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If you are a private, public, or even a public entity, and you have a website, then you need E and O and D and O, and Tech and Privacy Breach E and O insurance. E and O insurance AKA Errors and Omissions insurance covers the service that you provide and the representations that your employees make to your customers. D and O (AKA Directors and Officers Insurance) protects the officers and directors as they conduct the affairs of the business. Tech and Privacy E and O covers the things you say and do on your website, and also if you have a computer security breach and client’s or employee’s confidential information is stolen. Also, if you are a technology company and your technology harms another (viruses, lack of data breach protection, your system malfunctions and the client is harmed financially), Tech and Privacy E and O insurance will cover your company.

D and O (Directors and Officers Insurance) coverage protects your board members, who make decisions about the direction of the company. It also protects the manager, employees and officers, who make decisions regarding the operation or direction of the company. Lastly, the company, the entity itself, as it is named in a suit for these types of actions is also covered.

Here are some example claims:

1. A director has a friend in the carpet business and the director recommends that the company buy carpet from his friend. The company spends three times what it normally costs, and the director also received a kick back from his friend. The stockholders sue for wasting company assets, self dealing et al.
2. A sales manager recruits two sales reps from a competitor, and he tells them to take the competitors client lists. The competitor sues for business interference et al.
3. A privately held business is sold, and before the sale the owner signed a 10 year lease at an above market rental rate. The new buyer comes back and sues for non-disclosure and wasting corporate assets (the seller is only covered if he/she bought prior acts for the D and O insurance).

E and O (Errors and Omissions) – This covers your employees and other representatives for the actions they take as they deliver your product or service. It covers misrepresentations and errors, or lack of disclosure. It excludes fraud or other criminal activities.

Here are some example claims:

1. A sales representative of a technology company sells a $2 million contract and assures the client that it will work with his/her systems. The representative was wrong and the software destroys the client’s legacy systems. The customer sues for the error.
2. A medical supply company sells a new device to a hospital and forgets to let the customer know that the machine will malfunction if it is not grounded. The machine malfunctions and kills a patient. The hospital and the patient sue for wrongful death.
3. An insurance agent tells a client he/she is covered for wind damage in his/her homeowner policy. A big wind storm destroys the client’s home, and his policy clearly excludes wind damage. The agent is sued for the error.

Tech and Privacy Breach E and O insurance is a new area of insurance if you have one or all of the following: a website, client personal information, and/or employees. Anyone with a website accused of harming another individual’s reputation or posting copyrighted information, you need this coverage in order to be protected from lawsuits. General Liability has coverage for advertising, but it is debatable and therefore it is unlikely that you will find coverage since a website is not considered advertising. If you have Tech and Privacy Breach E and O insurance you are covered. Also if your computer system is breached and confidential information is breached, Tech and Privacy Breach E and O insurance will cover you. The coverage will also reimburse the cost to inform all those that were breached and defend any suits.

Here are some example claims:

1. A medical group has a laptop stolen with 10,000 patient records on it. The thief sells the patients’ information to others who steal their identities and apply for credit cards in their names. The patients sue the medical group in a class action suit for the damage.
2. A technology company that makes software for airplanes has a virus and it destroys the computer systems of 50 planes. The airline sues for $20 million.
3. A flooring company uses an Elmer Thud cartoon on its website and its web designer assured them that he paid the license fee for its use. The flooring company gets lots of hits and business from its use of the image. The licensor of Elmer finds the site and sues for $1 million for multiple infringements of the copyright.

Every company should have E and O and D and O, and Tech and Privacy Breach E and O insurance. The cost of the insurance is not significant when compared to the risk.

About HCP National Insurance Services

HCP National is a one-stop shop for all your insurance needs. We provide all lines of insurance coverage including employment risk management, ASO and Stop Loss Insurance, Fully Insured Managed Care Programs, Medical Malpractice E & O and D & O, Reinsurance, Product Liability, BOP’s, Workers Compensation, All Forms of Property and Casualty Insurance.

At HCP National Insurance Services Inc., we provide a comprehensive and economical portfolio of insurance and reinsurance products and services to meet your company’s needs. Come visit our website at HCP National Insurance

This article is not an insurance policy. All questions of insurance coverage are determined by your insurance policy. We are also not a law firm and we do not offer any legal advice.

We all have heard about online software programs and free applications but how many of us actually explore the software sources and keep track with the recent releases? Most of the users just depend on their computer help vendors and stay more than satisfied with the software suites given inbuilt to the system. Come out of the limitations and advance your computing with such open source tools.

