It’s Cookie Time

It’s that time of year when we busily rush around while reflecting on what kind of year it’s been and how thankful we are for the great customers we have. We continue to be amazed by you and your success and humbled to be a small contributor. So thank you for another amazing year of learning and challenges; we enjoy every minute of it. Please accept these home-made cookies as a token of our appreciation.

We had a busy week of planning, shopping and baking last week and over the weekend. The cookies are being packaged and delivered this week by our very own delivery elf.

I know some of you wait by the door to be the first to grab them as they enter, so keep an eye out this week. The elf is on her way!

-Amy

Ted Promoted to Technical Manager

I’m pleased to announce that Ted has been promoted to the position of Technical Manager. Ted has been with Harbor for a number of years now and his experience in managing clients and providing great consulting advice is what makes him the ideal candidate for this position.

You will notice Ted taking a larger role in overseeing your technician too. Instead of reporting directly to me, they now report to Ted. In addition to implementing larger projects, Ted will also be their escalation support person. You should expect to have much more frequent interaction with Ted.

In the short term Ted will continue to have a few clients assigned to him but the majority will be assigned to other technicians in our company with Ted’s oversight.

Congratulations to Ted for taking on this greater role at Harbor!

-Amy

Alert: Beware the Microsoft Phone Scam

Two of my friends were called by "Microsoft" this week. Be on the lookout for a call from "Microsoft" because it's a scam. I think you should laugh at them, as Mitch did. Excerpt from The World According to Mitch, below.

"I knew something was fishy when the phone rang and the Call Display showed a call-back number of 666-035-3612 because, as we all know, 666 is the area code of the beast. I wait...ed the five seconds for the auto-dialer system to connect me to a real operator.
‘Hello, my name is Gary from the Windows Technical Department. I am phoning you because we have been receiving a series of errors from your computer this week indicating several vulnerabilities, and I am calling to help you to fix them. Do you have a few minutes? It is very important.’
Try as I might, I couldn’t help myself from bursting out laughing, but after a few seconds I answered ‘Ok, how are you going to help me to fix them?’
Gary was put off by my laughing and asked why, emphasizing that this was a very serious matter, and that I could be facing serious financial and legal repercussions if I took it lightly. ‘Computer Security is very important and if you do not take it seriously by following my instructions it will cost you. So why are you laughing?’

When you get to this point hang up the phone. It's a scam. They just want your credit card and to install some spyware on your computer so they can get your online banking info later.

Be careful out there. - Amy

Introducing Ed Rempala

I’m pleased to announce that Harbor has added another employee. Ed Rempala comes to us from Delta Airlines where he supported the network at the airport. Ed is looking forward to the variety of work that Harbor provides and the chance to really put his Microsoft certifications to work.

As always getting our new employees off the ground is a lengthy process. Ed will be working with Ted and travelling around to get to know the breadth of our clients. He will also be assigned specific issues and tasks which we will work closely with him on.

When you meet Ed, I hope that you will welcome him.

- Amy

2013 MVP Award

An MVP has passion for the profession. Each person is awarded for a year for the work that they did on behalf of the IT community in the previous year. Nominations are made by other MVPs, peers and Microsoft employees. After the nomination each MVP is asked to submit a list of all of the community work they did in the past year. As you can imagine this is not an easy task. By virtue of being MVP material, the community things you do are just part of your being and generally not something that you keep a dally of.

It is quite an accomplishment to be named one of the worlds elite by one of the worlds top software companies. I wanted to share the letter that MVPs receive. Each of the 5,000 MVP is awarded in a specific product area – mine is small business. There are 42 of us in this category.

Price Increase Announced for Client Access Licenses

Today our distributor gave us the heads up that the price of User CALs is going on by 15% on December 1st.

A CAL is a client access license. It is the license that allows your account to successfully login. Microsoft is raising the price because one User CAL allows you to login using multiple devices. So when your phone, ipad, laptop, desktop all connect it only requires a single license because you always log in as you. They realize that most people now have more than one device that they are logging in from and so they have raised the price because of this increased use.

We appreciate that our vendor let’s us know these things in advance. Most of our clients are at the correct CAL count at this time and won’t be affected. However, if you are planning to add to your employee count soon it might be worthwhile to make that purchase of those CALs before Dec 1 and save the 15%.

