Microsoft swings big with their hardware!

One of the great things about working with PC Mall, is that I've been exposed to the major manufacturers and their programs every day that I'm here.  Trust me when I say it's a LOT of programs.  Microsoft is well known for their confusing, but satisfying every nook & cranny, licensing programs.  However, programs for purchasing their hardware (keyboards, mice and webcams) has been unheard of.

Now they do.

They're offering a wonderful discount of up to 23% off their hardware products, if you just agree to standardize on them.  Now when I say agree, they have promised it's a handshake/gentleman's agreement...and not contractual.  So, agree to standardize on their hardware and get a significant discount = WIN.

For all of MS's faults, they do make some great hardware designed to work with their software.  My little Bluetrack mouse, I've had for almost 2 years, and I've not changed the batteries YET.  (Also helps that it's Bluetrack laser will track on my bed's blanket...so I can work from the comforts of home when sick.)  Their new arc mouse and touch mouse seem to be pretty cool from my hands on experience today.

So, let's talk about updating your old corded mice to something that'll make your workers more productive!

Data Backup - Novastor

Hey...we all need to do it...yes it sucks, but your company can't exist if you lose EVERYTHING (or even some things) right?  I'm not going to throw stats at you because I don't think all of them can be verified...or like 98% of most statistics, are made up on the spot or to prove a point.  We all know that e-mail needs to be saved for legal reasons, your company's documents and such need to be saved because they keep the company in business...so why aren't companies making absolutely sure that their information is safe?  "Backup is confusing," "backup is time consuming," "back up takes up too much space."  Those are the three answers you'll hear, and they're all pretty solvable.

I mention Novastor's NovaBackup as an example of making it NOT confusing.   It's simple (easy to use wizards, reliable (automated), Fast (quick file restoration through their TimeSlider technology), and Secure (military grade encryption).  Have Virtual Machines?  Well, Their BE Virtual software will handle those as well as Exchange ans SQL.

Their product is going to be low cost to you...which is always important no matter what anyone says...and has won them PC World Magazine's "Best Buy Backup Program" .  It's a decent product from what I've seen of it.    If you want to learn more about Novastor, you can check out their upcoming webinar on October 5 by signing up here.

Do y'all have any thoughts about them?  I'd like to hear it.  Write it here and I'll pass it along to my Novastor rep! :)

Managing Your Systems, Pt. 2: FireScope

Howdy folks!  FireScope is an interesting product that is playing in the management space rather well.  Their primary goal as a company was to try and simplify the IT Infrastructure management issues that have cropped up over the years.  They reduced the need for a huge software architecture to manage a company's IT needs down to 4 pieces of software...and most of you would only need one of them!

FireScope Unify is designed to bring togetheer all of the key IT metrics into a  single pane of glass setup for any business size.  It will help IT Managers truly manage their environment by being able to put in queue things that need to be planned and done based on how those things will affect the company's bottom line.  To put it simply, it makes things easy to look at and understand.  My rep over there sent this note to me the other day about one of the Unify features:

FireScope's Data Center Visualization capability can be your always-accurate map to the maze, enabling faster remediation of issues and boost operational agility. The feature leverages the latest web technologies, including HTML5/Canvas and jQuery, to visualize your data center like no other solution on the planet. Start with an overhead view of each server room, with status indicator overlays that warn you about service-impacting events. From here, drill down to the aisle and rack level to view your hardware as if you were standing in front of it.

They have 3 other pieces of software that will be useful to some of you, but possibly not all...so I'm only going to briefly explain them:  Orchestrate - this allows you to pull all of your configuration information together; Analytics helps you look over information from your infrastructure and plan accordingly for outages/growth/etc.; Comply helps you to better control your environment and how it's used by aggressively helping you to monitor what is allowed in/on your network and equipment.

Sound like something that you want to use?  How's this for help...here's a free 28 day demo of Unify that you can download right now.

Microsoft's Big Easy...

No, it's not New Orleans...nor a great neo-noir film...the Big Easy is Microsoft's program that's designed to give you back money for purchasing their products.   So, for every qualifying product that you purchase, you will receive a subsidy from Microsoft.  The trick to this is that the check is sent through your provider of the software.  (In this case, us here at PC Mall.)   That means that the subsidy is applied as credit through your account with us to get whatever you want that we carry.   Pretty sweet eh?

The program runs through December 31 this year (they run it on alternating quarters), so you do have time to take advantage of it.  Here is a list of what qualifies for subsidies, and there's a full excel sheet on that page.  For a good chunk of the product, it's going to require Software Assurance (SA)...and I can hear some of you groaning...so listen to this.  Windows Server updated in 2008, and most everything else updated in 2009 & 2010.  What does that mean?  Well, SA through the Open Value program covers you for up to 3 years...and all of those products are going to refresh in the next 2-3 years.  That's a slamdunk upgrade without a higher price to you...that and Open Value allows you to spread your payments over 3 years and not in one chunk.
See how it works?  Microsoft wants your money, but there are ways to get in there and fight to save money while using it.  Let's talk about that...call us today.

