In a conversation today, I heard how much someone had just paid for 18 full retail versions of Microsoft Office 2010 Professional which they purchased online because they were not aware of other ways in which you can obtain the product.

If you are in Greenville / Upstate, SC and need to buy Microsoft Office 2010, please consider giving us a call! We may be able to save you or your business some money on Microsoft products, such as Microsoft Office Home & Student,  Home & Business, Standard Professional, Professional Plus and Office for Office for Mac in addition to making administration of larger quantities much easier.

Different ways Microsoft Office 2010 can be purchased include:

• Microsoft FPP (Full Product Package) – This is the full retail package, includes media and product license and ability to load on a desktop AND  a notebook (restrictions apply). Versions available are Microsoft Office 2010 Home & Student, Home & Business and Professional.
• Microsoft PKC (Product Key Card) – If you buy a new PC with the Office Trial loaded on it you can purchase the PKC for Microsoft Office 2010 Home & Student, Home & Business and Professional (cheaper than buying the Full Product Package)
• Microsoft Volume Licensing – If you have a business or organization and need to purchase 5 or more copies at a time, this is the way to go! Open licensing is a downloadable product which saves on packaging and thus is better for our environment, and in turn, saves you money! You have only one product key to keep up with and can place the same installation package on a file server to install across machines on your domain. Microsoft Office 2010 Standard and Professional Plus are available via this method. We can help determine which is best for you!

In addition to those methods, non-profit organizations which we work with can obtain almost unreal pricing through some programs we have available!

If you would like more information on which version may be right for you or your business, click the more info banner to the left, or feel free to call 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com

We are a Microsoft Partner & Small Business Specialist and would love the opportunity to help you with any Microsoft purchase or support, whether it is Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Server 2008 R2, Microsoft Small Business Server 2011, Microsoft Exchange 2010, Microsoft Link Server, Microsoft BPOS / Business Productivity Online Suite, Office 365, and more…  One seat or one thousand!

Yes, I keep beating this horse, but not a week goes by that we are not reminded how important backups are for businesses and individuals!

Happy New Year 2011

This week, a gentleman sent us his Lexar 16 GB memory stick, which had been purchased in order to backup his data to it. Normally I would be cheering for this, but, apparently this memory stick actually became his main storage location and there was no backup of the data on his hard drive or other media.

As you have probably guessed, this story does not have a happy ending. The memory stick has malfunctioned and no data can be read off of it. It is a hardware issue, and the memory stick is damaged and overheating.

So, what could this gentleman have done to protect himself? He could have had more than one copy of his data. Storing it on one memory stick is the equivalent to putting all your eggs in one basket. (Or all your investments in one company).

A simple solution would have been to have kept the data on his computer, then copied it regularly to the flash drive, or multiple flash drives, external USB hard drives, or even DVD media.

A more elegant solution would be to use an online backup service like our Servosity offering. Servosity is a fully automated application that runs during a particular time window to upload files from your desktop or notebook computer, and/or your company server. The storage is in-the-cloud (located on remote servers), completely encrypted, so you have no need to worry about the security of the data.

You get a daily email that explains that your data was indeed backed up and you don’t have to give it another thought. In the event you delete a file, or lose a folder, or something becomes corrupted on your end, you can log into a web based interface and download the data, or you can even restore an entire drive.

Servosity Online Backup is the primary cloud computing backup solution that we use here and highly recommend to all of our customers. It works on Microsoft Windows desktop & notebook operating systems, Apple Mac OS X desktops and laptops, Microsoft Windows Server, Microsoft Exchange Mail Server, Microsoft SQL Server, Linux/Unix/*nix, Solaris and more!

With offerings like Servosity there is really no excuse for not backing up, so we are offering a free 30 day trial to give you a chance to check it out!

If you would like more information about Servosity or physical backup solutions like LTO & DAT tape, RDX (Removable Disk Storage), tape autoloaders, NAS or SAN solutions, Symantec Backup Exec, or continuous backup systems, please call us at 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com. We offer complete sales, service & consultation in Greenville and Upstate SC!

Click here to check out our free Servosity Online Backup trial!

December 31st is the last day to take advantage of the Trend Micro “3 | 4 | 2″ deal, where you buy two years of Trend Micro anti-virus protection and get the third year for free for new purchases!

The products that this offer applies to is Trend Worry-Free Business Security (Both Standard and Advanced), Worry-Free Business Security Services, Hosted Email Security, and Enterprise Security for Endpoints & Mail Servers.

If you have a Microsoft Exchange Server, WFBS Advanced will not only protect your email from malicious content, but it will also reduce your spam dramatically! Remember, if you have Mac OS-X computers on your network, Trend WFBS 7 will protect them too!

Trend has been rated #1 for Small Business Security by Independent Testers as based on AV-test.org May/June 2010 results! Why trust your company security to anything less than the best?!?!?

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

Windows Small Business Server 2011

The “preview” of Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 7 has been available for months, and it looks like we are approaching an RTM (Release To Manufacturing) soon.

Windows Small Business Server 7 is a total refresh of the Small Business Server 2008 which was built around Microsoft Server 2008 and Microsoft Exchange 2007.

