Dirt Cheap Computers - are they worth what you pay for them?

I’m sure you have heard the old adage “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is…”

In the case of computers, servers, firewalls, VoIP equipment, Microsoft, Adobe and other hardware / software, that has always been true.

For example: We have one client who purchased Microsoft Office Professional 2003 a number of years ago on the cheap. I believe they purchased about 20 seats and were presented with an authentic looking disk and the product key from the dealer. They saved a significant amount over purchasing from CDW, Homeland Secure IT, or some other reputable Microsoft dealer. However, flash forward to present day and they are unable to receive support from Microsoft, they are being told the software is counterfeit, and will have to purchase new licensing at a very hefty price.

This is a common story these days. In fact, a quick Google search turned up Microsoft Windows 7 Professional for ~50 dollars. Come on, the cost to any reputable dealer is more than that, how can they SELL it for that? hrmmmmm

To make matters worse, this is happening with hardware all too often. A few months ago, Cisco was experiencing a shortage of ASA 5505 and other products. It was a horrible time for companies who relied on that hardware, so they began looking outside their regular suppliers. What they found were some deals on ASA 5500 products that were not really a “deal”, but they WERE in stock, so they ordered them. These were actually grey market dealers. They had no association with Cisco, and they were not selling new product. Some of the items sold were “new – old” stock (where it had been sitting on the shelves for a while, with older software loaded), some had been obtained from legitimate dealers who went under (at actual dirt cheap prices) by a company that bought all their stock, but the worst of them were actually STOLEN devices and then there were some reports of used or refurbished devices being sold as new.

All of these scenarios had one thing in common – the customer was paying for something they were not getting. Whether it was an actual new product, or a product that could be supported by Cisco SMARTnet support contract. Some customers received “bricks”, ASA firewalls that simply did not work, and the dealer was nowhere to be found when they sought support, and of course, Cisco will not support items which are not legit.

The inspiration for this blog post is that I read an article in a trade journal recently that warned of this type of unscrupulous behavior, and today at a lunch meeting, I was told of something similar happening to someone I know so I thought I would share that with you and maybe save one person from a bad experience.

The moral to the story is – buy quality product from quality vendors. Homeland Secure IT is such a vendor. We offer many products, including Cisco, WatchGuard, SonicWall, Microsoft, Trend Micro, Symantec and others through our partnerships with those manufacturers and though the cost is going to be higher than the “discount” internet price, you can find us, and we stand behind that product and sale 100%! You will never get a black market, gray market, used or refurbished item in place of what you pay for!

Call us today for more information at 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com – We offer computer service, support and sales in the Greenville  / Upstate SC area, and national sales.

If you own or maintain your own business phone or computer network, you are probably renewing your licensing yearly for everything from your Cisco VoIP phone system & ASA 5500 network security appliances to Trend Micro Worry Free Business Security, Trend Office Scan, to Microsoft Software Assurance or purchases of new seats.

Chances are also good you are buying your licensing from a vendor who may have originally installed the equipment and they could be charging you for the licensing plus a fee to administer those licenses for you. The licensing is generally sold at the manufacturer’s suggested retail price.

If you would like another quote on your license renewals and sales, please contact us at 864.990.4748 x 201, or email info@homelandsecureit.com

We offer sales of products and licensing, as well as licensing renewals for Trend Micro, Cisco, Symantec, Microsoft and more! We never charge an administration fee.

One word of warning regarding “deep discount” licensing providers – if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. The markup on licensing is not very much, so if you find Microsoft Office Professional for 20% less than the retail, odds are, it is counterfeit product and will allow you no ability to upgrade or receive support.

Microsoft Office 2011

Microsoft’s latest version of Office 2011 is due out in October of 2011. It features many improvements over previous versions and comes in the following flavors:

Microsoft Office for Mac Home and Student 2011 includes Word for Mac, PowerPoint for Mac, Excel for Mac and Messenger for Mac. It will retail for $119  for a single install and $149 for the “Family Pack” giving you up to 3 installs. The Home and Student edition includes the core productivity applications that Mac users want and need.

