MJ's Business IT Blog

Latest Article Published: Tech Talk : Windows 7 is available; do you have a plan?

Published Thursday, October 29, 2009 in The Portsmouth Herald

Oct. 22 was the official day Windows 7 became generally available in the computer market. It has actually been available for more than a month to business customers that utilize a license agreement for their company computers.

I co ntinue to believe this will be a very successful operating system for Microsoft, just as Windows XP has been. It's certainly no secret Windows Vista was a bust. As one Microsoft employee said to me, the company has decided to throw Windows Vista under the bus and focus on ensuring Windows 7 is a success.

All indicators are that this is exactly what is taking place. Windows 7 is being heralded as an excellent operating system, one that does improve users' productivity and one that deals with legacy compatibility issues much more gracefully than its predecessor. Windows 7 also introduces several features that are having real benefit for users.

If you think Windows 7 will be a good upgrade for your organization, you should act sooner rather than later, as Microsoft is offering some excellent incentives. Why not take advantage of special pricing while it is available?

One feature of Windows 7 that users of portable computers will absolutely love is Location Aware Printing. Location Aware Printing addresses the issue of the computer knowing which printer to print to, based on what network you are connected to. Simply stated, have you ever had the issue where you are at the office and printing goes to the network printer that you are used to, but then you go home and you click print and nothing comes out from your home printer? Instead of the computer knowing that you are now at home and that your office printer is no longer available, it tried to send the print job to the network printer. This results in the print job sitting in the office printer queue and not printing on your home computer. You need to manually select your home printer to print at home.

What's more, when you get back to the office the next day, what you tried to print at home comes out on the office printer. That may be a very bad thing, depending on what you were printing.

Location Aware Printing solves this, but knowing what network you are connected to and which printer should be your default printer for that network is necessary.

Therefore, when at the office, your print jobs print on the office network printer. When at home, you print to your home printer. It's really just that simple.

Jump Lists are another huge time saver with Windows 7. When working with a multitude of files across several different applications, it's often a daunting task to remember where each file is located out on the corporate network. Jump Lists is one of several ways to address this.

You may be familiar with a feature of most software application that provides a list of recently opened files when you are within the given application. This works well if you spend most of your time in one program. Jump Lists apply even to the icon for the individual application.

In other words, if you right click on the Microsoft Word icon, you will see a list of the recently opened files that you have worked with so you can return to that file with a single click. This will save time and allow for a more efficient workflow for users.

The last feature I will touch on for now is the built-in backup utility included in Windows 7.

This feature will allow you to take a scheduled snapshot of every computer on the network, to allow for rapid recovery of a computer that may develop problems that would otherwise take large amounts of time to resolve. All that's required is sufficient storage on the network to save these backups. This will be a real benefit for anyone that finds themselves battling spyware on a computer.

All in all, Windows 7 is an upgrade that should pay for itself very quickly for most computer users. Thanks for reading.

MJ Shoer is president and virtual chief technology officer of Jenaly Technology Group, a Portsmouth-based outsourced IT services provider. E-mail him at mshoer@jenaly.com.

Smartphone Threats On The Rise

CNN published an excellent piece this weekend about the growing threat of attacks against smartphones.  Sales of smartphones continues to grow at an unprecendented rate.  More importantly, what people are using their smartphones for continues to evolve as well.

While most people have traditionally used smartphones for telephone calls and e-mail, more and more are using them for web based activity as well.  This is not just surfing mobile web sites, but using corporate applications, accessing company data and even performing financial transactions.  As the article states, while most computer users are familiar with how to know if a web site is secure or not, that's not necessarily so on a smartphone.  Fortunately, it's also harder to exploit a smartphone, but that does not mean it is not happening or continuing to grow in severity.

While traditional virus and malware threats are not a one to one relation between those that attack computers and those that attack smartphones, simple threats like loss or theft are very serious concerns.  Far more smartphones were lost or stolen last year than computers.  If those smartphones did not employ passwords or appropriate device encryption, the data on those devices may have been exposed.

I have blogged in the past about the need to establish at least basic security on your smartphone and this article reinforces this important need.  I have also blogged about pending legislation, some of which becomes law over the next six months, that will require you to secure and encrypt these devices.

I encourage you to read the CNN article here and heed its advice.

Evolving IT Service Models

It's amazing to me that Jenaly is moving toward entering it's 13th year in business in 2010.  During this time, we've witnessed several evolving trends in IT service delivery models.  When I started Jenaly, back in 1997, I was intent not to sell any products.  This was based on my disappointment in hiring other IT services firms and realizing each was basically just a dealer for the product (hardware or software) that they were representing.  They really did not understand what I was looking for as a business IT consumer.  That frustrated me and the vision for Jenaly was born from this frustration.

