Here's another quick one that has little to do with the fitness industry, but I find it both hilarious and disturbing at the same time so I thought I'd pass it on.
* Disclaimer- 'hilarious' in a way that maybe only a nerd would find funny…

A recent article in the journal SecurityWeek describes a report by researchers at Panda Security on a new class of malware they've uncovered that would make The Sopranos proud. Apparently, the Ainslot.L malware bot does all the usual nasty stuff malware does such as log keystrokes, steal your financial data, download more viruses, etc. But just like the plot in a movie about rival mafia families going to war over turf in a New York borough, this malware also actively seeks out other malware on your computer that may be trying to steal the same information as it- and kills them!.

The Sopranos fan in me loves this story. The IT professional in me is disturbed by it in the same way you would be if you saw a report on the news about a real mafia gangland incident in your neighbourhood.

And just to labour this metaphor even further, have a look at this:

What you're seeing here (courtesy of Mikko Hypponen, Chief Research Officer at F-Secure) is a screenshot of a price list he and his research team found on a nefarious site. It shows how much Tony Soprano earns per infected computer (were he to branch out into cyber-crime). In the UK, he earns 18c per computer, or $180 per 1,000 computers. When you consider that many malware botnets have tens- or- thousands of infected computers, you can see how the rewards add up. Keep in mind this money is earned each time someone uses the botnet. It's not a one-off.
Now consider this- it's only 18c per infected computer, but how much does it cost you to fix your infected computer? It's a heck of a lot more than 18c let me tell you!

Anyway, I guess I should swing this news around so it's in some way relevant to you, so let me reiterate what you'll hear me nag you about time and time again on this blog: never, ever open or run any email attachments you receive unless you know exactly what the attachment is and why you're receiving it. This advice goes for all of your computers, but especially the ones at your fitness business. It's one thing to get a virus at home where it's only you who's impacted. It's something else entirely to get one on a computer at the club where you have the personal details on hundreds of your members who are trusting you. Remember, malware these days isn't about being a nuisance or deleting files. They're about doing what they can to get the information required to steal your (and your members') money and identities.
Be sure to educate any employee who has contact with your computer systems on this important matter.

On that note…

Have fun!
Mike.Ryan

I have traditionally been a huge fan of Microsoft Outlook. It is a very powerful tool that when used under the right conditions (that is, when used in conjunction with an Exchange Server back-end such as Microsoft Office365) it gives you incredible tools for managing your emails, tasks and calendar items.

The downside is that it's a huge, lumbering product that has almost a decade and a half of legacy code piled on top of new code, all shoe-horned into a bewildering array of modules and components. As such, it is not without its problems, and occasionally things do go wrong. Supporting Microsoft Outlook has always been a nightmare for me, as it can be extremely difficult to track down the root cause of problems. It could be a problem with your computer, with bad installed Outlook COM add-ins, security updates from Microsoft can break things, and so on.

Well, it looks like I'm not the only one who has found supporting Outlook 'challenging'. Two Microsoft Support Engineers who have three decades of supporting Microsoft Office and Exchange Server between them have decided to do something about it, and they created a new tool aimed at diagnosing Outlook problems and pointing you in the right direction to fixing them.

Enter the Microsoft Outlook Configuration Analyzer Tool.

Once installed, it scans your system and presents you with a detailed report on your Outlook configuration and highlights any areas where it thinks you might have issues. Identified issues are presented to you with an accompanying link to the relevant Microsoft Technical Support documentation that hopefully will direct you on how to fix the problem.

So if you're an Outlook user and you find yourself in need of a little technical assistance with it, give this tool from Microsoft a try.

• Download here.
• Read the Microsoft Knowledgebase document describing the tool here.

Have fun!
Mike.Ryan

In a previous article on how you should ensure your email addresses are domain-based, I mentioned briefly my recommendation about using function-oriented addresses instead of individual staff names. I would like to expand on that recommendation a little today and explain in more depth what I was talking about.

What do I mean by a function-oriented address?

There's a good chance that in your fitness business you have at least one person whose responsibility it is to monitor incoming emails and if appropriate, respond to them. These incoming emails can be from many sources such as PT clients, members, contract instructors, suppliers, etc. Depending on the origin of the email, it may be intended for a specific person in your club (such as a contract instructor emailing the co-ordinator their updated schedule) or it may be intended for the business itself (such as a member emailing their request to suspend their membership). 
When you think about these two examples, the one thing they have in common is that the emails are intended for a specific department or business function of the business. An email to request a membership suspension is intended for the whomever in your business handles suspensions. So the business function within the club might be along the lines of 'member services'.

It's not important exactly how your business partitions administrative tasks and areas of responsibility, but even the smallest of studios have business functions, whether they realise it or not. Your membership consultants belong to the sales & marketing business function (or something similar). So a function-based email address is one that uses the name of your business function. Contrast this with a personal email address such as mike.ryan@simplyfitness.com.au. This address is still specific to your business, as it's using your domain name (simplyfitness.com.au), but the mailbox is named after an individual employee, not the business function that employee works in.

The case for function-oriented addresses

Imagine a scenario where you are using a personal email address for your  membership consultant. You place this email address on your Web site, on your letterbox flyers, in your Yellow Pages ad and various other places. Then the inevitable happens. Your membership consultant leaves your club to work for someone else. Now you're a bit stuck, because all of your marketing collateral is littered with "mike.ryan@simplyfitness.com.au"! It's easy to imagine the cost and time it will take to change your materials. Sure you could just keep using the address and let the replacement consultant use the old address, but that's a very kludgy solution. Function-oriented addresses don't suffer from this problem. If your consultant quits, it won't impact any of the marketing material because you were smart and used "sales@simplyfitness.com.au" instead. Another advantage to function addresses is the ease at which mailboxes can be shared between multiple staff members. For example, you might have a general "sales@simplyfitness.com.au" address which is accessible by your entire sales team who have to monitor incoming enquiries from your web site. The use of personalised addresses make this a little more tricky as "Joe Salesman" shouldn't really respond to an enquiry from "Mary Salesman's" email address.

The case against function-oriented addresses

If your business is very small- such as an individual mobile personal trainer- then it can actually detract from your brand by using a function-oriented address. Businesses like mobile trainers very much rely on the intimate relationship between the trainer and the client, so having your clients email you at info@simplyfitness.com.au might not be in your best interest. And the nature of such businesses mean one of the primary advantages of function addresses (if the staff member leaves, the address doesn't need to change) probably doesn't apply because if the only trainer in a PT business leaves, it's a fair bet the business doesn't exist anymore.  But even for larger businesses, there certainly can be a case for using personalised addresses. Certain marketing campaigns might call for the prospect to contact a specific person for example. 

In summary

Every business is unique so ultimately any decision regarding email addresses should be carefully considered, but in general my recommendation is to focus on function-oriented email addresses first, and only introduce personal email addresses if the situation or brand demands it.

Have fun!
Mike.Ryan

Many businesses have one, even in the fitness industry. A staff member who is more than what their job description says they are. In this case, someone who harbors a latent interest in computers. They could be anyone; one of your receptionists, a membership consultant, maybe your group exercise coordinator. Like Superman and Clark Kent, by day they spend their time spreading the good word of fitness to your members, and by night they're at home on their computer installing the latest beta version of Ubuntu Linux in a VM so they can check out the new Unity environment. If you're one of the very lucky fitness businesses that has someone like this on your team, I'm here to tell you to nurture and encourage them as much as you can. They may end up being one of your most valuable team members.

Very few small- to medium-sized businesses have a full time IT specialist on the payroll. Wages and salary are usually the single greatest recurring expense a business has, so a dedicated computer person is a luxury few can afford. I have yet to encounter a single club or studio in Australia for the last 20 years outside of council-owned recreation centers or centers that are part of a larger business who have one. Instead, there are three common ways clubs typically try to satisfy their IT needs:

• Contra deals with members who are in the field,
• Outsource to a local IT specialist, or
• Abuse the technical support services of their club management software provider.

The Contra

I have met some club managers for whom the word 'contra' is the sweetest sound. They'll do deals with members or local businesses at the drop of a hat. One of my first (and most influential) mentors in this industry was the king of the contra deal. He would use contra's for everything. His greatest triumph was having his entire cardio theater decked out- including television sets, designer 'sails' for ceiling and awesome sound system- purely in exchange for free memberships for the entire audio-visual supply company, which comprised only around six staff. Contras certainly have their advantages; you can acquire goods and services for little or no cash and in the process you can increase your membership base that your other profit centers (like clothing sales) can leverage. However, there are potential pitfalls. There is a risk that members who agree to look after your computer systems in exchange for free or discounted memberships may not take the role seriously and only provide the bare minimum of required expertise. You also run the risk of alienating or annoying the member to the point where they leave your club if you try to make too many demands on their time. So now you've lost two assets in one hit- your IT professional and a member.

Outsourcing

This one requires no real explanation. Whilst this is the path I generally recommend clubs take to satisfy their IT needs, there are a number of problems that club managers often encounter. Firstly, cost is always an issue. Like many things in life, you get what you pay for with IT, and while there are exceptions, in general IT professionals who really know their stuff typically command a premium price.

Quick sidebar: Yes, superstar IT guru's often charge a pretty penny for their services, but I should point out that this can be somewhat mitigated by the notion that the superstars can achieve more in less time. There is an adage in the software programming community that a superstar programmer can produce 20 times more than an average programmer. Or put another way, one superstar is worth 20 other 'warm bodies'. So while you may be paying a premium for a superstar, you might just be getting a higher return on investment than going for someone cheaper. Sometimes.

The other problem of outsourcing is perhaps one of the most troubling for club managers; just how do you find a good IT professional? And once you think you've found one, how do you know you're getting the right advice, value-for-money and applicable expertise? This is actually one of the problems I aim to address with this blog, but in general you're often just taking pot luck when it comes to choosing an IT person for your business.

Tech support 'abuse'

I am perhaps being a little harsh in my use of the term 'abuse', as I do understand it's sometimes tempting to contact the tech support department of your club management software provider for help with an unrelated tech matter under the guise of having a problem with the software. I have seen this kind of thing a lot over the years. And I also understand that not everyone has enough technical knowledge to be able to differentiate between a problem with the vendor's software and a problem with your Microsoft Windows operating system. The problem is, your vendor's tech support team are trained to work out what is what, and most of the time if they determine the problem is not related to their software- but rather a problem with your network- then you're most likely going to hear the words "you'll have to contact your nominated IT professional to fix this for you", and so you're back to square one.

A fourth alternative?

There may be another option available to you. If you have a staff member who has shown a keen interest in your systems or in computers in general, then perhaps one of the best pieces of advice I will give you all year is this- embrace and nurture that staff member's interest as much as you reasonably can afford to! Doing so may reap ongoing dividends for your business for a long time.

Having a team member who has demonstrated an interest in computing is an invaluable asset. With the right support from you, they can:

• Provide you with 'free' technical support,
• Help and teach other staff on the use of your computers,
• Be an efficient and effective liaison between you and your club management vendor and external suppliers,
• Help develop your IT systems so they're more powerful,
• Help automate routine administrative tasks, saving you time and money,
• Stop those annoying calls to your mobile at 7:30am on a Sunday from the weekend receptionist complaining that the front desk computer won't boot.