Amy Babinchak, Harbor Computer Services

Saying Fair Well to Diana

The times they are a changin’ at Harbor. We’ve enjoyed a long period of stability in employee retention with Ted at nearly 10 years and Diana 8. We’ve been a cohesive team completely jelled in our thinking and actions. We’ve added a couple of new people at the beginning of this year due in part to the anticipation of this transition and in part because you are keeping us so busy.

It is important to me that we maintain the cohesion that is Harbor. That we all work and approach problems in the same way; that we all have the same depth of training. That’s why we started the new guys at the top of the year. This stuff takes time and a big investment to achieve. I sometimes get scoffed at by my peers in the industry for not running a McDonald’s type operation where just anyone can be plugged in off the street with minimal knowledge but I think that the results speak for themselves. Yes, it means I have to plan way in advanced and train hard but unless you work hard you can’t stand out from the crowd. To all of us at Harbor, your business comes first and we strive to make technology work for you, your way.

Diana and her husband are moving to Malaysia for at least 12 months and possibly longer. As a consequence she’ll be leaving Harbor on October 23rd. It’s a grand adventure in living abroad in a new melting pot and area of bustling international businesses. I’d be as excited as she is.

When Diana came to work for us she was a Chinese citizen. Today she’s an American citizen. She used to get lost all of the time and now she’s got GPS. She used to have a tough time with quotes and purchases and using credit cards – well, she has that mastered. I’ve watched her grow from a quiet IT person who prefers to work in the background into someone completely comfortable at the helm. I’ve always had complete confidence in her.

On October 17th from 5-8pm at Ike’s Restaurant in Sterling Heights (on VanDyke) we’ll be having a going away cocktail hour. I hope that you’ll be able to join us in wishing her well on this new adventure. I’ll be sending out an invitation but if you’d like to RSVP early, that would be great too.

Between now and October 23rd, we will complete the transition that began a while back. Those of you that are still Diana’s clients today will have a new Harbor technician. You will get a personal introduction. This person won’t be anything like Diana, but that’s because there’s only one Diana. We understand that. Rest assured that we’ve already begun to make the transition internally and Diana’s been working with her replacements for last several months to make sure that they are up to speed. In addition to that though you should know that Ted and I are going to be keeping a very close eye on how things are going. You might even see us, though we are going to try to stay in the background so as not to confuse anyone about who the point person is. So in short, we’ve got a group effort going to make this transition as smooth as it can be.

Meanwhile, please block off October 17th Happy Hour and plan to join us over at Ike’s to see Diana off properly.

Alert: Phone call from Microsoft support

Last year a fraud squad started calling businesses and individuals, claiming to be from Microsoft support. It was shut down pretty quickly.

It’s back only this time it’s worldwide and the volume of calls is much higher. So this is an alert to remind you that Microsoft will never call you and offer to fix a problem with your computer. If you get one of these calls, hang up immediately.

Here is how the scam works: You receive a phone call from “Carl with Microsoft support”. They have noticed that there’s a problem with your email or maybe they noticed that your computer has a virus and he needs to connect to your computer. When you agree, the next step is to ask for your credit card so they can charge you a fee for this service. At this point they have your credit card, full name and address. End of scam. They now need to get off the phone with you.

So remember if you get a call from Microsoft support please hang up.

SMB 150 Most Influential Nomination

It’s not often that you get pictured as a Super Hero. That graphic above is by Michele Ragusa of Cisco and she’s having fun with her picks for the most influential IT Professionals working in the SMB (small and medium business) sector. I’m honored to be on her special list. I’m the one of the far right. We’ve actually never met but man, oh man, have I been giving feedback to Cisco about the state of their small business line of products this year. As you can see, they have taken it well. I hope this means that my influence is not only felt but also effective. I consider keeping pressure on our vendors to produce the best products for our customers at the very top of my job responsibilities. At Harbor we all work hard to develop these relationships so when we need to we can push the right buttons for you and be heard.

So what is the SMB 150? It’s a list of the most influential IT Professionals. It is sponsored by SMB Nation (conference organizer and publisher), SMBTN (professional industry group) and Research In Motion (that’s Blackberry). Nominations are taken in February and public votes are tallied in April. Then the top vote getters are evaluated by a panel of industry peers who have the majority opinion of who is worthy of the designation of Top 150 Most Influential IT Professional.

