In this issue of
Horse Sense:
- Tis the Malware
Season
- Toys for Techs
- The Best Technologies You Still Aren't
Using (But Should)
-
Defragmentation
-
Gigabit Ethernet
-
Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks
(RAID)
-
Power over Ethernet (PoE)
-
Xerox Phaser Solid Ink Printers
Tis the Malware Season
Holidays are prime time
for miscreants who want to infect your
computer and steal your information. In
addition, this year the economy isn't so
hot, so the bad guys will be using this to
try to attack your wallet. Your best defense
is to be aware and to know what the bad guys
might try. The bad guys often depend on our
gullibility, lack of knowledge, and
willingness to be helpful. If a deal looks
too good to be true, it probably is. It may
be in your nature to be trusting, but it
won't hurt to verify credentials, will it?
Legitimate vendors will make it ridiculously
easy to contact them both on line and off
line. The bad guys won't. Financial
institutions and governments will almost
never send you an e mail requesting that you
do anything on line unless you specifically
told them to do so. Even then, it is
usually best to log in to your financial
sites without clicking on supplied links.
If you are the least bit suspicious, calling
someone about an e mail you got is a good
idea. Any "dire consequence" financial e
mails are immediately suspect. Almost all
legitimate offers or problems can stand
waiting while you check them out. Anyone
that sends you an e mail asking for personal
information is suspect, especially if it
seems to come from someone who should
already know your information. Spelling
mistakes and obvious grammatical errors are
often a give away that the sender isn't
legitimate. If the sending e mail address
(check the envelope headers, not just the
from address) doesn't match what you expect,
the e mail is probably bogus.
Unfortunately, some of these e mails are
exceptionally good and some malware delivery
methods don't require you to actively do
much of anything. Keep your network and
workstation firewalls up, your antispam
running, your antivirus and malware
protection software updated, your bad
website blocking mechanisms active, your
software patched, and make sure you have a
good backup and a plan in case something
*does* go wrong. If this makes you nervous,
good. We want you to stay awake, aware, and
safe. And, if you need help making sure you
*are* safe, call us!
Toys for Techs
I went shopping the other
day and the stores had just rolled out their
decorations for Christmas. So, it is time
once again to think about Toys for Techs.
Take a look at our previous articles for
some ideas. The articles go back years, but
many of the suggestions still apply! I
won't go into the theory and benefits of
Toys for Techs here as they are already
covered in these articles.
Toys for Techs sounds
funny, but the results are positively
stellar for those organizations that embrace
the concept. And it works well at any time,
not just during the holiday season.
You might also want to
consider the following:
- If you want to do something
very disruptive to your network, the
Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday periods
tend to be good times to do it, if you can.
- If someone gets a new Toy, maybe their
current Toy can go to someone else and
become their Toy. For example, an engineer
gets a higher performance computer, while
someone in accounting gets to swap out their
computer for one that will crunch their
spreadsheets better, and their old computer
goes to a school so kids can surf the net.
- Think outside the box. My wife really
appreciated the massage I got her for a
present the day of our wedding. Training
might be a good Toy. So would install
services for another Toy, troubleshooting to
fix a broken Toy in the office, or
consulting services to help you get the most
out of your current and future Toys. If it
is a "luxury," then it may be a great Toy.
- The best Toys are ones you want to play
with all the time. Anything that will make
your work life easier or more fun over a
long period of time is a great Toy idea.
- Don't be afraid to think low or high
tech. A case or bag that protects your cell
phone or laptop can make it much more useful
and safe. An antispam device, backup
method, bandwidth manager or e mail
archiving solution could also make for a
great shared Toy.
- Don't be afraid to ask for something
"obvious." I call this the "Sometimes mom
really *does* want a vacuum cleaner" rule.
Many people can get a faster, more capable
Windows machine by upgrading their memory.
Or they can become 20-40% more productive by
getting a large high resolution display or a
second display. It is even possible to put
up a second display without cracking your
computer case by connecting it via USB.
The Best Technologies
You Still Aren't Using (But Should)
Defragmentation
As information is written
to your hard disk over time, your operating
system looks for free space for file
storage. But, that free space may not be
all in one piece, so files can get
fragmented into many pieces across your
disk. This can result in system downtime
and slow performance, robbing you of time,
profit, productivity, and the ability to
deal with customers. And, the older your
machine gets, the worse the problem will
get. We have actually seen database queries
time out and servers fail due to excessive
fragmentation. Hard drive life can be
shortened as much as 50% by fragmentation.
If times are tight, you want to do
everything possible to make do with what you
have and postpone upgrades. Automatic
defragmentation software can help you do
that. Did I forget to mention that Iron
Horse offers risk free trial software?
