Hello all! Today I am going to cover one letter in an acronym that makes a HUGE difference on how your blackberry will receive and manage business emails. To keep it short I will concentrate on the email connectivity. There are more benefits from one to the other such as internal intranet pages for you company and more but most people I know use it for its major use, and that’s EMAIL.

What is BIS?

BIS stands for BlackBerry Internet Service. It gives your BlackBerry access to the Internet. It’s like an ISP, but for your smart-phone. Most corporate email environments will have “Active Sync” enabled that users can leverage over the internet to manage emails. A good rule of thumb I use is, if you have Outlook Web Access (a web page you can navigate to in order see your emails), then you can set up most mobile devices.

Things the end user will need to know set up

What is BES?

BES stands for BlackBerry Enterprise Server. It gives your BlackBerry access to corporate network resources, as in Email. I would think of it as a constant VPN for your blackberry but don’t quote me on that. Just a way I explain it.

Things the end user will need to know set up

What is the difference?

Price? BIS definitely gets the nod here. No server software to be set up other than what is already set up by default.  BES needs software and a “recommended” dedicated server on the company’s network.

Ease of use for end user? BES takes the cake. One user name, one password and pay for the plan… pretty easy. See above for BIS needy setup.

Ease of use for business? BIS prevails and basks in the tears of its enemies on this topic, but it really just puts the onus on the end user to get the device on par. But that is A-Okay in my book.

Weather you have mobile devices you need to place content
on, or you’re just looking to shrink those archives to the latest and greatest
compression to save some space. This is the tool for you. I am doing my part to
share this secret and tell everyone about CONVERTERLITE.COM. It’s
a FREE tool that has a very minimalistic design that makes everything really
easy and fast. Quick one offs of presentation on my iPad to batch processing
for my archives. They keep updated frequently and have promised to always be
free. For the advanced users they have a programing line to get the preferences
just right.

My one caveat would be to choose the “Advanced” install and
removed the included toolbars (that’s how they keep it free so show your
support if you want but I find them unnecessary).

CONVERTERLITE.COM

When it comes to the Google search box, you already know the tricks: finding exact phrases matches using quotes like “What me worry” or searching a single site using site:smallbusnesstechtips.com But there are many more esoteric search recipes and operators that work from that powerful little input box. Its uses a form of Boolean logic, if you’re familiar with it. Here is the link for the exact explanation to date but it is improved upon daily.

http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Search-Appliance-Help/browse_thread/thread/e757bea8937728b0?pli=1

So with no more gilding the lily and no more ado (in no particular order)!

1. Find related terms and documents

Adding a tilde (~) to a search term will return related terms. For example, Googling ~fashion returns results with the words fashion, style, and shopping in them.

2. Get the local time anywhere

What time is it in New York right now? Ask Google. Enter simply “what time is it” to get the local time, or “what time is it in [PLACE HERE]“. Side tip I use ZIP CODES all the time.

3. Remove unwanted sites from searches

When you’re sick of seeing duplicate product search results from the likes of Walmart, BestBuy, eBay, and Shopping.com, clear them out by stacking up the -site:Walmart.com -site:bestbuy.com -site:eBay.com  -site:shopping.com operator. I have a macro on my internet surfing machine for popular sites I exclude. Great for when you’re looking for content but not looking to buy merchandise.

4. Track flight status

Enter the airline and flight number into the Google search box and get back the arrival and departure times right inside Google’s search results. Admittedly I personally don’t use this but boy would I like to.

5. Convert currency, metrics, bytes, and more

Use for cooking, finances, estimates, troubleshooting, anything you need math for in your day to day life.

6. Compare items with “better than” and find similar items with “reminds me of”

Simply search for, in quotes: “better than _keyword_”, for music, art, anything really to find new but similar tastes.

7. Make Google recognize faces

If you’re doing an image search for a person and don’t want any of the locations,products or fluff to show, a special URL parameter in Google’s Image search will do the trick. Add &imgtype=face to the end of your image search to just get images of faces, without any inanimate objects. Try it out with a search for “rose” (which returns many photos of flowers) versus “rose” with the face parameter.

8. ID people, objects, and foreign language words and phrases with Google Image Search

Google Image search results give you a visual representation to you instead of tell you about a word. Don’t know what Durian looks like? Pop your term into Google Image Search (or type image Durian into the regular search box) to see what your term’s about. If your friend asks you out for some Durian you might want to know what it is.

What’s your favorite Google search technique? Tell us about it in the comments.

