PC Mall in the Wall Street Journal!

That's right...HP is running an ad for their new ultrabook, the Folio, this Friday and next Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal...and PC Mall is a part of that ad.  I'm always happy to see our partners working with us (and others in our industry) in order to help increase everyone's awareness of new products and how to get them.  The Ultrabook is a new format that combines the power of a true laptop, with a unit that weighs less than a half gallon of milk.

The Folio is 18mm tall, weighs 3.3 lbs, and is a core i5 unit.  That's a great product for someone who is always on the go, but needs a real laptop that'll work business applications.  Salespeople, executives, and even IT personnel who run from site to site all make good candidates for an ultrabook.  Right now, the 13" Folio is priced at $999.

Give us a call or shoot over an email if you've got questions!

SOPA/PIPA put down, but not killed completely...

Well it looks like these bills were taken off for voting by both the house and senate...but they're not dead.  The MPAA, who funded this bill from the start was shocked that people could actually oppose a bill that would break the internet and allow the MPAA to sue everyone for just about any kind of possible copyright infringement.  Under SOPA's original wording, you could get 5 years for uploading a Michael Jackson song to a website (or singing to it on youtube)...which is a year longer than his killer received for his sentence.

Now these bills might be defeated for now, but give the MPAA time and you'll see them try this again.  Don't get me wrong, there should be legislation that controls and defeats piracy...but not one that aims to break the internet with lawsuits.  The Open Act seems to be the way to go in my opinion...because of things like section 8, clause C which sets the sites that can be affected by the law as sites dedicated to infringing copyright (pirate objects sites)...not places like youtube, deviantart and many others.

/soapbox.

Now to make some other folks happy, here's a printer I have on sale for $299 that'll help save you up to $1000 a year on ink compared to other similar models.  :)

Meraki switches up the networking game

I've been talking to many of you about Meraki for several years now.  My appreciation of this company and what they were going to mean to the networking market has been solid since day 1.  They understood the Cloud before it became a buzzword, and defined a way to make it help IT professionals make their jobs easier.  Are they perfect?  No.  But then for those of you dealing with Cisco, HP, Juniper and other, lack of perfection is something you understand.  If you haven't jumped over to the section of this blog and signed up for one of their webinars, do so now.  You can get a free enterprise access point for just attending.

The reason I'm bringing Meraki up again, is that yesterday they announced new networking products yesterday.  Products to tackle your datacenter...not only their cloud-controlled MX Security Appliances, but their new MS switches that are cloud-controlled as well.  Utilizing the same setup as their wireless cloud controllers, Meraki's new switches allow you to access how each individual switch is controlled from anywhere with web access (including your smartphone)...giving you the ability to handle multiple sites from one location with ease.  Actually though, being the switch-hound that I am, I love the built in cable testing, monitoring and alerts...because nothing is more fun than going out to test ports and cables on a switch that's acting wonky.

The big win here revolves around the MX Security Appliance line.  Note that these were routers, but they've expanded their capabilities to be so much more than just ONE thing.  Rather than have 6 individual devices, wouldn't you rather have one?  So instead of the single branch router, firewall, site-to-site vpn manager, content filter, load balancer and WAN accelerator...you can have one MX Security Appliance?  They have models designed for small offices (1-20), medium offices (20-250), or enterprise (250-10,000 users).

Look at this MX400...nice, simple, and directly something that every company that has more than 250 users can use.



Am I excited about this?  Of course.  It's a step in the right direction for Meraki, but most importantly it's going to force Cisco, HP and other manufacturers to start thinking differently about how their products are placed...because they can't buy Meraki out from under their primary investor, Google.

Go here now and sign up for the webinar next week on the 24th to learn more about their new networking products.  Trust me, I know how well these folks treat their customers...I think you'll be in for a good treat.

 

STOP SOPA/PIPA

Many of you have heard about SOPA and PIPA, but I came across this great article through my friend Randall Munroe at (the best webcomic ever) XKCD, and had to share it.  The technical nightmare that these bills are going to cause on the internet, and how they are going to break DNS is absolute insanity.

We the people of the United States need to get over ourselves, and stop letting crazy things like this into government.  This is why the world thinks we're crazy...and they do.  /soapbox

Check the article out here, and let me know what you think!

 

 

The Cost Savings of Server Virtualization with HP...

Howdy folks...sorry, I've been out the past few days sick with the crud that's going around...and when I'm sick that means no voice, and you can see where that leads.

I wanted to pass this special event on to you all because keeping all of you up to date is important to me.  This webinar we here at PC Mall are offering in conjunction with HP goes over how having an effective storage infrastructure will help aid in your savings from virtualization.   If that infrastructure is Highly Available and can grow without disruption with the virtual environment, you're in the running for some real time and operating expense savings.
Join Markus Berber (Storage Product Marketing Manager from HP) and learn how through the HP P4000 LeftHand series, these goals can be obtained.  If you register and show up for the event, we are raffling off a HP Microserver ($350 value) to a lucky attendee.  Free knowledge and potentially free product...how is that not a win for you?