“Harry Brelsford, founder and chairman of SMB Nation, congratulates Amy Babinchak, along with every other SMB 150 nominee. I'm excited for all of our SMB 150 nominees. Each and every one of them has worked tirelessly to improve the SMB IT channel—and, by extension, the small business sector as a whole. I hope that everyone who has benefited from our nominees' expertise will show their support and appreciation at smb150.com."

And there it is. You can click that link and place your vote for me, if you so desire. Come April, if I’m in the top end, the esteemed committee might just agree. I’m actually amazed that I’ve come to the attention of this group and have a nomination in the running but I’m even more honored to be included in Cisco’s short list.

New Staff at Harbor

This week we have two new staff members starting. As you most likely know, we’ve been looking for the right people for a very long time. Our search has been long and careful. Contrary to popular belief the market is not over flowing with talented people looking for jobs. We found it very difficult to find qualified people. However, we’ve made our decision and hopefully these two with be with Harbor for many years to come.

Training Procedures

Shanewaz Ahmed and Jason Basile are our new trainees. Both are coming to us with some experience so we expect them to be able to get up to Harbor standards quickly. You will soon be meeting one or both of them. Ted and Diana are playing a significant role in the training and will be supervising the trainees while they are in your office. This means that we will have provided instruction so that the trainee can work independently. We’ll then verify that the work was done timely and correctly. When they are in the office with me, we will be working on filling gaps in their knowledge and establishing standards. One of us will always be directly supervising them when they work remotely so if you are speaking to them on the phone or in a remote session know that we are right next to them. We have a wide range of skills to cover with them and it’s that wide range that has been difficult for us to find. It seems that these days everyone is a specialist and very few people understand the whole system. Our job is to know the whole system.

Performance Review

I’m going to be travelling with our trainees quite a bit over the next several months. I hope that you will provide some feedback for me. As I have done in the past, we will send out a survey to give more opportunity to let us know how things are going. The survey will happen 2-3 months into the training process and then again closer to 6 months. I try to keep them short and I really appreciate the time you take to help us with this process.

 

I’m excited about having two new people in our shop. We’ve been sustained busy for a long time now so it will be good to have some additional hands. I advertised for the next great small business IT professional and I expect that, that once molded a bit, that is who we have hired.

Time to Plan

We have entered a period of rapid change. The initiator of this rapid change is Cloud services. But is not the reason for the rapid change. The reason for the rapid change is how software and hardware companies are reacting. This reaction creates both pitfalls to avoid and opportunities to grab. This is something that we need to talk about. I want all of my clients to avoid the pitfalls and grab the opportunities while they exist.

I realize that this is vague. That’s because the particulars are going to be different depending on the size and line of business that you’re in. Here at Harbor, we don’t use a cookies cutter to stamp out solutions. So if we haven’t meet in person in the last couple of months, let’s get this meeting scheduled soon. It’s important.

-Amy

Microsoft MVP 2012

It seems like only yesterday I opened my email and with great surprise found that I had joined an elite group of IT professionals as a Microsoft MVP. But here it is 7 years already and this New Year’s day I again received that email from Microsoft. It doesn’t lose its appeal. If anything I think I would slip into mourning should that email not arrive. The MVP award has allowed me to meet and develop a wide technical network that spans the globe. It’s been a priceless experience to not only be recognized but to then be able to take your feedback to influence the next generation of products.

I’ll be headed to Redmond Washington for the annual gathering of MVP’s from all over the world in March. But that’s only just a tiny portion of what goes on. Monthly I meet with the development team in Shanghia for Small Business Server. We discuss the current version and plan for the next version. I don’t always get my way, because of Microsoft’s bigger corporate agenda but often times my input results in a new feature or a tweaked existing feature. I meet with several other product groups regularly as well and I’m on a bunch of mailing lists with my fellow MVP’s whose focus is small and medium business. It keeps me busy but is very rewarding. I do my very best to represent all of my clients to Microsoft at every opportunity. For this they continue to award me year after year and I am so thankful.

 

As the independent voice of users worldwide, your influence on technical communities is felt in many ways—enhancing people’s lives and contributing to our industry’s success. We’re deeply grateful to you for sharing your feedback, comments, answers, and expertise with technical communities. In recognition of your commitment, Microsoft is pleased to honor you with the Most Valuable Professional Award. Thank you for empowering the community with your outstanding leadership!

