This article is specifically tailored to small businesses.
 You’ve poured your money, sweat, blood and tears into making you
business a success, but every time the mail arrives you dread
seeing another bill from the people that provide you IT support on
an hourly basis.  Maybe this month you used 10 hours or maybe 50
hours.  You remember seeing someone at your office working on
things but just can’t recall how much time was spent on the
computers.  After all, you were busy doing your primary job,
running and growing your business.

What if you could get 30 years of combined expertise in running
company’s IT departments at a stable monthly rate?  You outsource
your entire IT needs, and pay only a fraction of the costs of
hiring a full time employee.  Each month, your bill is exactly the
same as the last.  

I feel the stress rolling off your shoulders.  You have reached
a state of knowing no matter how messed up your software and
network get, you will pay the same money each month to get it
fixed.  If this is something you really want, call Strickland
Networks today.  (817) 224-2020

Biggest problem with the great cloud migration: getting
there.  

I am a HUGE fan of moving what makes sense for your business to
the cloud and letting others worry about the maintenance and upkeep
of equipment and software.  But here’s the catch, what happens to
the average company when their Internet goes down?  You email, you
backups, your accounting software, and everything else that you
have trusted to be moved to the cloud is now inaccessible.  Do you
send all your employees home and have them work there?  Can you
trust your employees to not just goof of the rest of the day?  

How to minimize your risks:

Get redundant Internet!  Don’t be lazy about it and buy two T1
lines from the same vendor, because those will most likely both go
down at the same time.  Buy a backup DSL or cable line into your
office.  It will be worth the minimal monthly investment.  

Buy a router / firewall that can handle it.  We love SonicWALL
products at Strickland Networks.  Most of the models automatically
handle dual Internet connections.  Meaning if the primary is
unavailable, outbound traffic is automatically sent through the
second connection.  But it gets better, many models you can add a
high availability unit as well.  This gives you 2 SonicWALL
firewalls working in tandem to prevent downtime in the event of a
hardware failure as well.  Now you could lose 1 firewall and 1
internet connection before becoming unproductive.    

Need some more help:

Email or call us today.  817.224.2020

Quick poll, how many of you still own a VCR and still use it
regular?  Most of you are using DVD / Blu-Ray or streaming it over
the Internet.  So why do you hold your data backups in the prisons
of tape?

There are a great deal of solutions out there that are disk
based and store your data in a secure spot in the “cloud.”  But why
settle for just backup when anyone can provide that?  How much
better would a total solution that covered recent backups, disaster
recovery and business continuity be for your company?  Our solution
at Strickland Networks is called TotalProtect because it keeps you
protected in all of these three categories.

Backups

An initial backup is done and then
continuous incrementals follow behind.  The first destination of
backups is to local storage at your site.  That can be a Strickland
Networks recommended NAS device or your own storage.  The next
destination for your data is off to our data center.   There, the
base image plus 1 month of your most recent data is kept.

Disaster Recovery

Let’s assume worse case scenario,
your entire office is destroyed by an act of nature.  Strickland
Networks can virtualize your most recent backup sent to our data
center and help you make changes to allow you and your company to
keep working remotely until a new physical location can be found
for your office and new equipment purchased.  Then we’ll help
transition back to the new hardware – all with minimal
downtime.

Business Continuity

We’ve all heard the horror stories. 
Or maybe you’ve experienced it first hand.  Your Server RAID has
failed beyond repair, memory fails and the parts are out of stock,
CPU’s over heating … whatever the issue, with TotalProtect you
have the ability to turn your backups into a running virtual server
or do a bare metal restore to new, dissimilar hardware.  Your down
time is now hours, not days.

Read more here.  http://bit.ly/SN-TotalProtect,
or call (817.224.2020) / 
email today for more information.   

Here’s the situation.  I have a corporate email account on
hosted exchange (Microsoft BPOS) and this is my work email,
calendar, and contacts.  I also have a Google apps domain for my
personal email, calendar and contacts.  I am a Google voice user
and share my Google apps calendar with my wife.  It is essential
that these calendars and contacts are the same.  I also have an
iPhone that uses the exchange active sync connection and have to
Goggle apps account setup for email only.

In the dark days of owning my blackberry, I tried to sync
everything using the Google app on the phone.  The results were
disastrous.  I had to undo the sync and restore from a backup.  I
also received errors all the time saying that the contacts and
calendar were being synched by another program (Enterprise
activated) and could not complete or a duplicate would be created.
 

