Whether it's legitimate company business or you're looking for a better job or playing on your social network, your company may be monitoring everything you do so you need to be careful how you spend your time online.

Companies, especially corporations, invest a lot of money on their computer network which means they typically have a lot of devices with more advanced features they can implement than your typical home network.

Over the last decade, some popular software vendors such as Adobe, Microsoft, and more have required some of their software to be activated before it can be used. This is something rarely seen in open source or other affordable, inexpensive software and is in response to software piracy.

Many of these common software packages in use today may be either driving technology and/or opening doors for hackers or other problems that may be costing your company valuable resources. Although there are potentially many examples, I'll only highlight a few here.

Whether you're considering starting a new business on your own or with others, there are several things to consider and do throughout the startup process. Even if you want to do business under a different name other than your legal name, there are still some things you may want to know.

Most people have used some form of commercial software, but have you considered open source software? Some companies have considered this and evaluated what we call the TCO or 'total cost of ownership' which includes not only software price, but cost of conversion and maintaining the software. This may include software upgrade pricing, training, helpdesk, or other support that may or may not be included in the software price.