Touchpad as the "New Coke"?

It's very nice to see that I am not the only one who gets this as a possibility.  :-)

Windows Deployment / Migration Made Easy

This is one of the more innovative and useful tools I have seen. The problems associated with imaging systems or maintaining that image across a fleet of dis-similar computers is complicated at best.

This tool from Smart-Deploy creates a virtual environment from a library of driver packages to create a ready to deploy image for any PC/Server operating systems both physical and virtual.

You don't even need the PC/Server to create an image! It can be used to remotely image from a flashdrive or DVD.

Smart-Deploy is designed to be easy on the technician with easy to use wizards and industry best-practices. Also priced per technician so the cost is low no matter how much you use it.

Check it out and try it here.

Free Stuff - AutoCAD 2012 is throwing the book at you...

The Blackberry Playbook that is!

Through October 14th, we here at PC Mall have been given an exclusive deal from the folks at Autodesk.  If your organization purchases a copy of AutoCAD 2012, Autodesk will throw in a free Blackberry Playbook 16GB, or an HP Pro 3130 Desktop!

Did I also mention that there's a $300 mail in rebate?  Yes, Autocad 2012 can be expensive...but your PC Mall team here can make it not expensive, and full of win!

Greener Memory

One of the best parts about working here, is the amazing people I get to meet.  My Kingston rep, Bryan Miltner, has been a wealth of information and assistance over the years here.  He recently turned me on to the Kingston RedTech blog, which is FULL of information about...well you guessed it...memory.

Before your eyes start to spin at the the techno-babble...start here with this article on DDR3L memory, and how low power can help you save in the long run.  Servers running all the time just eat into any company's power bill...and if you can bring it down a tick or two...you get to be the hero.

I just want to help get you there.  Let me know what you think!

Email security...

I'd like to thank my friends over at EM Link International for pointing this out over on their Facebook page...

Missing dots from email addresses opens 20GB data leak

Over 100,000 people are part of the Sophos community on Facebook. Why not join us on Facebook to find out about the latest security threats.

by Mark Stockley on September 12, 2011 | Comments (6)

Filed Under: Data loss, Featured, Privacy

Security researchers have captured 120,000 emails intended for Fortune 500 companies by exploiting a basic typo. The emails included trade secrets, business invoices, personal information about employees, network diagrams and passwords.

Researchers Peter Kim and Garrett Gee did this by buying 30 internet domains they thought people would send emails to by accident (a practice known as typosquatting).

The domain names they chose were all identical to subdomains used by Fortune 500 companies save for a missing dot.

Having purchased the domains they simply sat back and watched as users mistakenly sent them over 120,000 emails in six months.

Kim and Garrett have not identified their targets but have revealed that they were chosen from a list of 151 Fortune 500 companies they regarded as vulnerable to their variation of typosquatting. The list is jam-packed with household names like Dell, Microsoft, Halliburton, PepsiCo and Nike.

The emails they collected included some worryingly sensitive corporate information, including:

• Passwords for an IT firm's external Cisco routers


• Precise details of the contents of a large oil company's oil tankers


• VPN details and passwords for a system managing road tollways

The researchers also warn of how easy it would have been to turn their passive typosquatting into an even more dangerous man-in-the-middle attack. Such an attack would have allowed them to capture entire email conversations rather than just individual stray emails.

To perform a man-in-the-middle attack an attacker would simply forward copies of any emails they receive to the addresses they were supposed to go to in the first place. The forwarded emails would be modified to contain a bogus return addresses owned by the attacker.

By forwarding and modifying emails in this way the attacker establishes themselves as a silent rely between all the individuals in the conversation.

For more information go here...

ioSafe – Disaster Proof Hardware and Data Recovery

Disaster Recovery (DR) is something that we all need to plan for…because if you’re not totally secure in your plan, and disaster strikes, it can almost undo a company entirely.  Statistics say that 80-90% of companies who suffers a major data loss will close within a year. (DTI/PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2004)  Couple that with the fact that 30% of small businesses in the US are affected by natural disasters (fire, flood, etc.)…there is a way around that kind of risk if it concerns you.

The folks at ioSafe have produced a series of drives that are fireproof and waterproof, up to certain extremes.  They like to call this the “black box” for your data…to further help insure its safety.  We all know that data retrieval companies charge a lot of money to bring back your data…and I would prefer to be better prepared than to have to pay later to fix something I could have helped prevent.

This may not apply to all of you, but for a little bit higher price than a normal drive, you can have a bit more piece of mind than before.  A friend of mine had a house fire a couple years back, and it devastated all of the things he had…except for everything he put in his fireproof safe.  Papers, documents, photos, even money and jewelry were safe there.  That little $400 investment saved him a small fortune.  Nothing says you can’t prepare for something like this in the IT world as well…here’s a solution for $220.  Have questions?  Give us a call right now and let’s talk about your DR plan. J

Amazing Free Stuff: Blade Chassis from IBM

by Thaddeus Dilday

There is no such thing as a free lunch. But you can get a free Blade chassis from IBM.  Many of my customers want to reduce cost by grouping their servers into a blade.  This can add cost to the price of upgrading servers.  If you are new to IBM or have not purchased in a year you can qualify for a complimentary chassis.  Your PC Mall rep will be happy to schedule a call with our IBM guru to answer all questions about this phenomenal program.