Gigabit
Ethernet
Gigabit Ethernet (1000
Megabits per second, 1000Mbps) is built into
most modern laptops and desktops. However,
typical networks only handle Fast Ethernet
or 100Mbps speeds. Last year, I cut a
customer's time to back up his servers by
almost a factor of 10 by switching his
network connections from Fast Ethernet to
Gigabit Ethernet. Gigabit Ethernet switches
are now available at extremely reasonable
prices. They also tend to have other
advantages to offer over their older Fast
Ethernet brothers, including things like
better management and enhanced routing and
quality of service features. Even if you
don't think your network can take advantage
of a Gigabit Ethernet switch, you will want
to know that any "choke point" where
multiple clients need to access the same
network link can cause network slowdowns.
This can happen when two switches connect or
at any server. Gigabit Ethernet can only
help your network and your productivity.
What are you waiting for?
Redundant
Arrays of Inexpensive Disks (RAID)
Redundant Arrays of
Inexpensive Disks (RAID arrays) seem exotic,
but they are simply a proven way of
protecting your valuable information. If you
aren't using RAID with the hard disks on
your servers, you should be so that you can
survive a disk failure and keep going. But,
have you considered using RAID on your
desktop? Most desktop operating systems
allow you to mirror your disks to protect
your data. Even better, many newer
generation motherboards have built in
hardware controllers that allow you to do
the same thing. To add RAID protection to
your desktop usually costs under $250.
Wouldn't you feel safer with RAID?
Power
over Ethernet (PoE)
Setting up your
computers, phones, and networking equipment
in an office can be a daunting task, but
that task has been made much easier with
Power over Ethernet (PoE) switches and PoE
enabled devices. Normal Ethernet switches
don't use all of the wires in a standard
Ethernet cable. PoE switches use them to
deliver up to 15.4 watts of DC power to
phones, wireless access points, cameras, and
other devices at the other end. There are
many advantages to using PoE devices. You
eliminate the need to plug end devices into
a power connection. This eliminates the
need for a power connection near the end
device. Besides saving you money and the
construction hassles of getting power to the
right place, you have much more flexibility
in siting the end device. It really matters
where you put phones, cameras, and wireless
antennas. Since you don't have to plug the
device into a power connection, it
eliminates the cost of a separate power
adapter and the clutter of another cable.
It also saves you time and decreases the
number of devices that can fail
dramatically. A 24 port PoE switch could
potentially eliminate 24 power adapters at
the far end that might fail. A single
uninterruptible power supply protecting the
switch will also power all the end devices
whereas with individual power adapters, each
one would have to be plugged into a UPS.
Did I mention that you won't have an
unsightly power cord running across the
floor so you can trip over it or up to the
ceiling where you have to worry about fire
codes? If you don't want to replace the
switches you do have, power injectors can
provide power over those unused wires and
still centralize your power delivery.
Xerox
Phaser Solid Ink Printers
Xerox Phaser solid ink
printers have been around for many years.
They melt droplets off ink sticks that look
like crayons and deposit them onto the
surface of a page to produce vibrant laser
quality images. Because the ink lays on top
of the page and isn't mashed and melted into
it like a laser or has a chance to wick or
splatter like an ink droplet, the images and
graphics are consistent on practically any
type of paper, even recycled paper. You can
use extremely thick paper that lasers can't
handle. Images are vibrant and clear and
colors blend into each other well without
artifacts like banding or streaking. Text
is also crisp. There is almost nothing to
throw away or recycle with solid ink. Over
a 4 year life span, a cartridge based
printer will produce 450 pounds of waste.
An ink stick printer produces 23 pounds.
Besides drastically reducing landfill waste,
solid ink's cartridge-free design and
minimal packaging also means less energy
used during manufacturing. Smaller
consumable size and weight lowers your
shipping and storage costs while benefiting
the environment. Solid ink packages are
small enough to fit in your desk drawer.
Unlike toner, solid ink won't spill, leak or
smudge your clothes. With toner based
printers, you have to wait until they are
empty to replace them. Ink stick printers
can be topped off at any time to avoid
downtime and keep print jobs flowing. Xerox
solid ink printers have a less complicated
paper path than toner based lasers, so they
jam less. These printers have duty cycles
of 85,000 pages a month, which is more than
enough for almost any office. Xerox offers a
1 year *on site* warranty on all of its
solid ink printers. Call Iron Horse when
you want to use fewer consumables, decrease
your maintenance costs, or get color laser
quality printing for the cost of a black and
white laser.
©2008
Tony Stirk, Iron Horse tstirk@ih-online.com