The list above can really go a long way towards improving the service you can offer your members, save time and reduce administration errors, and generally save you money.

If that isn't enough for you, there are other benefits of nurturing one of your team members to be your unofficial IT guru. Staff retention is of concern to any good manager, as it can cost a small fortune to find, interview, train and integrate a new staff member into your club. But this is an industry that experiences above-average levels of employee attrition, so anything you can do to keep a good staff member in your club is worth while. Offering them the opportunity to become more engaged with your computers is a great way to encouraging them to stay put. They get to indulge their interest in tech in a professional capacity, learn new skills and diversify their work day.

So how do you nurture a geek?

There are several things you should do to help your geek develop their skills and heighten their interest. Some are free, others may cost you a modest investment. Some things you can do include:

• Allow them time off to attend tech-related conferences or seminars. There are educational seminars being run by the likes of Microsoft, Google, Cisco, etc all the time. Not only are new technologies being introduced at these seminars, but some excellent hands-on training is often provided. Your geek can then look at how these new skills might translate into something practical for your club,
• Buy them a book on computers. Or better yet, buy them a cheap Kindle and a voucher so they can choose their own book (hint: geeks love the Kindle. I adore the Kindle. And with the price difference between a tech book from Angus & Robertson and the same book on the Kindle from Amazon, the Kindle will pay for itself after around two books anyway.) Practical books for your business you might consider would revolve around Microsoft Windows and/or networking technologies.
• Subscribe to a computing magazine for them. They'll learn from these magazines, pick up ideas and it'll position them to be able to help judge the value of computer hardware and software purchases. Request the magazines be kept at the club so others can read them (and let's face it, they'll probably end up on the magazine rack in the cardio room). The two magazines I personally recommend for their excellent coverage of business tech as well as consumer tech are PC Pro Magazine (a UK publication) and PC & Tech Authority (an Australian publication). I regularly read around 16 tech mags each month, and these are my two "go-to" magazines.
• Allow them to experiment and work on your systems (see "Some words of caution" below).
• Give them an official title in your staff org chart. Something like "Network Administrator" or "IT Systems Manager". It sounds corny, but you'll be surprised what a psychological effect this will have on a geek. It's better than being knighted! And for you, it's free.
• Give them a modest budget that they can be put in charge of, with the understanding that this budget is for the ongoing maintenance and enhancement of your computer systems.
• Send them to FILEX to check out the latest and greatest in club management systems and related technologies. Ask them to report back to you on what they've discovered.
• Salary sacrifice a laptop. If your geek is a full timer and in it for the long haul, you might like to explore the option of allowing them to salary sacrifice the purchase of a laptop they can use at the club and at home.

Disclaimer on the salary sacrifice point: speak to your accountant. You don't want to take any financial advice from me, believe me!

Some words of caution

When I was just at the beginning of my morphing from instructor-only to instructor-geek, my club manager at the time found out the hard way that there are some gotcha's to nurturing his geek. He ended up coining a phrase that I still use to this day. He said I "knew just enough to break the computer, but not enough to fix it." There are obvious perils to having someone who knows little about computers poking around where they don't belong. If your geek is already a computer enthusiast, then they may already know "enough to fix it". But if they're just at the beginning of their learning curve, then all good intentions aside, they may do more harm than good. If you have determined that your geek is at this end of the scale, then what I recommend is to proceed slowly and only grant access to your computers in an incremental fashion. For example, you may get them to sit with your outsourced IT professional while they work on your systems so your geek can learn by observing. After a while, they will be able to fly solo and you might be in a position to stop calling your outsourced professional altogether.

A success story

A number of years ago, a large, very successful personal training studio did the very thing this article is espousing. One of their trainers had an aptitude for computers and it wasn't long before he was looking after the studio's many systems and network. The owner of the studio recognised the value of this staff member and paid for the trainer to go to a one-day seminar on Microsoft Windows and other related technologies. At the conclusion of the seminar, the trainer-slash-geek conceived of something that ended up making the studio a lot of money. He spent around $50 of his own money and bought a simple shareware graphics application whose one key feature was to morph photos by pressing a couple of keys on the keyboard. With the Senior Trainer's permission, he set up a digital camera on a tripod in the assessment room, and with a select number of new clients, took their photo with the camera, downloaded it into this graphics app, then proceeded to show the client what they would potentially look like once they lost some weight using his proposed workout regime. Clients were blown away by this (keep in mind this was in the days before iPads and Photoshop Elements). Before their very eyes, clients could see what this personal training studio can do for their bodies. Now the reality is, the app was doing nothing more than 'squeezing' the image in to make the subject look leaner, but the visual impact on the client was astonishing. Word of mouth spread and the studio began using the system for prospects touring the facility and the studio experienced its best sales performance in years. All because the manager saw fit to nurture his geek!

Are you lucky enough to have a geek in your team?

Have fun!
Mike.Ryan

I was having a look at Fitness on Request's web site and I found myself fascinated. If you haven't heard of them, they're a company in the US that have developed a system whereby your group exercise classes are presented to members not by an instructor gracing the front stage but instead by a massive projection system. The best way I can sum this up is think "Aerobics Oz Style" backed by some impressive technology and available to your members at any time of the day or night, as many times as you choose to squeeze into your daily timetable.

There are many aspects to the system, including such things as touch-screen kiosks that allow members to browse available classes and reserve slots for themselves. Clubs can create a menu of classes from a wide selection that is added to on a continued basis.

The projector boasts a whopping 133" in size, which is actually an impressive feat of technological marvel... assuming the projected image manages to sustain the necessary colours, image brightness and viewing angle quality in your average, well-lit group exercise room. I haven't had the opportunity to experience the system or even talk to the people behind it, so I can't speak to the quality of the image. Overall though, the technologist in me is very impressed with what they're offering and there's even a part of me that is jealous I didn't come up with it first.

Fitness on Request seem to be positioning the product to satisfy the needs of clubs that would like to offer greater variety and great quantity of classes to their members. I can certainly see value in such a system as part of the service offering in an unattended club such as Jetts or Anytime Fitness.

But what about traditional clubs or studios?

As someone who started teaching classes back when High Impact Aerobics and Cardio Funk were all the rage (hey, I still have my Reebok Slide certificate buried somewhere deep in my box o' memories!), I fully appreciate the benefits of having a flesh-and-blood instructor in the class. Instructors provide feedback and guidance to individuals in a class that can't be achieved with a pre-recorded projection. There's the intangible quality that comes from an instructor injecting personality and spirit into the room, which ultimately is an extension of the brand of the club. And of course, there's the real-time monitoring of participant's physical and emotional conditions allowing instructors to adjust the intensity and techniques of the routines to suit.

On the other hand, the businessman in me can't ignore the economies of scale a system such as this offers. Instructors aren't cheap, and good instructors cost a small fortune. Being able to offer up a continually rotating smorgasbord of classes around the clock to your members with little or no incremental cost to the business is very appealing. Not to mention the ability to have the most popular classes automatically rise to the top of the menu. And I can just hear a hundred receptionists, group-exercise co-ordinators and club managers around the country all sigh in relief at not having to frantically and desperately work their way down the list of stand-by instructors when the 10:30am instructor rings up at 10:05am to say they can't make today's class!

Have a look at Fitness on Request, as they have some interesting concepts at play here. I'm still trying to decide whether this is something I feel comfortable becoming a trend in the industry. But then again, I'm the guy who complains about automated turnstiles in clubs with no front desk staff to greet you.

What about you? I'd love to hear your thoughts on whether Fitness on Request are onto something here, or if this is destined to be relegated to someone's box o' memories along with their Reebox Slide certificate.

Have fun!
Mike.Ryan

Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with or have anything to do with Fitness on Request. Nor was this blog post solicited in any way. I'm just an interested observer.

There is a great episode of The Simpsons where Homer is giving his email to someone. To wit:

Homer: Now, if you need to reach me, my email is chunkylover53 at AOL.
Dexter Colt: Chunky Lover 53...
Homer: It's one word.
Dexter Colt: One word.
Homer: Chunkylover53.
Dexter Colt: At AOL.
Homer: Dot com.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen professional, established personal training businesses where their primary email address is something along the lines of joesmith_pt77@hotmail.com.
This email address is proudly displayed on their business cards, mailbox flyers and- if they have one- their Web site, along side their logo and business name.

Not good.

Generic email domains like Hotmail or Gmail have their advantages; they are quick, cheap (as in, free) and easy to use and access. But they aren't necessarily a good fit for your brand. Would you buy your training equipment from a supplier whose email address was "wesellstuff_elcheapo@yahoo.com"? Imagine what your potential clients are thinking when they look at your ad or flyer. Or every time they need to contact you via email. There is a subtle yet distinct psychological effect at play here, and you don't want them feeling like they're emailing their little sister. Your business must convey an image of professionalism, and generic email domains unfortunately run counter to that.

What you need is an email address that is specific to your domain name.

Your domain name

A domain name is the name-portion of a Web address (or URL- Uniform Resource Locator). So given the Web address of http://www.fitweb.com.au/blog, the domain name is fitweb.com.au, which happens to nicely map to the name of my business.
If your business is called Simply Fitness Personal Training, then you might have a domain name of simplyfitness.com.au. It is always a good idea to do your best to acquire a domain name for your business, even if you don't have any immediate plans for a Web site. With almost 100,000 new Web sites going up every day, your chances of getting the domain name of your choice diminishes every day.

Sidebar: yep, you read that right. You don't need an actual Web site to have a domain name. Nor do you need a Web site to have a domain-based email address. You can have your sales@simplyfitness.com.au without a corresponding Web site no problems. So even if you have no plans for a Web site any time soon, I still recommend registering a domain name relevant to your business.

Here's where things are a little messed up for us Aussie fitness businesses. Domain names that end in .com.au (the Australian top-level domain) cost a small fortune compared to what our friends in the US have to pay. Expect to pay in the area of $140 for two years. If you feel your brand supports it and if you're lucky enough, a plain .com address might be available, which can be bought for as little as $10 a year (!).
For .com.au addresses, pay a visit to Melbourne IT or Domain Registration Services.
For a .com address, you have your pick of many. I have personally used (and like) NetRegistry many times.

Once you have a domain name, you can go about establishing a Web site (I will discuss Web sites in a future post) and one or more email addresses. And now you have the brand-friendly option of doing something like "info@simplyfitness.com.au".

Another sidebar: I want to point out that unless your particular service or brand justifies it, I don't recommend using individual's names for your public email addresses. Put another way, you don't want to be giving your members email addresses like joe.bloggs@simplyfitness.com.au. Instead, you should be giving out function-based addresses like sales@simplyfitness.com.au or memberservices@simplyfitness.com.au. Exceptions to this recommendation might be if you're an individual personal trainer or very small studio with only a couple trainers. In this case, personalised email addresses might actually contribute to your brand if your focus is on very personal service.

Your options for acquiring an email address

Here's where things can get a little complicated. There are many ways you can go about establishing email addresses for your business.