Microsoft Office for Mac Home and Business 2011 includes Word for Mac, PowerPoint for Mac, Excel for Mac, Outlook for Mac and Messenger for Mac. It will retail for $199 for a single install and $249 for the “Multi-Pack” which allows two installs. This version sports all features of the Home and Student version with the addition of Microsoft Outlook for Mac.

Microsoft Office for Mac Academic 2010 includes Word for Mac, PowerPoint for Mac, Excel for Mac, Outlook for Mac and Messenger for Mac. It will retail for $99 and be available direct from Microsoft and authorized academic stores.

Buy  Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac today and upgrade to Office 2011 at no additional cost!

If you require additional information about Microsoft Office for Mac or Windows, please email info@homelandsecureit.com or call 864.990-4748. Homeland Secure IT offers computer and network support in the Greenville / Upstate area, as well as national sales of Microsoft products!

Raimund Genes, Trend Micro’s CTO explains how a computer becomes infected. It might not be what you expected.

This morning I was having a discussion with a potential client and we were talking about the “Homeland Secure IT” name, the individual mentioned that they understood the play on words, however they were simply not sure how to take “IT”, because they thought of “IT” only in the terms of “Information Technology”…

I explained that the “IT” in our case is an all encompassing catch-all term that covers just about anything you plug into the wall. We sell, service, repair, support a wide range of technologies, not just a computer, server or network, but VoIP systems, CCTV and network security camera systems, firewall appliances, anti-virus software and software in general.

So basically, whatever IT is, we can help you with IT!

I am unsure of a way to indicate everything we work with, but suffice it to say, it is not limited to just a notebook computer fix, or a simple virus cleanup. While we DO those things, we also deploy Blackberry Enterprise Server so your mobile users can stay connected. We help integrate wireless devices like Androids, iPads and more into your Microsoft Exchange. We configure VPNs that allow a mobile workforce or a branch office to connect to your data as if they were physically in your office. We design and deploy Voice over IP phone systems. We offer biometric and card swipe time clocks.

Again, if it plugs into your network, or connects wirelessly, or you WANT it to, we can help. Give us a call at 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com to discuss your unique needs! We serve the Greenville & Upstate SC area!

Today we had a young lady come into our office with a severely infected notebook. It had multiple rootkits, trojans, spyware, etc….

The computer did not have updates on it for the Microsoft Windows Operating System, Microsoft Office, or Adobe Reader / Flash / Air.  Nor did it have the latest Java on it. Anti-Virus was handled by AVG (Free).

Vulnerabilities in the operating system and applications were the likely culprit that allowed the malware in, but either way, the computer was badly infected, and data possibly compromised.

Please, use Microsoft Update on your PCs and make sure your Adobe products and Java are up to date! That, combined with quality anti-virus like Trend Micro Internet Security, Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security, etc, may protect you from a costly infection and provide much greater security for your personal and/or company data.

If you think for a moment that your computer may be compromised, be sure to contact your computer service professional! Don’t take a chance with your security.

Homeland Secure IT offers complete computer, server & network support, repair, security & sales in Greenville and the Upstate of SC. Please call 864-990-4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com for more information or a free evaluation! Our typical virus cleanup / removal rates are very competitive with rapid turnaround!

Microsoft Office Outlook 2010 With BPOS Goodness

So you are setup with a FREE trial of Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite and are enjoying all the online apps but something is missing, you don’t want to use web apps, you want to use all the features of Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 or 2010 that you have already paid for and know your way around.

Well it is possible to have your cake and eat it too! *IF* you signed up for the BPOS Standard trial instead of the “Deskless Worker” trial, then you can configure your Outlook to view the same Exchange data you see with Outlook Web Access. You will see the same emails, the same contacts, the same tasks, folders, public folders, calendars etc!

Wait, you didn’t get the Standard version of the BPOS demo? That’s okay, you can log back into the portal and activate the Standard version, then deactivate the Deskless Worker product and not even lose your configuration. YOU MAY lose your emails though and have to start over, but hey, it’s just a demo, you didn’t have that much anyway!

