In this
issue:
Significant
Software Updates:
-Symantec Endpoint
Protection Maintenance Release 2 is now
out. Anyone running older versions,
including previous Symantec Antivirus
releases should upgrade. In many cases
the upgrade is free. Call us to learn
more.
-Vista Service Pack 1 is a must for
almost all Vista owners. It has
significant performance, reliability,
and security improvements.
-Windows XP Service
Pack 3 is also a must have upgrade for
most XP owners. You will want to make
sure you are caught up on your Windows
updates. This service pack is very
large and takes a long time to install.
Go to
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com,
select custom, and install all the
updates offered. You may need to do
this multiple times and it may require
multiple reboots of your computer. If
you need assistance keeping your PCs up
to date, call us and we'll discuss your
options.
Tips and Facts:
Call Iron Horse if
you need to know more about something
you have read below, or want us to help
you implement something to lower your
costs or improve your productivity,
profits, and reliability.
-Check your
uninterruptible power supplies before
summer brownouts and blackouts do it for
you.
-Power problems are
more likely to come from inside the
building than outside. For example, to
overload a circuit and cause damage to
equipment or data, all you have to do is
plug in one too many devices.
-Studies have shown
that larger computer screens result in
improved productivity. Two or more
computer screens on one desk can also
improve productivity. Productivity
increases are a big deal. A 5%
productivity increase for a $15 per hour
worker works out to $1500 in additional
productivity per year!
-Studies have also
shown that business laptops that travel
to the home not only end up increasing
productivity, but also can help protect
an organization against problems that
affect the office (e.g., our office
complex just repaved, so accessing the
office was a problem).
-To get the most out
of your laptop, don't skimp on the
accessories. Get a mouse that you like.
Consider an external monitor or
projector. Get a bag that will carry all
of your stuff. Consider an extra
charger and docking station for all the
places you might plug it in. Get an
extra battery and a car or plane charger
for trips. Consider a laptop holder to
position your laptop comfortably at
work. Consider a laptop cooler to keep
it cool. Get external storage not only
for backup, but so you can transfer data
by "sneaker net." Make sure you have
good disk defragmentation, antivirus,
firewall, communications, productivity,
backup, and utility software. Make sure
your hardware is up to snuff. Most
laptops can take memory and hard drive
upgrades that will make them run better
or last longer. Laptops are like a
house. They are only really nice to
live with when they are furnished
properly.
-Get a security cable
for your laptops and other items you
don't want to lose. 97% of stolen
notebooks are never recovered. Consider
tracking software for your laptop that
will increase those odds. Some of this
software can even safeguard your data as
well.
-When was the last
time you backed up your laptop? If you
can't answer, you need a backup
strategy.
-If you haven't
purchased gigabit Ethernet switches yet,
now is the time. Your desktops and
laptops probably have the technology
built in. Couldn't you use a low cost,
easy performance boost?
-Power over Ethernet
is important to you. You can now power
devices like cameras, wireless access
points, and even switches through your
Ethernet cables. Not having to plug a
power cable into a plug means there is a
better chance that you can put that
device where you really want it. Have
your office accommodate you, not the
other way around.
-A new survey by
Osterman Research showed that e mail is
more important than mobile phones,
desktop phones, and instant messaging to
smaller businesses when they want to get
work done. It showed e mail accounts
for almost 80% of the information a user
provides to someone else. It also
showed an average user sending and
receiving 140 e mails per work day.
Unfortunately, most smaller businesses
routinely suffer from e mail outages and
slowdowns.... Buck the trend. Read the
article below then call Iron Horse and
get your e mail back on track.
Life of an E Mail
Message
Many of us dash off
an e mail and then forget about it, but,
in business that communication can be
very important. Your e mail client
probably stores that e mail and your
server may keep a copy too. This allows
you to resend the mail, modify it,
etcetera. On the other end, the
receiving e mail servers first check to
see whether your mail is legitimate. If
it is, they deliver it to the
recipient. If it isn't, they trash it.
If they aren't sure, they may tag it,
quarantine it, trash it, or let it
through, depending on their policy.
Once your e mail server gets an e mail,
it waits for you to retrieve it. It may
not wait forever or allow you to keep as
much mail on the server as you would
like. E mail servers are often mission
critical and very busy. Making sure that
you can get your e mail when you need it
is often a big concern. This means your
company may have redundant mail servers,
redundant storage, and redundant
connections to the Internet, but, as
noted in the Osterman study, probably
not.
E mail can, and
sometimes should, live forever. The
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP)
say you have 90 days to produce
subpoenaed e mails or be in contempt of
court. If the data is available
anywhere, like on an end user desktop
rather than the server, you would still
need to provide it. Gathering this data
is often difficult and expensive. It
could even be impossible if you deleted
a message before it got backed up
anywhere. You really need documentation
to prove your innocence or good
intentions. For example, if you have a
dispute and the other guy has an e mail
record and you don't, the court will
assume everything he says is correct.
Every business in the US is covered by
the FRCP, including governments.
Governments may want, and often are
required, to provide information to
their citizens under "sunshine" laws.