In general, your options are:

• Use a free mail service like Hotmail or Gmail
• Use paid mail services like Office365 or Google Apps
• Use an ISP-provided mail account
• Use a Web host-provided mail account

I'll briefly go through each one and describe what they are.

Free mail services

Services such as Hotmail and Gmail are generally excellent. They are fast, reliable, feature-rich and, well, free. But they suffer from the very problem I described above. You want your email addresses to reflect your domain name, not Google's or Microsoft's brand. However, both Microsoft and Google do offer services that let you do this; Microsoft through their Windows Live service (the evolution of Hotmail) and Google through their Google Apps Standard Edition. Both are free, and both allow you to apply your own domain name to your email accounts.

Paid mail services

Not surprisingly, the services I recommend if you wish to go the paid mail service route are from the same people who give you free ones. Google offers a paid version of their service called Google Apps for Business. Microsoft give you a choice between a paid Windows Live account or it's bigger brother, Office365. These services are very similar to their free counterparts except for things like no advertisements for the paid accounts and greater control over things like permissions. Both Google Apps for Business and Office365 are very affordable. A measly $50 per year per use for Google's product and around $7 per month per user for Office365 is a small price to pay for what you get with these products. They are not just mail services. They also offer Web-based office productivity applications such as word processors and spreadsheets.

If your business is relatively small (if you're a small club, studio or mobile trainer) then the free options might be perfectly adequate for you. If you're a little larger or if you want to take advantage of some additional business-oriented features, then the paid choices are probably better.

The downside to all of these services is that it can be a little tricky to configure them to use your domain name for your email address. It usually involves getting dirty with DNS MX settings. It's at this point I recommend you enlist the services of someone who knows about this stuff to help you. It's well beyond the scope of this article to detail how this is done,but if I have the time one day soon, I might write up a separate article on this topic.

ISP-provided mail account

When you sign up to an Internet Service Provider (ISP) such as Bigpond, you are usually provided with an email account that's associated with your Internet access. For example, if you sign up to Bigpond, you might be given an email address such as joebloggs10@bigpond.net.au. Don't use these accounts for your business! In fact, I even recommend against using such accounts for your personal emails too. The reason? What are you going to do if tomorrow you're offered a better deal by one of Bigpond's competitors such as iiNet? If you have a lot invested in your Bigpond-supplied email, then you are going to run into problems if you wish to switch over to another provider. You have to either pay Bigpond for an account just to keep your email address, or you have to go through the very troublesome process of contacting everyone (clients, members, suppliers, friends, family, etc) about a change of email address.

Web Host-provided mail

This is quite a common option people take because it is usually free (that is, you are usually given a certain number of mailboxes as part of your hosting account), and it's probably by far the easiest to set up because your domain is already configured and so any email accounts you set up will by definition be based on your domain name.
There are some potential downsides to this type of mail account however. Firstly, access to your email is usually only via POP or IMAP. These are protocols that allow your email client (such as Outlook or your iPhone) to receive and send emails. Whilst POP and IMAP work fine, I believe they are quite lacking in these days of cloud-based services. It is common for people to be accessing their email via a number of ways at the same time: their computer at work, the computer at home, on their smartphone, on their iPads, via Web browsers when over at a friend's house, etc. POP and IMAP aren't very adept at keeping your email in sync when used from all these different places at once. This is where Google and Microsoft's service excel. They are specifically designed to keep your emails (and contacts, tasks and calendar) in sync perfectly, regardless of where and how you send and receive your emails. So if you send an email on your iPhone, that sent item will immediately be available on your Microsoft Outlook.

In Summary

I have described some of the ways you can acquire an email account. If your fitness business is large enough to justify it, I recommend opting for either Google Apps for Business or Office365 for your hosted email. These two services are outstanding in what they offer and their integration with the many devices out there (everything from your desktop computer to your iPhone) is brilliant. If you're after something free, then Google Apps Standard Edition or Microsoft's Windows Live service are also excellent choices.

But regardless of how you come by your email addresses, the most important point to take away from this post is that you should use your business's domain name as the basis for your email address, not a generic address. Such addresses not only contribute to the consistency and integrity of your brand, but they're also portable in that you can switch email providers whenever you need to without having to change email addresses.

If you have any questions regarding any of what I've talked about in this post, leave a comment below.

Have fun!
Mike.Ryan

An interesting article over on the ClubSolutions web site got me thinking. Titled 'Utilizing Social Media at the Front Desk', the author offers some suggestions about the use of social media such as Facebook and Twitter by your early morning front desk staff. Specifically, allowing your front desk to post your clubs Facebook page as part of their shift duties.

I recommend you duck on over to the ClubSolutions and have a read of the article first. Go on, I'll wait...

I am personally torn on this issue. On one hand, I think what Montgomery suggests in the article makes a lot of sense and there are certainly some benefits. On the other hand, I can't help but feel a little nervous for two reasons.

Firstly, social media is both a blessing and a mine field. It is my belief that any content you post to your Facebook and Twitter accounts on behalf of your business should be very carefully considered, vetted and 'copy written'. This is your brand you're playing with, and the Web is permanent. Just ask McDonalds. I'm not convinced the responsibility of maintaining your social media presence should necessarily be left to the front desk staff. Please don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying I believe front desk staff are incapable of performing such tasks. All I'm suggesting is that such marketing and branding are not activities that should be just allocated to the next available staff member who happens to be on shift. These are activities that should be carried out by a suitably instructed and supervised staff member who understands the importance of the task and how it impacts the business.

Secondly- and I admit this is as much driven by one of my pet peeves more than anything- I suspect the opportunity and temptation to spend too much time on personal Facebook and Twitter usage by the staff member might be too great for some. I am one of those people who falls just slightly inside the 'allow-your-staff-to-access-their-personal-Facebook-accounts-from-work' camp. There are pros and cons of such policies in business but I think if your policies are made clear and your staff are professional and mature enough, this shouldn't be a productivity drain for your business. However, I can't stress enough how much I hate it when I enter a club only to be 'greeted' by the front desk staff with their heads buried in their iPhones as they are reading their friends' Facebook walls or are watching YouTube videos on the front desk computer. Hey, as someone who has worked reception for years at health clubs I understand things can get boring, but I have always believed you should never let your members see anything other than a smiling, friendly, welcoming face when they enter your club.

All that said, I still see merit in what Montgomery says in the article. If you have the right staff, the right policies and the right mechanisms in place to monitor and guide such policies, there are some pretty cool services you can offer your members with the right use of social media.

I'd be interested in your thoughts on this matter. Any war stories to share?

Have fun!
Mike.Ryan

Microsoft have previously said that the Metro version of Internet Explorer 10- the version of Internet Explorer that will ship as part of the upcoming Windows 8- will be 'plug-in free'.

Plug-ins are bits of code that are installed to provide additional functionality to Internet Explorer. A very common plug-in you might be familiar with is the Flash plug-in. This allows Web pages to display Flash, such as YouTube videos. In the Internet Explorer world, the main plug-in architecture is provided through a technology called ActiveX.

Microsoft's decision to disallow plug-ins such as ActiveX in the Metro version of Internet Explorer is for security (ActiveX in particular has quite a bad reputation for security issues), reliability, privacy and battery life reasons (not coincidentally, the same reasons Steve Jobs steadfastly refused to allow Flash to be installed on iPads and iPhones).

Why I bring this up is because whilst I wholeheartedly approve of this decision, it may impact on those clubs that are using Web-based membership management software solutions, especially if your solution is also used to control things like turnstiles.

Depending on how your membership management product is written, if your Web-based software is used at the front desk to sign members into your club, and as part of that process it can automatically trigger your turnstile or gate, then there's a very good chance it is using an ActiveX plug-in to do this. ActiveX is the only way software can access local hardware resources (such as a turnstile or point-of-sale cash drawer) from a Web page. So if Internet Explorer will no longer allow for such plug-ins to be used, you no longer have a working a POS cash drawer or turnstile.

The good news is that the non-Metro version of Internet Explorer will still support such plug-ins just fine (so far), so you're not paddling up any creeks just yet. In fact, Microsoft are providing software developers with a way of telling the Metro Internet Explorer that you must use the other version of Internet Explorer. However, under Windows 8 the Metro version of Internet Explorer is the default, so this may mean your club might have to adjust the way you use Windows 8.

I am quite sure your software provider will undertake extensive compatibility testing under Windows 8 well before its release, but if your member software is Web-based then this is something you should certainly be asking them as the Windows 8 launch date approaches to make sure you're covered.

Have fun!
Mike.Ryan.

I've done technical support in the fitness industry for around 15 years. When I first started, I didn't even own a computer (!) so all the technical phone assistance I gave to customers was done using purely my memory. I'd be giving the person on the other end of the phone step by step instructions with my eyes closed as I desperately tried to picture in my head what screens the person was seeing, what button they needed to click on next, what would happen when they did, etc. Tough times.

I got used to it after a while though and by the time I did eventually get my first computer (ah, Radio Rentals- oh how you took pity on a low-paid instructor), I was pretty proficient at guiding customers around the software or around Microsoft Windows without needing to refer to my own computer. It got to the point where I would be doing technical support to a club in Sydney whilst lying on a banana chair in the sun on the deck of the club in Perth that I worked at (or while out shopping, or while at the movies, or in between PT clients. I even had to do it while out on dates a few times- I cursed the day 24-hour gyms started opening up!).

Now, as proficient and effective as I got at providing phone support, there were many instances where the service I provided could have been more effective, quicker and easier for everyone all round if those seeking support were a little more familiar with the best way of approaching technical support. And this is what I seek to address in this post.

When things go wrong with your computer systems, it can be extremely frustrating and stressful. This is especially so when it's peak-time at your club and a class is about to start, and your poor receptionist is frantically trying to write down everyone's membership card number as they walk through so they can be signed in later when the computer is back up. It's also not a very good look for the brand of the club. Although most people know it's not your fault when the computers go down, it can still leave a subtle psychological impression on members which can negatively impact your brand.

So it is under these stressful circumstances that the poor receptionist rings the number stuck to the monitor on a Post-It note to ask for technical support. And more often than not, your receptionist isn't familiar with the inner workings of a local area network or SQL Server database engines, so their ability to articulate the problem in a manner that would make Mark Russinovich proud is limited. And here's where things tend to go downhill for everybody.

Support: "Hello, this is OurSoftwareRocks Technical Support. How can I help you?".
Receptionist: "Yeah, um, our computer isn't working."
Support: "Hoo boy. Here we go...."

By the way, I'm not picking on receptionists here. Substitute 'receptionist' with 'club manager', 'membership consultant', 'cleaner'.... :-)

Any decent technical support person is adept at massaging the necessary details out of a caller to identify the symptoms, theorise a cause then troubleshoot the solution. But with your assistance, this process can be dramatically quicker, less stressful and more effective. Here are a few tips that will hopefully make your support experience as painless as possible.

1. Clear your head

Before you ring tech support, take a moment or two to clear your head. Take deep breaths, do some pushups, chant, whatever it is you do to calm yourself. Doing so can make life more pleasant for you and the techie who'll answer the phone. Computers can make you want to scream at a butterfly, but trying to describe the problem you're having and walking through possible solutions over the phone while you're seething and inwardly plotting the demise of everyone around you won't help. Threatening to sue for not fixing the problem in a couple of minutes is another counter-productive tactic (which has happened to me).

