South Jersey Techies wanted to provide you with some suggested preparations to safely secure your workstations and networks from any storm damage.

Suggestions for Storm Preparations in Your Office:

• Time to do backups of all data: Make back-ups of all data processing software, files, records, etc.  and transport back-ups off-site, via disk, USB drive or in the cloud.
• Document the layout: Get all of the network addresses, the router and firewall configurations.
• Shut off all sensitive electrical equipment, such as computers.
• Ideally all electronic devices should be unplugged or plugged into surge protectors.
• Review inside storage arrangements and relocate all important materials and equipment to safe areas away from windows.
• Update call lists and contact info: All key personnel need to register their updated cell numbers, home email addresses, and physical addresses.
• Leave before you need to: Don’t get stuck in traffic, airports, train stations and in queues. Give yourself ample time.

If you need your data backed up or are unsure as to the last time a backup occurred, please contact our Support Team.  We are here to help ensure that your data is safe and that you are able to be up and operating as soon as the storm passes. Our Support Team can be reached at (856) 745-9990.

Suggestions for Storm Preparations in Your Home:

• Monitor National Weather Service forecasts at http://weather.gov .
• Bring outdoor objects, such as lawn furniture, garbage cans and other loose items, inside the house or tie them down securely.
• Make backups of computer data (consider storing in the cloud or on a USB drive), keep computers or other sensitive electronic devises plugged into a surge protector or unplug entirely.
• If you have a sump pump for your basement, make sure it’s working.
• If the power goes off, unplug appliances like refrigerators and freezers and sensitive electronic equipment like TVs and computers so that they won’t overload when power is restored.
• Keep family supplies on hand, such as:
  • Water, one gallon per day, per person
  • Food, non-perishable food (keep a manual can opener handy) and pet supplies, if needed
  • Medications, contact lenses, glasses and first aid kit
  • Batteries, flashlights and battery operated radios
• Keep cell phones charged while possible, and if possible, have extra charged cell phone batteries.
• Keep copies of any important documents either scanned or digitally saved on a USB drive, off-site or in a plastic bag.
• Car filled up with gas; keep some water, food, first aid kits, contacts, blankets and pet supplies in the car as well.

If you have any issues or questions, please feel free to contact our support team by telephone at (856) 745-9990.

TECHIES is a full Managed IT Services Company headquartered in Marlton, New Jersey for over 20 years with a new location opening soon in Wilson, North Carolina. TECHIES provides Managed IT Services, Cybersecurity Solutions, Website Design Services, Dedicated Server Solutions, IT Consulting, VoIP Phone Solutions, Cloud Solutions, Network Cabling and much more.

Are we allowed to mention cheaper is not always better?

Takeaway: IT in general becomes a better value with improving technology every single year, but that does not equate to cheaper being best.

The register has published a couple of articles recently that have been gnawing away at me. Brid-Aine Parnell reports that just 5 percent of UK CIOs surveyed by the Corporate IT Forum consider Google a credible supplier to business, citing “missing features” when compared with mainstream offerings from companies like Microsoft.

For the last couple of years it’s seemed that talking disrespectfully about any element of cloud computing was corporate suicide. I’ve sat in meetings where organizations with anywhere from 40 to 100 users have asked us why they can’t use Google docs rather than Office with a fileserver, why we recommend laptops and workstations when PC World or Comet have alternatives for sale that may be hundreds of pounds cheaper, and why, on one occasion, we were recommending a phone system that was costly when Skype did everything an office phone did and cost nothing.

On the September 3, Rik Myslewski commented on Net Applications’ monthly ‘Net Market Share’ survey, which calculates Desktop Operating System Market Share based on internet usage reported by 40,000 websites worldwide.

Microsoft Windows 7 has just overtaken XP with 42.76% of the market share against 42.52% for XP. That’s over 85% of worldwide desktop computers running either Windows 7, the version of Windows currently in the shops and that a number of IT departments have, possibly reluctantly, upgraded their workforce to, or Windows XP, the version that shipped on PC’s between 2003 and 2007 and that plenty of large IT departments still choose to deploy.

