No More Junk Faxes, Please

Last week, faxed advertisements from Texas company Envarion were sent to 57 different counties in Indiana and garnered 1,842 complaints, which is the largest number of recorded infractions since the state’s Do Not Fax law was enacted in last year (source: InsideIndianaBusiness.com).

Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter is quoted as saying, “These fax offers are frustrating for business owners who bear the brunt of the costs of unsolicited junk faxes. We don’t want Indiana citizens wasting their time sorting through unwanted piles of paper each day. Home-based businesses also have the added frustration of interrupted privacy during the owners’ time spent with family.”

Realistically speaking, laws can only do so much. Despite the fact that we have laws that are supposed to deter people from despicable actions, there is a small minority who will break the rules for their own gain. That said, when a threat to our privacy and freedom exists, good sense dictates that we ought to take every measure available to prevent something bad from happening.

In other words, be proactive.

I strongly advocate using internet fax services. One of the biggest advantages of using an internet fax service is that your service provides you with an online interface that allows you to see where an incoming fax is coming from and who’s sending it. Your received faxes are stored on hosted web space that you can access through a login. This feature allows you to choose the faxes you wish to print and to delete the faxes that you suspect are junk. If you wish to tie your fax account to an email address, you can view the received fax in your inbox and easily delete junk faxes.

With an internet fax service, you are also able to alert your provider to junk faxers and easily block them, or simply choose not to print them. The service can potentially save you from a lot of grief and is as low as $10 a month, which is cheaper than the cost of a dedicated phone line.

For more information about online fax services, please visit FaxCompare.com.

Jennifer Silva
Zilker Ventures, LLC

ChooseWhat.com

JG8D69D

New Web Conferencing tool is not only free, but also green

Add to your list of cost-effective web solutions OpenaCircle.com, the first site to offer completely free web conferencing service.

Advantages of the service include the ability to share desktops with co-workers, colleagues and partners and the option to utilize blogs, wikis, texting and other social networking tools simultaneously with video and audio to share information.

The majority of web conferencing service providers have thus far tended to offer free service for a trial period, after which the user is prompted to select from a tier of service plans. OpenaCircle.com, however, offers full access from the get-go to web-based “meeting and information-sharing spaces,” which are private and fully equipped with convenient work tools for presentations, A/V conferencing, storing/sharing files and planning and scheduling meetings.

Here are some of the best features:

• Secure, private rooms
• Permanently open 24 hours a day
• Create a new circle for every customer, project or team
• Live presentations and desktop sharing
• Advance schedule meetings, presentations and events

What I love is that the bigwigs at OpenaCircle.com explain on their blog the positive implications of utilizing web applications not only on pocketbooks, but also on the green initiative. Here are a couple of quotes from the blog:

What will drive business travelers to go GREEN isn’t a sense of creating a smaller carbon footprint or being a responsible corporate citizen (though 40% of frequent business travelers say they are concerned). No, it is the simple fact that it doesn’t make financial sense anymore to travel to “get the sale.”

To learn more about other low cost web services like online fax services, please visit FaxCompare.com.

Jennifer Silva
Zilker Ventures, LLC

ChooseWhat.com

Are Email Marketing Providers Finally Working Out the Kinks?

Receiving a bunch of unwanted email messages from a company always results in negative consequences. In light of the reports about spam, it’s understandable that small businesses have under-utilized or ignored email marketing tools.

But the fact is that successful companies, who often see an increase in revenue of 50% or more, continue to use email marketing tools to reach customers effectively and instantaneously. That’s why people like me keep writing about it. If utilized correctly, email is a powerful, valuable means of marketing online.

Jeremy Saibil, director of deliverability at Campaigner, says that email marketers should empathize with email recipients to fully test the deliverability and effectiveness of emails before sending them. He advises:

Have your IT folks set up a pristine, never-before-used e-mail box. Take this new address and subscribe to all of your own marketing programs. Now take a step back and put yourself in the shoes of your users and ask yourself how many e-mails you send a week as a company (The e-mail deliverability blame game: Marketers need to look in the mirror, DMNews.com).

–Sage advice from a representative of Campaigner, a leading email marketing software provider who has just announced plans to focus on three key areas of improvement for their service in 2009:

1. 1.  Targeting (through highly customizable, segmented lists)

2. 2.  Personalization (through use of stored personal attributes features for message tailoring)

3. 3.  Deliverability (through third-party deliverability firms like Return Path)

It may be a while before small business email marketing providers catch up with bigger companies in terms of performance, but at least these service providers now recognize the need to improve based on the best practices of email marketing. It would be nice to have lower-cost software alternatives that can perform and be as functional as higher-end options.

