Who says school is boring? My son’s current project is to design and build a Rube Goldbergesque machine!

I haven’t been well due to that car accident on the 7th, in fact, today is the first day I could really do much in the way of work, so I am pretty happy. This trend should continue until I am hopefully back to normal (some of you will not believe it, but I am kinda normal)…

Brett has a high school project that is due soon which must incorperate several things such as levers, incline, etc, in a silly manner and the end result is to knock over a marker. Of course, this has my little mind going 90 to nothing due to the fact that I kind of think in abstract ways anyway.

This has nothing to do with Homeland Secure IT, computer service, computer repair or anything at all to do with computers, or business, but I do think that is a neat thing to do in school. I will post more information as it the project nears completion.

Until then, thank you for your patience while I recover, and to those who sent cards, emails, direct messages, facebook messages, and phone calls… Thank you very much!

The next time you call for tech support you may find yourself talking to a prisoner

tech support prisoners

Will your next tech support call be to a person in prison?

When I read the article about one company farming out their data entry work to an Indian prison where prisoners will be handling financial records while using computers, it made me shudder. Not only do we have prisoners handling financials, but they are using computers to do so, making it all the more easy for them to send that data off to someone outside the prison.

Now that we have gone there, how long until a computer company outsources their tech support to a prison? I say it is not too far off. So, next month, or next year, instead of calling HP and finding yourself talking to a person with poor English and a terrible grasp of your problem, you may be talking to some rapist, murderer, or a white collar criminal, who make take control of your computer from behind bars and attempt to help you. Oh it is not a reality now (that I know of), but how far into the future before it does happen?

I’ve never been a fan of IT outsourcing for many reasons, but we see it happening more and more. Almost every large computer manufacturer uses outsourced tech support. It may be time to reconsider who you purchase your computer from. Instead of saving 100 dollars and getting a mass-manufactured PC, you may wish to consider purchasing a PC from a US manufacturer who has US based tech support. One line of computers which we sell is assembled right here in America, using top of the line Intel motherboards and processors, and when you call for tech support, you get someone who knows their products top to bottom and speaks English. Of course, if you purchase one of these computers from Homeland Secure IT, we will handle the repairs for you, as the parts are covered 100% for 3 years.

Ask us for more information and how these machines stack up against HP, Dell, etc. They are not cheap by any means, but remember, you get what you pay  for…

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Greenville Network Support and Computer Repair Specialists

Do you need help with your network? Homeland Secure IT, LLC provides network support services to Upstate and Greenville, SC businesses and individuals. Whether you need Microsoft Patches put on your Microsoft Server, or an upgrade to your Microsoft Exchange Server, we can assist! We sell new and maintain existing servers, desktop PCs, and network infrastructure such as routers, firewalls and other security appliances. We also sell and install network security cameras which you can use to keep an eye on your business from afar.

We are authorized partners for Microsoft, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Quantum, SonicWall, Cisco, Toshiba, MSI, Digium VoIP, Trend Micro AV and many more!

Yes we do far more than just computer repair work, we do it ALL! Our rates are reasonable and our service cannot be beat!

Call us today and find out what we can do for you with a no cost, no obligation evaluation of your network!

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Cisco Flip Mino HD video camcorder contest

Flip Mino HD camcorder contest

Win an ultra cool, ultra compact Cisco Flip MinoHD camcorder!

Are you the type of person who never wins anything? Then this contest is for you. Your chances currently are 1 in 70!

How do you enter? All you have to do is subscribe to this blog and put up with my daily rambling. To do this, just scroll down and find the “Follow Me” frame on the right, input your email address and subscribe to email updates. Those who subscribe to email updates will get a daily email which will contain the blog posts from the previous day and no matter how much I ramble, you should only receive one email.

What if you don’t want my junk in your inbox? Welllll, you could optionally email me and I will then add you to our spam list, uhmmm I mean our “Secure IT Alerts” list, where we send out important security bulletins in email usually no more than twice a month, or whenever major updates and/or vulnerabilities are announced.