Of the remaining 14.72 percent, Vista, reviled by users and IT departments everywhere, claims 6.15%. All flavors of OS X account for 7.13% (the largest single contributor was Lion, with 2.45%) leaving Linux with 1.10%.

Most IT pros have used Linux at some point; its appeal is too great not to. It’s powerful, stable and incredibly configurable, and costs either nothing or very little. Linux is fun to get working and to work with. So why 1.10%? It most likely comes down to the fact that most PC users are not prepared to put much learning time into using their operating system, and Linux is far enough removed from Windows that, other than for standard tasks, navigating the OS will demand at least some investment. Also, the variety of builds and hardware, support (professional or otherwise) has to be more awkward. It’s easy to overlook that one of Apple’s greatest strengths is the benefit of designing both the hardware and software and knowing they function well with the other. Support is simplified.

Most people, particularly those making IT purchasing decisions, will have used a PC. Discussing whether Linux is a good fit for them, especially in a corporate environment, would be fairly straightforward. So why do we struggle with convincing people that Skype is not an alternative to a fully-featured phone system, or that Gmail can only be compared to Microsoft Exchange in the most basic of functions?

Part of the answer lies in the hype of the cloud, promoted as all things to all men (at least IT-wise) while saving money too. Has a concept, gadget, or major software release ever generated the same buzz? The triumvirate of new, technically advanced and cheap is an extremely powerful lure. The cloud will change how we work and will have relatively low-cost elements, but is not an entity in its own right. Gartner industry analysts report that cloud computing has passed through the hype stage and is now entrenched in the “trough of disillusionment.” This is not a comment on the state of IT in 2012, it’s the expected reaction to the hype created by those intent on making a buck in the short term. In the middle of difficult trading conditions, it was easy for decision makers to be seduced by the promise of better and cheaper, without needing to test a product in action.

This last point is pertinent in the small- and medium-sized business (up to perhaps 500 workstations) marketplace. We can tell our clients where we think cloud solutions will suit them and where they won’t. Actually giving them a working demonstration is significantly harder; there are numerous difficulties to moving an office, department or team over to Gmail, or certain folders off the file server to Google docs. We’ve done it and it’s awkward and clients don’t want awkward from their IT; they want the additional benefits and lower costs advertised.

There’s also an issue with IT departments being reluctant to say no. In those meetings where decision makers are pushing for Skype and Gmail, or cheap laptops and workstations, we want to be as helpful as possible and it’s absolutely our duty to recognize the benefits of lower cost and to either provide an agreed solution (specification and features) at the lowest price, or to be perfectly clear about the different feature sets at different price points. It’s rarely our place to set the budget, but we must be able to deliver the best option at any price point or to demonstrate why a cheaper option may be of lesser value.

That can be a more obvious problem during a recession when companies are receiving dozens of calls every week from IT providers pitching for business offering what they claim is both better and cheaper. We’re in no doubt that the cloud will continue to be a huge benefit at a huge number of price points. A $1,600 workstation will be better value to some users than a $320 netbook, while plenty of users will find Gmail does exactly what they need at a fraction of the cost of Exchange 2010. IT in general becomes a better value with improving technology every single year, but that does not equate to cheaper being best.

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Summary: Microsoft’s flagship mail service for consumers gets a new name and a “modern” Metro-style interface. Here’s how to sign up for a preview and what to expect. So long, Hotmail. It was nice to know you. Microsoft unveiled a major update to its consumer mail platform today, with a new look, a slew of new features, and a new name that is surprisingly familiar.