This time around, I said that I need the application to reside
my desktop to handle the issue.  I searched and searched for
something free to do this but could not find it.  Add to the
complexity that I am running office 2010 x64 edition.  This only
further narrowed my options.

After searching for a while, I found Gsyncit. (http://www.daveswebsite.com/software/gsync/).
 I read all about it and decided it was going to do everything I
wanted it to.  The app is $14.99, but very much so worth every
penny.  It took about 10 minutes to setup, and then I had some
de-duplicating to do in contacts because the contacts between
Google Apps domain and Outlook were already out of sync from me
manually doing it when I remembered to.  The de-duplication process
to about 20 minutes.  I have almost 300 contacts so not to bad.

But here’s where I ended up after my $14.99 purchase and 30
minutes of work.  All contacts and calendars are synched between
the two accounts.  If I make a change on my phone while I am on the
road, it gets updated to corporate exchange.  Then when I get back
to the office, I load Outlook and all those changes are synched
back to the Google side.  I can also accept invitations from either
of my accounts in any method I want.  Then changes are synched
later when Outlook is loaded on my desktop.  Finally, since all my
contacts are in sync, Goggle voice calls are very rarely unknown
callers any more and I am no longer required to press 1 to accept
the call of an unknown caller.

To be a complete nerd for a little bit, I have been trying to
accomplish this for a very long time.   I have seen Gsyncit for a
while but really didn’t want to pay $14.99.  It has been a
frustrating uphill battle to get these all in sync but now that
they are, I feel major satisfaction.  

I WANT an e-book reader and I must have one!  I am tired of all
the books I buy and having to keep up with them.  I have broke down
my thoughts and would love any comments to help me finally
decide.

Kindle 

The kindle with its low price has me wanting to go that
direction more than any other.  I know what type of books I like to
read and amazon book store has most of the titles available for the
Kindle.  The e-ink and battery life of the new generation is very
attractive.  The big downside, I don’t get all the cool features of
the iPad.  Apps, web surfing and so on.

Nook

In my opinion, I feel like this is a very similar product to the
Kindle.  Barnes and Nobles saw the success of the Kindle, tweaked
and added some features and called in Nook.  To me, there just does
not seem to be enough originality to make me want to chose one over
the other.  Additionally, when I searched the BN site for books I
like to read, less were available for the nook than the Kindle.  I
welcome someone to prove me wrong on this one and bring up some
points I have missed.

iPad

Total awesomeness.  I want it!  But wait, reports I have read
say two things bad.  1. it’s not that great of a platform to read
books on.  2. because of the light it emits, the iPad is more like
watching TV than reading a book.  Meaning that my sure fire way of
getting sleepy, reading, now is going to keep me awake.  Apple’s
selection doesn’t seem to be that great right now (at least for the
books I like to read).  But it is Apple, that will change.  I can’t
remember that last time I bought music anywhere but iTunes.  We all
know Steve Jobs wish is for the same thing to happen with books and
media in general.  We are now saying, “what’s a CD?”, but Steve
Jobs wants us saying “What’s a book” or “What’s a Magazine”.    
 

Wrapping it up

What’s makes this the hardest for me to decide is that I am
cheap.  I want to be a cool kid and have an iPad.  But it’s the
most expensive option. My other issue in general is that a recent
report shows that people read much slower on the “ebooks” than real
paper.

Microsoft is trying to kill public folders and make everyone go to SharePoint.  As far as mobile access to SharePoint went, it was rather bad.  Text only or a really small screen of the SharePoint page. Today I needed a way to make SharePoint pretty on an iPhone.  Basically more elegant than the text only version.  After some research, I found Moshare.  http://moprise.com/

Right now the program is free to download and use via the App Store.  I downloaded, installed and configured in under 10 minutes.  

The drawback I see is that all information is read only.  Which, let us be honest, if you are using your iPhone to access the site, do you really want to do more than read the info?  

Do you think The Strickland Group has or is helping your business
by managing the Information Technology side of your business?  Do
you know other companies that could benefit from our services?  If
so, recommend us to your friends, colleagues, and business
partners.  The Strickland Group is offering $250 for each referred
new client that signs and enters into a new Managed Service Contract.

This money can be paid directly to an individual, credited to
your monthly bill, or it can be given to a non profit / charity of
your choice in your name.

