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December
2008
In this issue
►From
Jay's Desk
►Life
Without Internet?
►Steps
to Help Secure Your New PC
►Is
Your Infrastructure Leaking Money?
►Leasing
Offers Added Benefits
►Laws
You May Choose to Ignore
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 As
I sit here in a generator-powered house, I think
about what I am looking forward to next year. First
item on the list is POWER, ELECTRICITY, and not
smelling like gasoline. With the ice storm we had,
we are on day 4 without power. So I will be very
thankful for electricity being restored.
That being said, this will be shorter than normal.
We will go back to my normal ramblings in January.
That should give you something to look forward to.
 I
hope that everyone gets what they want from Santa. I
am just hoping for 240VAC getting to the house soon.
Have a safe and happy holiday! |
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reprinted with permission from the HP
Small and Medium Business Website
When the Internet first came
about, it was simply a source of knowledge and entertainment. Now,
however, many people rely on it for everyday activities such as banking,
doing business, storing information, mapping locations, communicating
and more. This puts a
huge strain on businesses, data center operators and web-hosting service
providers as they seek to make web services available around the clock.
But being available 24/7 is
not even something the Internet’s biggest businesses—Amazon, Google and
Yahoo, for example—can promise: even their sites have suffered from
“unplanned downtime” in recent months. The causes of these and other web
outages can vary widely: glitches during system upgrades and migrations,
human error, electrical failures or even hacking or hijacking.
How does this impact me? |
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►
Steps to Help Secure Your Brand-New PC |
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by Kim Komando
Reprinted with permission from the Microsoft Small Business Center
There's nothing like cracking
open the box of a brand new computer. But don't be so quick to just
connect it all up and hop right on the Internet.
According to the software
security company Symantec, it takes only 20 minutes for an un-patched
and unprotected computer to be attacked once connected to the Internet.
In that time, your pristine
computer could be turned into a zombie. Zombies are machines that have
been secretly taken over by hackers. The zombie networks are leased to
criminals who use them to send spam or attack Web sites.
Some criminals want to put
keyloggers on your computer, to steal passwords, credit card numbers and
other sensitive data. There are plenty of vandals out there, too, who
want to destroy your data for fun. And advertising outfits, many shady,
hope to put spyware on your computer. With that, they will track your
surfing and bury you with ads.
Compromised computers are
found in homes, businesses and government offices.
To make sure you
aren't victimized, here are six steps you must take to secure your
computer and the network on which it runs.
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►
Is Your Infrastructure Leaking Money? |
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reprinted with permission from HP
 Whoever
said "don't sweat the small stuff" never managed an IT
infrastructure—and certainly never during turbulent economic times.
According to independent
analyst Forrester Research, global IT purchases in 2008 will grow by
only 6 percent, versus 12 percent growth in 2007. So, although you're
already doing more with less, it's time to do even more with even less.
Investing in management
solutions to control infrastructure costs is one way to meet that
challenge. Effective infrastructure management tools can lead to
significant savings over time and help position your business to take
full advantage of the upside when the economic tide turns.
Here are five ways effective
infrastructure management can help keep you fighting lean: |
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Laugh a Little
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Open your
presents at Christmastime, but be thankful year
round for
the gifts you receive.
--Lorinda Ruth
Lowen
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Leasing offers added benefits in tough
times
reprinted with permission from the
HP Small Business Center
Today's economic climate of
rising energy costs, uncertainty in global financial markets and
relentless pressure to drive down business costs poses multiple
challenges for most companies. With the economy sluggish and financial
"fuel" scarce, making the financial commitments needed to enhance or
even maintain an IT infrastructure can be difficult. Yet those firms
that make sound decisions in tough times by strengthening their
infrastructure will be best positioned when the economy recovers and
demand picks up.
Spending slows but still
grows
According to IDC, a leading provider of global IT research and advice,
IT spending is slowing—but still growing. Year-over-year spending growth
for total IT is expected to slow in 2008 and 2009 before picking up in
2010.[1] In a June 2008 customer survey by HP Financial Services, some
75 percent of respondents said that current economic conditions have
detrimentally affected their budgets. Nearly three in four said their
companies have delayed or canceled new projects, 59 percent said they
have scaled back or delayed new hardware deployments, and 52 percent
said their companies have reduced head count.
What conclusions can we
draw?
Laws You May
Choose to Ignore
Moore's law describes
an important trend in the history of computer hardware: that the number
of transistors that can be inexpensively placed on an integrated circuit
is increasing exponentially, doubling approximately every two years. The
observation was first made by Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore in a 1965
paper. The trend has continued for more than half a century and is not
expected to stop for another decade at least and perhaps much longer.
You probably thought you
knew every single law of nature, science, and humanity , but we at
Technology Specialists have uncovered some additional laws that you may not have heard
previously.
Read these laws!
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