Okay, so back to task at hand, getting Outlook configured. It’s EASY, relatively speaking to accomplish this. First you log into your online mail app (OWA) at http://mail.microsoft.com and once in there, click on OPTIONS at the upper right hand corner, then, select ABOUT from the left hand menu. You will see something that looks like this:

Data to gather from OWA to setup Outlook

The important information for you to gather will be the “Outlook Web Access host name”, and the “Mailbox server name”.

Now, close out Outlook on your desktop and go to START/Control Panel and select Mail (If using Win 7 64 bit, once you open Control Panel, type “mail” in the Search Control Panel input at the top right hand side and select “Mail (32-Bit)”).

Select “Show Profiles” and add a new one… Let’s call it “BPOS”.  Next, select the checkbox for “Manually configure server settings or additional server types” then hit “Next >”. Select “Microsoft Exchange or compatible service” and hit “Next >”.

In the “Server:” field, put the information you gathered from Outlook Web Access for the Mailbox Server Name… (Ex: A3DIAXVS251.RED001.local). For “User Name:” enter your email address, then select “More Settings”. Don’t bother hitting “Check Name” as it will not function (yet)…

Select the “Connection” tab, at the bottom, select “Connect to Microsoft Exchange using HTTP” and then hit the button “Exchange Proxy Settings…”, for “Use this URL to connect to my proxy server for Exchange:”, you need to enter the Outlook Web Access hostname from OWA (Ex: red001.mail.microsoftonline.com) and do not include the “https://” or the “/owa” here, just the hostname.

You can select to “Only connect to proxy servers that have this principal name in their certificate” if you wish, but not necessary.

DO select both of the checkboxes at the bottom for “On xxxx networks, connect using HTTP first, then connect using TCP/IP”, and set the proxy authentication settings to “NTLM Authentication”.

Click OKAY and apply those settings and now try to open Outlook… You should be prompted with a login.

Sounds complicated? Kinda-sorta, but it works well, and you only have to do it once. You can also use the Microsoft single signon client if you wish, which will remember your login and password and allow you to open Outlook without any issue, but some company policies may not allow you to install additional software, or automatic login applications so the above should work for you.

If you get stuck, please reply here or shoot me an email at info@homelandsecureit.com and I will try to give you a hand.

Just saw where another computer user in Greenville could have avoided a nightmare. They posted their computer was toast. Bad hard drive according to some geeky type people that looked at it. The computer is back to running, but their data is GONE.

Homeland Secure IT offers many backup solutions that can protect you from this scenario, but our favorite is Servosity Online Backup, which runs on your computer, regardless of the operating system of that computer (Server, Workstation, Notebook, etc) and quietly backs up your data to a secure server located “in the cloud”.

It is affordable, it is reliable, and the president of Servosity is an Upstate SC native. What more could you ask for?

If you would like to try this awesome online backup service, we offer a FREE trial, just call 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com for additional details or get setup for a trial.

Please do it before it is too late. Losing your pictures, music, documents, etc is a painful experience, and potentially devastating. The cost of recovering hard drives can be in the thousands!

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional

Yes, the subject is correct! Microsoft is offering students the deal of a lifetime…   Windows 7 Professional for only $29.99!

Follow this link to get the whole scoop…  In short you must have an email address ending with .edu, or be enrolled at a college listed as eligible on that site.

There is also a link at the bottom of that page for Microsoft Office Professional Academic version for $79.95, but last I checked, that link is broken.

If you have not checked out Microsoft Windows 7 and Microsoft Office yet, you should do so using the free trials that are available, or if you happen to be a student, upgrade to both for only 100 bucks!?!  What a great deal! What a way to start out the new school year, with the latest software!

If you really need a reason to upgrade other than features and having the latest, how about security? Windows 7 Professional and Office 2010 Professional address security better than any previous version!

Students with Macs are loading Windows 7 Professional on their computers for compatibility with the latest software and requirements of colleges, giving them the best of both worlds!

If you require assistance, please email info@homelandsecureit.com or call 864-990-4748 – we can provide help in installing either of these software packages to those in the Greenville / Upstate SC area.