IRS Tax Code Section 179 can save your business lots of money!
Time to upgrade your server or servers? Need new computers for your business? How about upgrading all your firewalls to the latest technology? New VoIP phone system? CCTV Cameras? Notebooks for all your field reps?
Congress extended the amount that small businesses may write-off for capital expenditures in 2010 to $250,000, and that means this may be the best year ever to upgrade your infrastructure!
Business Equipment:
Business owners who acquire equipment for their business, such as computers, servers, network & security equipment and other tangible goods, usually prefer to deduct the cot in a a single tax year, rather than a little at a time over a number of years. This deduction is known by its section in the tax code, a Section 179 deduction.
Under Section 179, businesses that spend less than $800,000 a year on qualified equipment, may write-off up to $250,000 in 2010. The rules are designed for small companies so the $250,00 deduction phases out when a business purchases more than $800,000 in one year. (Companies cannot write off more than their taxable income).
Benefits of a Non-Tax / Capital Lease:
The benefit of a Non-Tax/Capital Lease is that it can take advantage of Section 179: expense up to $250,000 if the equipment is put in use in 2010. In addition, you may depreciate any excess on the depreciation schedule for that asset. Examples of Non-Tax/Capital Leases include a $1.00 Buyout Lease, an Equipment Finance Agreement (EFA), and a 10% Purchase Upon Termination (PUT) Lease. Example: Assume you finance business equipment, put it in use in 2010, and take advantage of Section 179. Your tax savings could be significant:
An example of a typical server installation and how this applies might look something like this:
Cost of equipment: $9,500.oo
Section 179 reduction if expenditures are over $800k: —
Dollar for dollar phase out if over $800k: $9,500.oo
Section 179 write-off amount: $9,500.oo
Regular First Year Depreciation Deduction: -
Total First Year Deduction: $9500.oo
Cash Savings on your Equipment Purchase: $3,325.oo
(Assuming a 35% Tax Bracket, Deprecation 5 years)
Lowered Cost of Equipment after Tax Savings: $6, 175.oo
Tax Code Section 179 & Election to Expense Detail:
The election, which is made on Form 4562, is for the tax year the property was placed in service or an amended return filed within the time prescribed by law. The total cost of property that may be expensed for any tax year cannot exceed the total amount of taxable income during the tax year. Section 179 property is property that you acquire by purchase for use in the active conduct of your business. To ensure property qualifies, reference Publication 946.
This expense deduction is provided for taxpayers (other than estates, trusts or certain non-corporate lessors) who elect to treat the cost of qualifying property as an expense rather than a capital expenditure. Under Section 179, equipment purchases, up to the amount approved for a given year, can be expensed (deducted from taxable income) if installed by December 31st. Non-Tax leases qualify for this deduction in their year of inception. Any excess above the expensed amount can be depreciated depending on the equipment type. Not all states follow federal law. Contact your tax advisor for the specific impact to your business or visit www.irs.gov.
Further Detail:
Reminder: to take advantage of the tax incentives, your business equipment must be put in use by year-end. You should contact your tax advisor to learn about the specific impact to your business.
We can help you maximize this as we offer leasing and financing… Please email info@homelandsecureit.com or call 864-990-4748 for additional information!
SanDisk SSD hard drive
If you were told you have an “SSD”, you might think you would need a round of antibiotics to clear that up, but in reality, it is a good thing!
SSDs, or Solid State Drives are becoming common place, though they have been around for a while. The price has been what has held back sales since the beginning, but recently we have noted a small decrease, thus making them a little more attractive to our clients.
The cost aside, these drives can replace your current hard drive, or make an excellent primary drive on a new notebook. Some of their features include the fact that they have no moving parts, providing better resistance to shock and vibration encountered when using a notebook in the field, they have fast throughput of data and possibly a huge factor to those who enjoy their quiet or work in music studios, none of that whirrrrrring you hear from your current hard drive! Replacing fans in your current computer with whisper-quiet fans, and its hard drive with an SSD can make for a very quiet work environment!
