How You Can Really Win With Your Small Or Home Based Business

By: Chris Gorman

Ok, you’ve thought it over, and you know you want a better life for yourself. You’ve decided to build a home based business or small company so you can live life the way you want. Maybe you even know what kind of business you want to build. So far, so good. What’s next?

The path to success isn’t easy, but it is simple. It only gets confusing when we try to make it complicated. First, you need to understand that you’re not running a sprint. You’re doing a marathon so that your income will stay solid and support you over the rest of your life. With that said, here is how you win your marathon prize. Just remember to W I N!

W stands for being willing to work now so you can play more later. Our universe and culture reward effort. Your business will grow as you willingly put in the time and effort it takes to grow. Gardeners don’t just buy a packet of seeds, put it on the hall table, and wait eagerly for plants to grow. Why? Because they know that the plants won’t grow until they make the effort to put the seeds in the ground and water the plants as they grow. Your home based business works the same way. If you think you can enroll in some program or open the doors of a new shop and just sit back and wait for profits to roll in, you’re not really ready to be your own boss and be financially free. That’s essentially playing the lottery to get rich. A person who is serious about being wealthy and successful knows that some initial work is necessary.

I stands for invest. You will need to invest your time, energy, and some money into your business to get it going. Time, energy, and money are all assets, and each person has different amounts of each asset. Those with more time will invest it more than money and vice versa. Everybody ends up investing at least a little money in their home business, even if it’s just to pay for the phone line and internet connection. Invest money in the tools you need to build your business, not in the things that you want because they’re cool. There will be money available for that once you’re up and running well. Be honest with yourself about your current assets and how much of each you’ll need to make your business work.

N is for networking with friends, co-workers, and people you meet through your business. Even “self-made millionaires” work with other people they know or want to know. If you’re starting a home business, you’ll get a lot of help, encouragement, and ideas from making time to talk with people who are walking the same path. There may be business owners’ meetings where you live. You can also use online forums, talk to your team members if you’re doing network marketing, or get to know other internet businesspeople from their blogs. Every business owner has challenges to overcome and will have discouraging days now and then. A supportive network of friends and colleagues will make those times much easier for you. Sometimes you may just need to know that you’re on the right track. Most home business owners overlook this step, and it weakens them over the long haul.

One more thing before I go, while you W I N your way to success, please pass these ideas along to the people you meet and care about. The path to business success is simple though not always easy. Be willing to work, invest your assets when they’re needed, and network with the people around you as you go. Come on! They’re waving the flag. It’s time to start running! www.TopHomeBasedBusiness.info

Securing your network, from home users to small business up to enterprise. What you can do.

by Paul Fleming

With computers being a critical component in running a business, it is more valuable than ever to ensure the security of your networks particularly where there is sensitive data. News headlines announcing that networks have experienced security breaches are all too prevalent. This is where you need a service that checks for those vulnerabilities and prevents from future attacks. Better yet, you need a service that prevents it before it ever happens to your company. Imagine the embarrassment at having to explain to your customers that someone has stolen their credit card information.

We continue to read headline after headline with news stories that credit card information or social security numbers were exploited. Some companies perform security audits on a regular basis. Certainly institutions like hospitals are required to perform these. But it's mostly small to mid-sized companies that are the most vulnerable.

Hackers employ various methods for gaining access to systems. An audit often looks at replicating those methods, looking for vulnerabilities and weaknesses in the infrastructure. Affectionately known as Penetration Testing, it involves isolating mild, moderate and critical security threats and then determining the best course of action. When performing a Penetration test, a couple of key areas need to be targeted to ensure that a secure network system helps companies to avoid: - Preventing financial loss through fraud (hackers, extortionists and disgruntled employees) or through lost revenue due to unreliable business systems and processes. - Legal problems. Non-compliance can result in your organization losing business, receiving heavy fines, gathering bad PR or ultimately failing. At a personal level it can also mean the loss of your job, prosecution and sometimes even imprisonment. Poorly protecting your brand by avoiding loss of consumer confidence and business reputation.

From an operational perspective, penetration testing helps shape information security strategy through identifying vulnerabilities and quantifying their impact and likelihood so that they can be managed proactively; budgets can be allocated and corrective measures implemented.

For the average home user, there are some basic things, especially when setting up a wireless network at home that you can easily do to prevent users piggybacking on your network or even hacking in to it.

Add a little security

Change the SSID (name) of your network and disable the SSID broadcast. Disable DHCP Control MAC Address Filtering

Add more security

WEP Encrypt - adds an extra blocking mechanism for hackers

Even more Security

WPA - setting up a random pre-shared key of 10 characters ensures your network is practically rock-solid. This is a random string of numbers and letters, just make sure you can remember it yourself.

These are some very basic steps to securing your data and ensuring your privacy. Keep in mind that small to medium business should do a little more to keep their information secure as there is even more valuable data ie. other people's