2. Check the knowledgebase

If you're dealing with your club management software, then I highly recommend paying a quick visit to the vendor's Web site next and check to see if they have any knowledgebase articles that describe the problem. There's a good chance you're not the first to encounter this particular problem so there's an equally good chance your vendor's support team have written up a knowledgebase article that may provide guidance on how to fix the problem, work around it or even just to let you know you're screwed. Either way, it won't take too long and you might just save yourself and your vendor a lot of time. Also, if your software is Web-based, your vendor might post notices on their support site informing customers of scheduled server downtimes or if they're currently experiencing any problems and when they expect to have things up and running again. You might have experienced this if you've had problems at home with your ADSL Internet connection. Again, this will save you a phone call (and possible wait in a queue).

3. Reboot the computer

I know this almost sounds like a bad nerd joke, but you would be surprised how often this fixes the problem. It is the modern equivalent to giving your old Trinitron television set a thump to correct a fuzzy picture. A quick reboot clears out memory caches, restarts any stopped services and many other little things (including possibly applying any Windows updates that have been sitting there waiting for an opportunity to install themselves). If I'm honest, I can't provide any compelling technical reason why rebooting often works. It just does. So give that a try before you ring support (if it's your Internet that's not working, try rebooting your modem/router, as that's just another computer, only smaller). At best, you avoid having to ring support at all. At worse, you save some time when the support technician inevitably suggests a reboot as part of their troubleshooting process anyway.

4. Understand the problem

Ringing support and simply saying "my computer doesn't work" means you've just added another 10 minutes to the conversation. Don't worry, you're not expected to be able to say "Perfmon is reporting excessive page faults so I'm concerned about my DDR3 RAM", but there is a happy middle ground. If your membership management system is crashing on you, make a note of exactly what it is you're doing when it happens and what screen you're on. If the crash occurs only on the Suspend Member screen, and only when you click the 'Charge Pro-Rata' button on that screen, then note this and tell the techie straight away. If you suddenly can't send any emails, then try to make a note of when you last could, and if anything has changed since then. This leads me onto another point...

5. Be aware of any changes made to your computers

I have seen it many, many times. Someone rings for tech support on an issue. Depending on the problem description, a standard question a techie will ask is "has anything changed on your computer recently?". I can't tell you how many times I have heard "nope" or "dunno", only to find out that over the weekend the owner's nephew came in and installed a new anti-virus product that now clashes with your Internet connection. I have always advocated a change log be maintained. It can be as simple as a notepad kept in a drawer near the computer, and in it is a simple list of things that have been done to your computer and when. For example, if you install anti-virus software, write the name of the product and when you installed it. If you upgrade your Internet connection, write down who you were with, who you are now with and when you changed. Such material can potentially save you and the techie hours of exploratory surgery, and that is serious money. Let your staff know where the log is kept (and make sure all staff are made aware of it- don't forget the Sunday 2-3pm shift person who you never see), and ask them to also document anything they may do on the computers (idling away their shift on Facebook probably doesn't count). If any staff members have occasion to ring support, document that in the log too. You'd be surprised how often the same issue recurs, and being able to reference back to the last time it happened can oftentimes reduce a support call down to a couple of minutes.

6. Try to ring in a quiet time

It's not always possible, but try not to ring support while you're in the middle of teaching a Body Combat class, using one hand to direct participants and the other to hold a mobile to your ear. If possible, call when you're not busy and you can have uninterrupted time with the techie to walk through the problem. It is frustrating and non-productive for the techie to be constantly put on hold while you spot your personal training client on the hack squat machine.

7. Be at your computer

I once had someone at a well known women-only gym call for support while she was in the solarium! I guess she figured she had 10 minutes to spare so decided to multi-task. She didn't admit it until a minute into the conversation when I asked her to read to me the error she was getting on screen. When you ring for support, have complete access to the computer in question. This means it is you at the keyboard (and you're not relaying the conversation through the wall to your sales manager) and you have the necessary password(s) to be able to reboot the computer. Nothing makes a problem worse quicker than when the techie requests you reboot the computer, only to find out the Sunday 2-4pm shift receptionist hasn't been given the password and now can't even log into Windows until Monday morning when the weekday receptionist comes in.

8. Realise not everything can be resolved straight away

Although it may seem so most of the time, your average technical support guru isn't a deity or imbued with Q-like powers and so not every problem can be resolved on the first call. In the tech support world, support is partitioned into Tiers. Tier 1 is generally the first port of call (no pun intended)- the person who answers the phone is usually a Tier 1 techie. If things can't get resolved immediately or the problem is proving to be trickier than the techie can handle right now, your inquiry might get escalated to Tier 2. Tier 2 techies are often more experienced team members and assist the Tier 1's with the tricky stuff. And if the problem still can't be resolved, then you get Tier 3 escalated. This is when the Guru of Electrons is brought in to help out. If you're dealing with the software vendor who supplied your membership management software, then this is often one of the programmers themselves. Tier 3 is where I spend any technical support time I might do these days.

My point is, if the problem can't be resolved straight away, please know that it's not because your Tier-1 techie just wanted to get you off the phone because you're interrupting their session on Cute Roulette. Sometimes a little patience and a lot of effort is required to work through a problem. And in particularly bad situations, this may even span a few days (especially if escalation is involved).

9. Bonus Tip

If you invite someone over to your house, you're unlikely to to leave empty pizza boxes and a full cat litter tray lying in the middle of the loungeroom. Likewise, if a techie needs to 'remote' into your computer (that is, they will use special software to connect to your computer over the Internet so they can take control of your computer for troubleshooting purposes), take the time to do a little housekeeping first. Close down any Word documents you may have open. Exit out of Microsoft Outlook. Close down all Web browser tabs (other than those needed by the techie). Whilst your average techie is as trustworthy as a nun, I think it's still good policy to close down anything that may contain confidential information or sensitive business data that the techie has no business seeing. It's a breach of trust to your members having an open email they've written to you with their new bank account details for their debits on full display for when a stranger remotes into your computer. Around two years ago, I had occasion to remote into the computer of a personal training studio to try to fix a problem they were having. And what I saw open in their Web browser when their computer screen appeared on mine was enough to make Larry Flint blush! I guess Solitaire just wasn't good enough for them during the quiet times.

If you keep the above points in mind, and ensure you educate all staff who may have occasion to use your computers, then you'll make life a lot easier for you and your tech support friends.

I love technical support war stories so if you have any to share, leave a comment.

Have fun!
Mike.Ryan

A quick tip of the hat to Tim Brooker for providing a couple suggestions in this article.

The excellent PulseTec Solutions technical support team conveyed a quick story to me the other day that I thought would make for a good quick tip.

They had a customer contact support complaining about their studio management software that was running too slow on their laptop. They apparently used to run the software on a desktop computer and had recently installed it onto a laptop as well. But on the laptop, the software ran considerably slower than what they were accustomed to on the other computer.

It turns out the customer's laptop had only 2Gb of RAM installed. Random Access memory (RAM) is the computer's internal short-term memory that Windows uses to hold data required to run itself and your applications. If your computer is running Microsoft Windows Vista or Windows 7, then 2Gb is considered the bare minimum if you want to run anything other than Solitaire. When your computer has insufficient RAM, then Windows is forced to start using your hard drive as 'virtual' RAM (which is called 'paging'), and hard drives are orders of magnitude slower than the solid state chips of RAM. So as a result, Windows and the applications you run on it start performing abysmally.

The support team responded to the query with a bit of advice that may help you too. They recommended the customer upgrade their laptop's RAM to 4Gb. The customer- to his credit- took the advice and went out that day and purchased the RAM upgrade and happily reported back to the team that the software is now running beautifully!

A 100% increase in RAM sounds like a lot, but even 4Gb is now generally considered a base line amount of RAM these days. And you'll be surprised how inexpensive RAM is now. A quick trip to PC Case Gear, one of my favourite online computer parts suppliers shows that you can buy an extra 2Gb of RAM for as little as $13! The price you'll pay will depend on the model and type of computer you have (plus a number of other factors, such as whether you need DDR2 or DDR3 RAM, how many free slots you have, etc).
So for a very minimal investment, you can potentially dramatically speed up your computer's performance, and maybe even squeeze another year or two of use out of it. Spending $13 compared to $700 for a new computer is a no-brainer.

If your computer is a few years old or if it has less than 4Gb of RAM and you're running Windows Vista/7, then do yourself a huge favour and follow the advice of PulseTec Solutions' support team- invest in a RAM upgrade. It might just make it seem like you're running a whole new computer.

Note: Just as you request your members to visit their doctor before undertaking a new exercise regime, I recommend having a quick chat to your nominated IT professional if you have access to one before doing anything with your computer.

Have fun!
Mike.Ryan.

The thing I am perhaps most excited about that is coming in Windows 8 is a new feature called Storage Spaces. Earlier this month, Microsoft published a blog post describing Storage Spaces, and what I read is giving me little excited geek chills. To save you from having to read their lengthy and somewhat technical post, here's a summary of what it is and why I think this will be one of the single greatest enhancements to Windows since the move away from the Windows 95 architecture.

Storage Spaces is a technology that allows multiple physical hard drives to be grouped together into what's called pools, and these pools are then split up into spaces, and spaces can then be formatted and used like regular disks.

OK, so what does all that mean? Think about your current hard drive. You probably only have one installed in your computer, and that's where all of your data is stored (including documents, databases, even Windows itself). If you look in Windows Explorer, chances are you'll see that your hard drive has been called your C: drive. If your hard drive gets full, then you can either buy a bigger hard drive, or you can buy a second hard drive. If you opt for the former, you're in for a lengthy and tumultuous process of moving all your data, Windows and applications over to the new drive. If you opt for the latter, you now have two hard drives, and therefore two separate locations where your data can be stored; a C: and a D: drive.

I have two problems with this arrangement. Firstly, two separate drives means you have two places you need to keep track of to find where you saved that timetable document. It also means you have two drives you need to make sure are properly backed up. Secondly, there is little in the way of redundancy. This means that if your hard drive fails, it's game over for the data on it and you are then turning to your most recent backup for salvation. These two problems have always been an issue for fitness businesses. Too many businesses fail to do regular backups, or fail to back up everything. Also, quite often hardware failure can be a slightly greater issue for your average health club or studio than other businesses due to the more hostile environments your computers often sit (e.g., near humid wet areas, under a cramped reception desk with an inch of dust accumulated over the air vents, etc). And let's face it, we're not an overly wealthy industry so the types of computer hardware we tend to buy are of a somewhat less premium quality than those a nice, fat financial services firm might have the luxury of buying. So hard drive failure is an unfortunate consequence of modern computing.

