NowITWorks.net

A customer contacted our help desk line early one morning with a frantic message about their server’s hard drive, red lights and error message…

When we checked out their problem ‘server’ (which wasn’t really a server at all, more on that later) there were two hard drives that were mirroring each other – so when someone saved a file, it was saved on both drives. The reason for this is if one drive fails, the other drive can take over.

In this case, the ‘mirror’ was broken – no one knew what the problem was, only that the problem existed. Unfortunately, this problem had been happening for days.

There were no notification messages, no proactive emails and no on on staff trained to look for this problem.

If they had subscribed to Now IT Works “PC Crash Protection” tool, an email would have been sent out the first time this error occurred so our help desk could have contacted them and dispatched a technician. Even after this warning event, the customer did not chose to sign up for PC Crash Protection. We are unable and unwilling to service customers who do not see the need for this valuable tool. It is even more unfortunate because this customer has 3 servers and 50 computers – without any protection or properly trained staff.

*** Tech Note: A server can mean two different things – a physical server or a software server. For instance, if you have a file server in your office, it’s a physical piece of computer that handles the file requests for all users. If you have your website hosted on a web server, it’s most likely a piece of software that handles the hosting of many websites, including yours.

During the spring, I received a call from a new prospect that was interested in seeing how I could help them. After they explained the problem, my heart sank. This customer had been running their entire business on a Dell computer that was purchased in 1996.

This computer, in 1996, was top notch – it had plenty of memory and hard drive space. In 2007, however, Windows NT 3.51 and a Pentium 2 processor make this an old computer. A very old computer. For that matter, we don’t even support Windows 95 anymore – Windows NT 3.51 came out in 1993!

They did not want to upgrade because they had spent $4000 on this computer in 1996 – their reason for calling me was the hard drive crashed and needed to restore data from it.

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Boy, do I feel old. Apparently “drunk dialing” is a term of the past and has been replaced by the phenomenon called “drunk emailing”. But have no fear, Google has recently developed a tool to keep those embarrassing emails to a minimum.

It’s called Mail Goggles – a Gmail add-on that makes it difficult for you to send email during certain times (i.e. 3:00am on a Saturday). Located in the “Labs” tab in your Gmail account, you will be required to answer a series of math problems before the message can be sent. You also have the ability to determine how hard those math questions are. Don’t make them too easy or the system won’t work and don’t make them too hard or you won’t be able to answer them when you are sober.

Remember to set your time constraints and math problems when you are clear headed and in possession of the patience and temperament of a rational person.

So, take a moment to thank Google for preventing that email to be your boss about how under appreciated you are or to your ex just to let them know what they are missing. Have fun this weekend and remember if Google says “Water and bed for you”, it’s probably best to put down the calculator and follow that advice.

Q: “I have a remote sales force of 8 people, scattered throughout the United States. How can I protect their laptop computers, if they are lost or stolen?”

A:  Jim, great question – in fact, did you know that a laptop is stolen approximately every 12 seconds? The good news is that there is a software program that acts like a GPS for your computer. If your laptop is stolen, MyLaptopGPS is able to track it worldwide, via the internet, then silently removes your important files and returns them to you – without the thief ever knowing.

It’s always a good idea to protect your technology investment. For more information about MyLaptopGPS, click here to be .

Google is now offering a free 411 service for people that are looking for the phone number of a business or store location. The cost of calling 411-Information varies depending on your carrier but you can expect to pay anywhere from $1.00 to $2.50 per look-up.

Google now offers this service free by dialing 800-GOOG-411.

Features:

• Voice activated, national phone directory

• No annoying ads or charges

• Once the automated system finds your listing, the call is automatically connected

• You can receive the information via text message or get a map link via email

This service pertains to business and store locations only. Free services are available for residential listings but are not provided through Google.

Happy searching!

Do you have an itemized list of things you need to present to your insurance company for reimbursement?Unfortunately, the answer is probably no.

I had a conversation with my insurance agent last week when the power when out at my house – and we talked about insurance policies, mine in specific. I asked him, “In the event my business burned to the ground – how fast would I get a check?”

His response was, “How fast could you produce a list of everything you need replaced?”

In this hypothetical situation, I would only be able to list the items I could remember – and I only have one shot at being exact. The insurance company will only issue one check.

This week, I was referred this link to a piece of software called III Home Inventory – I am not familiar with the company, but the product is free and it will help you to inventory your home and personal items.

You can download software here - (http://www.knowyourstuff.org/)

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As many small business owners know, voice-over IP (VOIP) is becoming more and more popular for keeping in contact with people on a personal and business level.

Lower phone bills

Using VOIP in your business, especially for long distance calls, can help to lower your telephone bills. The most popular benefit of VOIP for businesses is that it provides you with free or low cost communication with users worldwide, which could help to lower your phone bill. Skype is very popular in this regard, as it is free to download and it allows you to contact another Skype user for free – worldwide.

Exchanging of relevant documents

Some VOIP providers (e.g. Skype, Google Talk) also allow you to instantly share documents over the internet with the person you are speaking to. This can help to increase your productivity and provide various forms of information exchange in a single call. It also means that you no longer need to forget to send someone a file you promised during a telephone call – you can do it at the same time as you are speaking to them.

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For those of you who still use the word ‘password’ as your password for all of your Internet logins – I have an idea that may help to make you more secure, without requiring you to remember all of the passwords.

Previously, I would help people create Excel documents that listed out all of the websites, usernames and passwords. Then we would password-protect the document with a master password. This way, users had all of their passwords in an easy-to-read document that could only be opened with a master password – this master password would be the only one they would need to remember.

Some folks liked this idea, others did not – most of them did not use this consistently.

I recently stumbled upon a new program that I think will help users with their passwords – it uses the same concept as I’ve just described, but additionally it has some really useful features.

This new program is called KeePass – you can download a free copy of this software here.

Here are a few reasons why I suggest KeePass:

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As I was coming home from a customer in East Haven, I was driving on 91 South, when I heard one of the most awful sounds you can hear when you are driving – a ‘pop’ and then the sound of flat rubber revolving at a very high rate of speed.

Flat tire.

So I called, and then waited, for the Triple A driver to come out and change my tire (before you say anything, I’m a network guy – not an auto mechanic!) Not too long after this, I’m back on the road with another task on my list: patch the tire.

It is easy to see that a patch has to be applied – there is a hole.

In this world of computers, technology and a never-ending game of ‘cat and mouse’ with spammers and virus writers – patching is not so obvious.

Here are a few rules in regards to applying patches to your vendor’s products:

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Q: “Should I switch from Windows to Mac? I love how the ads pitch the Mac against the PC and how they are people. Those corporate heads at Apple have brainwashed me! What do you think?”

A: Sure those ads are funny but switching from a PC to a Mac could be a bit costly as well as having a few other disadvantages.  Macs operate in a completely different way than the Windows environment so you will need to be highly tech savvy to maneuver around without time being lost to education. Also, you may have some difficulty finding a technology service provider for support.