File Formats (extensions) 101 part 1 GRAPHICS

File Formats (extensions) 101: Part 2 – PRODUCTIVITY

Hello, and welcome to the third and final part to this blog series.  If you missed the prior Part 1 and Part 2 of the series you can read them here:

Spring Clean Your IT. Part 1

Spring Clean Your IT – Part 2

As I am finishing this series, I wanted to draw your attention to the value of a promotion here at Everon compared to what your options for replacing your hardware you will find in the marketplace.  The ability to offer a discount on purchasing new computers and the services to set them up makes it easy and a lot less stressful on our customers.  It takes the purchasing and configuration burden off the small business owner and puts it in the capable hands of IT professionals, enduring you are getting the best possible value and solution.  To view our current special visit: www.everonitsupport.com/springcleanoffer

Today we are going to touch base on why it is important for your company to have a reliable advisor, such as Everon, to help with all your support needs and IT purchases.  Having someone that you trust is not only comforting, but crucial to keep your business running with little to no flaws.  As this applies to your employees, this also applies to you IT company.

Everyone has a specific skill set that they know are very successful in, yours may be accounting, insurance, medical, etc.  Here at Everon, ours is everything IT.  We are able to assist you in purchasing and get you better deals through our vendor connections on both hardware and software.  We can further assist in setting up, and getting your computers running to a point where every day work for your employees become less of a headache.  As a strong IT company, we are reliable, confident, and able to take the stresses of faulty equipment and down time off your shoulders.

There are many reasons beyond just the hardware replacement why having a trusted IT advisor on your side is important.  Not only can we assist with replacement and setup, but we can provide both preventative maintenance and monitoring to the device after installation, giving you the peace of mind that your investment is protected and maximized.  You will never know for sure how important a dependable IT resource is until you need them right away.  Everon will be there night and day to take care of your every need.  If there is something that you need and we do not offer it at that time, speak with us, it is quite possible something that we can provide after all.  Thank you for reading this blog and I hope to see you and your company take advantage of this amazing deal we are offering!  www.everonitsupport.com/springcleanoffer

This particular
infographic is from FlowTown (which is a good source in its own right) and provides some basic tips for various social networking sites. So you can seem like a pro!

http://www.flowtown.com/blog/the-small-business-social-media-cheat-sheet

Hello again!  Welcome to “Spring Clean Your PC” part 2.  In the first part, we talked about the life expectancy of your pc, laptops, and windows servers.  Read Part 1 here.  That was only one question answered in the whole process of upgrading your business’ IT.  Now, we are going to talk about why it is important and the reasons behind needing to upgrade your hardware.

When it comes to actually hunkering down and making the decision to replace existing and outdated equipment within your company, there is a point that you ask yourself, “is the effect that this is going to have on my wallet going to be beneficial to the end result?”  The whole point to this blog series is to help you make informative decisions and help you rest assured that the products you are purchasing are going to be worth your time and money.

“Is there a benefit of updating my equipment?”  This may be a question that you are asking yourself, but I am here to tell you “very much so” and I will explain why.  Keeping your equipment up-to-date will allow you utilize new software, software that may not be compatible (or possibly runs really slow) on your new equipment.  A lot of new software programs are not supported by older software and some older machines do not even meet the minimum requirements.

There are many other reasons as to why upgrading your equipment is important.  Have you ever been sitting at your computer and you clicked to open a program and then you had to sit patiently and wait for it to open?  If you add up all the time that you and you fellow co-workers spent just “waiting”, my guess is that it would be days or even months of time.  With new equipment, the application response times are higher, processing speeds are faster and just productivity in general is a lot higher as well.

Along with productivity, there will be less downtime and the reliability of your equipment is much higher.  Once you hit a certain point in the lifetime of a computer or a server, equipment failure is inevitable.  With the quality of products that are being produced today, the durability and lifespan is substantially greater.  Technology has come a long way; they have advanced in the performance they can get out of the products for half of the cost.

Now is the time to upgrade. Before, when you first purchased your now old equipment, it was expensive and what you got was nothing in comparison to the products out today. You can purchase a PC with multiple gigabytes of RAM, 1 terabyte of disk space, and a high-end processor for half of the cost you paid for the PC that is now archaic. With Everon, we can do the searching for you and find what you need for a price that will not “break the bank”.

With Everon on your side, we can do the searching and purchasing for you to find the PC or laptop you need for a price that fits your budget. We’ll even set it up and configure it specifically per user with all the appropriate software, settings, connection to your domain and mapping of drives so you can get back to running your business while we handle your technology.

If you purchase a new laptop or PC setup from us between now and June 30th, we’ll take $100 off the setup! If you want to replace the whole office- we’ll bump it up to $150 off per machine.

Register here for details and to take advantage of this offer. www.everonitsupport.com/springcleanoffer

Stay tuned for Part 3 coming soon…

These days, most companies have the right idea when it comes to the life expectancy of their product and the cost of replacement parts versus the cost of a full product replacement.  BIC® sells disposable lighters because it is more cost effective to buy another one rather than buying more fluids, flints, etc.  This is starting to become the case with most computer manufacturers and their products as well.