I have always advocated a policy whereby businesses should, whenever possible, store their critical data on a RAID-1-based system. RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) is a technology similar to Storage Spaces that allows you to combine multiple hard drives. RAID-1 systems (often called 'striped') is where you have two identical hard drives and your computer automatically stores an exact copy of everything that is one one of those disks onto the other. This way, if one of the disks fails, you haven't lost your data because you still have your other disk containing the exact same data. Yes, such an arrangement increases the capital costs of your computer investments, but I believe this is far outweighed by the much greater data protection it gives you. Nothing is worse than having your computer die on you out of the blue, especially when your most recent backup is a week old and you have to go through all the time and expense of getting your system back up and running. RAID-1 helps mitigate this problem.

But RAID is not without its problems. Different computer manufacturers have different ideas of how to implement RAID. Some do it via hardware. Others do it using features built into Windows. Most RAID solutions require that you have identical disks with identical capacities. And once a RAID set have been built, you're stuck with it. So if you find yourself running out of space down the track, you're back to our original problem of having to buy all new disks to replace the existing ones, and/or you have to migrate your data over to the new RAID set which can be a monumental pain!

Geeky sidebar: if you are considering implementing workstation-based RAID today, I recommend NOT using the hardware-based RAID controllers that ship with most modern computer motherboards. They are finicky, fragile, proprietary and frankly not worth it. Instead, use Microsoft Windows' built-in disk striping. Or use external storage like a NAS or SAN server, but these don't eliminate the need to have a workstation out of action while it's repaired and rebuilt when a hard drive fails.

Storage Spaces aims to resolve all of these problems. Although philosophically similar to RAID, it makes RAID concepts accessible to the average punter. For example if you run out of drive space, no probs. Just throw another drive into your computer, add it to the storage pool, and presto- you now have a whole lot of additional space but as far as Windows (and you) are concerned, nothing else has changed. No multiple drive locations to keep track of and back up. It's as if your current single hard drive magically grew bigger, but everything else appears exactly the same as it always did. This has the potential to save you a lot of money if the time came when you needed to increase your hard drive space. Also, Storage Spaces doesn't limit you on the size of the drive you add. As opposed to RAID that requires all drives to be the same size, Storage Spaces lets you add a drive of any size you like and it just adds it to the pool.

All this is fantastic, but the biggest reason I'm excited is because Storage Spaces now makes bringing all the benefits of a RAID-1 system to your computers without needing to spend a fortune or be a hard core computer geek to implement it. This means you can enjoy the added protection of data redundancy without even knowing you are.

I have given a very brief, almost glib description of Storage Spaces here (and to the computer enthusiasts reading this, I apologise). However my intent is to introduce the basic concepts of Storage Spaces to those who aren't that much into computers in the hope it stays on their radar until Windows 8 is released so they look into it. I would love to see more fitness businesses adopt the RAID-1 concept because it kills me every time I hear of another health club's administration being crippled because their hard drive failed on them and they had no backups.

Have fun!
Mike.Ryan

"This morning, we reached an important development milestone: the beginning of the 'Office 15' Technical Preview Program." So says PJ Hough, CVP of Development in the Microsoft Office division, in a blog post published today over at the Office Exec blog.

Although few specific details were given in the post, he did say that this release of Office will be Microsoft's most ambitious to date. It represents a simultaneous update of Microsoft's cloud services, servers, and mobile and PC clients for Office, Office 365, Exchange, SharePoint and others; a first for Microsoft and Office.

It wasn't stated, but it is widely anticipated that this version of Office will support the new look Metro user interface of Windows 8 and even greater integration with the excellent Office365 (Microsoft's cloud-based Office service). Also, reading between the lines of the announcement I have my hopes up that Microsoft will also be surprising everyone with a version of Office that runs on the ARM-version of Windows 8 (think Microsoft Office on an iPad-type tablet device!).

Office 2010 was released mid-way through 2010, so with an anticipated release of somewhere around the end of 2012, that's only around 18 months between versions of Office.

Although the benefits to most fitness businesses derived from upgrading from Office 2007 to Office 2010 were negligible (and therefore not necessarily worth the cost), I suspect the upgrade to Office 15 might just be worthwhile. Depending on how far Microsoft go with it, I think the improvements to the integration with Office365 might be all the reason you need to upgrade.

Have fun!
Mike.Ryan

Some years ago, I was onsite at a large council-run recreation centre performing a scheduled upgrade of their membership management system. It had been a while since I'd paid a personal visit to them, so I'd scheduled to spend a bit of time sitting with the club manager to go over any other technology questions or issues he had after the upgrade was finished.

As per my standard operating procedure, I performed an adhoc backup of their member data which I dumped into a temporary folder on their Windows Desktop before doing anything then confidently kicked off the upgrade procedure. About half way through, the screen flashed, then came up with the infamous Windows Blue-Screen-of-Death. My pulse went up a bit because the BSOD happened at a point in the upgrade where the database was being restructured, so I was concerned about the integrity of the data.

Once the computer had rebooted- which took a while because something phunky was going on with the hard drive- I went straight to the database to check on its health and sure enough, it was hosed.

My pulse went up a little bit more.

Not to worry, I thought. I made that adhoc backup, so I'll just copy it back over and start again. Except the adhoc backup was also hosed! The hard drive was failing and I'd made the backup onto this same hard drive.

Now my pulse was running like I was teaching a class, except I felt cold chills inside and could feel the adrenalin start to flow.

OK, all is not lost I told myself. This is a large, well-funded government-sponsored recreation center. They'll have processes in place for regular backups, so I'll just restore last night's backups then go grovel for forgiveness from the manager for the fact he has now lost half a day's worth of data. I mean, how much can that be? A few member sign-ins? Maybe some drink sales? A membership sale?

I walked into the managers office and asked if I could have their most recent backups. He obliged me with an impressive array of CD's, each meticulously labelled with the date and time of the backup performed. There was roughly three CD's for each week, going back around three months. I was pleasantly surprised at how diligent they were in their backups and I remember wishing more clubs were like that.

Until I tried restoring the previous night's backup.

The backup on the CD was in an incomplete state and so I couldn't restore the data. Damn. OK, I'll use the backup before that. Same thing. The CD wasn't readable. Getting quite anxious, I tried yet more CD's, each time going back further and further in time. It turns out, I had to go back as far as two months before I found a usable backup! That's two whole months of membership sales, renewals, POS transactions, sign-ins and enquiry recording all lost. Gone!

I won't go into how I reacted to this (or how the manager himself reacted), but let's just say no-one came away a winner that day.

The moral of this story?

The point of my anecdote is this. This club had been doing what they thought was the right thing. They were religiously doing backups of their data, documenting everything they were doing, storing the backups in a safe, dry place, keeping historical copies, the works. They were doing everything by the book and exactly as a dream customer would... EXCEPT checking the integrity of their backups.

Their one failing in an otherwise admirable policy was that they weren't periodically pulling out their backups and checking to make sure that it's working. So when the fateful time came when the backup was truly needed, they (and me) were let down as the backups proved flawed and so were as useless as desk fan in a Spinning room.

So my very strong advice is simple. Make it your policy to periodically pull out two or three of your most recent backups and check them. Make sure the data on them is readable. Make sure the backup dataset can be properly restored. Make sure the physical media the backup is stored on is in good condition and working.

I recommend you do this a minimum of once per month. It is a relatively quick and simple process. If your backups are performed automatically using automated backup software, such software almost always have built-in functions to test backup integrity. If your backups are being performed manually by you copying data onto a USB keyring using Windows Explorer (which is perfectly acceptable- I don't care, as long as you're backing up!), then try copying the backup data back onto your computer to make sure it's readable.
And if possible (and if you know what you're looking for), have a quick poke around the backup dataset to make sure that all of your data is actually being backed up and you're not missing anything that you thought was being included but isn't.

Bonus lesson: one of the mistakes I made that day (apart from not calling in sick) was that I did my adhoc backup onto the same hard drive as the data. Although this has the benefit of being quick and simple, it suffers from a significant flaw- if the hard drive fails, then you've lost both your data and your backup. So never back up onto the same drive as your data.

If you make backup integrity checks a part of your standard operating procedures, then you'll go a long way towards helping prevent some poor IT geek like me from having a myocardial infarction when he inadvertently trashes your data then tries to undo his mistake by restoring your backup.

Have fun!
Mike.Ryan

It's looking like 2012 might just be the year of many things. I predict it will be the year of tablets, the year of Android, the year of Windows 8, and now I'm looking forward to it being the year of speedy WiFi.

There are a few rumblings around the tech traps that devices supporting the new IEEE 802.11ac WiFi standard will start hitting the market this year.

The 802.11ac standard is WiFi on steroids. It can potentially reach data transfer speeds up to three times faster than the current king of the WiFi jungle, 802.11n. With over 1Gbps speed (compared to 802.11n's maximum 300Mbps), we are talking local area network speeds as fast as gigabit Ethernet cabled networks.

Why am I excited?
It means that clubs and studios might finally be able to ditch the spider-web of cabling for their networks.

At present, many clubs and studios are forced to use Ethernet cabling for their networked computers because current WiFi standards aren't quite up to the task of delivering the performance, range and interference protection that good old cables give you.

Clubs are often large, labyrinthine places whose floorspace is littered with objects that can act as large Faraday Cages (your gym equipment). Large distances, many metal objects, walls, multiple-floors and the sea of treadmills and stair-masters emitting electromagnetic energy all conspire together to make sure you get really poor performance out of your WiFi network. And often, this poor network performance results in poorly performing member management software, crashes, network and Internet failure and so on.

And it is for these reasons that I have always recommended clubs and studios strive to outfit their systems with Ethernet cabling as a priority, only resorting to using WiFi if their specific needs dictate as much. The problem is, if you're an existing business with existing infrastructure, shoe-horning cabling around the place can be expensive, tricky and sometimes quite ugly (you should see the mess of cables I've seen under some reception desks!).

But with 802.11ac, this might just be a thing of the past. I haven't had a chance to play with any 802.11ac devices yet, so any benefits I talk about can be considered theoretical at present, but if the scuttlebutt around the tech community is anything to go by, this new standard should be more than enough to allow me to start changing the advice I give to clubs. And we can kiss those cables good bye!

I'll write more about this technology soon. Stay tuned.

Have fun!
Mike.Ryan

You have a great Web site for your fitness business. You spent a lot of money and probably even more time having it professionally designed, coded and hosted. You meticulously wrote every word on it to beautifully convey your brand, explain your services and hopefully increase enquiry rates. It's a masterpiece of HTML and it is an excellent addition to your business's intellectual property.

Until one of your members who happens to use Google Chrome as their Web browser looks at it....

As far as a lot of people- especially Windows users- are concerned, Microsoft Internet Explorer is the only Web browser there is. It comes pre-installed with all modern versions of Windows, and most people either don't care or don't know that there are other browsers with which they can view the Internet. But that is rapidly changing, and you must ensure your Web site- which is one of the most important portals to your brand- works properly on all of the common browsers, not just Internet Explorer.

According to StatCounter, as of the end of 2011 only around 39% of Internet users are using Internet Explorer. This is remarkable when you consider that only a few years ago it was around the 70% or more mark. This means that there's a huge portion of your members and potential members out there who are using something else. Here's what StatCounter say:

As of December 2011:

• Internet Explorer: 38.65%
• Google Chrome: 27.27%
• Mozilla Firefox: 25.27%
• Apple Safari: 6.08%
• Opera: 1.98%
• Other: 0.75%

So as you can imagine, it is no longer sufficient to fire up the venerable Internet Explorer on your computer, navigate to your business's home page, poke around a few screens and conclude everything is cool.
It might look great under Internet Explorer, but it may look awful under another browser.

