In this
issue of Horse Sense:
-
Emergency Information
-
HP and
Lexmark Raise Their Prices
-
New
Year's Resolutions for Your Business
-
The Best
Technologies You Still Aren't Using
(3)
--Bandwidth Management
--E Mail Archiving
Emergency Information
If you are injured or
incapacitated, emergency response
personnel may need to contact someone
for you. You may have a ton of names on
your cell phone. Add the name "ICE" to
your cell phone. It stands for "In Case
of Emergency." Put your emergency
contact numbers there. Many newer cell
phones already have an ICE entry that
you should fill in. If yours doesn't,
add one. If you need or want more than
one contact, name them ICE1, ICE2,
etcetera.
No alarm on your
home? Use your car keys. If you have
your car keys near you, like on the bed
stand, and someone breaks into your
house, hit the panic button on your car
keys. Intruders will often flee from the
extra attention.
While Iron Horse
sells products to help protect and
recover information from lost laptops or
cell phones, everyone can help out good
Samaritans trying to return their
laptops and cell phones. Place a text
file on your desktop called "If
Found.txt". If someone finds your device
and can get to your desktop, they will
be able to see that file and contact
you. Another less technical way to do
this, if it will fit, is to put your
business card or a note on the device
itself and/or inside the removable
battery housing. If putting your
personal information on a device has you
worried, then etch your driver's license
number (not your social security number)
onto the device.
HP
and Lexmark Raise Their Prices
Lexmark laser
supplies increase in price January 19.
HP printer supplies already went up
January 1. We are now seeing fully
functioning printers that cost less than
the replacement supplies that go into
them! Be careful with the printers you
buy. Sometimes an inexpensive or old
printer will cost you a lot more over
time than a new higher end printer.
New Year's Resolutions for Your Business
Now is a good time
for you to reflect on the old year and
plan for the new one. The old proverb
reads, “He who fails to plan, plans to
fail.” In our consulting practice, we
counsel our clients to look first at the
problems they face and how they want to
attack them. How long has it been since
you have revised your strategic plan?
Where do you want to go over the long
run? Sometimes the strategic (long) view
will point out tactical (short term)
changes you need to make to accomplish
your goals. For example, you can future
proof your computer network right now
and gain performance at minimal cost
with gigabit switches. Other good
tactical upgrades with strategic
benefits are mentioned in this issue of
Horse Sense and other Horse Sense “The
Best Technologies You Still Aren’t
Using” articles.
ALWAYS start your
planning with the following question:
“What is causing me the most grief at
this moment?” This will uncover any
tactical issues you face and give you
the impetus to address your longer term
needs. In your planning, you want to
divide and conquer. Carve off bite size
chunks. Don’t try to eat the whole
elephant at once or you will be
overwhelmed. And, don’t be afraid to eat
dessert first! If it is sweet and easy
and will make you fat and happy, go for
it! This isn’t dieting.
ALWAYS start with the
people. The technology is only there as
a tool to serve them. The goal is to
make the people happier, more empowered,
more committed, and more productive.
Involve everyone who might be impacted.
Solicit their opinions. Show them they
matter. If you keep the people and
“soft” factors in mind, your project
will succeed. If you don’t, it will
likely fail.
ALWAYS start your
planning with questions. What is
working? What isn’t? What can be
improved? How can work be redistributed
or outsourced in a way that makes more
sense? Who and what are critical to the
operation of your business? What if they
aren’t available? How do we measure what
we do? Who can we call on for help and
when should we call them? Are we meeting
our current goals? Are we doing what
others expect of us (compliance issues)?
Does everyone in the organization know
their part in our plans?
It is self serving,
but I suggest you call on outsiders like
the consultants at Iron Horse to help
lead you through your discovery and
planning process. Experienced outsiders
can ask you the “stupid” questions that
lead you to reexamine what you are
doing. We are all guilty of tunnel
vision. Enlisting the help of an
outsider who sees things differently,
especially one with expertise and
experience you don’t have internally,
will help you build better long term
plans.
Lastly, your plans
are living documents. They are never
finished. They don’t have to be overly
detailed. Keep it simple. A to-do list
and simple project timelines are just
fine. Celebrate any success you make.
You have earned it. Repeat the process
periodically. Your priorities will
change.
The Best Technologies You Still Aren't
Using (3)
Bandwidth Management
On a local area
network, most people don't care about
managing their bandwidth because they
have so much capacity available.
However, that isn't true when you start
looking at the much skinnier pipes out
to the Internet or between two sites. If
you run out of bandwidth on these links,
your productivity could drop to zero.
Even worse, you may not know why it
happened.
If Monica is
listening to Internet radio, will that
stop payroll from running? If Jim
downloads a file, will my video
conference quit on me? Is there someone
on the network whose machine is sending
or receiving stuff it shouldn’t due to
an infection or malfunctioning program?
Is Jake surfing porn? Is Janey trying to
hide her gambling on the Internet? Are
people spending way too much time
updating their MySpace pages and blogs?
Can I accidentally download a virus from
an infected web site? Do the computers
on my network leave holes open for the
bad guys to exploit? If any of these or
similar things could be happening on
your network, you need bandwidth
management and control.
In previous articles
we recommended the Cymphonix Network
Composer for bandwidth management. We have used
it here for years because it can resolve
all the problems above for a reasonable
cost. We are so sure of it that we offer
a Try and Buy Guarantee to qualified
clients. Try the product for 30 days and
if you don't like it, we'll return your
money.
We realize that not
everyone can buy such a product. So, we
also offer bandwidth management as a
monthly service. Other vendors also
offer ways to monitor the usage of your
network. It is even possible that your
equipment has some monitoring built into
it already! You may only need to add
free or low cost software to view it.
What you can't measure, you can't
manage. What you can't manage will
likely cost you money. Ask us to show
you how you can better manage your
computer network today!
E
Mail Archiving
Regulatory
compliance, better customer service, and
better management are all good reasons
for implementing e mail archiving. Do
these problems sound familiar? "Who said
that?" "I can't find an e mail I really
need. Can you find it?" "Why do I have
to keep deleting old e mail? I want to
keep it around in case I need it." "How
can I look at Bill's e mail? I need to
know something." “Can we prove we did or
didn’t say this?” If this sounds like
you, you may need an e mail archive.
While lots of
legislation requires companies to keep
business e mails, most of our clients
don’t like hearing “Uncle Sam says so.”
Archiving isn't just for compliance. It
can be a real business tool. It can
solve all of the problems mentioned in
the previous paragraph.
Archiving can improve
the performance of production e mail
servers. Centralized archiving of e mail
is more predictable, more cost
effective, less burdensome, and less
prone to failure than having users
maintain their old mail. Deleted e mails
can be quickly and easily recovered. You
can even recover e mails when an
employee has left the organization and
had their account deleted. Managers can
set consistent policies for how e mail
is to be managed and retained. Mail
administrators can use e mail archives
for various tasks, like migrating from
one e mail system to another. Two
clients told me their archiving system
paid for itself with a single migration.
Whether your reason
is compliance, enhanced customer or user
service, or an enhanced ability to
manage your mail, Iron Horse can help
you build a reliable infrastructure so
you can get to those critical e mail
messages you need. We 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. Iron Horse
offers e mail archiving appliances,
software and pay as you go services from
such companies as ArcMail Technologies,
Symantec, Barracuda, GFI, Microsoft, and
other vendors to fit your specific
needs.