New Staff Members
Prepare for Unexpected
Server Recovery
Become Compliant
Check Email from Anywhere
Event Announcements
Microsoft Tips and Tricks
 

Event Announcements

June's High Tech Happy Hour
Thursday, June 21st at Capital Brewery, Middleton.  Sponsored by SVH Consulting, LLC.  5-7 pm
Visit www.hthh.org for more information or to sign up for reminders of future events.

June's  Lunch & Learn on SharePoint
Register today to learn how Microsoft SharePoint can connect people, processes and information in your office!
When: Wednesday, June 27th
11:30am -1pm
Where: Applied Tech Office - 203 S. Paterson Street, Ste 400 Madison, WI - NO CHARGE
Call or email Julie Vike to register
Limited to 12 people!  RSVP required.  Call 608-257-6051 ext 23 or vike@appliedtech.us

Madison Area Builders Association Annual Golf Outing
Don't miss the annual MABA golf outing on Tuesday, July 10, 2007!  Register online at www.maba.org.  Limited to 280 golfers.  Foursomes are strongly encouraged!

July's Lunch & Learn: Have You Outgrown QuickBooks®?- Madison
Join our in-house experts, Daniel Petersen and Pam Close, to explore the next steps in accounting compliance when we explore Microsoft Office Accounting (OA) and Business Contact Manager (BCM)
When: Wednesday, July 11, 2007
11:30 to 1 pm.
Where: Applied Tech Office - 203 S. Paterson Street, Ste 500 Madison, WI    NO CHARGE
Call or email Julie Vike to register.  Limited to 12 people!  RSVP required.  Call 608-257-6051 or vike@appliedtech.us.

Middleton Chamber of Commerce Annual Golf Outing Presented by TDS Telecom
Come out and join 200 golfers at the Pleasant View Golf Course on Wednesday, July 18, 2007.  Dinner to be held at the Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites.  Contact Middleton Chamber for sponsorship opportunities or to register. 
608-827-5797

New Staff Members to Applied Tech

Applied Tech is pleased to announce two recent hires. Joining us in our technical staff is Cory Rammer. Cory, a graduate of UW-Madison with a BS in Statistics and PC Pro Schools, a Microsoft IT Academy, is the newest Network Technician. Cory is assisting with Help Desk calls, internal and on-site support.

Julie Vike, formally of In Business magazine, has joined Applied Tech as the Marketing/Business Development Manager. Julie, who some of you may remember, worked for Applied Tech several years ago. "We can only assume that she missed us so much that she couldn't wait to return", jokes Kurt Sippel. Julie has stated that she is looking forward to her duties in this newly expanded role and is anxious to "hit the road running".

Julie is the Chair Person for the Madison Area Builders Association's Programs Committee, Board Member for the High Tech Happy Hour and assists with the Restoring Hope Transplant House initiatives.

Prepare for the Unexpected
Having an incident response plan can mean the difference between recovering quickly and losing your business entirely. Learn about some key areas to focus on when developing your incident response plan.

Your business most likely relies on IT for a variety of tasks, including the storage of business documents, customer information, financial records, and accounting information. In addition, you probably rely on computers to conduct many daily business operations. Though no one wants to deal with the possibility of something unfortunate happening to their business, planning for the unexpected today could save your business tomorrow. Here are some key areas to focus on when developing your incident response plan.

Data protection: Your business may have thousands of records that are updated on a regular basis, so it's critical to develop a system for backing up all of your files. There are a variety of methods available. One option is called Disk-based backup, which is becoming the method of choice for many small businesses, due to both its cost effectiveness and its ability to provide continuous data protection.

Introduction
"Complete hardware failure" are three words no IT administrator ever wants to hear. That is because a complete hardware failure is one of the most common reasons for a server to go down — and to most admins, recovering a server is one of the most time-consuming and tedious tasks to perform. Whether your small or mid-sized business is running one or a handful of servers, there is no doubt any server failure is costly in terms of lost business and productivity. Find out what is involved with recovering a server, and learn about a remote recovery solution that can take the agony out of recovery.

Recovery process
When a server does down, everything on it — applications, original system configurations, updates, etc. — is gone. Recovering a server is not fun, it is not easy, and the complicated process leaves IT admins holding their breath that each of the following steps involved goes smoothly:

Federal Statutes
The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act:
Requiring every business who accesses or uses a customer's personal financial information to issue a privacy statement that notifies its customers “in clear and conspicuous language” on an annual basis how that information is collected and used and to comply with its stated privacy policy to protect the privacy of such information;

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act:
Requiring every business who accesses or uses an individual's protected health information to issue a privacy statement that notifies such individuals on an annual basis how that information is collected and used and to comply with its stated privacy policy to protect the privacy of such information;

The Sarbanes Oxley Act:
Requiring accountants who audit or review Financial Statements for a business to retain certain business records relating to that audit or review; and imposing criminal liability on any business that engages in document destruction, even if such document destruction occurs before the business has any formal notice of an official proceeding, and without the necessity of proving a bad intent for the destruction, i.e., a “corrupt persuasion.”

Remote access of Exchange-based email is a requirement of most mobile workers. In the past, Outlook Web Access provided some, but not all, of the functionality of Outlook. Remote users who wanted to use their native Outlook software were forced to use a VPN connection to access the corporate network. VPN's, however, are more complex to configure and enable access to more network services than are required for simple e-mail access.

Outlook 2003 and 2007 now offers a simpler alternative to VPN connections — RPC over HTTP (which Microsoft has mercifully renamed "Outlook Anywhere"). With this feature, users can have security-enhanced access to their Exchange Server accounts from the Internet when they are working outside your organization's firewall. Users do not need any special connections or hardware, such as smart cards and security tokens, and they can still get to their Exchange accounts even if the Exchange server and client computer are behind firewalls on different networks. The user runs the same Outlook used inside the network and has all of Outlook's functionality enabled including shared calendars, contact lists and public folder access.

Outlook Anywhere runs on Windows XP and Vista and requires Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, 2007 or Microsoft Small Business Server 2003. Take advantage of Outlook's power and flexibility outside your office with Outlook Anywhere. Contact your account manager at Applied Tech or the Helpdesk for more information.