Many manufacturers of laptops, notebooks and netbooks are including SSDs as an option. This is really the time to purchase, as the system comes to you with the drive already installed and the operating system loaded, so it is ready to go.
There are two types of SSD drives currently; One is the SLC, or single level cell which allows one bit per memory cell, and shines with speed and reliability. The downside to the SLC would be the bulk and cost. Then there is the MLC or multi level cell devices, which store more than one bit in a single cell, are smaller in size, and cost less. The downside to MLC devices are that you sacrifice some speed.
Either way, it is worth considering an SSD for your next notebook purchase…
If you would like more information about these devices, please shoot us an email at info@homelandsecureit.com or call 864-990-4748. Feel free to reply here as well!
Save money on computer service and repair
Homeland Secure IT is looking forward to celebrating our Nation’s Independence Day in July, and to help you celebrate, we are still honoring our 75.oo an hour bench rate for computer service and repair on PCs you bring into our office!
So, stop worrying bout how much to fix that annoying problem, slow laptop, virus or malware infection, or to install some piece of software or upgrade current software. Heck, at this rate, you could have someone else handle putting all those Microsoft Windows or Microsoft Office updates on your computer for you!
Most viruses can be cleaned up in only one hour of time and Trend Micro anti-virus installed. Be sure to take advantage of our low bench rate through the month of July!
For more information, email info@homelandsecureit.com or call 864-990-4748. Most fixes can be accomplished the same day if brought in before lunch!
Network surveillance camera giveaway
I present to you: July’s freaky fun thing from Homeland Secure IT…
We are going to give away a cool color WiFi IP surveillance camera!
These network security cameras are pretty nifty! They feature wireless 802.11b/g connectivity, or wired CAT-5 to your network, as well as full color via a 1/4″ CMOS sensor, with 640×480 resolution at 30fps (full motion). They support WEP and WPA encryption.
These babies can automatically email you a snapshot at the first sign of activity, so you can get it on your smart phone, or you can log in and watch the video feed live with a web browser or some mobile smart phones… It comes with software to turn a computer into a DVR to record the video.
Oh, did I mention that it features infrared illumination so it can see it total darkness? Yep… pretty cool!
All you have to do is to attach the little mount it comes with to a wall and then attach the camera to that, connect the power supply and your network cable, or you can program it to connect wirelessly to your network.
What’s the catch? There is none… Absolutely no purchase, no obligation to enter our giveaway, other than to get connected to us via our mailing lists or this blog. On this blog you can look to the right, and enter your email address in the “Follow Me” section and then hit subscribe and you can sign up for our email mailing lists HERE.
We combine the subscription lists from the blog and our two mailing lists into one list and draw randomly, which creates a loophole that can work to someone’s benefit – If you are subscribed to all 3 places, you have 3 chances to win…
Legal mumbo-jumbo: This offer is void where prohibited. Winner must pick up prize at our office in Greenville SC, or make arrangements for it to be shipped at his/her expense.
We will select the winner on July 31st 2010 and announce it the following week via a blog post, social media, etc!
In the meantime, if you want to purchase one of these snazzy cameras, we sell them as well as a full line of security and surveillance cameras and DVRs, so shoot us an email at info@homelandsecureit.com or call us at 864-990-4748….
Typical APC UPS Replacement Battery
As computer service technicians in the field, all to often we see an UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) in use at a client location which is simply not going to function when the time comes for it to do the job it was designed for.
Many times the “Replace Battery” indicator has been on for a while, and the alarm has been silenced because it was annoying to the workers in the office.
When should you replace your battery? Most UPS have a battery that is good for at least 2 years. In mission critical installations, such as for servers, data centers, T1 / cable / dsl & network gear, access control, alarm systems and VoIP phone systems, you may wish to replace the batteries every 2 years on a rotating schedule. For less important equipment, such as a single workstation, the “Replace Battery” indicator can be your guide. When you see that LED come on, or should the UPS be alarming, then replace the battery or battery pack at the first convenient moment.
