Windows Home Server…not just for houses

Last year Microsoft released a new product called Windows Home Server. We saw the potential immediately for this really cool new mini-server and offered it to solve some immediate problems for a few our smaller clients.

Here’s what Windows Home Server can do for businesses:

• Provide a place to store files
• Provide remote access to your work PC
• Centralize your data for backup
• Backup all of the PC’s and MACs
• Help keep everything up to date

That’s a lot of benefit for $600-$800. It has a hard limit of 10 users, no e-mail server, no fax server, no super secure firewall, no detailed security for files, no intranet, no webmail, no active directory, no group policies, no logon scripts…but if you are a company with fewer than 10 users in a business without any software that requires a server to run on, then this is the server you’ve been waiting for. What it does, it does really well and that’s all some folks need.

Hewlett Packard is making the best ones right now. This is a departure from our usual Dell recommendation, but we always go with the best, so HP it is. Home Server arrives pre-installed and there’s little customization that can be done. It’s an appliance type installation, like your xbox, playstation or cable box. It comes ready to roll. All we have to do is connect your PC’s to it, setup the backup, move the data and you’ve got a server.

This product really fills a gap that has existed for a long time. Previously the only solution we had to offer was Small Business Server, but even that was over kill for many 3 person firms. Now we have a better solution. A server that provides the services a small company needs.

p.s. we’ve begged Microsoft to change the name: first server, micro server, really small business server…anything but home server.

HCS Wins MS Partner Award

Today we were informed that Microsoft has chosen to recognize us for our outstanding growth in the last quarter of 2008. Everyone here pulled together to make that happen and it was certainly a lot of work.

Congratulations!! Harbor Computer Service is being recognized as the winner of the Heartland Area Partner VAR Open Growth Award. This award recognizes you for your strong contributions to Microsoft.

As an award winner you will receive an award with inscription of your partner organization name, and category of the award. 

To be honest what allowed this to happen was actually Microsoft themselves. They put forth some promotions like they always do. I talked to our TPAM (telephone partner account manager…telephone because she’s in the Dakotas somewhere so we never get to see her) and told her what we wanted to do. She set us up with Microsoft’s local marketing team and then we ran our plan with both of them helping us along the way. We had them help us build quotes, they ran a seminar for us, they answered our questions constantly and in general supported us all the way. They were great cheer leaders too.

We really appreciate their support of our little business. Thanks, Microsoft team.

The Dell Outlet

Shopping at outlet stores is an excellent way to save money and the Dell Outlet is no exception. You never know what’s going to be there, there are no custom builds and if you don’t buy it right now it’ll be gone in 15 minutes but you’ll save about 30% off of the purchase. If you know exactly what you’re looking for, it can work. Outlet shopping is only for those that don’t need our help. The time limit so tight that you need to be the self-service type.

Here’s how you use the Dell Outlet

1. Figure out exactly what you need before going to the outlet.
2. Visit www.dell.com/outlet
3. Search for the computer you need by model.
4. Select 1 other sub-category. I usually choose ram or processor speed.
5. Sort the list by what ever makes sense to you.
6. Click on the service tag number to view the specifications.
7. Add your finalists to your cart. This lets you reserve them for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes they’ll go back into the pool. You only have 15 minutes to make your purchase.

You get a full warranty with outlet items. In the outlet are several types of items: scratch and dent, returns, ordered but never paid, and off-lease. Ordered but never paid are the ones you’re looking for. Dell built the box, but the order fell through. No one has touched these and now they are on sale!

I received a extra discount code today that I want to share with you. First come, first served. I only have 1 for each category and it can only be used once. So if you are planning to make a purchase, e-mail me to see if the code is left for that item. (Some of you may have also received codes from Dell. If you did and you don’t plan on using it, please pass it along.)

The codes are for an additional 15% off: Studio Laptop, XPS Desktop, and Inspiron Mini.

Alert: Conflicker and AntiVirus2009

There are currently 2 nasty infections going around for which we have just implemented an additional security measure to protect you from.

Conflicker is a worm. A worm travels from computer to computer and infection occurs without intervention from the user. This worm takes advantage of machines that are  not patched or systems with weak firewalls. Another way infection can occur is via an infected laptop that has been out of the office, then brought back in. Or an infected USB stick, USB drive that was used outside of the office and brought back in. Defending against internal threats is extremely difficult.

AntiVirus2009 is a malware application. It requires user interaction to be installed on your computer. The user must choose to install it. AntiVirus2009 uses social engineering and computer illiteracy to trick people into agreeing to the installation. The trick is always the same. When you visit an infected website a box will appear claiming that your computer is infected and ask your permission to “clean it”. In fact, what happens is that the AntiVirus2009 application is installed and your computer becomes unusable shortly thereafter from the sheer volume of junk that it puts on your computer. The best defense against this one, is to never click on a pop-up. Call us, if you have a question or close the browser.

