Make My Technology Simple » VISTA

Security, are your systems protected?

Rich Schierer — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 20:36:53 +0000

Everyday you hear on the radio or TV, or read it in the papers or internet, that the security of your desktop computer or laptop running Windows XP or Vista or Microsoft network is getting harder and harder to keep up with. Hackers and viruses and spam and trojans and worms and downtime OH MY! Sometimes you might think that the Wizard of Oz is protecting (or not!) your systems!

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????

You the business owner , “Blew It!”

Rich Schierer — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:58:28 +0000

These are words that no business owner wants to think about! Yeah times are hard here on Long Island as they are everywhere else in America. You the business owner, “Blew It!”. You are so busy cutting costs, laying good hard working employees off, haggling with your vendors for lower prices, listening to the nay-sayers on TV and print that tell you this is how you run ‘your’ business and the only way to stay profitable, that you forgot that this is just another down cycle in our economy. Long Islanders bounce back FAST! And they have mouths. They spread the word about businesses good and bad. Sadly we usually only hear about the ‘bad’ stuff.
You as a business owner should be looking for innovative ways to take advantage of the down turn in the economy. Look into small business loans from the government to upgrade your equipment, train your employees in the new technologies. Start those projects that need research. Sitting back on your hands when ACTION is what will get you ahead of the competition is not considered ‘coasting’. It is considered loosing ground to your competition.
Every business owner right now is standing in front of a crap table called your business environment. Some of you just stand there watching, caressing those budgets carefully in your pockets, trying to make a decision to step up and get into the game. Scared to do anything other than ‘hold back’. While you watch the other people at the table ‘in the game’. Making strategic investments, and yes, taking chances. But calculated chances.
Some of the things you are holding back on are employee training and yourself (but don’t be selfish in this respect), new equipment, planning for projects that have been put aside, and advertising.
One of the first things that companies pull back on is marketing and their IT budgets. Well when everyone else is doing that, you should be out there will BIG Ads. Since everyone else is holding back you will look bigger without a lot of effort.
IT budgets, well as an IT consultant and previously employed IT Manager, I can tell you that now is the time to look at your equipment. Older, power hungry computers, monitors and servers can actually be upgraded for less than you think because you have to remember that new equipment puts out less heat (so the need to cool is less expensive), and that the newer OS from Windows called Windows 7 will make those PCs running VISTA (hold the curses) actually a pleasure to use and increase your employees output.
Contact your marketing partners. Contact your IT people in house and consultants. Start a dialogue with them to start learning what they can do for your business. You know the big boys are quietly doing this! You know you need to set yourself apart from your competition. You KNOW they ARE doing these very same things. You KNOW you don’t want to look yourself in the mirror in a few very short months and say to that stressed out person looking back at you, “YOU BLEW IT!”.

Losing your Memory? or just don’t have enough?

Rich Schierer — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 22:18:55 +0000

One of my biggest gripes with any place that you buy a computer at these days, is that they never configure it with enough memory!

I am not talking about those nice 160GB hard drives that store all your documents, photos and music. I am talking about your RAM, Random Access Memory. For if you get a computer that doesn’t have enough memory to run ‘all’ the programs and applications that you want to at the same time, then you end up with a ‘pig’! Although I have seen some ‘pigs’ run pretty fast, in the case your computer drags along. It takes what seems like an eternity to change screens, move from Outlook to the internet, from Word to your instant messenger.

Most stores sell computers off the showroom floor with what the manufacturer configured them with. If you new computer has Vista on it and you plan to multi task with it, like I have mentioned above, and it has 1GB of RAM, you are going to have a slow running computer.

Everyone that I have talked with, whether it is another techie or people that resell PCs, they agree that if you have a computer with Vista, and you want it to run ‘FAST’, then you need like 3GB of RAM!

YEAH 3GB of RAM, not 1GB! You don’t buy a computer so it runs just so-so. You buy one because you want it to be fast!

My advice is if you ever buy a new PC or laptop, just make sure it comes configured with at least 2GB if not more of RAM.

Some people might think that is too much. What do you think? Send me some comments on the topic.