Internet Outage Covers 2 Continents Today

Food for thought. How far do we trust the Internet? Not far. The Internet is like a pyramid. There is a peak and at the peak are very few routers and cables. A failure in one of those takes down huge swaths of Internet coverage. Further down the pyramid, were we all are, things are inter-connected and mesh like. But at the top are very few routers and cables.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CNN) -- High-technology services across large tracts of Asia, the Middle East and North Africa were crippled Thursday following a widespread Internet failure which brought many businesses to a standstill and left others struggling to cope.

Hi-tech Dubai has been hit hard by an Internet outage apparently caused by a cut undersea cable.

Industry experts are blaming damage to two undersea cables but it is not known what caused the damage.

Reports say that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain Pakistan and India, are all experiencing severe problems.

Stephan Beckert, an analyst with TeleGeography, a research company that consults on global Internet issues, said the damaged cables collectively account for the majority of international communications between Europe and the Middle East.

AT&T DSL + Wireless

This week we've had 3 clients receive new DSL routers from AT&T. Some of you are using AT&T DSL as your backup Internet access and some of you are using it as a primary connection. Either way you may be soon receiving a new router is your haven't already.

There are a couple of things to know about this new router.

• It is not a firewall
• It provides wireless access to the Internet only. Not the Internal network.
• If you do not intend to provide free Internet access to everyone nearby your office, then we need to turn off (best) or secure the wireless router with WPA2 security.
• The wireless security feature is built-in but not configured by default.

If AT&T sends you one please give us a call so we can configure it securely for your network.

Exchange Defender anti-spam for everyone

For the past year or so, we've been using Exchange Defender to cleanse our email. It's been working great and now several of our clients are using it too. I'm pleased to announce that we've worked out an arrangement with the vendor to provide Exchange Defender for even the smallest accounts at a very reasonable price - $3 per user per month. You do need to have an Exchange or SBS server.

Here's what you get:

• Email scanned for viruses by 7 anti-virus engines
• Email scanned for spam
• Spam report sorted by 80% and 99.999% sure. This makes for easy scanning of your captured email.
• Business continuity access to your email in the event your server should fail.
• White and Blacklist both per user and globally per domain
• Online access to email report
• In-coming and out-going email scanning
• Ability to enforce email signature

The price breaks for larger accounts remain in place at:

35 users for $85

50 users for $115

19" LCD Monitors Experience BIG Price Drop

Yesterday and today we received email from our vendors regarding big temporary price drops for 19" LCD monitors. The Dell Ultra Sharp 19" is $195 and the I-inc 19" Wide screen is $149! I own the Dell and I love it. If you happen to be in the market for a new monitor, now might be the time. But beware they might sell out. Typically this kind of price drop is seen when vendors are dumping inventory because they are expecting in new 20" models. 19" has been the "standard" for the last couple of years. I bet that we'll see 20" as the new standard after they have cleared out the 19" inventory. For my money 19" is plenty big.

Here's where you can get one:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3428431

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/Displays/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=320-4568

Coming in February: New Options for Invoice Detail

Starting in February all clients will be able to directly access our ticket tracking system. This is the software that we use to keep track of what was done for you, when and how much time it took.

Our technicians write down everything that they do for you, so we have a full accounting. This helps me keep track of what is going on with all of our clients. So you're going to see into the inner workings; the behind the scenes stuff. It might be a little bit like trying to drink from a firehouse, because we keep track of everything. Called Jim about this...email Sue about that...Researched this...posted to newsgroup about that...attended meeting on this...tested software for...tried to recreate the problem on my computer... but it's from this information that our invoices are derived and the reports the system spits out at the end of the month are what make up the text on your invoice currently.

Customers have asked to see the detail behind that line item on the invoice. So in February you will all be receiving a login ID and password to the system. All of the detail will be available to you. In addition you can create tickets and update any open tickets.

I'll have all of the details for you in February.

 

Amy

Changes in Quarterly Payments

This blog post is for all clients on the quarterly payment option. Effective January 1, we've moved all of our quarterly clients onto the calendar quarter. This month you will find your invoice adjusted accordingly.

Nothing has changed with your service. It's just that we're trying to do a better job with our billing and having all of the quarterly payments on the calendar quarter will make things easier to keep track of.

thanks,

 

Amy

MVP 2008

Yesterday Microsoft re-awarded me as Most Valuable Professional for the 3rd year. As a self-employed person, there are really very few awards that you can attain that indicate that you are proceeding through your career successfully and the MVP is one of them. Getting an MVP feels kind of like being promoted. It's a really good feeling. There are about 30 people world-wide in my category of award.

As with all meaningful promotions, it doesn't come easily or without hard work. It also comes with a sense of responsibility to keep on excelling.  Being an MVP is hard work and there's no monetary compensation. Because MVP is an award and not a certification, Microsoft keeps the process for becoming an MVP secret so I can't say exactly what causes me to be chosen. But there are things that we know are part of the process and those are your volunteer activities on behalf of the IT community at large.

Why review books, write articles, write chapters for books, attend conferences, speak at conferences, host live meetings and webcasts, post a technical blog, help IT people with security issues all over the world and run a local chapter of an IT organization whose primary goal is to improve small IT businesses? Because every time I do, I learn something and for me learning is everything. I bring back knowledge on how to make Harbor Computer Services a better business. I make contacts with IT professionals from all over the world and that in turn allows us to grow our technical knowledge and resources beyond just ourselves. 

Thank you to everyone who helped me receive this award. 

Announcement: Welcome Scott Walri

Harbor Computer Services is pleased to welcome and announce that Scott Walri has joined our company as Operations Manager. Scott brings 20+ years of IT experience and 10 years of IT business ownership experience to Harbor Computer Services.

Following the retirement of his business partner, Scott was debating whether to take on a new business partner. After several meetings Scott made the decision to close his business and join Harbor Computer Services. Scott's clients from his company, Information System Services, will be continuing with Harbor Computer Services as new clients.

Scott's role in the company will be to lead the improvement in client communication through regular meetings with you; he'll assist in our sales efforts and will also help us organize things on the back end. As if this isn't enough I'm also counting on Scott to help us better allocate resources and manage projects.

I anticipate that we will be scheduling meetings with each of you during the first quarter. I'm looking forward to introducing Scott to you.

Scott can be reached at scott@harborcomputerservices.net