SMB IT | Curtis Franklin » December 2006

December 26, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Emerging Enterprise: Better Sound, Backup and 2007

TAGS: None

This episode, I've switched microphones, so let me know how it goes. Also, we're talking about backup. You know you've got to do it, but this time we talk about specifically what features you should be looking for in a backup package. After that, I take a stab at some technologies that SMBs should think seriously about in 2007.   Listen!

Posted by Oliver Rist on December 26, 2006 03:54 PM

December 21, 2006 | Comments: (0)

APC Offers Added Disaster Recovery Insurance

TAGS: SMB Hardware

Got this from one of the best PR people on the planet, APC's Juli Dexter. She's the one who keeps me and Brian supplied in the latest and greatest in cutting edge power management equipment.

However, APC just added something to its arsenal that could well be of interest to SMBs. Use some APC thermal management equipment and APC will pony up $150,000 if any actual damage results from a thermal-related interest. The new program isn't effort-free, however. You've got to qualify for a Thermal Guarantee Certification.

[From the APC Press Kit:] To earn a Thermal Guarantee certification, a customer must agree to the following five steps (from the press kit):

Assessment - A comprehensive analysis of a customer's existing capacity with consideration of current and future power and cooling objectives.

Design – Utilize assessment results to develop a high density InfraStruXure solution to meet computing objectives at minimal TCO.

Implementation – Deployment and certification of designed InfraStruXure solution utilizing APC's cutting-edge Hot-Aisle Containment System or Rack Air Containment System.

Post-Implementation Monitoring – 24 hours/7 days a week of physical and environmental monitoring of a customer’s NCPI environment.

Periodic Review – Semi-annual assessment and preventive maintenance of a customer's power and cooling, combined with next day on-site service, to ensure the implemented solutions continue to operate at optimal performance.

So you're spending some extra bucks, but if your data center is your life then it's worth the added work.

Posted by Oliver Rist on December 21, 2006 09:39 PM

December 20, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Emerging Enterprise: Online Marketing Tool and Group Chat

TAGS: Podcast

We're back again. This episode we're talking about a great online marketing tool: book publishing. After that, we take a close look at what's so great about group chat.   Listen!

Posted by Oliver Rist on December 20, 2006 08:20 AM

December 18, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Oliver's Other Essential, Geek/Non-Geek, All Encompassing, One-and-Only Holiday Gift Guide

TAGS: Oliver's Rants

One working week left, so...

It's the Monday before Christmas
and all through the SMB IT virtual house
all the ADD shoppers are freaking
with last-minute gift grumpiness and grouse...

So follow this gift guide and you'll be stress-free for the rest of the week.

First off, this is my second one-and-only gift guide this year. Did one late last week on the MSN Technology Filter blog--had to or some guys in black suits and Ray-Bans would have made me disappear. That one has links to three other sites on the Web with good gift lists, as well as a fairly lengthy list of my own.

All those words have pretty much got the geeks in your life covered. I'll add a few more here, but I'm also putting in a bunch of my favorite non-geek gifts in here, too. After all, we all have business associates (the stiff and suited kind), boy/girlfriends, spouses, children, cousins, pets and squatters on our lists who probably aren't as thrilled by all the bits and bytes as we are. So here goes.

GENERAL GIFT GUIDE
[BLANK] of the Month Club: A buddy and my sister put me onto this. The buddy got me the Beer of the month club last year. My sister asked for the Fruit of the Month Club this year. But you can also choose from wine, flowers, pizza, cigars, coffee and chocolate just to name a few. They're not super cheap, but it keeps that person thinking fondly of you all year--a distinct advantage in certain situations. Especially if you're buying a gift for that special client--keeps them warm towards you all year with no extra effort on your part. I've found good vendors here, here and here.

DVDs that Won't Miss: Forget single DVDs of the latest movie craze (though Pirates will probably be a winner), boxed sets are where it's at for sheer impressive power. You'll always have someone on your list who doesn't have one or more these DVD sets: Band of Brothers (classic can't miss on the male side); Saturday Night Live the Complete First Season (if they laugh this one wins); Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 1 or Vol II (yeah, I'm immature, but so are a lot of people); The Clint Eastwood Gift Set (rules all the way. Though this is the western stuff only, there's another for the Dirty Harry series).

MP3 Player: You're the geek in your circle, so some folks will be looking to you on this. And, yeah, Apple's still on my list--but not exclusively. The iPod and the iPod Nano are the best they have; SanDisk's e200 and the e200 Rhapsody are my favorite non-iTunes players; while the iRiver T10 2GB is my favorite ultra-portable--works with Windows XP, Vista, Media Player, Urge, does the file transfer thing, runs on an AA battery and more for $150. All they have to do is plug it into a Windows machine and it works. Means no Christmas morning tech support duties for you.

Best General-Purpose Digital Camera: The imaging industry voted Panasonic's DMC-TZ1 into that slot this year. $250 gets you the best all-purpose 10x optical zoom digicam of the year.

Food enthusiast gift list: I'm not much of a culinary connoisseur, but in case you've got one on your list, the New York Times did a gift list for these folks. Good as gold for any food snob.

Workaholic or Coffee Nut: This is in case you can't help them off the Food Enthusiast list or via the Coffee of the Month Club deals. If neither of those works, these Tassimo one-cup coffee makers are all the rage. All the nerds, yuppies and folks-who-hate-cleaning-the-kitchen-types love 'em, and they're only $170.