Have your friend, colleagues and business partners call or
contact us.  Be sure they mention who referred them to The Strickland Group.

info@stricklandnetworks.com

(817) 224-2020

I have switched all my person email to a Google Apps account.  I
wanted the email control and the customized domain.  Only problem
was that I couldn’t use most of the other Google products.  In
particular: blogger, picasa, and voice.

I searched for some time trying to figure out how to do this.
 Nothing useful was coming across my screen.  I accidentally
discovered how to do what I so desperately wanted Google to do when
I was trying to setup adsense.  

Here’s how you do it:

Create a new Google account.  Here is the link. 

https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount.
 

Use your Google Apps domain email address and follow
instructions.  Once complete / confirmed, you can use most of the
Google products.

Bonus tip:

If you want to transfer your Google voice account from your
Gmail.com account to your Google Apps domain, click this link.
 

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=cjlWRDFTWERkZEIxUzVjSmNsN0ExU1E6MA.
 

You must complete the Google account setup first though.

Disclaimer: not every bank has this setup yet,
my bank just happens to be leading the pack.  

I got my iPhone 4 about three weeks after it had been released.
  I am finally one of the cool kids and I do not have a blackberry
or windows phone anymore.  I installed my banking app and
remembered someone telling me that their app allowed depositing of
checks via the app by taking pictures.  Honestly, I thought this
was the most useful thing to do with the camera and the iPhone in
general.  

I get expense checks from time to time that are not direct
deposited and my bank has no local branches.  Previous to the
iPhone app, I had another bank locally, and I had authorized wire
transfers between the two.  But this still required me driving a
ways, depositing the check and then transfer the funds.  iPhone app
comes along and this is not a problem any more.  I choose mobile
deposit and take a picture of the front and back (which is signed
with and labeled for deposit only into my account).  Funds are
available immediately.  

To me, this is a game changer and should send banks into
examining why they have so many branches when a smart phone could
do a bulk of deposits for individuals.  Commercial deposits, well,
not every solution is a good fit to every problem.   

My definition of CLOUD:  The most over used buzz word of recent
times.  Putting that aside, some IT solutions just fit better with
someone else hosting and maintaining that part of your business.
 Today, I am focusing on email.  

Money: Yes, money talks.  You can host email
offsite for as little as $4.17 / month / user and a maximum of $10
/ month / user.  This isn’t with some fly by night company either.
 We are talking about Microsoft and Google.  Let’s case study a
company with 30 employees needing to upgrade their email server and
say that the company replaces equipment precisely every 4 years.
 Option 1: Purchase new server and replace.  Cost: Approximately
$7500.  (Server + Software + Licensing) .  Option 2: Google apps
domain: Yearly cost $1500 and total cost over 4 years is $6000 plus
initial setup (man hours). Option 3: Microsoft hosted exchange:
Yearly cost of $1800 and total cost over 4 years $7200 plus initial
setup (man hours).  Option 4: Microsoft BPOS: Yearly cost of $3600
and total cost over 4 years $14400 plus initial setup (man
hours).

With the last 3 options, the best news is that after the first
four years, your company is purchasing new equipment.  You continue
to pay your monthly fee and upgrades and improvements are added to
your hosting solution in the cloud with out any intervention from
your IT staff.

Maintenance:  I am in no way saying the cloud
is maintenance free, but I am saying that your IT staff will spend
much less time maintaining the email hosted in the cloud once the
initial setup is done.  Think of this, the burden of backups,
uptime, equipment and so on is now rolled up into a nominal fee you
are paying.  

Reliability: Service Level Agreement!  What
would it cost your company to place a redundant email system to a
data center that offered very high speed internet and redundancy.
 I have recently priced this and $20k – $30k for hardware alone.
 Add on a $500 – $1500 monthly fee for the data center and
internet.  All this exercise was to get your SLA up to 99.9%.  Or,
when you buy a hosted solution, it comes with that SLA bundled in
you low recurring fee. 

Eat our own Dog Food: Not only do we recommend
these solutions, but we use them too. Our corporate email is hosted
with Microsoft BPOS.  Personally, I have a Google apps domain for
my family.  I like both products and they both are reliable and
quality products.  

Ready to buy yet?   If this peaked you’re
interest and you are ready to switch, give Strickland Networks a
call.  Not only can well help you chose the right solution, we can
help you implement it as well.