Join us on Thursday, January 17 at 10am PST.
Best Wishes...and we'll talk more soon!

APC Trade In - Trade UPS

It seems to be a well kept secret that you can get some great pricing on APC UPS units even if you aren't doing a $30K deal.

You can trade in your old APC UPS or a competitor’s UPS for up to a 30 percent discount on new UPS’s through the Trade Ups program.

• The APC Trade UPS program is an easy and cost effective way to upgrade existing units.


• You can trade in any UPS, regardless of its manufacturer or its working condition.


• You will be able to purchase a new unit(s) with a new two-year warranty.


• APC will pay for the return shipping and disposal of the old units.

How does it work?

You can purchase up to four times the VA you are trading in.  Also, you must trade in at least one quarter of the VA you are looking to purchase.

 You can purchase any combination of APC products if you know these two rules:

1. The order for new units must be at least the total amount of VA that is being traded in.


2. The order for new units cannot exceed 4X the total amount of VA that is being traded in.

 For Example:

You want to trade in a 500VA unit.

The new order must be for at least (1) 500VA unit, but can be up to (4) 500 VA units.  You can purchase any number of smaller units as long as the combined VA of new units is more than 500VA, but less than 2000VA.  You cannot purchase (1) 450VA unit as this would be below the initial trade in VA.

PCMall sends an email to you with the return labels for the old units.

 

Meraki Systems Director (additional)

I forgot to add this the first time...a great video from the folks at Meraki about it.  Tell me it's not your life in IT. ;)

http://youtu.be/HkEG3I3SAmk

A $50 server? *blink blink*

Yup.  It's small...it's a dual core Turion...but hey, if you need a TINY BASIC server...let me know :D

(Yes I know it says $349...but until next Friday it'll be $49.99)

(EDIT:  Some of you might have missed the comment on this post.  We sold out of these units 4 hours after we started that fire sale.  If they come back, I'll make sure to post more here about them.  I suggest buying 3 units and building a nice beefier server out of the same parts, since the drives for that unit are vaporware thanks to the Thailand Drives Issue)

How are you managing your systems?

This is a question that I don't think that I ask enough to my clients...but that's going to change.  Systems Management is a huge thing in the IT world, but it's almost always out of the average company's reach, because it's expensive...VERY expensive.  You can jump over here to Wikipedia and see how many different kinds of programs are out there to do this...and they all have their ups and downs, their learning curves, and their costs (financial or otherwise).

LANdesk is great software...no doubt about it.  But, with the basic price for 1 year and the software at around $90 per unit, that's pricey, and then maintenance agreements...and if you want anything specialized, that's an agent you have to add on.  It adds up quickly...not to mention that it's rather complex.  Not just them, but there are so many others that have the same situation that not everyone is willing to shell out that kind of money to manage their systems.

Then along comes Meraki.  I've spoken about these guys before, and my long time clients all know that I've always preached their products because of the quality that goes into them.  Now, they've taken that software that manages their wireless units & routers in the cloud, and applied it to Systems Management.  No tricky names here, the Meraki Systems Manager is a strong piece of work that delivers at a very low price.  Download the trial from their site, and let it start sending out agents to your desktops & laptops.  Here's a short breakdown for you on what it delivers...

1) Live Diagnostics - Not only does it know what your units are down to their kernels, but what software is on them, how its CPU is being utilized, RAM usage, etc.   Now you can know at a glance what's going on with one of your user's units.

2) Remote Access - Need to remote desktop in?  Easy.  How about sending a message to a user or killing a process on their computer?  Done.

3) Inventory & Location Tracking - Now you can know what you've got, where it is, and how it's being used on a simple webpage.  Who needs complicated software licensing from Computrace when you have an agent that'll tell you where a missing unit is down to the street address on google maps?

4) Software licensing management - EVERYONE needs this tool.  You know you have to track your licenses with a complicated excel spreadsheet, or through a tool that a VAR like us provide...but why?  This will tell you what's on your machines, and even if it needs to be renewed?  Jinkies!

And more than I have time to list.

Go download the trial today and test it out.  Have questions?  Let me know and we'll get you on a call with our friends at Meraki to answer your questions.  Let's cut your workload today!

Oh yes...and Happy New Year!  Be safe! :)

 

Addendum:  This software is now FREE for everyone to use.   Enjoy! :)

*blink blink* Really? How can I get one?

The title is an actual statement from a client of mine when mentioned our Apple notebook promos that are going on right now.  While I'm not a fan of pushing out product deals through this blog...these deals are too good to pass up.

 

So...if you have an account with PC Mall...call your rep and ask to buy these.  If not...call me at 541 * 351 * 8845 and I'll help you get some.  Simple as that.    Have any other holiday shopping you need to do for family and friends, and it's electronic?  Call us.  We can get things to you quickly and even before the holidays are over.  Take a look