Steven A. Ballmer
Chief Executive Officer
Microsoft Corporation

Thank you for your exceptional contributions to technical communities! It gives us great pleasure to present you with the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Award for the technical expertise you generously provide to others. By sharing your knowledge, experience, and objective feedback, you inspire and help people to solve problems and discover new capabilities every day. We are honored to welcome you as a Microsoft MVP.

Rich Kaplan
Corporate Vice President
Customer and Partner Advocacy
Microsoft Corporation

Email and Website Problems Likely

Yesterday morning we noticed some problems with email delivery with a couple of our clients. The caused was determined to be unreachable DNS records. Many of you have your DNS records hosted with the largest DNS hosting solution, Network Solutions. Being the largest they are a favorite target but fortunately due to the redundant nature of their servers they are usually able to fend off the attacks. However the current attack is much more significant.

As a result we will see:

• Email delayed or undeliverable
• Websites that are unreachable

This problem can occur with your email or website or also with the person or company that you are trying to reach. There is not a thing that we can do about it, except wait. We are keeping an eye on the developments and if there comes a point where we feel that a move needs to be made we will do so.

Network Solutions has been keeping us informed of their progress in the fight against the hackers via twitter and facebook.

Harbor Featured for Backup Expertise

Harbor Computer Services is being featured by Symform as an expert in offsite Internet based backup services. We have been involved with Symform and other online backup companies since the concept first came to light. Over time we have refined the process for moving data offsite for secure storage. Owing to security and bandwidth challenges, online data storage is a difficult problem to solve with grace and reliability. We’re pleased that Symform, a provider of Internet backup services, considers us an expert on this topic worthy of featuring in Channel Pro Magazine this month.

 

	Look inside >
June 2011

NASA reports major geomagnetic flare–expect outages

This morning NASA reported that the sun has released an enormous flare that will disrupt satellite communications and cause the rerouting or cancellation of air flights. Solar flares release magnetic energy which when it collides with the Earth’s magnetic field causes electrical interference. Should you expect these possibilities for the next 48 hours:

• Difficult cell phone communications
• Slow Internet
• GPS inaccuracy

These events are expected to begin occurring about Noon today.

Introducing Matt DeNoyer

I am pleased to welcome Matt DeNoyer to Harbor Computer Services. Matt started with us a little over a month ago now and has been making great strides in learning the high standards to which we adhere.

You may have met him already. He’s been shadowing Ted and Diana in their daily client visits. I have also been training him on performing maintenance, working remotely and becoming familiar with the range of products that you depend upon.

Matt comes from a manufacturing background, starting on the shop floor and moving into IT. He recently completed his degree. He’s the father of one with another expected to arrive in a couple of weeks.

He is ready to take on responsibility for your computer network and as such I will begin to assign some of our clients to him. We will have an orderly transition plan from your current consultant to Matt. Diana or Ted will work closely with him to make sure he is aware of the particulars of your network. If your support will be in transition I will send you a special email detailing the particulars, scheduling a meeting and providing Matt contact information to you. We will be working as a team to make the transitions smooth.

I appreciate everyone’s support of us during this growth phase.

Change in Default Mobile Security Stance and Mobile Device Acceptable Use Policy

Mobile Device Security Stance Change

Following recent notification from one of the servers we manage that an attempt was made by a rogue mobile device to connect to it we have changed the default security stance of all Exchange and Small Business Servers when it comes to Mobile devices.

By a mobile device I mean a mail enabled mobile phone or an iPad or similar slate device. Heretofore, the default security stance was to allow these devices to connect and then attempt to authenticate. However, given that mobile device connections are now becoming a favorite target we have decided to modify the default security stance of these servers and disable all mobile device connections for all users that are not specifically authorized by you to make such a connection. This will reduce the risk footprint considerably for all servers.

We have completed this work and will be sending you a list of mobile devices that have made connections to your servers and the user account that they are associated with. We will be asking you to verify that you have approved these connections. If you have not approved these connections we have two ways to proceed: disable the device from receiving future email, calendar, contact lists from the server or disable the device from receiving future email, calendar, contact lists from the server and wipe it of the data that it currently holds.