Some silly rules: This contest is open to everyone where contests are legal in the USA. There are no age limitations, except where limited by law. You are expected to subscribe from only one email address, not 50…  Those who are subscribed multiple times will be disqualified. Employees of Homeland Secure IT, LLC should be disqualified, but they are not, nor are their children or spouses. If *I* am selected, I will run the selection again – see below… The winner can pick up the camera at our office in Greenville, SC during normal business hours, otherwise it will be packaged and shipped out via UPS or US Postal Service.

How will the winner be selected? Each user who enters will be assigned a number, the first subscriber to the blog is #1 (That’s me), the last one to subscribe before the contest date is up will get the final number. Those in the “Secure IT Alerts” mailing list e added assigned the next numbers up from subscribers of the blog.  I will then run a random number generator to pick a number between 1 and xxxx and then notify the corresponding person via email and post to the blog.

Sounds simple right? I hope so. So subscribe and may the force be with you.  Winner will be selected on June 1st 2010.  In the event the winner does not respond within 7 days, I’ll re-run the selection process and try again!

Good luck!

Thanks to the Cisco “Human Network” brickfish contest for providing us with this camera. I would have just kept it, but I already have one of these great Cisco Flip MinoHD cameras, and since you guys helped us win it by voting for Homeland Secure IT and making us the “Most Viral” entry, it is only right that one of you get it!

Google Chrome is faster than lightning, sound and a speeding potato

I’m still feeling horrible after the accident on Friday so I am at home. Better to hurt at home than to go in to work and not get anything done, be more uncomfortable, feel more depressed and make everyone at the office as sick of hearing me whine about it as my family and even myself…  It hurts to type, so you get an embedded video today for your visit. Stay tuned because I am going to be listing the rules of our free camera give away as soon as I feel better, we have the new Flip Mino HD in our posession and we are ready to give it to some lucky person!

New Computer Wireless Network Technology to Drool Over – Multi-Gigabit Wireless

New Computer Wireless Network Technology to Drool Over

New Computer Wireless Network Technology to Drool Over

An article posted today on Wired got me all excited (Yes, I am that kind of geek)! They discuss the future of wireless networking and how the Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig) has announced that 60Ghz multi-gigabit wireless technology is now available to member companies to start turning out products that use the new high-speed standard.

Yes, you didn’t read that wrong and I didn’t make a typo…  multi-gigabit wireless! The article discusses this in more detail, so I will refer you to it to pull the details out, but imagine if you will, the ability to have a wireless LAN at more than 10 times the speed of current 802.11n Wi-Fi, or Wireless N rate. Heck, most offices do not even have gigabit switches in them, and my own home doesn’t.

That still means our bottleneck is the internet connection to our home, but a gigabit wireless, combined with say, Google Fiber Internet at gigabit speed is going to be amazing when it gets here! Of course, Google will bring that technology to Greenville SC first, so you better plan to move to the Upstate to fulfill your need for speed! =)

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Breaking news: My car was just slammed into from behind

Today I was on Hwy 153 on my way in to work, and as I approached a traffic signal that had changed to red, I slowed from 50 or so to around 25-30 with the traffic in front of me, and as I glanced in my rear view mirror, I saw a car coming up on me from behind at a high rate of speed.

Having been the “sandwich car” in my last accident (about 1988 maybe?) where a car hit me from behind and pushed me into the car in front of me, I knew I didn’t want that again, so made the choice to move farther over to the right, hoping the car would miss me and have time to stop before hitting the vehicle in front of me. It didn’t happen like that, instead, the car came over slightly to the right, and managed to hit the right two foot of their bumper on the left two foot of mine, and that resulted in pushing my car to the right, where I impacted with the guardrail (I think she pushed me maybe 30 ft???).

Interesting things happen when you get hit. First of all, all the papers and stuff that were on my sun-visor, and the change and business cards that were in my ashtray, that all flew out and I was hit in the face with quarters and papers. The next thing to happen was all the stuff in my front passenger seat and back seats flew forward as I hit the guardrail and came to a stop…  My camera case (Nikon D70S and lenses) flew OVER the seat and into the front floorboard from the back seat. Ham radio transceivers flew (an ICOM IC 7000 broke loose from its Velcro mounting and hit the back of the rear seats, Alinco DR135TP flew into the floorboard from the back seat, and a Yeasu HT flew into the floorboard)…  Its really quite amazing how much moved in the car…

As far as me… I think I’m okay. Starting to get very sore, and kinda shook up still, tomorrow will be the real test, but I should have the weekend to recover before starting back to work! So that is the blessing of the day! The driver of the other car is fine too, shaken but not stirred. She didn’t really know what happened. A witness stated she was speeding up (maybe 50-55? faster?) and she watched it all unfold, and was the first to call 911. The driver was fasting for blood work, and probably had low blood sugar or something and just zoned out. Very nice lady, and so was her husband that showed up to help out. The witness stuck around and comforted the driver of the vehicle that struck me, until she calmed down. That was very sweet as well.  And then my wife came to the scene to make sure I was okay! The police took an hour and a half or so to get there due to other accidents.

