I named my company, “Make My Technology Simple” because before I started the actual company and was doing it part time, I was always hearing from my clients how I made things so simple for them. They never walked away in a daze because I talked over their heads. I would tell them about what they needed in a new PC or server and why, in terms that they understood. I also told them why others told them differently.

I guess I am kind of a rare breed of business owner. I put my clients first. Instead of going for that quick fix and moving on, I spend time with them. Find out what they really need and want. Do they truly understand the consequences of buying new or staying with what they have.

A lot of my clients are one time consultations. I resolve their problems in a permanent way. I spend a little time instructing them on how not to get back into the situation that they found themselves. Sometimes it is simply telling a client that downloading music files from a file sharing site is almost a guaranteed way of getting a virus. Now, what is more economic to you? Download a free song and get a virus and a bill from me for $150? Or buy songs from approved of sites for .99 or $1.99 each and not see me at all? You can get 70-150 songs for the price of me removing a free virus!

So I try to be an advocate to my clients so that we put the right combination of software and hardware together for their company’s needs and the client now can concentrate on working their business and not having downtime or added costs because of viruses or mismatched systems.

Especially now, in a time when budgets are ‘tight’ and the need to squeeze more productivity out of each dollar spent on our employees. Technology was created to help businesses get more done. It was not created to do this without maintenance, upgrading and training.

My case in point  today is that the new client’s server was taken over by a hacker who is using it as a file repository when people can be directed to down illicit content from. The hacker setup some very nasty protections to keep the business owner’s technical consultant from easily removing the unwanted processes. The server was configured in such a way as to put up barriers to resolving this problem. Why? It usually points to a client with a small or unrealistic budget. (which is not their fault)

This all started out with a custom made server being used for the business owner. I for one have a lot of respect for anyone that can build a server for use at a business. My problem arises when the licenses become invalid, because the company did not keep up with his volume licensing agreements. Then take into consideration why the custom built server was used in the beginning… it was cheaper than one from DELL, Fujitsu, IBM or HP. The reason why it was cheaper is because the custom built server did not use the same quality parts that were used by the corporation built ones. Nothing inside the computer is standard, where the corporate built ones, everything is. You can easily get additional memory for a DELL whether from DELL or Crucial.com 5 years after you originally purchased the computer, where it is very unlikely that you will be able to purchase parts for the custom made server due to the fact that the manufacturer of the parts either went out of business, was bought out by someone else, or just didn’t have sufficient parts made or kept in stock to be available when you needed it 5 years later.

So now they have to purchase a new server, or stick with the problems that you are operating under. So now, did the IT provider drop the ball when it came to setting up this network? I never judge anyone on the work they have done. I never point fingers at anyone because it never resolves the immediate problem at hand which is getting the business back in business.

I, like most IT Professionals, will 9 out of 10 times create proposals that include only new equipment from corporate manufacturers. I use best practices during the creation of these proposals and continue to use them thru the purchase, implementation and follow-up maintenance  of their computer networks.

What are ‘Best Practices’?

Simply said, quality computers, servers and network equipment; sufficient UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supplies) for all computer equipment, internet security/anti-virus solutions for all computers and servers, a backup solution that includes sufficient number of tapes, that are taken off-site, and stored safely, and that said backups are restored from time to time to ensure that the backups are good and not corrupt; security measures that meet their needs; and instructing the user-base in how to use everything correctly.

Lastly but most importantly, talking with the users, managers and owners at length to find out what they really want and need their networks to do and to be able to do in the future. Planning, Planning, Planning!

Please post your comments, concerns and questions.

Rich Schierer

Make My Technology Simple

Selden, NY

800.918.7390

rich@makemytechnologysimple.com

Sometimes when I get stressed out from wearing all the hats I have to on a daily basis, both as a business owner and a Dad and home owner, I close my eyes and I see the guy from the Ed Sullivan Show trying to keep the 15 plates spinning on the end of the sticks! As he gets one going, three others are slowing down and he has to give his undivided attention to them, only to get them going and seeing another one-two-three or four other plates starting to wobble and need him to run over to them. At best, there is no one to help him perform these tasks except the assistant who is handing him more plates! But like the performer who won’t allow the plates to fall, I won’t let my ‘plates’ fail either!