Linux is probably the only open source most people are associated with. But just with a little search you can find quite a few more open source applications that are designed mostly for your Windows operating system. You might be thinking about the web browsers you have recently downloaded like Firefox or Google Chrome, but really it doesn’t end there. Lot more software applications are available over net which many of us still unaware of when they are actually worth having in our systems. Following are the few open source software programs you can find to provide added computer help to yourself.

AbiWord is an open source software suite that can address all your word processing needs. According to computer help technicians it is actually a stand alone tool and a part of GNOME office suite. It is a small and light weight files and so doesn’t take much space in your disk. Using this tool you can create and access both Microsoft Office and OpenOffice documents.

VLC is one most flexible multimedia player gaining popularity to the recent days. It can run a wide range of video formats including MP3, MKV, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, Ogg, DivX, TS and many more. So, you can run almost any of the movie files you have downloaded from U-Torrent now. One most exciting thing on VLC is, it’s not limited to multimedia files only but can convert the file formats also.

If you are into sound processing or similar profession, try Audacity. It’s an incredible software application for recording and editing sound systems. Audacity allows user record live audio tracks and converts them readily into digital format. Besides, you can also alter the pitch and speed of certain sound format according to your preference. Audacity can also refine a sound by removing noise and adding special effects.

FreeMind, as the name suggest, is a brilliant mind mapping software. It can be used for keeping dimensional notes of your official projects, important classes, or even most personal thoughts of the users. This software program is written in Java so you need a Java file installed to run the application. Don’t think it’s just another a kind of to-do list manager, but FreeMind much advanced in functionality. Use it to know more about the tool.

If you are into some creative profession like drawing and illustrations, Inkscape can address your purpose. This is a kind or vector graphics editor capable of working with any standard-compliant tool. It comes with user tutorial guidance that helps you get familiar with the features easily.

X-Chat 2, TurboCASH, Amaya Web Browser, ClamWin etc. are some other free software applications you can come across while searching over net. Log into a remote computer help desk who can provide you with more information on free software utilities that can help computing to a great extant.

Visit online computer help desk and get information about the latest software arrivals. Tech support professionals help users find such software and install the most hassle free manner.

Sometimes computers act wired after running for several hours. Tech support experts commonly suggest users to unplug the system and restart after a while. The PC magically comes back to the normal working condition again. Not only PC but we instinctively unplug our VCR, music system, microwave or just anything when they stop working normally. Why? Do electronic gadgets really need rest? Well, there must be some logic to support this layman’s observation.

Online tech support companies providing troubleshooting assistance for electronic gadgets commonly refer the situation as Single Event Upset or SEU. This is something about short term malfunctioning of an electronic gadget. SEU, as explained by computer repair professionals, can be caused when cosmic ray pass through an integrated circuit or simply due to sudden power glitch. What happens in this condition is, a cascading effect trigger the internal hardware lockup or a temporary loop in software. However, there can be some other sort of technical problem in your PC which gets triggered with prolonged execution. In case your computer is running more critical software suite or operating system, the technical complexity will vary accordingly. To know more about computer functional error, you can visit remote tech support stores, where professional technicians let you know about your present system status after diagnosing its components.

However, things are really not that simple. Online tech support professionals also suggest some other repairing ways for critical issues. First step to troubleshoot any of your technical issues is unplugging each and every PC components and re-plugging them perfectly to make sure all of them are getting full power connection. If you are getting a message saying your computer is running short of memory, unplugging and restarting method won’t work much. However, that does also not mean you have to buy more memory. Here you need to click on the Task Manager and close unwanted programs to free up the memory. Also you can run virus checking or a complete system scanning to detect the error generating such message.

Sometimes poor functioning computer can also be the sign of serious consequence like hard drive crush. You need to reboot the system immediately and run ScanDisk to see if there is an error. This tool can fix hard drive error effectively. Defragmentation also work in such situations. Online tech support or computer repair companies provide data recovery solution in case you have lost data due to sudden hard drive error. Rebooting or restarting doesn’t actually work in this condition, in fact, that worsen the situation. So you need to stop giving further command and contact a tech support expert immediately.

If your system freezes, don’t unplug that directly from the power source. It will ruin your saved data and personal settings. So it is better to enter Ctrl-Alt-Del which will show a list of running programs from where you can select and stop the programs which are not responding.

This way you need to diagnose your error first and then take the decision whether unplugging will work or not.