Now I have to go through the ordeal to get the car fixed. It’s not too bad I don’t think. Have not spent much time looking at it. Rear deck is tweaked, rear bumper and supports damaged, tail light on driver’s side, some scratches on the left rear quarter, the exhaust looks like it is hanging down on that side, and the front and rear passenger side doors have creases in them from the guardrail. The driver’s side seat is bent, or maybe the supports as it is leaning at an angle, and the gearshift (auto transmission) is difficult to move. It is also pulling to the right and feels like a tire is out of balance.   I think that covers it. I hate that this car has been damaged, I actually love it… A 2004 Mazda 6 Sport Wagon… V6.. sweet ride… Or at least it was.  Thank God it was only the material things that seem to be hurt.

You still reading this? Sheesh you must be bored. Get back to work.

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Honest computer repair in Upstate / Greenville South Carolina

broken computer

Broken computer? Don't smash it!

I know it is tempting, but smashing your broken computer with a hammer will likely result in making your bad day even worse. After all, you would have to clean up that mess, and there is always the chance that the flying pieces could put out an eye or something!

I spoke with a man today about his computer network, and he told me whenever he has problems, he just replaces the computers. When asked how often he has problems he told me once or twice a year!!!!! WOW! I can’t even begin to imagine the time spent reloading software, restoring data, and the cost of replacing a computer… So I inquired as to why this was his philosophy and he told me because every computer repair house he used in the past had ripped him off. I asked for specifics and he gladly gave them…

One computer had no video on the screen, the IT provider said it was the computer. He had them replace the computer, and after they had installed the new one, it turns out the monitor was bad all along. Another computer was locking up randomly, and he had the network support company look at it, something like a dozen times (he MAY have been exagerating, but I’m not sure), and they never fixed it. He said he paid over 1000 in labor and the computer was still locking up.

Believe it or not, that was just the start. He mentioned a network card that went out due to a lightning strike, and a different computer repair place replaced the card, and charged him over 500 dollars for the card and the labor. The worst has to be an upgrade from Windows XP to Windows Vista, that the local computer service company performed for him… The OS, RAM upgrade, hard drive upgrade and labor was almost 2000 dollars!

I would say that this guy had the worst run of luck that anyone I know has ever had regarding computers, thus he adopted the “If it breaks, replace it” attitude. He claims it costs him less that way and he doesn’t have to deal with computer technicians who make the original problem worse, inconvenience him and then charge him astronomical rates.

Here is where I wonder how these IT providers could possibly stay in business? Who would call them a second time?

My promise to you is that should you use Homeland Secure IT for your computer service / repair, you will *never* encounter the types of issues that my new friend encountered. We never charge for return calls on a problem we should have fixed correctly the first time. We would never charge for something that was OUR mistake, like a misdiagnosed monitor. And our prices are so much lower than what these other computer shops charged that I wonder if we should not be considering raising ours to match!

Should you have computer problems, please call us, we offer a free evaluation, give you honest, quality service at reasonable rates, and insist upon your total satisfaction. Keep our number handy. 864-990-4748

We want to be your computer repair professionals whether you need a virus removed, anti-virus software installed, have network or wireless / wi-fi problems, just require Microsoft patches, or replacement of an entire PC!

Our service area is the entire Upstate of South Carolina, including Greenville, Spartanburg, Simpsonville, Anderson, Easley, Pickens, Clemson, Taylors, Travelers Rest, Duncan, Boiling Springs, Piedmont, Pelzer, etc, etc!