To add an additional layer of defense from these threats reaching you from the outside, we’ve enable Phish (pronounced fish) filtering in OpenDNS. OpenDNS is the service that is currently providing name resolution for you when you want to visit a webpage. Phish filtering will prevent access to websites that are known to be infected. If you find that you have been prevented from accessing a particular website, please let us know so can evaluate this success of this program.

Be careful out there.

“the cloud is broken”

To steal a phrase, “the cloud is broken”. Or rather it was broken yesterday…all day.

We’ve been users of Quickbooks Online edition since its release back in 2002, I think. When I called in a couple of days ago to add another company to our account, the rep said “wow, I think you were one of our very first customers”. Yes, probably. It’s my job to live on the bleeding edge so my clients don’t have to.

When our network goes down it does so in a blaze of glory. When our backups fail they do so in a spectacular manner. I always have some experiments running here, so we don’t have to experiment on our clients like some other firms do.

The adoption of “cloud computing” is something that we’ve been doing here for a very long time. Since 2002 in fact. We pioneered Quickbooks online services, off-site backup, hosted anti-spam services, Internet file and folder sharing, etc. But you’ll notice that we don’t recommend much of it. In specific individual cases, it works well. But there’s an evil side to letting someone else be in charge of your applications – the service provider.

Let’s look at a couple of examples: Yesterday Quickbooks Online was down all day. This was an annoyance for me and my company but it wasn’t critical. This is why having my accounting in the cloud works for me. But what would happen to you, if you couldn’t access your accounting application all day on February 2nd? This happened to be the last day that 1099’s could be filed. It was not a good day for procrastinators.

Another (nameless so I don’t get a cease and desist letter) hosted accounting provider decided last year, during tax season that THIS would be a good time for a major application upgrade. Makes sense to them I suppose because it has new features that they knew their customers wanted. It made NO sense to the customers who in the middle of tax season had to stop and learn how to do things in the new application.

A (nameless) insurance application provider thinks it’s a good idea to hold their customers hostage. Customer: “we need to get a copy of our data because we’ve decided to move to another application”. Hosted Application Provider: “I’m sorry we’re unable to give that to you at this time.” Translation <insert evil laugh>, we’ve got you and we’re not letting you go.

So let’s sum up. Using the cloud for applications instead of having them onsite means that sometimes your accounting application will disappear, it will be updated to the new version when it is least convenient for you and when you’re sick and tired of dealing with them, you’ll be unable to change providers.

Now I’m not saying that cloud computing is going to fail. Some providers will figure out how to provide great services, while protecting your data, giving you access to it at any time and putting you in control of scheduling but they haven’t yet. So for now, cloud computing only makes sense in special cases where the downsides are tolerated because of factors internal to your business processes.

Go Green!

Being an MSU grad I love to say that, especially if there are UoM people around. Even better if they are football fans. :) But this is a discussion about saving money. We’re going to have lots of these this year.

The kick off was in December when I let you know about the Free Quickbooks Pro 2009 offer. I know some of you took advantage of it and let me know that you did. I appreciate the feedback. That’s a $199 savings per user so we’re off to a good start in 2009!

Now let’s talk about electricity. I’m only going to talk about computer equipment but the discussion applies equally well to every power consuming thing in your office. If you leave them on, here’s what each item is costing you every year.

Let’s do some math and assume a 10 user company with LCD monitors for nice round numbers.

Cost when left on: $1629.30

Cost when unplugged: $135.80

Savings: $1493.50

Sounds difficult to unplug your computer and monitor, doesn’t it? But it’s not. Look under your desk. Odds are that your computer, monitor and everything else that is using power is plugged into a power strip. Turn off the power strip and you’ve turned off power to everything.

The bad news about Laser Printers is that they use 80-90% more power than InkJets do. So don’t forget to power off those printers too.

Some more food for thought

New Computers vs Old Computers

New computers are being manufactured to use less power. A new computer from Dell uses 70% less computer today than it did in 2000. When you purchase a new computer, you’ll not only gain in productivity but you’ll notice a quieter work environment and lower electricity bills.

Want to know more? There’s a nifty product out there called Kill-a-Watt. It’s simple. You plug it into the wall. You plug your equipment into it and it will display for you how much power that item is using. It’s only $29 and it provide a wealth of information and a cool tool to help communicate the message of conservation to your employees.

Thanks for being a Harbor Computer Services customer.