For a comparison of the top email marketing options on the market, please visit Email-Marketing-Options.com.

Jennifer Silva
Zilker Ventures, LLC

ChooseWhat.com

Tax write-offs for Small Businesses

Nothing says Thanksgiving like a Christmas tree lighting at mall with a past American Idol winner. Right? This past weekend, for some yet unknown reason, I arrived reluctantly at the Macy’s Christmas tree lighting and jingle at the Domain (Simon Malls) in north Austin, waiting for Jordin Sparks to perform. I never got to see her perform, or rather, didn’t stay that long. After the Austin Girls’ Choir performed in their 1800s wassailing outfits and prior to some guy with an acoustic guitar and a fog machine (or something equally ridiculous), the crowd was forced to watch a bunch of hokey commercials for brands that I assume can be found in Macy’s department stores, ready and waiting to be purchased on Black Friday.

The whole event put a damper on my entire weekend. Children lollygagged around, bored and listless, with not much to stimulate their minds—no activities, no play areas set up. The guy standing in front of me was heard to utter “This sucks” under his breath several times. The event, though described as a family affair, was clearly more targeted to adults—those humans with wallets and credit cards and the power to buy lingering inventory. It was no surprise that the new store Vivo Chocolato! was brimming with parents and kids alike. Chocolate, in my mind, is very much the G-rated version of an alcoholic beverage. Thinking about the economy makes me want to get choco-faced.

Thanksgiving isn’t even here, and it seems that people have been talking about Black Friday since before Halloween. Following the recession this year, the post-holiday shopping sale event has a special significance. It could actually make or break many businesses. That reality has caused many retailers to slash prices to such an extent that has never before been seen.

“In response [to the recession], retailers have been rolling out non-stop bargains. Wal-Mart offered 10 popular toys for $10 in October, Toys “R” Us has touted its “lowest prices of the season” and Gap Inc offered 30 percent off last weekend — all well before Thanksgiving,” writes Nicole Maestri (Reuters).

As I wrote in my previous Black Friday post, there are quite a few deals out there, and there is also plenty of time to buy. Many retailers are opening their stores as early as midnight and extending the sales through the entire weekend. Online retailers are planning to promote sales until Monday, which is aptly being called Cyber Monday.

As a small business owner, you’re trying to save money and trim spending during this time. But it may be wise to purchase while the deals are good and the equipment is low-cost. Thanks to a change in the 2008 Federal Tax Code, tax write-offs for property that directly relates to business activities (such as printers, scanners, projection screens, etc.) are at an all-time high (MarketWatch)…..(Read more of this article at ChooseWhat.com/blog)

For resources that can help save your business time and money spent researching products and services, such as internet fax services and hosted pbx services, please visit ChooseWhat.com

For more information on taxes and tax software, please visit Tax-Compare.com.

Jennifer Silva
Zilker Ventures, LLC

ChooseWhat.com

Cost-efficient Web apps replace costly MS Office

We’re in a recession right now; so, who wants to spend $500 on software?

According to Time magazine, many companies and individual consumers still opt for costly software like Microsoft Office, though they rarely or never utilize all of the functions provided. An alternative to software, however, is making its way into the mainstream: web-based software.

Two notable providers of online software are Google Apps and Zoho, both of which offer downloadable word processors, spreadsheets, document management and presentation tools (among other things) that emulate the applications of Microsoft Office. And the best part about web-based software is that it’s completely free.

Most of us are used to MS Office—that’s why we keep coming back. I, for one, have downloaded a 90-day free trial of MS Office 2007 on my home computer, which allows me to use the most up-to-date software without spending a dime. Of course, if you opt to use a free trial, you must also remember to check the box that will prompt you to buy the software once your trial expires, instead of the one that will automatically renew your software and charge you.

But there are also advantages to browser-based applications.

“Because the applications reside on the Web, developers can quickly eliminated bugs and add bells and whistles, like the ability to insert headers, footers and pagination…” writes Anna Hamilton (Time).

Riding the trend train, Microsoft is expected to put out a free, light version of its software on the Web by 2010. It’s a long way off. When my MS Office free trial ends in January, I’m not planning on renewing my software. At least until Microsoft puts its apps online, we can utilize Google Apps and Zoho without hesitation.

Jennifer Silva
Zilker Ventures, LLC

ChooseWhat.com

Zilker Ventures is One Year Old!

Zilker Ventures, the parent web publisher behind brain child ChooseWhat.com, celebrated its first birthday this past Friday, October 3, 2008. In celebration of the fact that Zilker Ventures is now old enough to nibble and swallow solid foods, the office received an assorted box of Austin, Texas’s favorite delivered cookies from Tiff’s Treats.