To try and stay ahead of my ‘plates’ crashing, I have created a system using Microsoft Outlook to help me keep an eye on my ‘plates’. I find that by creating tasks and appointments and reminders using MS Outlook, I can plan my days better and get more done and not let much of anything get by me!

Microsoft Outlook for those who might not be ‘up’ on computer applications is an Email application created by Microsoft. It is a part of the Microsoft Office Suite of applications which depending on the suite you buy will include WORD, EXCEL, POWERPOINT, ACCESS, PUBLISHER, ONE NOTE, amongst others.

Microsoft Outlook can save the day and stop you from missing appointments and deadlines! I especially like it as I am the owner of an LLC and have to pay my LLC registration fee to NYS every year on time. If I miss it by one day, I have to pay a fine. Which before I started using Outlook seemed to be the norm! If you have similar ‘pay on time or else’ bills in your business or personal life, then you know the stress of finding that letter from that missed deadline indicating you are late and must now pay the fine!

Enter in Outlook and reminders! Create a task and then set the reminder for 7 days. When the reminder comes up, I usually say, “Wow I forgot all about that payment!”. Then I click snooze and like the alarm clock it will go off again the next day to remind me again! Now I pay it because I know how bad my luck is and if I don’t pay it now, I will probably forget all about it!

Other great ways of using Outlook are to keep track of your business contacts. There is another part of Outlook called Business Contact Manager which can help you keep track of your business contacts. I set up my call list for the day, then enter the info that I got from each contact and enter it into BCM. I can then set reminders to call one of them back, send a letter to another and finally invoice another one. And all of this is kept in BCM so that when I go back to look at the clients, I can see my history with them and the notes I have written for each one.

This is just one of the hundreds of ways that technology can save you time! Here at Make My Technology, we try to take the mystery out of technology and give the smaller companies the IT Muscle of the big boys!

A lot of my clients bought UPS’ back in 1999 when they were upgrading their computers/networks in preparation for the Y2k bug. Like a lot of things, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it applies to UPS’ too.

If your UPS beeps and all the lights are on and don’t flash, then the chances are that your battery is dead. I have to tell them that UPS’ are like insurance, you don’t need them until you ‘NEED’ them!

Take a read on the following FAQ and if YOU have questions, please send them on to me. I love answering questions!

UPS Battery Maintenance

Sealed Lead Acid Batteries (SLA) are considered maintenance free, however they do discharge if they are not charged monthly.
UPS Battery Charging

Sealed Lead Acid Batteries are the best technology available today for UPS applications, however they must be properly charged at all times to perform effectively in UPS applications.

Common UPS battery charging problems are overvoltage and exposure to excess heat that can come from dense server room environments, etc. UPS devices should be properly ventilated to cool them, to prolong battery life and overall battery performance.
Battery Life

In terms of years of service, sealed lead acid UPS batteries properly maintained may perform satisfactory for as long 2-3 years, this is subject to variation that depends on actual UPS environment operating conditions, and the number of discharge / recharge cycles their UPS experiences.

In a UPS application that cycles over to battery power on a monthly basis, and is kept in a stable temperature environment under 85 degrees Fahrenheit, UPS batteries should last 2-3 years before performance begins to deteriorate. If the UPS is loaded beyond 75%, or the UPS kicks over to battery more than once a month, you may want to replace batteries annually or every two years to ensure maximum runtime and overall performance.
Battery Runtime

UPS Battery runtime is determined by 2 basic factors; the amount of actual UPS battery storage capacity and the actual amount of power load the UPS. Most UPS applications perform best with 50% or lower load in terms of runtime. Depending on the UPS make model, some UPS manufacturer’s offer solutions adding additional battery packs can extend that, but beyond 30 minutes of runtime, a generator solution usually makes the most sense.
What is an SLA Battery?

SLA Batteries are Sealed Lead Acid Batteries, non-spillable and maintenance free.