Mobile Device Acceptable Use Policy

On a related note our client, Community Legal Resources, recently distributed a large number of mobile devices to their employees and developed a well thought Mobile Device Policy. They have agreed to make this policy available to all of you in boilerplate form for your use. I would strongly encourage everyone to implement a mobile device acceptable use policy sooner rather than later. These devices are holding a significant amount of your companies corporate data and intellectual property and an acceptable use policy can help you secure it. I have made this document available to you via download from a new Sharepoint site that we have created to hold documents that we think you will find useful. Please download the policy and modify it for your individual business needs.

The website is ssl, username and password secured. Please ask or send an email to your technician for the account information.

I hope that you will find this boiler plate and the site helpful.

Handling Large Data Archives

For a lot of years now archiving large amounts of data was handled by storing it on tape or storing it on CD or DVD. Of course this is when we considered large to be a few hundred megabytes or a small number of gigabytes. My how times have changed. Data just keeps getting larger and as a result we now see that many of our clients have stopped archiving data. The number of GB’s of data is just too huge to manage. Instead it is being stored on the server mingled in with current data.

We have a better way.

Issues in data archiving are:

• quick easy access
• restricted permissions
• redundancy

These three things are critical to good data archival practices. So let us introduce you to an appliance that is really good for data archiving.

It’s called Drobo. A simple Drobo is a four drive unit. It takes Sata drives which are pretty inexpensive these days and come in large formats. It’s a plug and play device as far as the drives go. We can put drives of any size in it, we can mix and match those sizes and we can lose up to two drives to failure and not lose any data. Recovery is as simple as sliding in a replacement drive. To access your archival data we simply map a drive to the Drobo volume.

How much? Well the 4 drive unit costs about $400, plus the drives. They make bigger units too for those of our clients with vast data archive requirements.

 

You might find us suggesting these. They’ve been around for a couple of years now and on our radar for almost that long. Ted attended a premier training event a while back in Las Vegas and came back thoroughly impressed by the technology. I think that you’re going to like these.

Considering Buying New Phones or Phone Service? We can do that.

Phones, phone systems (PBX) have changed dramatically and we’ve been watching carefully. Phone systems have changed from the blackbox that hangs on the wall that you never touch into true computers that operate on the network on the same Ethernet cable as your computer.

Computers are our expertise, which is why we’ve been watching carefully. We’ve also been busy building relationships with key hardware vendors and voice line suppliers. The phone business has become the computer business and we’re ready to supply these services for you. 

As we have done with computers, servers and software, we have selected the vendors and service suppliers that were willing to develop close relationships with us and our clients. We look for partners that not only supply hardware and services to small/mid businesses but ones that are interested in developing a deep relationship with us so that we can support you better while helping them to develop better and better products for our customers. It’s a trademark of Harbor Computer Services and we’re approaching the Phone system vendors with the very same expectations.

We’ve connected with several partners: Cisco, TelNet, Verizon, Sprint, CallTower, UltraCom and Unified. We have selected products from within the set that these companies offer for specific attributes so that we can customize the telephony solution to your needs.

There are a few things you should know about new phone systems:

• They need good computer cabling
• They cost about 1/3 of what phone systems used to cost
• They last about 1/2 as long
• They are integrated with your Internet service
• They can integrate with your mobile phones too
• They are loaded with features
• They are computers and do require some maintenance

Thinking of phones as computers is a new idea for most people, but if you buy a new phone today it is a computer. The industry has shifted. Phones are now playing in our ballpark and we’re ready to go to bat for you.

When you’re ready to talk about phone replacement or updating your phone service let us know and we’ll bring the best folks to the table for you.

Internet Explorer 9 Soon To Be Installed

About a month ago Microsoft released Internet Explorer 9. It will now begin to arrive on your computers with the next update cycle. Ted was our Beta tester for IE 9 and has been running it since the very first beta was available nearly a year ago. He’s been through the pains to the gains and reports that it’s a fantastic upgrade.

However, as with all recent Microsoft application releases in addition to new features there is also a new look and feel.

Web-focused browsing

Windows 7 integration

Security

Tracking Protection

There’s a lot of new stuff in IE 9, but the links above will take you a few under 1 minute video’s that show off some of the new features. To sum them all up, IE 9 has better integration with Windows 7, is more secure that ever, has better download security, allows you to prevent website from tracking you so those annoying ads will have a more difficult time finding you and it’s fast, really fast.