We weren’t sure if Zilker Ventures was entirely ready for solid foods, especially after a mid-week scare that involved much beloved office manager April Coburn having choked a little bit on an unusually dense piece of pita bread and having had to be saved via Heimlich Maneuver from Zilker Ventures CEO Gaines Kilpatrick.

By Friday, however, April was happily munching on a chocolate chip cookie, as were the rest of the Zilker Ventures team. The carousing continued with Zilker Ventures watching the ingenious video from “misheardlyricsguy” who has splendidly synched the lyrics of Pearl Jam’s classic song “Yellow Ledbetter” with hilarious images of Bill Clinton and Mr. Potato head, among others. Check it out.

“Yellow Ledbetter”

It wouldn’t have been much of a fiesta without some TexMex food from Matt’s El Rancho, another Austin standard, which fully satiated the hungry mouths of all the ZV babies, more eager than ever to get the word out about fax services, email marketing, tax software reviews and hosted pbx.

“I can’t believe that we’ve been around for one year and are still going strong,” said ZV staff member Koby Wong, his eyes shining with childlike glee.

In an apropos manner, the birthday celebrations gave everyone a chance to marvel about Zilker Ventures and ChooseWhat.com. And perhaps more importantly, it has given everyone a renewed sense of pride in the service that the company provides to small businesses and entrepreneurs looking to optimize their online efforts.

One year ago, co-founders Leo Welder and Gaines Kilpatrick started a website for online fax reviews, simply prompted by their own frustrations experienced in researching internet fax services and choosing the wrong one. That website has since grown into the nationally successful review website FaxCompare.com, which boasts over 10,000 monthly visitors. The success of the website has allowed the company to branch out into other entrepreneurial web resources for businesses, which can be found on ChooseWhat.com and which are still expanding.

What’s going on with Zilker Ventures this week?

“Not much,” says Gaines Kilpatrick, “just living the dream.”

Jennifer Silva
Zilker Ventures, LLC

FaxCompare.com
PBXCompare.com
Email-Marketing-Options.com
Tax-Compare.com

Why Wall-E Would Approve of E-Fax

The impending widespread transfer from analog to digital television next year spells doom for the e-waste recycling efforts that have recently been gaining momentum. But the fact that people are even talking about the impact of the switch on the environment reflects a growing trend of combating electronic waste.

(Austin, TX) August 1, 2008 – The ubiquitous recognition of the problem of e-waste recently culminated in the successful Disney-Pixar film Wall-E. But if the film’s main character were replaced with a young Indian or Chinese boy living, not in the distant future, but here in 2008, then perhaps the movie would have hit a bit closer to home.

Though Wall-E calls attention to the problem of e-waste, it leaves many unanswered questions about e-waste and what ought to be done about it.

What does a child do with a broken Nintendo DS, and more importantly, do his parents know what to do with it? A nationally (or sometimes even locally) systematized means of collecting e-waste does not exist. One hardly ever sees e-waste recycling bins around residential areas. However, some local volunteer e-waste recycling programs have sprung up around the nation. These programs are rare and speak of a general avoidance of recycling efforts.

According to G. Jeffery MacDonald in a special report for USA Today, Best Buy, Dell and Sony are among the few companies willing to take back non-functional products from customers for free. It is clear that as more people learn about the hazardous effects of e-waste, recycling efforts will continue to increase. But what should people do in the meantime?

A quite important action is to attempt to send electronics back the company or to resellers for possible refurbishment. Also, pundits have argued that checks and certification requirements should be imposed on e-waste recycling efforts to ensure ethical practices.

“The easiest, most cost-effective thing to do is to stop buying new electronics when possible, advises Gaines Kilpatrick, co-founder of online fax comparison website FaxCompare.com. “Telecommunications is a good place to start: Don’t buy new fax machines or phones, and use Internet fax and virtual private branch exchange (PBX) services. From a business standpoint, it’s cheaper; from an environmental standpoint, it’s the right thing to do.”

With websites, such as FaxCompare.com and PBXCompare.com, a website for hosted PBX services, Zilker Ventures has attempted to promote the virtual office over the office that is inundated with obsolescence-prone hardware..

Though e-waste has gone without lasting remedies, it is something that has inspired businesses to encourage alternatives. “Logically, if there are less unnecessary electronics floating around, there will be less waste for both the office and the environment,” says Zilker Ventures co-founder Leo Welder. “That’s not a simple solution, but it’s a simple start. That’s what we try to provide.”