Why is this?

Web pages are written in what's called a markup language, most often HTML. HTML is a set tags (or commands) that describe how the content on a Web page looks. For example, if you have a heading it may look something like this:

The <h1> is an HTML tag. Web browsers like Internet Explorer are nothing more than smart picture frames designed to interpret HTML and display it on screen.
The problem is, different browsers have slightly different interpretations of how things should look. Despite the existence of agreed-upon standards that dictate how text, pictures, layouts, etc should appear onscreen, subtle bugs and minor differences creep in and before you know it, your Web site looks different on different browsers. By way of example, have a look at the following image of Google Maps under Microsoft Internet Explorer:

Not pretty huh.
(I should point put that Microsoft has long since fixed this particular example).
This [obsolete] screenshot illustrates how differences in browser rendering can turn even the most awesome of Web sites into a jumbled mess of incoherence.

Trust me, you do NOT want this happening to your site.

To make matters worse....

OK, that's desktop browsers. What about mobile? I'm not going to rave on about how mobile is becoming so huge and important that it is widely accepted that their usage is now exceeding 'desktop computer' usage right now. Trust me, you'll be hearing a LOT about the mobile space and its importance to the fitness industry from me over time. But suffice it to say, you must, must also factor in mobile devices.
The Web browsers on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets aren't immune to this problem. Your site may look fantastic when viewed on an iPhone but terrible on an iPad or an Android-based phone.

Again, here's what StatCounter have to say about mobile-based browser usage for December 2011:

• Safari (as used on the iPhone and iPad): 22.6%
• Opera: 24.2%
• Android Browser: 20.2%
• Nokia Browser: 12.9%
• Blackberry: 7.5%
• Other: 12.6%

What this is showing is that your Web site can (and will) be viewed on just about anything. (At time of writing, I personally am a huge fan of Google Chrome as my browser of choice. I find it to be an outstanding product that is getting better all the time).

So what should you do?

Now that you know your site needs to be fully tested using a variety of Web browsers, what are your next steps? If your site has been professionally designed and coded by a third-party Web design company (and I would hazard a guess and say that's most of you), the obvious thing to do is to contact them and directly ask them if they've ensured rendering compatibility for all the major Web browsers. I actually recommend getting this in writing from them if possible. If there are compatibility issues found, ensure they fix them ASAP. If you're about to embark on a new Web site project, then ensure browser compatibility is included from the start in the agreement and warranty.

You can take their word for it of course, but if you want to check things out for yourself, there are two main ways of doing this. Firstly, you can download and install the major browsers yourself (if you don't already have them) and fire up your site and check. This is generally an OK method, but suffers from the hassle of having to download the browsers. Also, it's not going to help you with mobile browsers. You may own an iPhone or an Android-based phone, which is fine, but I doubt you own both. So you're going to have to find someone who owns one you don't.
Another hassle.

The alternative is to use a third-party service that does the checking for you.
There are many Web sites as well as installable applications out there that allow you to do these checks. I'm not going to go into the installable applications because unless you're going to be doing this on an ongoing basis or have a deep interest in this stuff, it's probably not worth it to install yet another software application on your computer.

Browser Shots is a fairly popular site that allows you to check how your site looks under a variety of browsers and operating systems. There's free and paid options where the paid option gives you 'queue priority', but the free version is just fine. It takes several minutes for the results to come back, but they give you screenshots of how your site looks under different browsers so you can identify any anomalies or display problems.

For checking mobile browsers, have a look at MobiReady, which tests your site against most major mobile devices.

Side note: there are countless different Web browsers out there, and I'm not advocating you certify your site against all of them. Not only is it impractical as new browsers are being released all the time, but it's also pointless- how many people do you know have even heard of the K-Mellon browser?). Instead, I recommend focusing on the following browsers.

For the desktop:

• Internet Explorer
• Google Chrome
• Mozilla Firefox
• Apple Safari

For mobile:

• iPhone/iPad
• Android Browser

There are many more, some of which are even fairly commonly used (such as Opera), but we have to draw the line somewhere.

Conclusion

It is important that you protect all the hard work, effort and money you have invested in building your Web presence. Your Web site is a crucially important part of your brand and service. Your membership base and the pool of prospects in the market are an extremely diverse bunch and they'll be using any number of different computer types, browsers and mobile devices. And they have an expectation that your site works properly and reflects your brand regardless of how they choose to view it.

For the majority of you, this probably means not much more than perhaps shooting off a quick email to the company that looks after your Web site for you for confirmation that all is OK. But I still recommend doing some investigation yourself, just to be sure. Perhaps even take the opportunity to pull random members aside as they enter the club and ask what browser they use at home or work, and if they've noticed any issues or problems with your site.

Have fun!
Mike.Ryan

UPDATE

Reader Di made an excellent point in the comments about Adobe Flash. I was going to go into my thoughts on Flash in a later post, but Di's comment about avoiding Flash on your Web site is a valid one and one that I strongly share. My recommendation is to avoid using Adobe Flash on your site in any way. Not only will it not work at all on any Apple mobile device (iPhone and iPad), but at this stage it's looking like it also won't work on the Metro version of Internet Explorer in Windows 8 (Microsoft have announced that no plugins will be allowed under the Metro version of Internet Explorer).

But putting aside the fact that you will be locking out a good portion of your potential audience by using Flash on your Web site, there's also the 'annoyance' factor of Flash. Flash is an incredibly powerful and compelling design tool for the Web. The problem is that many designers embrace this power a little too much and create Web sites that are bloated, slow at loading, annoying and frankly can suffer from very poor user interaction models. Sure they look pretty, but at the expense of usability.

So save yourself the hassle and just don't use Flash on your Web site.

Here's a quick tip that takes all of 30 seconds to implement yet can go a long way towards helping prevent you from inadvertently installing malware onto your computer. It's so quick in fact, it'll take you longer to read why you should do it than the process itself.

Windows Explorer that comes with Microsoft Windows has many settings that dictate how it displays files and folders on your computer. There is one default setting that you should change. It's called "Hide extensions for known file types".

Note: this tip applies to Windows Vista and above.

What does this setting do?

Most files in Microsoft Windows have what's called an extension at the end of the file name. For example, for the file called JuneTimetable.doc, the ".doc" part at the end is called the File Extension. Windows uses file extensions as a way of determining what application it should use to open or edit the file. In this example, Windows sees the .doc file extension and determines that Microsoft Word is the appropriate application. So when you double-click that file, Word will fire up and open the file for you.
When the "Hide extensions for known file types" setting is turned ON (which it is by default), Windows Explorer will hide the file extension (the ".doc" in our example) from you, so all you see in Windows Explorer is the file name portion ("JuneTimetable").

The following two screenshots demonstrate what I mean. The first is how Windows Explorer displays files with the setting turned ON, and the second when the setting is turned OFF.

So why turn it off?

Here's the problem. Have a look at the following screenshot:

That's a virus sitting there. You may have been emailed it. You may have found it on a Web site. It may have been brought into your club on someone's USB key. Now obviously you're unlikely to do anything with a file called "HelloI'mAVirus.doc". But what if it was called something else, like "ClientListing.doc"?

With the "Hide extensions for known file types" turned on, you won't see the real file extension. In the example above, it is showing ".doc" as the file extension, but in reality, it's actually ".exe". You don't know that, because Windows is hiding it from you. All you will see is "ClientListing.doc". So you happily double-click the file to have a look, and Wham! You're computer is now hosed. Why? Because the ".exe" file extension is an application, not a Word document. It only looks like a document.

This is obviously quite undesirable, and you can help prevent such mistakes by turning off this setting.

Here's how to turn off the 'Hide extensions for known file types' setting

Fire up Windows Explorer (that's Windows Explorer, not Internet Explorer).

Click the Organise button on the toolbar, then Folder and search options in the drop-down menu.

This will bring up the Folder Options screen. Navigate to the View tab, then scroll down the list of settings under Advanced settings until you locate the option called Hide extensions for known file types.
UNTICK this option.

Click OK, and you're done.

Now let's look at our virus...

Yep, it's still a virus, but at least now you have a much better visual indication that it's NOT the Word document you thought it was.

Which brings me to my final- and most important- point

Do not, under any circumstances, double-click or in any way open a file that has a file extension with any of the following file extensions, unless you are absolutely sure about what it is and where is came from!

• .exe
• .bat
• .cmd
• .com
• .vb

These are the typical file extensions that viruses and malware have. So unless you know for sure that the file you are about to open is trusted, delete it. If your mother sent it to you in an email, delete it. If your priest sent it to you on a golden disk gift-wrapped in silk, delete it.
You must be absolutely sure you know exactly what the file is and why it has been given to you. Otherwise, delete it. And no, a file named "SuperDuperImportantDataFromYourBoss.exe" doesn't count. If you succumb to temptation and open that file that promises photos of Venus Williams' skirt flying up at the tennis, you're computers are in for a world of hurt.

But just in case you do fall for it, read this.

Have fun!
Mike.Ryan

If you're currently paying for your anti-virus software, today I'm going to potentially save your business hundreds of dollars.

Anti-virus software is one of those bits of kit that most people consider mandatory issue in today's computing environment. Computer viruses and malware are an increasingly concerning problem for businesses and users. Back in the good old days of computing, viruses fell more into the category of nuisances or annoying. They'd play pranks on you, pop up messages that I assume the virus author thought was funny and if you were really unlucky, they'd go the extra mile and maybe delete some of your documents.

The scourge of malware

Nowadays, malware is huge business. Most malware in the currently computing environment is designed for three primary purposes:

1. To turn your computer into a slave (or zombie) to do the bidding of the bad guy when they want to use it for nefarious purposes (such as to launch a Distributed Denial-of-Service attack- a DDOS attack, or to use your computer to help send the hundreds of billions of spam emails sent out each day),
2. To capture your private data such as banking passwords, personal data and so forth (used for not just stealing your money but stealing your identity), and
3. To provide an ongoing back-channel entrance to secured network system for activities such as data theft, corporate espionage, etc.

According to Antiphishing.org, as of mid-way through 2011 nearly half of all computers were infected with malware, the majority of which without the owners even being aware of it.

The beneficiaries of malware are making a LOT of money. Their viruses are allowing millions to be siphoned out of people's bank accounts, identities stolen, spam emails sent and so on. And the victims are losing much, much more. Not only is there the actual money and assets lost through cyber-theft, there is a tremendous cost associated with prevention and postmortem cleanup after an infection.

The last thing you want is for your fitness business to become infected. Not only is the security of your member's personal details at risk, but at the very minimum your computer systems will start mis-behaving, crashing and slowing down and then you're looking at a considerable cost to have them fixed.

The problem with paid anti-virus subscription products

If you are like the majority of people, the anti-virus software you're running is probably that which came pre-installed on your computer when you bought it. There's a good chance your computer came with an icon sitting on the Windows desktop for something like Norton's Anti-Virus or McAfee Anti-Virus. But here's where the problems begin.