BladeCenter S Overview: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/bladecenter/hardware/chassis/blades/

BladeCenter E Overview:http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/bladecenter/hardware/chassis/bladee/

BladeCenter H Overview:http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/bladecenter/hardware/chassis/bladeh/



 

The HP Touchpad - Yes we're still waiting...

For those of you who keep asking, there isn't much in the way of information on the fate of this new tablet.  Just a few short weeks after its release, HP announced it was going to cancel the hardware portion of the device...but keep working with the WebOS software.  (you can read the actual press release here on Engadget)Then, in order to get rid of their stock, they did a massive fire sale, dropping the price of the tablet to $99, from it's original price point of $399 for the 16GB units.

This sale dumped a good chunk of product into the population...but unfortunately left HP's distributors with a ton of product that is used specifically for building those units.  So current rumor up the line that I hear, and has been reiterated elsewhere, HP will likely be releasing quite a few of the Touchpads in a late September/early October feeding frenzy, once all their components are used up.  Likely they would rather not peeve those who made their components, and take the loss that they were in putting the Touchpad out to market.  (I've seen teardowns that show the price point HP paid to build them at around $300...but I've also seen estimates as low as $180.)

Either way, HP wins.  Those who now have the Touchpads are using their App store and buying apps, and with the average amount of money spent on Apps for a mobile device being $200-300 per year per user, they're set to recoup their losses on their "fire sales" rather quickly.  Now they're going to sell more of them?  The conspiracy theorist in me wants to say this was a devious plan, but I've worked with manufacturers long enough to know that it's not.

The Touchpad is still a wonderful little tablet...I love and use mine all the time...so when they're available, snap one up!  If we get more at PC Mall, you'll find out here!

Tradin' & Savin' on Printers...

OK, so I've already been asked about special deals I can find.  Well...that's not too difficult, but I'm not a fan of speeds, feeds and just throwing prices around like most other people do.  So instead of that, let me show you how to make some money back on those viciously expensive printers out there.

A good deal of the clients I work with utilize HP as their printer of choice...but so few people know about the program that HP is using to give back to the planet, and save you some money and time.  Who doesn't want those three things?  Look, when you've got a printer that's past it's prime, broken beyond your capabilities to fix (or care to fix), you can't just chuck it in the bin.  You could hire someone to haul it away, but they CHARGE for that!  HP has something that really takes the sting out of replacing printing equipment.

First, let's determine what new HP printer you'd like to replace what you currently have.  Take a look at this PDF from HP it will give you an idea of what is available, and what you can get for trading in a printer to them.  So, the first step is buying a new HP printer from that pdf list.  Then, after you get it, go to this site at HP.com and fill out the form.  To claim your rebate, head over here and select the printer you have and are going to ship back to them.  Once done, they'll send you a UPS call tag for it...and away it goes!  (Max weight on the trade-in is 50lbs.)  Once they receive that old printer...working, not working, inkjet, toner, whatever manufacturer...they'll cut you a rebate check based on the printer you bought.  (See the above PDF.)

Simple isn't it?

(For those of you who just want a flipping awesome deal...OK I'll cave and give you this here.  Yup, a $1600 printer for $598.  Give us a call if you want one. :)

Managing Your Systems: Part 1 - Dell KACE

by Mike Leader & Thaddeus Dilday

Here's the first in a series of posts on ways to manage all of the things you're responsible for every day.  So, how are you managing your systems?  If you haven't thought about this already, it's going to come back and bite you in the future...if you've already got a solution, let's think about what you're using now and how it meets your needs.

As your day fills up with a multitude of requests, what plans do you have to make sure everything gets done so you can get home and a) enjoy a good dinner, b) frag some gamers online, c) watch your team kick some butt/get theirs kicked, or d) all of the above?  Is what you're doing now enough to properly manage all of what is running around on your networks?

The Dell KACE Systems Management Appliance is easy-to-use, comprehensive and affordable and fulfills all of the systems management needs of an organization including device discovery and inventory, software distribution, configuration management, patch management, security audit and enforcement, asset management, help desk, remote control and reporting.  The Dell KACE Systems Deployment Appliance addresses an organization’s systems deployment needs including computer inventory assessment, OS and application provisioning, migration and recovery.  There are so many functions these units perform that it is impossible for me to go through them all.  Check out the following web link to learn more...

Dell KACE Appliance Benefits:

• Deploy in One Day


• Train in Hours


• Lowest Total Cost Compared to Software Alternatives


• No Hardware or Software Pre-requisites


• No Professional Service Fees

I would encourage you to learn more by attending one of Dell's live or on-demand demonstrations that can be found at this link.  PC Mall has had a great partnership with the folks at Dell this year, and with opportunities like this for our clients, things only open up even better!