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For additional information regarding the virtual office or Zilker Ventures, please visit our online fax website.

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Zilker Ventures, LLC is a web publisher that consolidates information and reviews various business and financial products.

Contact:

Jennifer Silva
Zilker Ventures, LLC
(512) 448-9031

Steve Adams of MyFax Explains Why the Internet is More Secure than Fax Machines

Gaines Kilpatrick of Zilker Ventures, LLC recently sat down with Steve Adams of Internet fax leader MyFax, to ask 20 questions about the present and future of MyFax and the Internet fax industry in general. Adams delves into the world of Internet fax and speaks about assuaging fax machine users’ fears about online faxing. This is Part 3 of 10.

Austin, TX (PRWEB)—July 25, 2008 –

Gaines Kilpatrick: Are Internet fax transmissions secure? And what types of security measures are taken when sending and receiving Internet fax transmissions? As a third part to that question, how does this level of security compare with that of traditional fax or email transmissions?

Steve Adams: Let me start with the third part of your question. When you think about a regular fax, [the transmissions] actually have lots of security issues. [For example] your doctor faxes you lab results, or your real estate broker faxes you information about the house you’re purchasing. And typically that fax is sitting on a shared fax machine out by a secretary’s office where everybody can walk by and see what it is. It’s difficult to protect confidential information in that kind of environment.

There was a bank, actually, about a year ago that was sending all sorts of confidential information to a junk yard in Pennsylvania, simply because [the bank employees] had programmed their fax machine incorrectly, and it just kept sending [the faxes] all out. Traditional faxes aren’t all that secure, and we see a lot of customers [who are] often in a medical space or financial space, where protection of privacy really matters. Those customers are [using] Internet fax for their security.

One big part of that security is simply that faxes go directly to the person who receives them. Rather than having a whole company share fax machine, each individual user has their own fax number, and their documents are delivered directly to their email. And that means that you don’t have the risk of other people seeing the document.

On top of that, there’s electronic security—and this goes with the earlier parts of your question—electronic security measure that protect that fax while it’s in transmission. These are things like HTDPS, which is the same security you use for online banking, etc., and layers of encryption on top of that, TLS or PTP encryption. Depending on how concerned the user is about security, there are various levels of options they can use.

But Internet faxing is very secure, and many industries that are concerned about that security and protection of private information are among the leaders in moving toward Internet fax.

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To read the entire interview or to learn more about efax services and online fax, visit FaxCompare.com.

Zilker Ventures, LLC is a web publisher that consolidates information and reviews various business and financial products.

Contact:

Jennifer Silva

Zilker Ventures, LLC

(512) 448-9031

Going Green with Internet Fax: A Convenient Truth

Whoever said that fax machines aren’t really dead may have been right. How can you kill something that won’t die?

Austin, Texas (PRWEB) May 29, 2008 — Remember the final scene between Louis and Lestat in the 1994 movie Interview with the Vampire? Years after he’s explored the world and all it has to offer, Louis returns to a decrepit New Orleans house to find Lestat, the vampire who sired him, hiding in shadows and living a miserable existence. Lestat asks his former companion to rejoin him, but Louis refuses, obviously having moved on from a purposeless past.

Traditional fax machines and offices are not unlike Lestat and Louis. For years people have regarded their old fax machines with the same disdain that Louis has for Lestat, and now, businesses are parting ways with their long-used standards.

But leaving the fax machine behind is a process. Whoever said that fax machines aren’t really dead may have been right. How can you kill something that won’t die?
In the wake of new Internet fax services, such as eFax, MyFax and Ring Central, reports have surfaced of fax machines tucked into dusty office corners, hidden from sight, but still running and often used by businesses professionals who have not yet seen the light.

Experts call them “vampire loads”—energy-sucking devices that still consume wattage while lying dormant or idle. One of the most notorious of these devices is the fax machine, the Lestat of office equipment, which needs to be kept running in case it receives a fax.

“If you run a fax machine 24/7, you create 80 Kg of greenhouse gas per year in our area. That’s a lot considering how infrequently it’s actually used,” says DJ MacIntyre, President of renewable energy advocate Le Boisé Alternatives.

Greenhouse gases lead to global warming. Global warming leaves polar bears stranded on ice chunks. And the rest is history—literally, the most alarming environmental crisis in the books.

In addition to consuming energy, fax machines also use paper, which is too often wasted on unnecessary cover pages, fax reports and faulty fax transmissions. Internet fax industry leader MyFax recognizes this fact, reporting that “[if] 1% of all paper faxes sent in America each year were sent electronically, 73.5 million trees would be saved.”