Rich Schierer is President & Founder of Make My Technology Simple, a full service Information Technology Solutions provider. He is a member of the local chapter of the Association of Contingency Planners.
If you have any questions or comments, please direct them to him at rich@makemytechnologysimple.com

A Large percentage of my business is from repeat customers, with re-occurring problems, that slow their businesses down.

Let’s take a look at two ‘Offices’. Which of the following two scenarios is your office?

Office A

10 PCs running Windows XP Pro, w/ ~2GB RAM, 2-3 servers running Windows 2003/2008 Oses, running managed services on all PCs and servers. All issues are resolved pro-actively. Microsoft Security Patching and Anti-virus updates and scans are run and monitored. Connected to the internet via cable. IT support costs are fixed, leaving your IT staff or consultant to work with you to improve processes.

Office B

10 PCs running Windows XP Pro or Vista, w/ less than 2GB RAM, 2-3 servers running NT/2000 Server. No managed services. No remote monitoring, no remote access. All issues are resolved after the fact (reactively) and at a premium rate, Microsoft Security Patching is off, PC/Server has not had updates since… ??? Status of your antivirus updates and scans is also unknown (who is responsible for this?) Internet access is wide open and not only do your employees have the ability to surf the web, but hackers have access to your private company files (they do???!!) IT Support costs are out of hand, you have to reboot PCs and servers more than once a day. ( You do know how to reboot a server, don’t you?) You have a high turnover rate of IT staff (if you even have someone at all, who is responsible for this??)

So? Which office is yours? Or which one has more of one than it should?

Enter managed services. Office A has managed services and there was no mention of rebooting PCs or servers. Nor a mention of hackers (but sadly hackers are still a problem).

So what are managed services you ask? We load a small program on your PC/Server and let it run. This ‘agent’ collects only information about the workings of the hardware and software. What you have, what you don’t have. When a problem occurs (and no you weren’t alerted to it because you don’t have this type of system or an IT staff to do it for you), an alert is sent to the monitoring station (in IT terms it is called a NOC Network Operations Center) which in turn creates a trouble ticket that is either resolved immediately or is sent on to a tech who will be on-site in the morning.

What kind of problems do managed services resolve? For one, problems are solved before ‘You’ the business owner or even end user know about it. Now that end user, your employee does not have to reboot their PC a few times a day.

And now back to my opening statement about ROI, how do we calculate that?

If one end user has to reboot twice a day (2) and it takes 10 minutes, that means that your employee was sitting idle for 20 minutes a day, times 5 days a week equals 100 minutes or almost 2 hours a week. Now how much do you pay that employee a week? Multiply that times how many employees you have. OK now you have lost time/money due to rebooting. Add the same amount of time/money to that to show how much ‘productivity’ you lost. And finally, add the number of minutes/hours lost due to employees not getting back to work right away.

Managed services are all the range now as they are a great solution to a lot of issues that plague companies. They are used by some of the bigger companies because they have to show productivity gains and that is done by getting more use out of every person and piece of equipment.

And now the bad part,,, (yeah you knew it was coming!) the price. Now that you have a ballpark number in your head about how much you are losing to non productive equipment, we can use it against what managed services will cost you.

$15/PC per month, $35/server per month. Take that number and subtract it from the one above, of course make sure that your lost is showing how much a month you are losing. If the resulting number is a positive that would be the price you would be saving each month. If the resulting number is a negative, well then your systems are running better than most and I congratulate you! So! Now we can talk about getting other processes running better! You do have a business continuity plan in place, don’t you???

Richard W. “Rich” Schierer aka MyIT GuyOnLI is President & owner of Make My Technology Simple

You can find him on Facebook, follow him on Twitter, at the company website www.makemytechnologysimple.com or call him at 631.375.4512 to discuss what managed services can do for your company’s performance or any other computer/network issue.

Antivirus software doesn’t do it all any more. Now you need a combination of that and antimalware. And you have to keep up on those too! Long gone are the days of turning on the computer and having an interesting surf thru cyber-space!

But the end is not in sight my friends! At least not for securing your computers and networks! If you do the numbers, it costs less to have an experienced, trained professional come in and secure your network and computers.