That supposed 'free' copy of Norton's you scored with your new computer isn't free at all. It's trial-ware. It's usually only free for a certain amount of time (sometimes just 30 days, sometimes up to a year), after which you're expected to start paying. Things go bad almost from the start however because a lot of these products often immediately begin nagging you to upgrade to a paid subscription. You're constantly bombarded with annoying pop up messages exhorting you to throw your credit card at the vendor. Putting aside the rude and annoying nature of this, it can also lead to 'message blindness', where you become so accustomed to ignoring the popup messages (and you get into the habit of just clicking to close the message immediately without reading it), that if a legitimate warning message about a possible virus shows up, you're likely to miss it.

But the biggest problem is the false sense of security the trial software gives a lot of people. Many non-technical computer users just assume that because the software is installed, they're safe and secure. But that is most certainly NOT the case. I won't go into the overall dubious efficacy of anti-virus software in the first place (that's a topic for another day), but the issue I want to point out here is that once your trial period expires, your anti-virus software is no longer updating itself. With literally tens of thousands of new viruses being released each week, it doesn't take too long before your anti-virus software is so hopelessly out of date that it's no more effective than using your body hair to protect you from sunburn. And at this point, you might as well just completely remove the software from your system; at least you won't get the nagging popup messages.

If you are one of those who are tempted to succumb to the electronic nagging and pay for subscription for your anti-virus product like Norton's or McAfee, I'm here to tell you- DON'T.

Save your money and go with something that is not only FREE but in my opinion superior- Microsoft Security Essentials.

Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) is an anti-virus product offered by Microsoft that is freely available for download from their Web site. It is a fast, lean, very effective product that does as good (if not better) job at protecting your computer from viruses than the paid-for commercial products like Norton's.

I have a lot of respect for this product as an alternative to the other products, and it's especially hard to argue with 'free' for a product of this quality. If your business has just one computer, then substituting a subscription-based product for this can easily save you up to $100 per year. If you have more than three, then you are potentially looking at savings of hundreds of dollars per year.

There is one significant caveat to MSE. You must be running Microsoft Windows Vista or newer. If you're still on Windows XP (and I hope you're not :-), then you will still have to stick with alternative products. But if your computer is relatively modern, running a modern version of Windows, then unless given specific reasons not to, I can't suggest any significant reason to pay for your anti-virus solution (more formal, larger network infrastructures such as Microsoft Windows Server 2008 often have different requirements and so MSE may not be appropriate for your business. In this case, check with your IT professional).

Important note: if you are currently using one of the other products, you must completely uninstall that product BEFORE you proceed with installing MSE. As a rule, you should never have more than one anti-virus product running at the same time. There are technical reasons behind this which I won't go into right now, but please take my word for it.

Also, as usual check with your membership management software vendor BEFORE installing anything like an anti-virus product. They'll let you know if there are any compatibility issues with their particular product.

Interestingly, Microsoft has announced that their Security Essentials and Windows Defender security products are to be merged and come built directly into the upcoming Windows 8 due out later this year, completely negating the need for other products. I believe this is an excellent decision, and as a techie I applaud them for doing this. I look forward to a time when customers aren't contacting technical support because their Norton's or McAfee products have once again broken something on their computers!

If you're running Microsoft Windows Vista or 7, then I recommend you have a good look at Microsoft Security Essentials for your anti-virus needs (at work and at home). You might just save your business a lot of money.

Microsoft Security Essentials Home Page

Have fun!
Mike.Ryan

An interesting- yet wholly unsurprising- result has come out of the excellent Australian & New Zealand Fitness Industry Survey that suggests phone calls from your club annoy 4 out of 10 of your members.

In a new blog posting over at Ezypay who run the annual survey, author Celeste says preliminary results of the survey are showing that 'motivational' calls from clubs aren't necessarily welcomed by members, who prefer direct, personal greetings at the front desk when they arrive.

What the blog post doesn't expand on is exactly what constitutes a 'motivational' phone call as this can be a pretty broad term. But I have to say that Celeste's comments about members preferring a personal greeting when entering the club is a view I firmly hold. I am personally a little disturbed by trends in the industry towards dis-intermediating front desk staff from the member experience. While I acknowledge the potential economic benefits, I think it does more harm than good to the brand in the long term.
Now if I can only get some of the front desk staff at the gym I attend to look up from their iPhones as I walk in....

Anyway, I highly recommend you participate in the Australian & New Zealand Fitness Industry Survey if you haven't already. The more data we have as an industry to work with, the more we can work on improving ourselves as an industry.

Have fun!
Mike.Ryan

I remember the very first computer I ever used at a health club in a professional capacity. It was an ancient IBM XT with one of those monitors that displayed nothing but green text on a black background. She was a beauty. It was state-of-the-art at the time and would have cost the club owner a small fortune. I have many happy, geeky memories of that machine, one of which was how the monitor was only 12” or so, and was as deep as it was wide and weighed more than my bench warm-ups.

Due to the awkward size of the computer- which was purchased well after the reception area was shopfitted- it had to sit in the only spot on the reception desk it could fit- on the bench facing away and to the right from where members entered. Members got to enjoy the wonderful experience of having the receptionist turn their back and walk off just to sign them in. I got into the habit of including the phrase “please excuse me while I scan your card,” to all members who came in, even those who’d been regulars for some time.

Fast forward to today and things are a little different. Monitors may come in many different screen sizes, but they’re all very thin compared to the old CRT’s. As such, positioning a monitor in its optimal location on a reception desk is more about what’s most convenient to the receptionist. Although we have much greater choice in monitor sizes these days, you should be aware that size matters, and not all sizes are necessarily appropriate or optimal for your club. It is tempting to go big when purchasing a new computer or monitor. The price difference between say a 21” monitor is negligible to that of a 24” or even 26” (especially when included as part of a new computer purchase).

Some issues to be aware of

Here are some issues you should keep in mind when considering a monitor purchase for your club.

• The larger the size, the easier it might be for members to catch glances of the screen and perhaps see private information of other members or confidential club information. Creative positioning of the monitor can mitigate this of course, but it limits your options. Or worse, catch the receptionist playing around on Facebook or playing Solitaire (don't scoff, I have seen it so many times in clubs it's not funny).
• Larger screen sizes often have much higher resolutions. This can make it difficult for some staff to read easily. Also, higher resolutions require a beefier computer to drive it.
• Larger screen sizes can block the view of the receptionist, making it difficult to keep an eye on incoming traffic. Worse, they might make it difficult or annoying for a member or prospect to have an unfettered view of the receptionist when talking to them (eye contact is critical to in-person customer service).
• Larger monitors afford you less flexibility in where they can be placed, positioned and angled. There are other placement considerations as well. For example, most monitors have what’s called a VESA mount built into them. These allow the monitor to be mounted via screws onto articulating monitor arms and wall mounts so that they can be swung around or positioned in ways that can’t be achieved when using the built-in stand. Many modern reception desks take advantage of this capability. If you go with a larger monitor, this becomes more difficult as larger monitors equals greater weight, and many articulating arms are rated for a certain size and weight (to be sure, larger monitors are certainly supported, but expect to pay a nice premium). Also, if the ‘embedded’ look is your thing whereby the monitor is actually built into the reception desk similar to what you see in some retail shops, then smaller is definitely more practical.
• The cursor is a slippery little beast. Relative to the overall size of your screen, it appears to be a tiny little dot hidden in a vast ocean of colour and images. How many times have you experienced the situation where you step away from your computer, and when you come back to it, you find yourself madly shuffling the mouse in a desperate attempt to find where on the screen the cursor is. You strain your eyes looking for the little flash of movement so you can re-orient yourself and get back to work. This happens to me almost every time I use my 27” iMac. As the monitor size increases, so do the occurrences of the ‘mad mouse shuffle’. Now think about how that looks to a member who is waiting for the receptionist to look up their details on the computer. It’s a small thing but in branding and perception, the small things matter.

My recommendation?

In general, unless you have very specific requirements I recommend going with a smaller monitor, around the 21” to 24” range for your reception or any customer-service area (such as a sales desk). Try not to go any higher for the reasons I outline above. Besides the modest cost saving you’ll enjoy, you will have much greater flexibility in where you can place the monitor, you won’t block your receptionist or member’s view and the display will generally be a little more practical. Remember, your reception desk layout as it is today might not be how you want it tomorrow, and you need the flexibility to change the location of your computer.

Larger monitors have their place, and I personally find larger monitors for my general office and development work a dream (and I have four!). But writing in my office is not the same as looking up member details at reception. And while many clubs multi-task their receptionists so that they’re doing administrative tasks like writing timetables, sending welcome letters and so on, never forget the primary and most important job of the reception computer- to service the member.

Frustratingly, many ‘turn-key’ systems you buy from large chain retailers force a particular monitor size on you (as part of the bundle) and you don’t get a choice (another reason I generally recommend against buying your systems from places like Harvey Norman or Dick Smith- but that’s a topic for another day). But if you have the choice, go for the smaller monitor. You’ll get less geek cred, but you’ll be happy you did.

If you have any other tips or suggestions on monitor sizes for the reception area, I'd love to hear from you. Leave a comment below.

Have fun!


]]> http://www.fitweb.com.au/2012/01/size-does-matter/feed/ 0 http://www.fitweb.com.au/2012/01/the-dearth-of-expertise/ http://www.fitweb.com.au/2012/01/the-dearth-of-expertise/#comments Fri, 13 Jan 2012 02:05:30 +0000 Mike Ryan http://www.fitweb.com.au/?p=159

There are two ‘facts’ that have not changed at all for the more than 20 years I have been working in the Australian fitness industry; the first is the golden 10% statistic where 10% of the population regularly participate in exercise. The second is that there is a concerning lack of information technology expertise with comprehensive, real-world, fitness industry experience.

Addressing the “Golden 10%” is outside my skillset, and is the domain of the many, many sales/marketing and retention consultants, experts and gurus that have saturated the industry. What I can do however is attempt to address the dearth of fitness industry-specific IT information that is available to club/studio managers and others who have an interest in ensuring they are getting the most out of their computer systems for their business.

Health clubs, studios and trainers have unique IT needs. On one hand, a computer is a computer. What works for any small business around town will technically work for any health club. On the other hand, your average small business doesn’t have to contend with issues such as protecting your computer from the humidity that comes with a nearby wet area. Nor do they generally have to concern themselves with the differences between the high traffic/low latency needs of a reception computer and the low traffic usage of the office computer. How about the issue of using iTunes to pipe music through to the gym floor? So yes, a fitness industry business is in many respects no different to any other business, but it is also quite different in others. Our industry has it's own specific conditions, requirements, traps and tricks.

I feel for the average club manager these days. Not only are they fighting the ongoing battles they always have with staff management, attrition, financial management, marketing and so on, they now also have the very rapidly changing technology landscape to deal with. Members’ expectations on what clubs offer via their Web sites are increasing. Commoditisation of facilities is forcing competitive differentiation to come more from services, which increases the need to rely on technology to manage this. And mobile. Oh boy. Mobile. The wholesale embracing of mobile tech is placing a whole new level of pressure and expectations on clubs, personal trainers and studios.