BEST TOOLS
This is for the tool freaks on your list. Goes like this:

For the serious outdoor carpenter-type: Milwaukee 10 Amp Reciprocating Sawzall. Cuts through freaking anything and costs about $210.

For the not-so-serious worker, but total tool nut: The Hitachi DB3DL Lithium-Ion cordless screwdriver. It looks cool, uses the latest battery tech, has loads of attachments and does the whole bendy-swivel thing. Plus it only costs about $80.

For the VERY serious off-roader: The Warn PowerPlant Dual Force is completely AWESOME. Both a pwoer winch for pulling your truck (and others') out of trouble and, at the flick of a switch, a high-end air compressor for powering the most vicious power tools. Love it. Just be prepared for sticker shock: it's about $1800.

FOR THE LADIES
I'm a single guy, so keeping the current lady happy is a big priority. Maybe you've done the jewlery thing to death. And the flower thing. And the perfume thing. And maybe you wondered why she wouldn't speak to you for a couple of hours after the lingerie thing (email me, and I'll explain it to you). If you're a clueless what to get the ladies in your life aside from teh absolutely obvious, these have always been solid successes for me:

Spa treatment: This one is always a hit, but only if she goes for the day-of-beauty pampering thing. Not all women do, so make sure. If she does, you're golden and you can opt anywhere between a $150 hour-long massage to a couple of grand for a full weekend away somewhere. If there's romance involved you can score a huge number of points by going along--just don't complain the whole time or it's wasted effort. Also, check out the spa to which you're sending her. Make sure it's a high-end beauty and pampering establishment, not a low-end joint that might get raided.

Tickets: Comedy shows and music concerts have been the best successes for me. But they can't be chintzy. Make sure it's a well-known comedian (preferrably one she's already said she likes) or a big music concert. Beauty thing here is that it can be three months away or more as long as you let her know you've got a line on the tickets by X-Mas morning--it's best to have the actual tickets, but a documented promise will do. Just don't forget or they may never find your remains.

The Body Shop Gift Basket: Discovered this one by accident. You can't get it online, but if you hit the store, the sales person will put this together for you. Not only that, she'll most likely pick all the right stuff, too. Goes anywhere from $50-$300, looks great and definitely makes girls with decorated bathrooms smile.

That's about all I've got. I don't have kids, so I hesitate to make recommendations of my own on that front. I am however, hitting this gift list and this one for all the nieces and nephews I've got to buy for this year. The other New Yorker gift lists aren't bad either, just a mite on the eclectic and expensive side.

Posted by Oliver Rist on December 18, 2006 12:39 PM

December 15, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Emerging Enterprise Podcast:: Spam Hell and Cell Phone Smarts

TAGS: Podcast

We're back. And even though we're behind, we're going to catch up before the holidays. This episode we're hitting how to respond to the new spam hell and then we talk about something else that's looming after you move to Vista and Exchange 2007: cell phones.   Listen!

Posted by Oliver Rist on December 15, 2006 10:27 AM

December 11, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Notebook with Global Broadband Wireless

TAGS: Mobile SMB

If your SMB has turned you into a world traveler, then check out HP's new Compaq nc6400 notebook. HP collaborated with Cingular on this box to give it UMTS/HSDPA broadband wireless technology as an internal option.

You can buy an nc6400 today and upgrade to the tri-band modem later as well. That modem will let custoemrs take advantage of Cingular's Wireless BroadbandConnect or high-speed EDGE data services. Covers 115 countries worldwide.

Okay, EDGE isn't as fast as EV-DO (or whatever they're calling it today), but Verizon isn't talking so take what you can get. Now all we need is WiMAX and I'll stop complaining.

Posted by Oliver Rist on December 11, 2006 11:19 AM

December 11, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Are Background Checks Worth the Effort?

TAGS: SMB business

Mention doing a background check on potential employees or even contractors and most executives (large or SMB) nod sagely and agree.

And the next time they're checking out a nice looking resume, they forget all about it.

Bigger enterprises are better about it mainly because they tend to have dedicated HR staffers who make it their business to do background checks. SMBs, however, tend to play a little fast and loose with this process because often the interview process is conducted without intervention from HR. That's a mistake.

We just bumped into this in the real world where a sys admin got himself fired after the company found him 'embezzling' customer data for identity theft. Frighteningly, it was sheer luck that exposed the weenie, because he went after paper-based data to flesh out some data he'd gotten digitally. The admin in charge of those files caught him with his fingers in the cookie jar and then our guys were called in quietly to trace his movements on the network. He hadn't covered his tracks at all, since no one else at the organization had any computer savvy. We had him dead to rights in about an hour and a half of digging.

That company was lucky. But once we pulled in a professional investigator, he turned up a criminal sheet on this guy in less than a day of looking. Had the company's HR consultant done her job, that shouldn't have been a surprise.

For those who don't use an HR professional, you can find plenty of personal search services on the Web. A professional, like the one this company hired after the fact, will charge around $500 for a full check--definitely the most thorough way to go, since they'r experts and don't rely on just electronic search services. But for a quick check, you can also choose from a HUGE variety of background check services aimed specifically at business, like EasyBackgrounds or Rapsheets.com. These services range from $10 to $50 depending on who you use and what searches you want run. Responses are received almost immediately and can be had on-screen or via email.

It may add cost to an employee hire, but for someone who has the ability to really hurt the business (like an IT manager), it's definitely worth it.

Posted by Oliver Rist on December 11, 2006 07:55 AM