The “modern email” service has been in super stealth mode for several months under the codename NewMail. With its formal launch as an open-to-the-public preview, the service gets a new name: Outlook.com. I’ve been using the NewMail beta for a week now and can share some first impressions here. Outlook, of course, is the serious, business-focused mail client included with Office. Microsoft used the brand with Outlook Express, its lightweight email client in Windows XP, but dumped the name with the launch of Windows Vista in 2006. Restoring the Outlook name to Microsoft’s consumer email service accomplishes two goals. First, it dumps the Hotmail brand, which is tarnished beyond redemption, especially among technically sophisticated users who have embraced Google’s Gmail as the default standard for webmail. More importantly, it replaces the Hotmail domain with a fresh top-level domain that’s serious enough for business use. (If you have an existing Hotmail.com or Live.com address, you can continue to use it with the new Outlook interface. But new addresses in the Outlook.com domain are up for grabs. if you have a common name, I recommend that you get yourself over to Outlook.com now to claim your preferred email address while it’s still available.) The Outlook.com preview will run alongside Hotmail for now, but when the preview ends, this will be the replacement for all Hotmail and Live Mail users. With Outlook.com, Microsoft is taking dead aim at Gmail, positioning Google’s flagship service as the old and tired player that is ready for retirement. Gmail, they point out, is eight years old, and its interface and feature set aren’t exactly modern. It doesn’t play well with any social media except its own, it handles attachments in a stodgy and traditional way, and it’s not particularly elegant when it comes to managing the deluge of email we all have to deal with every day. So what’s new about NewMail—sorry, Outlook.com? And why would anyone consider switching from Gmail? The most obvious change in the web interface, of course, is the overall design, which gets the full Metro treatment.

That three-pane layout follows the familiar Outlook standard, but the typography is definitely new. It’s clean and crisp with no wasted ornamentation or clutter. It should come as no surprise that the default organization is optimized for use on touch-enabled devices. A pane on the right shows different content, depending on the context. If you’re communicating with a friend of colleague who’s in your address book or connected via a social-media service, you’ll see updates about that person on the right side, with the option to chat with them (via Messenger or Facebook chat) in that pane. In a demo, Microsoft showed off Skype integration and said it will be coming later in the preview. If you’ve selected no message, the right pane might show ads, which appear in Metro style boxes with text–an image preview appears if you hover over the ad. As part of its positioning against Google, Microsoft has taken pains to note that your messages aren’t scanned to provide context-sensitive ads, as they are with Gmail. This is a pure HTML interface, which means the functionality is consistent across different browsers and on alternative platforms. I tested NewMail on a Mac using Safari and Chrome and in both Firefox and Chrome on several Windows PCs. Everything worked as expected. I also tested the web-based interface in mobile Safari on an iPad, where it also displayed perfectly (after switching from the default mobile layout). On mobile devices, you’ll be able to use native apps. An app for iOS devices should be available immediately. Microsoft promises an Android app “soon” that will enable Exchange ActiveSync support for older Android versions. A command bar at the top of the page provides access to commands as needed. If a command isn’t available in the current context, it’s not visible on the screen.

The preview pane (a feature that’s still experimental in Gmail even after eight years) lets you read and reply to messages without leaving the main screen. Action icons that appear when you move the mouse over an item in the message list let you file, delete, or flag the message with a single click or tap.

The new Outlook has some impressive mail management smarts built in. It automatically recognizes newsletters and other recurring types of mail. A Schedule cleanup option in the message header (also available on the command bar), lets you create rules on the fly that automatically delete or file similar messages to reduce clutter. You can specify, for example, that you want to keep only the most recent message from a “daily deals” site. You can also define how many messages you want to keep from a particular sender or automatically delete/file newsletters after a set number of days.

For newsletters that don’t contain an obvious unsubscribe link, the new Outlook adds a universal unsubscribe feature at the bottom of the message. When you select this option the web service sends an unsubscribe request on your behalf and creates a message-blocking rule. One huge differentiator between old-school webmail services like Gmail is the new Unified Address Book in Outlook.com. It takes a page from Microsoft’s People hubs in Windows 8 and the Windows Phone platform to pull together your traditional address book—where you manage names and details—and combine it with social media services of which you’re a member.

The advantage, of course, is that you always have the most up-to-date contact information for friends and colleagues, assuming they update their profiles. The new Outlook does a pretty good job of combining records. If you have contacts that appear in multiple locations, you can manually link or unlink those records as needed. Supported services include anything you can link to your Microsoft account, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Flickr. You can import contacts from Google and Facebook if you want to keep them locally. In terms of creating and sending photos and file attachments, the new Outlook integrates exceptionally well with SkyDrive, so that you can email large attachments and photo albums, storing them on SkyDrive with well-integrated links that the recipient can access with a click. The spec sheet says single attachments can be up to 300 MB in size. If they’re stored on SkyDrive, you don’t have to worry about the message being rejected by the recipient’s mail service. And of course, the service incorporates all of the Office Web Apps, which makes the process of sharing Word documents, PowerPoint slide decks, and Excel workbooks much more seamless. On the back end, the interface for managing an email account is cleaner. You can still create aliases that you use for sites and contacts where you don’t want to share your real address. And if you just want to experiment with the new service, you can redirect your Gmail messages temporarily to the new account or sign in with an existing Hotmail or Live address. (I’ve had my Gmail account redirected to Hotmail for a year without problems.)