And it is in these areas I aim to do my part in addressing the dearth of expertise. Through this blog (along with various other mechanisms to be announced) I will be offering you the benefit of my 20+ years of fitness industry-specific experience and knowledge. I aim to help you get the most out of your technology investments, ensure you make appropriate purchase decisions for your business and ask the right questions when shopping for technology. I will offer tips, hints and tricks you will find interesting and valuable to your business.

If you have any questions, topic requests or feedback, I’d love to hear from you, so please use this site to drop me a line.



]]> http://www.fitweb.com.au/2012/01/the-dearth-of-expertise/feed/ 0 http://www.fitweb.com.au/2012/01/what-does-windows-8-mean-for-clubs/ http://www.fitweb.com.au/2012/01/what-does-windows-8-mean-for-clubs/#comments Wed, 11 Jan 2012 23:45:39 +0000 Mike Ryan http://www.fitweb.com.au/?p=150


Something really cool is coming to your computer this year!

This is the year Microsoft are betting the farm on the biggest change to their flagship product Windows since the very first release of Windows 95. The upcoming release of Windows 8- which should be some time early in the second half of this year- represents Microsoft's vision of an operating system that spans a range of devices and form factors, ranging from mobile devices to tablets to PC's.

This is significant for many reasons, not least of which is because it attempts to bring a commonality to the user experience, regardless of the device you're using. What this means is that in theory you should encounter the same look and feel and interact with your computer in a very similar manner, regardless of whether it's a mobile phone, tablet, desktop computer, your Xbox, etc. Further, Microsoft are building a suite of technologies that bring your disparate devices together in a seamless way using the cloud as the backbone (more on this later).




Geeky Sidebar: technically speaking, the mobile platform is serviced by the excellent but underestimated Windows Phone 7, but the rumours are strong that Windows Phone 8 will share a common underpinning with Windows 8. And devices like the Xbox only share similar user interfaces and interaction modalities, not any underlying cores.




So what does this mean for your business?

There are so many implications of Windows 8 that it's well beyond the scope of this blog entry (and both our attention spans) to fully delve into it, but I'll touch on a few of the big ticket things that I think you should know.

There are five things about Windows 8 that immediately strike me as being of interest to a health club or studio:

• "PC Refresh"
• The Metro user interface and new runtime
• Cloud integration
• Mobile devices
• System requirements

There are many other cool new features such as the Windows 8 App Store, but for now I'll focus on features that I think are of more immediate importance to a fitness business.

I'll discuss these things in far more depth in future postings (and I'll have much more to say once the beta is released in late Feb), but in the meantime, here's a brief summary.

PC Refreshing/Resetting



This one is probably of more interest to the truely geeky and the IT professional who looks after your systems (you DO have someone who looks after your systems don't you?). If you've ever had to suffer through a 'system rebuild' where your hard drive is completely wiped and Windows and all your applications are re-installed from scratch and configured, you know just how time-consuming, expensive and risky it can be. Microsoft are attempting to eliminate this pain with two new related features called PC Refresh and PC Reset. Both are very similar. They basically do all the hard work of reinstalling Windows and your apps from scratch while you sit back and relax. And instead of it taking several hours (which an old school re-build can take), this should only take 20 minutes or so. And at the end, you're back to having a nice, fresh, clean computer ready to roll.

This feature is important to you for a few reasons. Firstly, it will save you a lot of time and money for the times you run into those weird problems that seem to suddenly crop up out of nowhere and render your computer non-functioning. You know what I'm talking about here. You sit down to do the exact same thing on your computer today that you've done very other day, only for some reason today your computer decides to bring up an error message instead! Under these circumstances, you can either spend hours on the phone to tech support and much money having a technician correct the problem, or you can just execute a refresh and you're good to go. Secondly, it helps mitigate the disaster of being infected with a virus or malware. Malware is perhaps one of the single biggest causes of computer malfunctioning and performance degradation (not to mention the security implications). And despite what the anti-virus manufacturers will tell you, most of the time once you're infected a clean rebuild is the only sure way of purging your system of the stuff. That's where the new PC Reset feature will be a huge time and cost saver.

Metro UX/New Runtime



This is a new user interface that sits on top of Windows (the 'shell'), and it borrows heavily from Microsoft's existing designs in their Windows Phone 7 and the recent Xbox update. This change is without doubt the most significant and visually obvious change to Windows, and it changes much of how you interact with your computer. It is very 'touch-centric', being designed to facilitate Windows on tablet devices.

Metro appears to have a strong emphasis on what's referred to as 'sovereign' applications. These are applications that are of primary importance to the running of your business and spend most of their time running full-screen front and center all day every day. Due to their sovereign nature, they are usually designed to be very prominent, and work best when running maximized (full screen). Your membership management software at reception is a common example. There's a good chance your membership management software spends most of its day running full screen at reception and isn't often closed down or minimised. Its nature is that it's used very often and heavily. This is a sovereign application. Metro reinforces this notion by providing an environment where your application consumes the entire screen (not even your Taskbar is visible), and if you wish to display another application at the same time, you're limited to one other, and it is automatically 'docked' to the left taking up roughly one-third of the screen. (You have the option of reverting back to the 'classic' Windows Desktop that you're used to seeing now, but Microsoft will be doing everything they reasonably can to discourage that).

Why is this important to you and your business? Apart from the high hopes Microsoft have of its productivity boost, you will face the issue of staff training. Unless you're lucky to have a computer enthusiast on the team, it's quite likely Windows 8 will present a short-term problem for your staff as they must learn their way around a completely new user interface. This is something to keep in mind and plan for when you move your IT systems over to Windows 8, and like it or not, it's an additional [indirect] cost to you.

So what is this 'new runtime' thing I mentioned? It is a set of underlying technologies that new software written to take advantage of Windows 8 and its Metro user interface uses behind the scenes. It is heavily based on standard Web technologies. This is of primary concern to people like me who create the software you use in your clubs, but the reason I bring it up here is because this new technology allows for some very cool things like being able to ourchase and update your apps via a 'Windows App Store', much like you currently can with Apple's App Store for the Mac and portable devices like iPhone. It is also this new runtime that plays heavily into the capabilities of the PC Refresh feature above.

Cloud Integration



I can't comment on this one too much just yet as Microsoft are yet to fully disclose what's in store, but from what they have revealed so far, I'm pretty excited by this one. Imagine having an environment where all your data, settings, customisations and applications (right down to the wallpaper you use as your background image) is automatically synced and backed up online without you having to do anything. Now imagine being able to walk up to any ol' Windows 8 computer, enter in your Windows ID and password and that computer then magically shows all of your data, apps and settings just like on your other computer. Those of you who use Apple and especially its recent iCloud service will be familiar with this capability, but Windows 8 is taking it to a whole new level. In a club or studio environment, this can potentially simplify the management of your network quite dramatically, and save you a small fortune.

Mobile Devices



I love my iPad so much I'm thinking of taking it out to dinner for Valentine's Day this year. It is the one gadget of the many, many gadgets I have spent money on over the years that I truly get my money's worth. That said, Microsoft will be making a bid for the tablet market by having a version of Windows 8 that is optimised for tablet devices. The Metro shell is highly optimised for touch-based interaction and changes to the core of Windows allow it to run on processors that the majority of tablets use. It remains to be seen whether they can pull it off successfully, but the notion of running Windows on an iPad-like device is exciting.

System Requirements



It has been somewhat axiomatic that with each new version of Windows that's released the demands on your computer hardware increase as well. Put another way, it has been generally true that upgrading to a new version of Windows meant either a) experiencing slower performance if you're using the same computer, or b) experiencing roughly the same performance as your old machine if you opt to also buy a new computer with the new version of Windows. This is understandable. As the capabilities of Windows increases and what it's been asked to do becomes more complex, then the hardware it runs on must work harder to keep up.

However, Windows 8 is (apparently) different. Microsoft have stated that for the first time, system requirements will decrease by upgrading! So this time, when you upgrade on the same computer you should enjoy greater performance instead of less. Or if you choose to also get a new computer, you may benefit from a double whammy- a speedier Windows AND a speedier computer.

This means that barring hardware failure, you might be able to squeeze a couple more years out of your computers before you need to pony up and buy new ones without suffering appreciable hits to productivity.

I should point out that these are all claims by Microsoft and as at the time of writing can't be proven or dis-proven. I hope they're right.




There is much much more to Windows 8 than the stuff I've talked about here. As I said, I will explain Windows 8 and its new features in more detail bit by bit down the track, and offer advice on what I feel you should do when it comes to your business. It's far too early to offer any advice this early, as the product is a while away from release and it would be premature of me to advise right now.

I'm excited by Windows 8, and I suspect that whilst it may not necessarily dramatically improve your staff's productivity, it should have a positive impact on your total cost of ownership for your computer systems.

Stay tuned.


]]> http://www.fitweb.com.au/2012/01/what-does-windows-8-mean-for-clubs/feed/ 0 http://www.fitweb.com.au/2012/01/intro/ http://www.fitweb.com.au/2012/01/intro/#comments Sun, 08 Jan 2012 23:50:45 +0000 Mike Ryan http://fitweb.com.au/?p=1


The Australian fitness industry is becoming more reliant on technology for efficient business operation, service provision to members and clients and competitive differentiation. Technology trends change and evolve far more rapidly than those surrounding exercise, nutrition, classes, member retention, and so on. However, whilst there is an abundance of information and education available in these other areas to those working in a fitness business, there is precious little on information technology specific to this industry.

This site is dedicated to helping you keep informed on the latest news in the world of computers and technology that can benefit your club, studio or personal training business. It aims to keep you abreast of the latest technology that is of interest to the fitness industry, educate those who make technology purchase decisions and provide helpful hints, tricks and advice to help you leverage information technology to give your fitness business an edge.

Who am I to be offering such advice? I have over 20 years experience, having paid my dues in just about every type of job in the industry from cleaning to personal training to reception to sales to club management. You name it, I've done it. Sometimes successfully, other times not so much. On the technical side of things, I have spent the last 15 years deeply entrenched in all aspects of computing for the fitness industry. From humble beginnings doing nation-wide technical support for Creative Sports Technology (old timers in this industry might remember the good ol' Profit Center software!) all the way through to my current labour of love, ClientConnect (a personal training studio and small club management suite). I have consulted to, designed and implemented systems and assisted almost 500 fitness clubs and studios around Australia.

And it is this experience that has taught me one thing- this industry needs a cheerleader for tech. It needs someone to don the geek hat and help those less geeky get the most out of their technology. I humbly offer myself for this task.

I will be posting regular pieces on tech with a very strong emphasis on how it applies to the fitness industry. If I feel it's important to the industry, I will keep you informed on the latest computer news. I will offer advice and suggestions for getting more out of your systems. My overall goal here is to try to elevate information technology's status and importance in the fitness industry to the level is deserves to be- right near the top!

If you have any questions or feedback, then I'd love to hear from you. I can't promise I will be able to answer everything, but I'll do my best. If you have any requests for topics you'd like to see covered, let me know.




Have fun!
Mike.Ryan



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