Let me ask you this… “How much do you think it costs you on a daily basis to have problematic computers and networks vs having a professional secure and configure your networks and computers properly?”.

Let’s say you have 5 computers running Microsoft Windows XP Pro and one server running Microsoft Windows Server 2003. If each person loses 15 minutes a day because their computers froze and they had to reboot to get back to work. Now multiply that by a weekly time loss of 5 computers x 15 minutes loss per day x 5 days = 375 minutes a week or 6 hours 15 minutes. Multiply that times their billable rate $100/hour (if you are a law, accounting or health care firm you are billing at a much higher rate) and you now find that you are loosing $625 per week (or $2500 per month) in billable time to computers freezing up or running slow.

Now bring in the computer professional who will clean up all your problems and create a proactive approach to your support consisting of a visit once a week, plus managed services, plus off-site backup and your monthly cost is way less to have a properly configured, secured and running computer network. Fees vary depending on your location but here on Long Island, NY you are looking at approximately $1000 per month.

And that includes supporting the server also! And we didn’t even get into your company data being protected. What if the server goes down????

08 February 2010
VIPRISK INTELL ITEM 08FEB10-01 TITLE: Anti-Virus Again Proven Largely Ineffective
BYLINE:
Even users running up-to-date anti-virus software still get infected with malware, according to stats from an online malware scanning service. Nearly a third (25,000 out of 78,800) of computers with up-to-date anti-virus software were discovered to be infected with malicious code when users scanned their PC using SurfRight’s HitmanPro 3 behavioral scan. SurfRight’s analysis is based on 107,435 users who put their PC through its scanner between 10 October and 4 December 2009. Around a quarter of these users (28,608) either had no scanner installed or were running security software that was out of date.

WHO IS AT RISK: ALL Windows PC-based users of commercial anti-virus software (90% of the computing world).

WHY YOU CARE:
The purpose of this intell item is not to highlight a particular product – Maverick is product agnostic. The purpose is to make users aware of the ineffectiveness of an industry that has consistently failed them since 1999. The exercise by the product does illustrate the problem that running the latest version of antivirus software is no guarantee against malware infection, contrary to what the marketing department of many security software firms have historically said.

WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT:
Keep your AV in place, and keep it up-to-date. But also, combine that with smart surfing (carefully examining links and sites before you click on them – and use legitimate providers), filtering at the Internet Access Points, only downloading attachments from known (good) providers, and using the strongest browsers (alternatives to Internet Explorer). Those at particular risk should consider the use of secured bootable media for high-risk transactions, such as online banking, data transfers, or shopping.
Posted by VIPRisk (www.viprisk.com) at 13:58

Well, welcome Windows 7 on the scene and the story is the same. I have been working on installing a new Gateway PC into a professionals home network and it wasn’t any surprise that their old Dell wireless external adapter didn’t work with the new system. I went out and bought a few different kinds of adapter from Linksys, a USB stick adapter, a range booster and an internal card.

First I tried to install the internal card, but discovered that because the PC was a space saving slim line model, the full height card would not fit. OK let’s try the USB stick. Installed the accompanying software and barely got a signal from the Linksys router. OK remove the USB stick and try to get the range expander to work. After all the router is in the basement and the PC is in the 1st floor living room. BTW, the old PC didn’t have any problems getting a signal with this setup.

Spent way too much time trying to get a good signal, called Cablevision to troubleshoot. We got a great signal to the modem. I even put a laptop and connected it to the router via network cable. Worked great. So the problem is either the wireless signal or the adapter.

After much research I came upon a FAQ on Microsoft’s website that said that not all hardware would work yet with Windows 7. You would think that a company as big as Linksys would be one of the first to get the new drivers out, right?

Well not so. I now have to find another brand of adapter that is Windows 7 compliant and test it out. So much for keeping everything Linksys.

Word to the wise, Make sure that the box says Windows 7 compliant! It will save a lot of frustration on your part. For me it is too late!

Who is yours? I have always been enamored by the people that do things under the radar. The ones that don’t get the spotlight. Who do what they do because they have the passion.

Do you know of anyone like this?