I wanted to be able to look my clients straight in the eye and know that the recommendations we were making were solely based on their business need and not influenced by the behind the scenes dealer relationship that had frustrated me in the past.  In other words, I did not want Jenaly to be bound by sales quotas, commissions and back end rebates that would influence our recommendations to our clients.  This has been difficult to manage at times, as some of the hardware and software vendors only want to work with organizations that will commit to a sales volume with them.  I understand this and while it works in some situations, I still believe it's not the right model for a true IT services like company like Jenaly.  Fortunately for us, and our clients, the manufacturers and vendors have been increasingly concerned about this too and have created programs to work with companies like Jenaly.  To me, this has been validation of our service delivery model.

Over the years, our clients asked us to order what they needed and deliver it to them, so we are definitely in the business of selling hardware and software to our clients.  However, the key still is that we only sell what is right for our clients.  We have learned to leverage manufacturer programs and industry groups to obtain discounted pricing for our clients, so we not only insure they are getting what they truly need, but we are also able to do so at better than average prices.

The trend over the last several years has been Managed Services, which in it's simplest form may be considered proactive IT services.  This is a model that we adopted back in early 2000 and have been expanding ever since.  It placed the responsibilty on us, as the IT services partner, to insure our clients networks are maintained properly and operating at peak efficiency.  I continue to look to increase the value proposition of our services.  I am very keen on moving toward better flat rate pricing where we will manage our clients entire IT infrastructure for a fixed price, based on the needs of the environment.  This will give the client a predictable monthly budget for IT and insure that we operate as efficiently as possible.  This will avoid unwelcome surprises for our clients and insure we both have "skin in the game" as they say.  We've been doing fixed priced projects like this for some time and the model works well, so it only makes sense.

I love the fact that this business continues to evolve and never seems to get stale.  The key is that the changes bring benefits for our clients and for us, as for any business to be successful, there must be a win-win relationship between us and our clients.  I think we've been able to achieve this and we continue to innovate in ways that deliver more value to our clients while still allowing our business to grow.  It's why I love what I do.

It's Windows 7 Launch Day!

Today, October 22, 2009, is Windows 7 Official Launch Day.  You will find lots of new information on Microsoft's web site today, as well as on retailer and technology related web sites all across the Internet.  If you have not yet seen Windows 7, beginning today, you will be able to see and work with it anywhere new computers are on display.

Several of our clients have taken advantage of our Windows 7 Sneak Peek special offer that we extended to attendees of our Windows 7 seminar last month.  These clients are as excited as we are, to take advantage of the improved performance, stability and feature sets in the new operating system.

I have written several columns over the last year, including What Windows 7 Means For Your Business, Windows 7 Is A Grand Slam and Is Windows 7 A Smart Upgrade For Your Business?   My latest column, welcoming Windows 7 to the market and highlighting some of the most useful features, will publish tomorrow, including on this blog.

So, stay tuned and learn even more about Windows 7 and how it will benefit your business.

Subscribe to Wireless Amber Alerts

You are probably familiar with what Amber Alerts are.  If not, simply stated, the are alerts put out by public safety officials about missing children.  It is widely believed that the first hours of a missing child, especially an abduction, are critical to the success of finding the missing child.  These alerts are typically broadcast over the radio and streamed across TV signals, to alert as many people as possible.

Now, you may also get Amber Alerts for free on your mobile device, thanks to an initiative to take the idea to the next level.  I encourage you to go to Wireless Amber Alerts and enter your mobile telephone number and subscribe to alerts in your area.  You may be able to help save a missing child.  It's a good thing, and the right thing, to do.

Location Aware Printing in Windows 7 is Fantastic

Windows 7 is coming soon, October 22nd, and as that time draws closer, I will try to point out some of the new functionality that may make an upgrade worth while for you.

One of those features is Location Aware Printing.  It solves one of the major annoyances that anyone with a portable computer faces, remembering what your default printer is.  With location aware printing, Windows 7 takes care of this automatically.  It's a huge productivity bonus.  Simply stated, Windows 7 will remember what network you are connected to and what printer you want to use as your default printer, so when you move from your office to your home, you won't be sending print jobs to a printer that is not there, they will go to the right printer, without you having to do a thing.

Here is a great blog post over at Tech Repulic that explains location aware printing in more detail.

If you are considering an upgrade to Windows 7, let us do a complimentary review of your systems to ensure they are ready for Windows 7 and help you get the most from the new operating system.  We are even offering a special for anyone who wants to upgrade to Windows 7.  Check it out here.

Accredited by the Better Business Bureau

We are very pleased to announce that we have become accredited by the Better Business Bureau with an A+ rating.

Everyone knows the Better Business Bureau and appreciates the trust they have developed over the year in insuring ethical business practices.  We also know the Better Business Bureau to be an excellent consumer advocate, whether personal or business, when we are harmed by poor business practices.

Because of this, and all the other reasons that the BBB has such an excellent reputation in the business community, we are really thrilled with this accreditation.  BBB accreditation is by invitation and requires that we continue to maintain and enhance our business practices, for the betterment of our clients.  So just as we do with our other accreditations, we will take this very seriously and continue to operate our business to the highest standards, all for the benefit of our clients and staff.  We look forward to working more closely with the Better Business Bureau.