Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Defragmenting Hard Drives

Recently we've noticed some unusual problems with server performance and data backup with several servers. The solution turned out to be an unexpected blast from the past. Years ago in the NT 4.0 days, defragmenting hard drives was a task that had to be performed on a regular basis or else the PC or server would cease to function; they wouldn't even boot up. Microsoft fixed the excessive fragmentation problem with a new version of NTFS (NT File System). NTFS controls how files are written to a hard drive. Between the new version of NTFS and the common installation of RAID disks in servers the need to defragment hard drives vanished. It became a task that just wasn't needed anymore and it dropped off my to-do list about 6 years ago. What a surprise it was when a little tingling started to happen in some dark recess of my brain and said you know I wonder if the files on these drives are highly fragmented? Fortunately the same old utility, not updated since NT 4.0 days still exists on todays servers and sure enough it showed the drives as being highly fragmented.

I don't know yet what has changed in the way that files are being handled by the current version of NTFS but something certainly has. Because of this we'll be adding defragmenting the server hard drives and the Exchange database (if you have one) to back to our to-do list. Diana will be in charge of scheduling time to accomplish this. Ideally, you might not even know that it is happening. Except that the Exchange database has to be shut down during the defragement process. She'll do this after hours to minimize any disruption to your businss. The plan is to add this to our regularily scheduled service quarterly for larger or more active companies and semi-annually for the smaller or less active companies. Prior to doing this she'll run a check and see if the drives do indeed require defragmentation and she'll only run this process if necessary.

I'm anxious to find out what has caused this change to occur. If you're curious, let me know and when I figure it out, I'll let you know.

Amy Babinchak
Harbor Computer Services

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

VOIP, VOIP, VOIP

It's fun to say isn't it? VOIP, VOIP, VOIP.

VOIP is an acronym. It stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol. It provides the means for telephone calls over the Internet rather than over the traditional phone line.

Probably the most important thing to know about VOIP right now is that Vonage, Skype or any other software based Internet phone is not for use in business. The reason is simple, they aren't secure. Vonage requires that 10,004 ports be available for it in your firewall. Skype uses a propriatary peer-to-peer networking system much like a music sharing or file downloading product like Kazaa or Lime Wire use. So while you're using Skype other people making phone calls with Skype can be using your Internet connection for their calls. What ever the brand, they all work like this. As a business you don't want to open your network to this kind of abuse.

There are VOIP solutions that are ready for business use. I use one for our office phone called Lingo. Business VOIP systems are housed on PC's or routers. Your phones connect to the VOIP system just like they currently connect to the PBX in your office. The advantage is that your calls are routed over the Internet so each call is less expensive or even free and your phone system can be maintained along with your computer system because once they are talking to the Internet, they are at the core computers. The disadvantage is that your calls are routed over the Internet, so if your Internet service goes down so do your phones. If you have more than a couple of phone lines though it's going to be best to have a seperate Internet service for the phone and the Internet. If we plan that right, the odds are that both won't be down at the same time.

Change is upon us in the phone world. Mobility is making the PBX old fashion. The trick now is to integrate your computer, cell phone, hand held PC and your home office phone to work together seemlessly. VOIP holds to key to communication success. We'll be doing some research in the near future to determine which systems seem best suited for small businesses and it's likely that we're going to become certified to install and maintain some of these systems. Once you put a phone on the Internet and it starts interacting with the computers, phones become a resource that we need to know how to make it secure and functional as it interacts with the rest of the software on your network.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

The Problem with Quickbooks 2006

The problem with Quickbooks 2006 is that it was released for public consumption. There I've said it. This version of Quickbooks is the equivalent of Windows ME. It's a disaster. The first 3 revisions crashed servers. Lots of dead bodies. By March they were up to revision 5. Now Intuit says that anyone running payroll through Quickbooks has to upgrade. We've spent way too much time trying to get 2005 data to convert into 2006 data. It fails, it fails, oh look it worked this time....Very Frustrating.

What happened? Intuit made a complete start from scratch redo of the data structure. If you want to share Quickbooks data, then the application now has to be installed on the server and a database is created to manage the shared access of the data. In theory this should allow Intuit to grow the Quickbooks line into companies that want to share data with more than 5 users. They haven't expanded this limitation yet, but I expect it to happen pretty soon. Essentially they have taken the first giant step into making Quickbooks a client/server application like MAS 200 or Great Plains. Looks like they bit off more than they could chew and rather than delaying the release pushed the newly redesigned Quickbooks out the door on schedule but untested.

Revision 5 works with minor issues but you can't get it on any CD. You've got to download it from Intuit. Do not load Quickbooks 2006 from the CD. Doing so could be a network disaster. Today Intuit released revision 6 of Quickbooks 2006. Maybe this one will work. They say that they've corrected an additional 25 error conditions.

Amy Babinchak
Harbor Computer Services

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Microsoft Financing

Just a quick note to let you know that we've been approved as Microsoft Small Business Specialist to connect you with Microsoft Financing. Microsoft Financing is Microsoft's IT project financing arm. They recently made the decision to offer financing to small businesses. Rates are competitive at 7.25%, terms are 3,4, or 5 years. Hardware, software and services can be financed. So if you've got a big project in mind, we now have to capability to represent you to Microsoft Financing.