When the question comes up “How many years should I expect to get out of this computer?” the general consensus fluctuates depending on who you talk to.  With my many years of experience in pc repair and in sales, there is a number that myself and the engineers here at Everon are comfortable sharing.

On a normal basis, the normal lifespan of a computer, whether it be a laptop or desktop, is 3-5 years with normal usage.  If you are using a laptop, this number might be lower only because there is a higher risk of human error (dropping, spilling, etc).  In most instances, the first piece of hardware that will go is the power supply.  To replace the power supply, this is a fairly simple repair that is generally covered under the manufacturer’s warranty or in the extended warranty if one was purchased.  From there, electrical components soon go south.  Depending on usage, stress, location, temperature, and environmental factors, these will also determine the lifespan of your computer.

With proper care, maintenance, and upgrading, the possibility of getting more years out of your computer increases.  7 years down the road, your computer maybe be still running like new or slower than you may remember it, but without hardware upgrades, the speed is the least of your concerns.  With the world of technology changing ever so much, it is hard to keep up, but after the computer hits the 3-5 year mark, hardware versus software compatibility is where we run into the problem.  The latest tax software that you need for your company or the newest version of the document processing suite that isused daily, soon become impossible to purchase because your equipment is too out dated to meet the system requirements.

The statements made above go right along with the lifespan of a Windows server. Environmental conditions play a big part in the well-being of your server as well as hardware compatibility.  In my mind, the life span of a server should not be measured in how long it remains able to perform the tasks given to it, which might be a long time if the task I something that never changes like DNS server.  Whereas, I feel the lifespan should be measured by the amount of time that the hardware is supportable. As a company, one would have to balance out the cost of continually replacing the parts to keep it doing what you need it to do until you are able to go out and purchase one that will give you another 3-5 years without worrying about upgrading.

With all this in mind, up-to-date equipment goes hand-in-hand with quality employees.  Both are a necessity in the success of your business.  There will be following blog posts about when is the right time to upgrade, the impact not upgrading will have on your company, what you will gain out of keeping current, and why it is important to have a trusted IT firm to keep on top of this for you versus trying to do all this on your own.

If you have PCs or laptops that you need to replace.  Now is the time to take advantage of an offer from Everon to save $100 per machine on the setup.  By trusting and IT firm to setup the PC, you can be sure the right software and applications are installed and as well as your email and user settings configured for you.  This was you can be sure it’s going to work properly and can get back to running your business.  To register for this offer and see more details, go to : http://www.everonitsupport.com/springcleanoffer/.

One of the most common issues I encounter as a tech and spend countless hours troubleshooting in why Outlook mailboxes will not open or about the many errors the end user is getting. The majority of the time it ends up due to corruption of OST or PST files. Most of the time trying to explain this is just as or more difficult to explain than actually fixing the issue. What is most important here is not “what the problem is” rather than “what the cause of the problem is.” Here are some reasons from both hardware and software that may contribute to Outlook OST file corruption.

Whenever your hardware fails in storing or transferring the data of your Exchange OST files, the OST files will likely get corrupted. There are mainly three types:

• Data Storage Device Failure. For example, if your hard disk has some bad sectors and your Exchange OST file is stored on these sectors,then maybe you can only read part of the OST file. Or the data you read is incorrect and full of errors.
• Networking Connection Failure . When you synchronize the OST file with the server through a network connection, if the network interface cards, cables, routers, hubs and any other devices constituting the network connection have problems, then the synchronization process will be aborted and the OST file is likely to get corrupted.
• Power Failure. If a power failure happens when you are accessing or synchronizing the OST files, that may leave your OST files damaged.

There are many things that will help prevent or reduce the OST file corruption due to hardware problems. A UPS is made to help control power failure problems. Having redundant network can reduce corruption due to the network problems. Also, using reliable hardware devices can also reduce the chances of data corruption.

Also many OST file corruptions occur because of software issues.

• Incorrect File System Recovery. It seems a little strange that a file system recovery may cause OST file corruptions, but sometimes when your file system is broken, the files recovered may still be corrupt, because with it being broken, some parts of the original OST file are lost permanently or overwritten by other data. This then makes the “recovered” OST file incomplete or contain incorrect data. So when a file system disaster happens, you should find a good data recovery tool or an “expert” to recover your OST files. A bad tool or an unexperienced person will just make the situation worse.
• Viruses. Many viruses will infect and damage an OST files or make them so you cannot access them. Having dealt with this on many occasions, having an up-to-date and active scanning virus program is a good idea, for many reasons.
• Synchronization Error. The syncing between the offline folders and the exchange server could also lead to errors. This could lead to conflicting items, the ability to not open certain Outlook items, and many more.

There a many other scenarios and reasons that may cause your OST to corrupt but this was just a quick list of the most common causes I see on a daily basis.