Modern power protection systems like the APC and Eaton line of UPSs perform automatic tests, but you can check your manual for how to initiate a manual test. One way is to simply cut the power to the UPS and see if it has adequate backup time, but the best way is to use the software that will allow you to perform a calibration on the UPS and view a graph of power events. Performing the calibration will give you the best idea of how long the unit can provide power in an outage to the equipment attached.
Be friendly to our planet and replace the batteries instead of the entire unit, unless you have a very old UPS. You can save up to 50% over the cost of a new UPS by renewing the batteries! Also, be sure to dispose of the battery properly, and please do not just dump it in the dumpster. The supplier of the battery or battery pack will generally take your old battery and recycle for you.
Homeland Secure IT provides sales, service and support for UPS and power protection equipment in Greenville & the Upstate. Should you need a new UPS or a battery replaced, please call us at 864-990-4748 or email us at info@homelandsecureit.com for more information.
Homeland Secure IT has more fun giveaways coming! We are going to be giving some silly stuff and some spiffy stuff away to those who are on our mailing lists…
You have to play the game to win… To play, you need only sign up for our mailing lists and/or subscribe to this blog. While everyone in the USA is eligible (except where prohibited by law) our mailing lists are primarily of interest to computer and technology enthusiasts, business owners, entrepreneurs, our clients & future clients of course, friends, family and individuals, mostly in and around the Greenville and Upstate South Carolina area. If you live outside of the local area and cannot pick up the cool stuff you win from our office, then you will be responsible for the shipping and handling costs.
WHAT CAN YOU WIN? Just what are we planning to give away to those who subscribe? In no particular order: A wireless network / IP surveillance camera complete with night vision, Trend Micro Anti-Virus, APC & Eaton UPS, free computer service & support, gift cards to various places around the Upstate and more! (Who knows, maybe a cool Android device, or netbook, etc)
We will announce the giveaways as we start them. The next one will be for July 2010.
WHY ARE WE DOING THIS? Because we want to increase awareness of our products and services, but we also want to have fun and to give something back to those who support us!
HOW TO ENTER: On our blog simply enter your email address & click on the subscribe button on the right-hand side where it says “Follow Me” to subscribe to this blog, which will be emailed to you each day there is new content, or you can sign up for either one or all of our mailing lists. There are currently two mailing lists, the “NewsBytes” ML which has minimal traffic, no more than once per week, and the “Secure IT Alerts” mailing list, which has only postings that regard to security, such as vulnerabilities and patches – traffic varies on that list. (There is a form below)
HOW WE SELECT A WINNER: At the time of the drawings, ALL lists are combined together and a name is selected randomly using a random number generator to get a number that corresponds to a name on that list.
LOOPHOLE ALERT: There is one flaw that can be used in your favor… If you are on multiple lists and subscribed to the blog, your name is going to be in the list multiple times, increasing your chances of winning.
Sign up now using this form:
Time to replace that old computer? Wanting the latest and greatest? Bigger (or smaller), faster, cooler? Are you just looking for a good excuse to treat yourself? I know I am! Late Father’s Day gift to yourself? Early Christmas? How about an Independence Day gift? That sounds good!
In any case, if you are planning on buying a new notebook or desktop computer, don’t forget to protect that investment with the purchase of these items:
Anti-Virus / Anti-Malware:There is no way you can survive these days without proper anti-virus on your computer! Regardless of your platform, you need this protection. Our favorite is Trend Micro Anti-Virus, which we sell and install. However, if you are truly replacing your computer and not just adding another one, you may already own current anti-virus software. If you do, then you can download and install on the new computer, using the same activation code. Getting a Mac and think you can run “bareback” because they are immune to viruses, trojans, etc… Think again. More and more malicious software is targeting Apple Mac OS X.