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Google Fiber for Greenville Part II – The Voting Continues #GoogleOnMain #LuckyGVL

It seems like forever since the Google On Main event that made national and even international news. It didn’t stop with the amazing night of 2200+ people gathered at Falls Park in downtown Greenville SC with LED lightsticks, spelling out “Google” while aircraft flew overhead taking photos and video. Far from it.

Greenville has continued to make their desire for Google’s High Speed Fiber deployment known, through a Facebook fan page, untold numbers of blog postings and websites, face-to-face meetings, the official Greenville We Are Feeling Lucky website http://www.WeAreFeelingLucky.com and by voting in the questionable http://www.googlefiber.com/ voting page.

Well the UNOFFICIAL Google Fiber vote that was supposed to last until May 6th has now been extended another month, where there will be a death-match between the most popular cities I imagine. More information about that is available here: http://www.googlefiber.com/voting-challenge-round-2-begins-may-7/

The GoogleFiber.com site is very sketchy… The owner is from India apparently, and of course it IS an unofficial vote, and there has been cheating on the parts of individuals, as well as the exclusion of many people who wanted to vote while at work (They made it where you could not vote multiple times from the same IP, such as a corporate network uses)…

My two cents on this is – keep on voting, keep on supporting Greenville in any way you can. Also, post to Twitter with the tags of #LuckyGVL and #GoogleOnMain ANYTIME you have something positive to say about Greenville and technology.  Who knows, maybe we can catch the eye of Google and they too will decide that Greenville is the best place they could pick to deploy that tasty 1 Gbps high speed fiber network!

I have started a Race for the Cure team called G(o)(o)gle on Main, and invite you to join us in a 5k walk/run/race for the Cure! You can even join our team and SLEEP IN FOR THE CURE!!!!   If you cannot participate in the team, please make a contribution, even 5 or 10 dollars would be awesome. We are going to try to raise 5000 dollars.   That’s 1000 dollars a kilometer!

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Microsoft Office 2010 is coming and it may be a free upgrade for your company

Microsoft Office 2010

Microsoft Office 2010 is coming soon!

Microsoft has RTM’d their latest and greatest version of Microsoft Office. RTM is a “release to manufacturing”, which means that you will see it on store shelves and available from vendors very soon!

To be honest with you, I was not a MS Office fan until Office 2007 was released, and I fell in love with the power and reliability of that version, however a number of people were turned off by it, thinking the new release did not offer much incentive to upgrade over Office 2003, which many had just purchased at the time of the 2k7 Office release. Flash forward to the present and we have a similar situation about to occur. We’re still selling people on upgrades to 2k7 and recently encouraged a business to upgrade from their Office 2000 & 2003 versions to 2007, only to see Office 2010 around the corner.

There will be some early adopters who will jump at the chance to upgrade to 2010 the second it is available, and some will have the “wait and see” attitude where they will sit back and wait until they feel it is stable. And of course, there are going to be those who wait 4 years to upgrade due to many factors, such as an attitude that “what I have is working fine”, “I’m not giving Microsoft any more of my money”, and the ever popular “I can’t take the time to learn new software”. (We have some clients still running Office 2000 because of the last one)

We’re running Office 2k10 in house and it is working fantastic. Many improvements over the previous versions, and it seems as though it is rock solid even in this early release (beta) version, so we will be upgrading all of our machines to Office 2010 Professional Plus second it is available to us.

Now, what about your business? Let’s say you want to upgrade, but like some of our clients you just purchased Office 2007 and don’t want to spend the money to abandon what is working for you. If you purchased your Microsoft Office 2007 with Microsoft’s Software Assurance, then you are in luck, as a current SA (Software Assurance) agreement is going to get you the upgrade for free the moment it is released online this month!

If you have Office Enterprise 2007, Office Professional Plus 2007, or Office Small Business Edition 2007 with Software Assurance, then you can download Office Professional Plus 1010 when it comes available.

If you have Office Standard 2007 with Software Assurance, you will need to download Office Standard 2010 when it becomes available.

All you will need to do is to go to the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) to download the new software.

For those of you who are running earlier versions of Office, you can upgrade now to Office 2007 with Software Assurance and ensure you get a free upgrade to Office 2010 the moment it is released.

If you would like a quote for 1 seat, 100 or even thousands of seats, please contact us at 864-990-4748 or email johnh@homelandsecureit.com