Summer’s still in full force here in New England and so are our summer thunder and lightning storms! In the past two weeks, the afternoon/early evening thunderstorms have been incredibly intense throughout Worcester County.

A handful of my customers lost user workstations due to the electrical spikes and surges. Their servers were affected in only a minor way. No one lost a server. We were prepared.

It could have been possible to prevent damage to the workstations too, by using UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supplies) at each computer. In small companies, it can make sense, but for a large organization, the cost of protecting every computer with a UPS weighed against the likelihood and cost of an incident often makes the expense unjustified. Consider the following table:

A couple of notes about this table… First off, % affected is my educated guess. If lighting strikes your building or near it, it’s impossible to tell exactly where the spike will travel and how much damage will occur. Surge strips can help, but they won’t stop a significant spike such as blown transformer or lighting surge. My Replacement Cost is the average estimated cost to acquire a new machine and set it up for a user. Centrend works with companies to reduce PC deployment costs so there are many factors that can affect the exact cost such as group buying power, image deployment strategies, etc…

Also, when weighing whether it’s worth it to invest in UPS technology across the board consider: What will the downtime cost? Do you have a spare PC that can be used in the interim while waiting for repair or replacement of equipment? What are the costs of data loss and/or data recovery expenses if not all your user’s data is on the server?

Critical equipment such as servers, your internet router, etc, should always be protected. If you need help implementing a power protection strategy in your organization, please contact us for a free consultation.

Perhaps you’re familiar with the book by author David Campbell, “If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going, You’ll Probably End Up Somewhere Else". Without a plan in life, we drift, passively letting the outside influences around us guide and bump us through the abyss. Does the same apply to business and technology? Of course it does.

Are you letting technology run your business, or is your business directing your use of technology? Many businesses that I question about this do not have any sort of plan for technology. Most of these business owners say to me, “We’re too small to have a technology plan, that’s for large enterprise.”

Well, if you don’t know where your business’ technology is going, then it will probably end up driving your customers to your competitor’s house.

Your Technology Plan isn’t just a matter of looking out for new products and “cool stuff” that comes along from developers, although it’s fun to window shop, and useful to stay informed. It’s about being prepared, maximizing your resources, and having access to all the information your business needs for successful competition. Every business, no matter how small, finds the value in that.

A good Technology Plan will be dynamic and will cover at least these key areas:

o Security
o Data Integrity
o Performance and Productivity
o Information Availability
o Communications
o IT Staffing Structure (in-house or outsourcing)
o Technology Procurement
o Future Needs

If you don’t want to drift while technology pulls your business unwittingly by the nose, then make a plan. If you need help, then ask the experts at Centrend. For a minimal investment, a Technology Plan will give your business the power of control over destiny, and a distinct advantage over most of your competitors who just don’t get it.
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Bill Bowman is the Senior Technology Advisor at Centrend Inc, an Information Technology company focusing on solving and preventing business problems related to computers, networks and Information Systems. For more information, call 1-888-558-9550, or visit: www.centrend.com .

At this time we are experiencing an elevated threat-level for computer viruses.

There is an increased occurrence of algorithms which have yet to be specifically identified by antivirus authorities. It is always possible for malicious code to compromise popular antivirus software products, but the threat is greater at this time.

Centrend strongly recommends that you make sure your antivirus software is up to date, active scanning is turned on, and that you run more frequent full system scans.

At this time, it appears that the greatest threat may be from visiting compromised web sites. To reduce the risk of exposure, Centrend advises that you limit your random web surfing until authorities have further identified the threat.

While some organizations adopted MS Windows Vista early on, most small and mid-sized businesses are fighting to stay on XP for as long as they possibly can. They point to issues of compatibility with existing systems and key programs as the main reason not to switch to Windows Vista.

When Windows XP became the office standard operating system replacing Windows 2000, organizations had two good strategic options. They could choose Option A to purchase Windows XP with new systems and leave existing systems running Windows 2000, or Option B to buy new machines with Windows XP and at the same time upgrade their existing Windows 2000 system to Windows XP to get everyone to the latest operating system technology all at once.

When it comes to Windows Vista however, Option A can work providing you know your existing programs and legacy software will run on Windows Vista, and you recognize that it’s far less comfortable to jump between Windows XP and Windows Vista. It’s quite different from the transition between Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

Option B, upgrading all your machines at once to Windows Vista, is a difficult option as well. While most hardware made in the last couple years is probably compatible with Windows Vista, the machine will probably not have enough RAM memory or a strong enough video processing capability to run Windows Vista well. This condition means existing machines will need additional investment to bring them up to Vista’s optimum or even minimum requirements for acceptable performance. Hardware upgrades aside, the biggest roadblock organizations will face in an across-the-board migration to Windows Vista is the problem of their existing software not running under Windows Vista correctly or at all!

Because both options A and B present significant challenges for the organization, the majority of small and medium size business Centrend works with, and virtually ALL of the large businesses we work with, have made a strategic decision to stay with XP for as long as possible. Their core applications can’t run on Windows Vista yet, or their machines overall are not powerful enough for Windows Vista, or both.

Fortunately for our customers, the machines that Centrend sources over the next year can be preloaded with Windows XP Professional, but include a Windows Vista Business or Windows Vista Ultimate installation CD and license so that the machine can be transitioned when the customer is ready to make the switch. The Centrend customer can stick with Windows XP for now, but rest assured they will have the hardware and a valid license to cut over to Windows Vista without an additional investment.

You can expect us to be able to acquire machines for our customers running Windows XP through June 2009. While that’s eleven months from the time of this writing, my advice to organizations is DON’T WAIT TOO LONG before testing Windows Vista. You should find out as soon as possible if the applications you depend on to run your business are compatible with Windows Vista. If not, then find out if the applications are going to be compatible in time for when Windows Vista will be your only option for your new machines.

Need help figuring all this out? Need help buying the right machines for your organization that are still running Windows Vista? Contact us for a free strategic consultation.

Ok, the computer company/brand I’m going to refer to in today’s blog entry is not actually g-Machine. The name has been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.

For the most part, g-Machines are midrange-power PCs sold to consumers at a very low price point. They are typically $200 to $300 less than an equivalently specified brand such as Dell or IBM. My advice is to never buy these low end brands, or any off-brand PC for that matter.

What looks like a great value – isn’t a value for very long.

The lure of low cost (The Blessing) can cloud a customer’s perception of reality. (The Curse) Even after consumers have experienced a failure and have asked Centrend to fix the computer out of warranty, they are sometimes very defensive of their buying strategy. They’ll make statements like, “It was a great deal at only $399. I’ve never had any trouble with the g-Machine until now and unfortunately it’s just out of warranty.” Or they’ll say, “I’ve only had one problem with it in two years and they gave me a brand new one.” I asked what it cost to have the data transferred from the old machine and the reply is either, “They wouldn’t help me with that, but they let me buy the old drive for $35.” Or they report that it cost between two hundred and three hundred dollars to get the data converted over. Or worse yet, they report that it was the hard drive that failed and they were not offered any data recovery services.

All computers will eventually fail. It’s not a question, but a certainty. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather pay an extra $200 for a machine that is going to last longer and leave me with support options than a cheaper machine from a company that leaves me high and dry.

I’d love to hear my readers’ opinion on this. Whether you buy the low end g-Machine or the top of the line Dell Precision Workstation, the result will is always the same. You’ll get what you pay for.