Of course, there have been naysayers, people who have touted phrases like “the myth of the paperless society,” and arguments that electronic mediums have only increased paper usage.

But while paper waste has indeed proliferated in recent years, studies are now showing a decline. The speculated reasons have been various. Perhaps the post-Inconvenient Truth generation is simply becoming more serious about going green. Perhaps people are also more quickly embracing electronic copies, which can be saved on a computer or PDA and do not have to be printed.

This mobile aspect of email and electronic documents is appearing more and more desirable and environmentally responsible to consumers. People are also becoming more comfortable with Email fax or E fax services, especially since the majority of email servers and Internet fax sites provide secure archives of stored information that can be accessed “anywhere one can access the internet.”

Though there is not yet a paperless society, there is, instead, a myth that traditional fax machines are still desirable.

“[The] biggest challenge that people have is the lack of the familiarity of [electronic versions]. When people think of a fax, they think of a physical piece of paper and a machine that spits out… so there is a general reluctance or a bit of concern about what works—and that’s a concern up until people use the service,” says Steve Adams, Vice President of Marketing for Protus, owner of MyFax.

The truth is that the world is moving much faster than the naysayers would have people believe. Network connections are becoming more secure. Consumers are buying iPhones and Blackberries, carrying hundreds of electronic pages in their pockets. And we are supposed to believe that using a paper-jammed, whirring, buzzing energy-sucker is faster, more reliable and more convenient than the alternatives?

If the fax machine is still alive, it is, like Lestat, prone to abandonment. As MyFax says, “Fax online. Save a tree.” It doesn’t get any simpler.

Says Steve Adams: “[A] lot of people are surprised to see how easy it is once they get going.”

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For additional information regarding online fax services, visit FaxCompare.com.

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Zilker Ventures, LLC is a web publisher that consolidates information and reviews various business and financial products.

Contact:

Jennifer Silva
Zilker Ventures, LLC
(512) 448-9031

Put the Bat Away: Fax Machines are Dead And the Internet Killed Them

The day a new fax machine arrives at the office is the final day that it’s not stressful. It’s also the final day that it’s full of ink and paper until more money is expended to maintain it. It’s all downhill from there—a paper-jammed, humming, screeching, migraine-inducing ride downhill. But thanks to the emergence of online services such as online fax services that can replace expensive workplace equipment, the small business owner can confidently take a baseball bat to his fax machine with a clean conscience. As the importance of email develops and the business world insists on holding on to fax machines, bridge technologies like internet fax services are becoming more and more common—a fact that FaxCompare.com strives to underscore.

There are currently lots of fax providers in this industry ranging from five-employee offices to Fortune 500 leaders. Some of these fax providers include MyFax, RingCentral and TrustFax. J2 Global Communications is a Fortune 500 leader that handles several internet fax service sites, such as Rapid Fax and Fax.com, but their most well known brand is eFax. confronted with a wide selection of service options, fax users may find the process of choosing a service to be an unwanted stress to their business.

The current void of detailed information regarding internet fax services prompted Zilker Ventures, LLC to offer FaxCompare.com. After much uninformative searching, Leo Welder, founder and COO of Zilker Ventures, LLC, signed up for an online fax service that he later had to cancel because it was lacking some components that were essential for Zilker Ventures, LLC. This experience persuaded Leo that the online fax service market was a perfect arena for an informative review site.

Further verifying the desire for helpful information and reviews was the discovery that eFax, the market’s most well known leader, charges 70% more than the ‘Market Standard’ and includes fewer pages than their foremost competitors.

‘Market Standard’ for an online fax service according to FaxCompare.com is $10 per month for 300 pages with no start up fee, a 30 day free trial and overage pages for $0.10 per page or less. At those prices, six months of service fees will cost substantially less than most traditional fax machines.

In addition to its ‘Market Standard,’ FaxCompare.com offers thorough eFax reviews and other eFax comparison information, including ‘need to know’ comparison data regarding eFax service fees. As almost all of the advertising for these services is done on the web, most of the information regarding online fax services is provided by the providers themselves.

Internet faxing will certainly relieve faxers in the future. And by discovering more about this emerging business tool fax senders can maximize benefits and minimize cost. As founder Leo Welder puts it: “With great options like MyFax and RingCentral, unwitting consumers paying above market service fees is clearly the result of a lack of information. We hope to provide that information with FaxCompare.com.”

For more information regarding online fax services, visit www.FaxCompare.com.

Zilker Ventures, LLC is a web publisher that consolidates information and reviews various business and financial products.

Contact:

Jen Udan
Zilker Ventures, LLC
pr@zilkerventures.com
http://www.zilkerventures.com