords or PINs to gain access.
• Download verified application only and from trusted sources who provide digital signatures.
• Install security software on your smartphone to scan applications and remove unwanted malwares and viruses.
• Install a firewall: A personal firewall can protect against unauthorized connections by intercepting both incoming and outgoing connection attempts and blocking or permitting them based on a list of rules.
• Install security updates: Software updates can be automatically transferred from the manufacturer or carrier directly to a mobile device.
• Enable a service to remotely disable lost or stolen devices. There are applications that can be purchased if they are not freely available that can remotely disable or lock your smartphone if it gets lost or stolen. In addition to locking the device the remote service can erase all data stored on the memory of the phone once that option requested by the smartphone owner.
• Use encryption to encrypt the data stored on the device and on the memory card.
Kickstarter- Crowdfunding For Students
Kickstarter.com is a website that made crowd funding an open source to any one with an idea for a project to post for potential donors and supporters. Funding is very important to the success and failure of any startup. Kickstarter became the heaven for startups looking for crowd funding. It is a great source especially for students who have ideas about a business startup but they lack the financial ability to get everything started. Once the funds are available then they start working on their ideas to bring their projects to life and prove their business model. The success of crowd funding and kickstater in particular to promote new ideas and support entrepreneurs encouraged many students with ideas to join kickstarter and publish their projects to get funded. According to an article written in Onlinebusinessdegree.org 75% of all projects submitted on kickstarter for crowd funding are submitted by students. The graphic illustration below shows how students are becoming a big part of kickstarter and crowd funding phenomena.
logo.designcrowd.com.au – DesignCrowd Australia
Logo.Designcrowd.com.au is an Australian-based startup that allows people to crowd source any graphic design project. If you start a new website or a new company and you are looking for qualified graphic designers to design your company logo you need to check this startup first. A typical project will get more than 25 different designs submitted from a community of over 80,000 designers from around the globe. After reviewing the submitted offers from all the designers, clients can then pick the winner and choose their budget.
What’s so great about this startup is that clients get a graphic design that is cheap, fast, and from many different artistic perspectives. This is an open market for graphic design services where designers compete to provide the best service for the the price that clients want to pay. Moreover this startup offers money back guarantee for all the work that is done on the website. Clients must be satisfied with the work done by the winning designer. Unlike the traditional way of hiring a graphic agency that has few designers who charge expensive fees for their service, graphic design on this site is made simple and cost effective .
The initial success of this startup paved the way for more funding offered by venture capital firms and world wide recognition from many media outlets.
Bromium – The Case For More Secure Entrerprise
Bromium.com is a computer security startup that is based in California, U.S and Cambridge,UK.This startup specializes in security for cloud computing for large and small firms. The startup promised a new generation of antivirus software to defend against computer viruses and malwares. Cloud computing increased the valunrabilty of many networks for cyber attacks. Businesses became nervous and they started to look for ways to protect their data and defend their systems against intruders.
The challenges to secure data and networks became the focus of the founders of Bromium to inroduce new and effective methods to protect against malewars and hackers. Further more, they envision the huge market for computer security in the future with so much data transferred daily over the clouds.This startup company has the potential to gain many loyal customers who are looking to secure their businesses and maintain their technological edge. So far it raised over 40 million in venture capital and introduced it’s first anti virus software named vSentry and it promised it will be very effective against viruses and malwares.
What they say about themselves
According to Bromium the antivirus software vSentry is a virtualization based software and it will be sold to enterprises and not directly to consumers. Users will be able to see every application they open on their screen and how vSentry act as a shield between the viruses and the computer, then the antivirus software will open a window so users can see how it detects and removes harmful malwares and viruses from emails and downloads. Continuous visualized protection is the protection model for Bromium to provide to it’s clients in order to become the leader in computer security.
Is This The End Of Computer Viruses?
Bromium founders are well known computer experts in the field of computer security, virtualization, and engineering. Co founders Crosby and Pratt founded a previous company named Xensource which then purchased by Citrix for 500 million in 2007, but as intelligent vSentry is there are intelligent black hat hackers who work hard to find vulnerabilities in the system and exploit them, so the the end of computer viruses (that may sound a wishful thinking) is yet to be seen.
SkyPrep.com – Online Training Software
SkyPrep.com is a startup that offers educators or anyone an easy-to-use online training software that give them the training tools they need to create courses online. Online training and distance education have become very popular these days because online training is cost effective and convenient. Experts believe that online learning will become the method of choice in the future for students worldwide to get the education they want at a reasonable cost. Universities have been adapting online learning and distance education to cut cost and attract busy professionals to enroll in their online degrees that fit their busy schedules. The traditional college education system is gradually being populated with online degrees and courses. Online training also adapted by many organizations and businesses to teach their members and employees new skills.
Web applications like SkyPrep.com can give educators the tools they need to interact with their students. SkyPrep.com allows users to add teaching material and create tests for their learners, then track their progress through details reports and analytics.
Users can launch their training platform instantly through the website, with no contracts or start-up costs if they choose the free subscription.The website also offers users other paid subscription plans that fit their needs. Making courses with this platform is extremely simple. You begin by creating a pool of your exams and training material. Then you can make an unlimited number of courses, by selecting your material and exams from your pool. You can use your exams and material in as many courses as you want.
Socially!