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Takeaway: As adoption of cloud computing services takes off, some argue demand for certain IT jobs will all but disappear.

Just as manual labourers were replaced by the machines of industry in the 19th century so certain IT roles will be swept away by cloud computing services.

That’s the argument put forward by Gartner research director Gregor Petri – who believes that many roles managing IT infrastructure will all but disappear.

Manual management of IT infrastructure – for instance provisioning additional storage, servers or network capacity for a particular application – will increasingly be automated as software layers in the cloud automatically divert IT resources to where they are needed, he said.

“It is very much like industrialisation,” he said.

“Take the very old example given by Adam Smith of the pin makers who used to take a day to make four pins, then a factory is built that can make 10,000 pins in an hour.

“That is what cloud computing services is making possible: you can carry out these computing tasks on an industrial scale.”

Petri said that just as people no longer make pins manually, so in general people won’t perform tasks like monitoring an app’s storage demands and purchasing and installing new storage for it.

“The cloud computing app is already programmed in a way that allows the application to access additional storage when it is needed, as a result nobody is needed to do that anymore,”  he said.

“Cloud is allowing the industrialisation of IT, that is why to some people it is very scary.”

While Petri believes that traditional IT infrastructure management roles will become all but defunct, allowing IT systems to be run with fewer people, he said it doesn’t necessarily mean the individuals who carried out those roles will find themselves out of the job.

Instead he sees new roles being created that use that individuals’ technical skills to add value to the business, for instance working with managers in other departments to make company IT systems better fit the needs of staff or customers. “People in those roles need to flexible in the idea of what their role is,” he said.

The changing landscape of computing – for instance real-time big data analytics or the provision of scalable cloud services to always connected mobile computers – will also create new roles, he said.

When will it happen?

While today’s cloud platforms are already automatically provision these resources today, Petri said that the effect of this industrialisation of computing will not be felt until more applications are shifted to the cloud.

That could be some time off. Although adoption of cloud services is growing rapidly – Gartner predicts that the market for cloud compute services will grow 48.7 per cent in 2012 to $5bn, up from $3.4 billion in 2011 – spend on cloud computing services is still only a fraction of global IT spend. However, by 2020 the majority of organisations will rely on the cloud for more than half of their IT services, according to Gartner’s 2011 CIO Agenda Survey.

Will jobs really disappear?

Not everyone is convinced that cloud computing services will have such a profound effect on the IT jobs landscape.

Some believe that while roles will likely transition from in-house IT teams to cloud providers as companies consume more cloud services, the roles and demand for skills will remain.

As a TechRepublic reader who works for a large cloud provider pointed out: “I still deal with the daily hands on from thousands of customers / clients, some pretty huge ones at that. Between dealing with their AD, LDAP, Windows / Linux deployments, configuration and code issues, I can say that server administrators will still be needed in fact more than ever.”

Other readers have pointed out that IT roles tend to endure far longer than expected and certain technical skills remain in demand. Old programming languages never die, as another reader points out:”Back in 1977 I attended a COBOL Summer class in my university. The first thing the instructor told us was that it was dead language, as new technologies were pushing it to extinction… Guess what, early this morning I reviewed (part of my duties as a DBA) some SQL embedded in a COBOL program to run in the z196 Mainframe”.