These laws usually say that government
communications should be available to
any citizens or groups that ask for
them. In an era of transparent
governance, government organizations
need to be able to show who said what to
whom when. There are also lots of
business reasons you would want to
archive your mail in addition to
complying with federal regulations or to
be ready to respond to a possible
lawsuit.
Iron Horse can help
the good mail get to you and can help
you keep the bad mail out of your
mailbox. It can help you build a
reliable infrastructure so you can get
to those critical e mail messages you
need quickly and easily. And, it can
help you preserve your records so that
you can not only follow legal
guidelines, but lower your cost of doing
business while making you more
productive.
End of the Trade
Show?
The computer
technology trade show circuit has
changed a lot in the past few years. It
used to be that you could go to a trade
show and see most of the major vendors
touting their wares. Now, Microsoft,
Apple, HP, Cisco and others routinely
skip shows, leave out entire product
lines, or show very little product at
all. A case in point is FOSE (the
Federal Open Systems Exhibition). This
show used to be a tremendous draw for
both governmental (its target audience)
and non-governmental prospects alike in
the metro DC area. As a value added
reseller, it wasn't unusual for us to
see 30 or 40 of our vendors with booths
at the show.
Today, the show is
smaller. It is even more federal
government focused. One clear
indication of this focus is very
prominent displays of the contract
vehicles that you can use for purchasing
the products, which mirrors much of how
the federal government is buying. Being
on the right contract is a big issue.
Unfortunately, it seems to be trumping
an even more important issue: "Will
this product or service help me do my
job? How valuable is this?" The
federal government is chasing the same
idea the consumer marketplace has for
some time: What is the lowest cost on
an item? This doesn't mean it is the
best or even a good fit. (Cost is an
exceptionally poor metric when it comes
to value. Total Cost of Ownership and
Return on Investment metrics are rarely
used with government customers. I
recommend using Return on Grief for all
of my customers to determine their best
value
http://www.ih-online.com/hs64.html.
In addition to a preoccupation with the
cost of an item, there are preferred
contracts which make it almost
impossible to buy products that aren't
on them. In a way it is similar to
using medical insurance that won't allow
you to use an "out of plan" doctor
without reams of paperwork and much
higher costs. If you aren't on the
"approved" list, it doesn't make any
sense for you to market to federal
government customers because they will
find it difficult or impossible to buy
from you. And, if your product is well
known or there isn't much competition
for your product in the market, then
only making a token showing or skipping
the show altogether makes sense (e.g.,
Cisco and Microsoft).
FOSE mirrors what we
have seen in the trade show industry in
general. The trade shows are becoming
more focused. While it is nice to be
able to go to in depth shows that only
have 1-20 vendors, it means that getting
a larger survey of the market is
harder. For example, I could tell from
the exhibitors and traffic at their
booths that there was an interest in
hard drive imaging, remote
keyboard/video/monitor devices, e mail
protection, and solid state disks.
Virtualization was less popular than I
expected. Google's web based software
was popular. So were ways to completely
destroy and encrypt data. Security
software and services were not. Almost
absent from the show were vendors who
would help service your network, ones
that would help you do a better job
managing your own network, and companies
providing applications for the desktop.
Less information is
offered about the products themselves at
trade shows. Many vendors seem to be
taking the position that all information
should emanate from their web site.
This is a big mistake for many
manufacturers. Seeing can be
believing. Monitor manufacturers were
absent from this show, yet actually
seeing a monitor is a big deal. Web
sites also don't answer questions. Only
people can do that. Many manufacturer
web sites make it difficult or
impossible to find the information you
need. Getting in touch with a human
being who can answer your questions may
be difficult as well. I nearly go
ballistic when I call someone and they
want to push me off the phone by
directing me to their web site. If I
could find what I wanted or wanted to
use the web site, why would I have
called? Telling me to go to the web
site says I'm not important to them as a
person. Bad move. In some ways, Iron
Horse is happy about this. If you
really want to know about the market or
specific products, you need to call
someone who knows, like us. And, if we
can, we'll even help you navigate those
pesky web sites and/or get you in touch
with someone either here or at the
manufacturer that can help you.
Trade shows are also
about browsing. It is easy to see and
compare many different hardware models
at a trade show, especially with the
help of knowledgeable sales
representatives. You can see a
demonstration of the newest software and
ask questions. This is quite difficult
to do on a web site. Web sites almost
never tell you what products are
suitable to your tasks, whereas trade
shows always do. The best a web focused
vendor can do is offer on line self
running demonstrations (rare), web demos
(becoming more common), and money back
guaranteed buy and try programs (rare).
Guaranteed results trial periods are
offered with many of the products and
services Iron Horse sells. We like the
idea of proving that something not only
works, it will work well for YOU.
I suspect that you
will see the importance of the computer
business trade show continue to
decline. Trade shows are not instant.
They are not always available on
demand. It costs a lot of money to
purchase and man a booth. Marketing
brochures and follow up also aren't
cheap. If the manufacturers, or more
importantly, the prospects, don't see
trade shows as being a good way to spend
their time, they are doomed.