Online tech support professionals provide needed computer support to bring back your computer in working condition. In most cases you can do it just by restarting the PC but you must diagnose the situation beforehand. For this it is better to go a remote computer support that will save both time and money.

If you have used a computer for any amount of time you are well aware that a PC problem, if not corrected can blow an evening, a work day or even and entire weekend of computer productivity. When these problems occur you get that sinking feeling and realization that your productivity has been derailed. No matter if you use your PC for business or personal use, you know you can’t wait too long and getting you back to normal becomes your main focus.

How can I solve this problem becomes your mantra. How do you identify what has gone wrong with your computer? If it is after hours, tech support access is not available. And like so many of us, you may have experienced an English as a second (or third) language support technician who sincerely tries, but their communication skills are not understandable, resulting in a non-resolved situation. Or finally, like so many others of us, your tech support contract has expired and you did not renew it. What all of this boils down to is do it yourself tech support as your only solution.

Sometime correcting your computer snafu is simple and involves you reversing the last change you made to your PC. However such a quick fix is not always the solution It is often necessary for you to do a little detective work to first determine what is the nature of the problem…is it a software error or a hardware error?

Software errors are problems you encounter when running, operating, or using a program on your computer. When the application does not do what it is designed to do or out right crashes then you know this is the starting point of your do it yourself tech support.

If a physical component of your computer wears out, (generally because of age or too much heat), which results in component interaction problems as well as operating system and application mis-behaviors, you could be looking at a hardware error. Hardware errors can be easy to fix but are sometimes costly.

No matter what type of problem you encounter it is important to determine the nature of its origin and seek out the right troubleshooting tool to correct your specific problem. One of the best PC problem solving tools available is the Internet. Search engines, product manuals, and user reviews are available in mass and offer you every bit the trouble shooting know how you could derive from any tech support technician.

No, do it yourself tech support is not fun, however, if you use a personal computer for business or personal use, it has become one of life’s necessary evils. It is very satisfying to successfully fix your own PC when something has gone awry and you know you did not have to pay a repair shop to do it for you.

When you are under pressure to correct an issue quickly, there is a drastic but effective trouble shooting fix which will solve a great deal of ills and is less time consuming then trouble shooting. That is, reinstalling your operating system and applications. Only do this if your are certain that you have all of your personal files backed up and that you have each applications installation media and activation key, if applicable, available on other media. Again, it is drastic but I have seen it work a number of times.

Gharold, original author and creator of the infamous The Unclaimed Money Finders [http://unclaimedmoney.infogine.com/] Guide – WSO, has published numerous other opinions you may or may not find interesting at The World According to GHarold.

When choosing business software, the availability and quality of the helpdesk / support department are frequently overlooked. Yet we’ve all heard the complaints and retold the jokes about technical support. You call for help with your software, and after waiting on hold for 45 minutes, you get asked a bunch of questions by a technician who’s clearly never been face to face with the software you’re calling about. After 10 minutes on the phone with this tech, you’re placed on hold again, and the next person you speak with starts from scratch. “At least this person seems to be vaguely familiar with my software version,” you think – but turns out “vaguely” was the operative word.

I’m not sure why business to business software companies – those who develop complex business software systems – think that using junior staff to provide front line technical support for all types of issues is a good idea. In fairness, there does seem to be a slow trend away from this approach. But if you’re using a robust manufacturing package or a powerful wholesale distribution software system, chances are that when you have a problem, it’s (a) complicated and (b) urgent.

So how about this for a revolutionary concept: you call technical support, and the person you speak with is completely familiar with your software, understands the issue first time, and is able and willing to connect via the Internet immediately and look directly at your screen as you demonstrate the issue. And – believe it or not – they even provide a practical solution to your problem!

Yes, this type of person costs more – much more – in terms of salary than the junior person. And yes, that does mean that the rate per hour you’ll be charged will reflect that higher cost. But which option do you think most people would select:

1. Pay a lower hourly rate to get support from someone who will take much longer to NOT provide a solution, or
2. Pay a higher hourly rate to get support from someone who will provide a solution in a shorter period of time?

Surprisingly, in North America, a slight majority appears to prefer option 1 – at least until they’ve tried to obtain support for the first time. Hopefully you’re not going to fall into that trap. It is always worth it to pay a little more for someone who is actually familiar with your company and is not located half-way around the world.

Mark Canes, President of Blue Link Associates, invites you to learn more about how to improve your business operations with Inventory Management and Accounting Software. View my Blog here. For information on our inventory management and accounting software, please see our Product Page