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The Genie in the Phone Cloud: Top 5 Small Biz Features

Entrepreneurship is at an all-time high and innovative small businesses are sprouting and flourishing. Personal service, attention to detail, and feeling good about supporting local and sustainable companies are some of the most popular reasons people choose the little guy over big, aggressive brands.
Maybe you sell delectable gluten-free scones out of a food truck, or are a general housing contractor with a small team of employees. Being great at your trade is one thing, but there’s also the matter of managing communications and connecting smoothly with your customers. With a cloud-based phone system from RingCentral, small businesses are able to walk (and talk) in big business shoes. You can become the wizard behind the curtain, orchestrating spectacular feats with ingenuity and some smart technology.

The Auto-Receptionist is always in and on

Your Auto-Receptionist is the personal assistant that never calls in sick! You or your administrator set the parameters so you can be reached anytime and everyplace. Define the routing criteria, and you’re connected to customers, vendors, and your cycling group, with calls forwarded to multiple numbers and devices, text-to-speech translation of messages, and department-specific messaging. Want someone with a crisp English accent orating your menus for callers? Greetings are customizable, and you can even source professional talent for your recordings. Your three-person organization can perform with the finesse and functionality of a traditionally larger and more established operation.

Unlimited Toll-Free, Local, and Vanity Numbers

Your phone number says a lot about you. Literally it could spell out a memorable word or two. A standard toll-free number, including the classic 1-800 number, tells your customers you’re well established and ensures that your customers can reach you at no cost to themselves. Choose a few local numbers for areas you want to service and instantly become a hot, new, neighborhood business.

Yes, that’s my Department

Getting dumped into a general voicemail box or simply not being able to reach someone in a timely manner is alienating for callers and can send potential customers searching for a more responsive and better-prepared business. Instead, create virtual departments with a group of extensions as a fantastic way to add real structure to your business and make it easy for your contacts to connect with you. For example, create the ‘Sales’ department and when the designated reps aren’t available, the system puts callers on hold until someone can take the call. Hold times can be customized as well, so your callers never feel lost or unimportant.

Get ahead with Call Forwarding

So what happened to the caller on hold for sales? Realizing every second counts and all’s fair in love and brand loyalty, you set Call Forwarding to reach you or another contact after, say, a 30-second hold time. The call instantly goes to your business partner’s mobile phone. If they’re also not available, the call finds the next contact and, as a last resort, it routes to the extension at your poolside cabana in Orlando. You can set specific parameters for After Hours as well and avoid the cost (and antiquated style) of an outside answering service.

The thrill of the (easy) chase

You want your business to be pursued and easily caught. FindMe-FollowMe is the cyber stalker you’re glad to have on your side. You control connectivity by directing incoming calls to any and all your phones, whenever you want. You can even set it to call multiple phones simultaneously, in a specific order and even by date, time, the caller’s Caller ID, or the number dialed.

You had the vision and grit to launch your business, and the progressive thinking to ditch the room full of obsolete and costly phone system hardware. Your contacts will be amazed at how you always seem to magically appear when they need you. Building a successful business starts with the basic steps like establishing a phone system, and being easily reachable by customers whenever they need to reach you.

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The ‘Cloud’ has been at the horizon for quite some time and is now slowly moving to the center stage. A lot has been written about this topic and spoken of at numerous meetings and seminars for long. Both business magazines and IT journals have carried stories on this subject and some have even put them on the cover page. Such is the importance that ‘cloud computing’ enjoys.

The Cloudy Outlook

CIOs have often been accused of ignorance or for resisting application of this new technological phenomenon. CIOs perhaps are not the only ones to blame, as technology vendors, service providers, and the media, all have played a part and have done their bit, to create confusion. The hype that surrounds this subject is phenomenal and perhaps equals or exceeds the buzz created on new technologies in the past. Articles in business magazines, discussions on television and direct mailers to senior corporate honchos touted ‘cloud’ as the single most important thing to happen and as a harbinger for all ills. Speakers were eloquent about the transformation that ‘cloud’ could bring to the enterprises.

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Microsoft took the beta label off of Office 365 last week, and many consider the cloud-based productivity suite a potshot at Google and Google Apps. Office 365 may offer cloud-based document, storage, and collaboration services that look like Google Apps, but the user experience and price tag are very different. Here’s a look at the major differences between them.