Uninterruptable Power Supply / UPS: You are buying an expensive piece of hardware, and then trusting that the power company is going to deliver a good clean source of power to your system. A surge protector can help, but an UPS will not only protect the hardware, it will keep you from losing documents you are working on should the power go out. Our favorite brands of power protection products are APC and Eaton. They make an UPS for every situation, whether you need to protect a single computer, a complete system with monitor, modem, printer, etc or you have to protect a server or a data center.
Backup Solution: You now have an awesome system, with lots of room to download music and store thousands or tens of thousands of photos, movies, etc… What happens in the event of a hard drive failure? These days, you can use online backup solutions such as our Servosity service which will automatically backup your data to the cloud (the internet) in a safe and secure (encrypted) data center. You can then restore your data in the event of a loss. We also offer physical backup solutions, such as USB drives, tape backup systems, Symantec Backup Exec, and we do work with other backup providers as well.
Insurance Rider: Your insurance policy may not cover an expensive computer system. Check with your insurance carrier to make sure you are properly covered in the event of a loss to fire, flood, theft, lightning strike, etc. Many times a rider can be added to your policy for only a few dollars a month that will protect your hardware, and even software.
If you have any questions about these solutions and what may be right for you, please do not hesitate to call us, we can provide computer repair, consultation and sales. We are authorized resellers for APC & Eaton power protection products, Trend Micro anti-virus / anti-malware, Servosity, Mozy & Symantec backup solutions and more! Call us at 864-990-4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com to find out how we can help you in the Greenville / Upstate SC area…
Whenever I see a creative video, I just can’t help myself, I have to share it with everyone. The OK Go’s “End Love” is just that type of video… OK Go have made a habit of creating original and exciting music videos. You don’t even have to like their music to enjoy the effort that went into it and the final product, though their music is pretty good too!
Click on the video player and go to YouTube to check out their other videos while you are at it.
Homeland Secure IT Alert
Macintosh users are getting their own patches for Mal-Ware lately. Released last week with absolutely no fanfare was OS X 10.6.4 which addresses a Trojan vulnerability among other things. It seems that Apple intentionally has not made a big deal about this security issue, partly to help keep up the appearance that Mac computers are impervious to malicious software. A thought that is echoed by countless owners and proponents of the platform.
Regarding the Trojan and the patch, security firm Sophos has more information here – basically, the vulnerability can give full control of your Mac PC to an attacker…
As with any operating system, whether it is Microsoft Windows, various versions of Linux, Unix, *BSD, or even the beloved Mac OS X, it is important that your computer have proper anti-virus / anti-malware installed, and that you keep the operating system itself up to date with patches as well as any supporting software you may use. Adobe recently announced multiple vulnerabilities in their Flash and Air that are vulnerable on Mac OS X as well as every other platform.
Should you require assistance installing updates or patches, or would like to purchase Anti-Virus / Anti-Malware such as our favorite, Trend Micro Worry Free Business Security and the entire product line from Trend Micro, please call us at 864-990-4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com for more information.
Homeland Secure IT Alert - Contact Info
I have an idea for a great iPad app that would be awesome for fellow musicians… Imagine having a screen the size of the iPad, with a mount that secures it to a typical mic stand, and allows you to adjust it to a comfortable viewing angle. Now imagine an app that has the chords, tabs and lyrics available for your viewing, and lets you store the most popular songs, as well as search the ‘net for content on the fly.
That would be my dream setup for playing live gigs and when a request for some song you are familiar with but have never played, or maybe you can play it but don’t know the lyrics – you pull it up on your iPad and viola, you make someone happy that you couldn’t have otherwise have done.
Also for learning new songs, practicing, etc, this would be great! I’m waiting for this to come around! If it doesn’t, I may have to develop it myself.
While searching for my dream app, I found one from the Piano Guy, who has a TV show teaching piano… He now has an iPad app for his lessons that lets a person download the lesson, place the iPad on your piano, just like printed music, at a comfortable viewing angle and watch these videos to play along… Nice application!