User Experience

The way the user interacts with the application suite may be the biggest difference between Google Apps and Office 365. When you use Google Apps, you live in your Web browser. You edit documents and spreadsheets in Google Docs through your browser, you get your email through Gmail, and you chat with colleagues using Google Talk – all in your browser.

Conversely, Office 365 requires you download a plug-in that will link your desktop with the cloud-based service. You’ll need Microsoft Office installed on your desktop already (to make use of offline and cloud-based features as opposed to webapps,) and you’ll need the .NET framework installed. You’ll also need Lync installed on your system as well if your organization will leverage instant messaging and chat. It’s a hefty list of system requirements you’ll need just to get started, especially compared to Google Apps’ requirements: a supported browser.

Document Collaboration

Microsoft Office documents are the de-facto standard in office environments, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Office 365 has an easier time with advanced formatting in Microsoft Word documents and Excel spreadsheets than Google Apps does. Microsoft has put a lot of time and effort into making sure the polish in Microsoft Office made it to Office 365. Office 365 users get the same templates, formatting features, and tools that desktop users get, and since the two services connect, you can create a slideshow in PowerPoint and upload it to Office 365 for editing later without worrying you’ll lose the formatting or images.

If your organization already makes heavy use of Microsoft Exchange for mail and Microsoft Office for productivity, Office 365 will appeal to those who want a familiar, robust tool. Google Apps, and specifically Google Docs, feels barren and plain by comparison, even if it’s more accessible and open.

Google Docs, on the other hand, does a solid job of importing most Microsoft Office documents, auto-saving them, and giving groups a way to all work in and on the same documents and files at the same time without stepping on each other. It’s definitely more bare-bones than Office 365, but it works seamlessly and without the need for desktop software.

Microsoft rolls in Sharepoint to handle document sharing and management, and depending on your opinion, it can be a good or a bad thing. Sharepoint adds a layer of complexity where Google allows more openness. While you do get the benefit of revision history, check-in/check-out, integration with Microsoft Office on the desktop, and integration with Sharepoint Web services with Office 365, Google Docs offers much of the same and lets you and others work in the same document at the same time and see who’s viewing and who edited last, all without the need for another platform.

Chat and Communication

Office 365’s presence tools, including Lync (formerly known as Office Communication Server) integrates with other Microsoft Office and Office 365 products so you can always see if someone is available for chat or a VoIP call, or who’s editing your document or viewing the same files that you are.

Google, on the other hand, already offers this with Google Talk and Google Voice. They’re not as tightly integrated with Google Docs as Lync is with Office 365, but they’re all there.

The only area where Office 365 and Lync outshine Google Talk and Google Voice is in screen-sharing and white-boarding, which Lync has natively but Google Talk does not. Again, Microsoft has more polish and shine on their applications, but feature-for-feature, they’re largely matched. Google Talk and Google Voice may be more Spartan, but they do have broader reach, especially for users who already have large contact lists.

Price

Google Apps Standard for your domain is free. Google Apps for Business offers two pricing plans: a flexible $5/user per month where you can add or remove users at will and pay the difference, and a $50/user per year plan where you commit for a year to get a discounted rate.

Office 365 requires the initial investment in Microsoft Office on your user desktops (as noted above: for use with some enterprise-level features,) some Microsoft Office Servers and services in your environment (like Active Directory if you plan to use those features,) but after that you’ll pay $6/user per month for the small business plan. If you don’t have Microsoft Office on your users’ desktops, you can pay another $12/user per month to get each one of them a copy of Microsoft Office Professional Plus.

Larger enterprises can choose tiered pricing plans that run from $10/user per month up to $27/user per month depending on how many services that want hosted in the cloud versus in their own environments. There’s no two ways about it: Office 365 will be more expensive for almost every business, but Microsoft thinks they have the feature depth to justify the price.

Which One’s Better?

The jury is still out, and even though Office 365 has been in beta for months, Microsoft has a lot of catching up to do if they want to win back enterprises that are looking for affordable cloud-based collaboration products. The familiarity that almost every business has with Microsoft Office may play a big role going forward, but the price tag will be something else they’ll have to overcome.

Feature-for-feature though, the two services offer the same basic functionality, although it can be said that Office 365 shines with polish and flare where Google Apps offers affordability and accessibility.