SBS 7 is built around Microsoft Server 2008 R2 and Microsoft Exchange 2010, and is destined to be named “Microsoft Small Business Server 2011″. Microsoft has stated it will come in two popular flavors:

Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials

• Ideal first server for small businesses with 25 users or less.
• Allows you to backup every computer and server on the network, and to restore individual files, folders or an entire PC or server with provided disaster recovery tools.
• Provides remote access to important information from virtually anywhere. Access computers and documents via the web.
• It is a gateway to cloud services as well, paving the way for the future of Software as a Service (SaaS).

Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard

• Complete On-Premise Solution for businesses with up to 75 users.
• Enterprise-class technology in an affordable, all-in-one suite.
• Automatic backup of data
• Centralized patch / update management.
• Provides fast and secure remote access to files, email and more via a web browser.

Windows Small Business Server 2011 will likely be the product that we sell the most of as it fits the needs of our average client, but the Essentials version will be attractive to the small business moving from a peer-to-peer network to a server-centric solution that can provide the security they require without breaking the bank.

SBS 2011 will be secure, efficient and flexible just like the current SBS 2008, but with all the latest bells and whistles!

For those interested in seeing the software first-hand, the preview versions are still available HERE…

Considering a server deployment in the coming year? Windows Small Business Server 2011 may fit the bill. Please call us at 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com for a free consultation in the Greenville / Upstate SC area. We provide full computer, server & network support, service, repair, sales & consultation!

Today you can hardly have a conversation with IT professionals without the buzz words, “cloud computing”, “in the cloud”, “cloud solutions”, etc popping up.

What do these terms mean? To over-simplify the definition, it means that something is not stored at your location. It is stored “in the cloud”, or on a remote server, and accessed via the internet. The “it” could be data, as in your databases, email, files, or it could be programs / applications, such as web based suites of software like Microsoft Office suite, including Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Word or custom applications.

All this talk about moving to “the cloud”, a term which is generically used for the internet, has people thinking about how it can be used for their business. Let’s take our own small business and use it as an example.

Currently, we use a large server which has Microsoft Server 2008 loaded on it and functions as our domain controller, DNS, DHCP, and other standard server tasks… It also serves as our file server, and it hosts Microsoft Exchange for our in-house email. Other tasks this one piece of hardware is responsible for are: TFTPd for management of our VoIP phone system’s configuration files, backup of data (Using multiple backup systems such as Servosity Online Backup Solution, an “in the cloud” product, and MozyPro) and Trend Micro Worry Free Business Security Advanced for anti-virus and anti-spam.

We have a second server which hosts additional files, Blackberry Enterprise Server (not currently in use due to the switch to Android phones), and is a test bed for us. Then we have two other servers, a Voice over IP server based on Linux OS which is in control of our phone system & voice mail, and a DVR (Digital Video Recorder) for storage of video from our CCTV cameras.

In order to reduce some overhead, we could potentially maintain a smaller main server with only Windows 2008 R2 running on it as a domain controller, then utilize Microsoft Aurora, or even Microsoft BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite), allowing mail storage and transport to take place outside our building.

We could then switch from Trend Micro Worry Free Business Security Advanced to the Trend Hosted solution, relieving our server from those duties.

Since we are already using a remote backup solution, we would not have to worry about that, and our backup requirements would actually drop since we would no longer need to backup the Microsoft Exchange Store (Microsoft would handle that for us with the BPOS solution).

As you can see, eliminating the main server entirely from the equation here is not going to be possible, however a considerable amount of storage, backup, and resources could be moved elsewhere.

One thing to take into consideration before moving to these hosted solutions is, what if our internet is down? That is a good question which still has many people concerned about these technologies. In the case of online file storage, if you do not have cached storage at your location, you simply have no access to it. In the case of mail, if you are caching the information locally, you CAN see your old/existing email, but you cannot send or receive new mail until the connection is reestablished. It is important to note that cloud based email will still RECEIVE email when your business is without an internet connection and you will get it as soon as the connection is reestablished, something that doesn’t happen now if you use an onsite Exchange Server, unless you are using a mail hold & forward (spool) system at your ISP or other provider.

Should you desire to discuss your needs and how products like Microsoft Aurora, BPOS, Google Apps, Servosity and other cloud services can fit into your infrastructure, please call us at 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com for a free consultation!  We are partners with Microsoft, Google, Servosity, MozyPro and other cloud providers. We also offer a full line of computer, server & network service, support, sales and consultation here in Greenville & Upstate SC!

Microsoft is offering a free 30 day trial of their Business Productivity Online Suite if you would like to see it in action.

One lightning strike can ruin your whole day...

Last night was scary for some people here in the Upstate of SC. Easley was hit hard in the business area of Main Street and Pendleton Street and residences along 135 by the passing storms.

As I watched the news and saw the video footage of damage, I felt horrible for the business and home owners affected. We turned on the scanner radio and listened as emergency crews went street by street, clearing each house they came to. We heard that business owners would not be allowed back into their business until 8 AM today, and an entire condo was evacuated and they were not allowed in until after power was restored.

Those who did not suffer structural damage from the wind, or trees falling on their building and the water that poured in, may have suffered in other ways. Servers and workstations that were not on an UPS (Un-Interruptable Power Supply) went down when the power went out, losing any data that was not saved, and potentially corrupting hard drives or data that was being written at the time.

Then there is the damage to electronics, especially computers & servers, when the power attempts to come on, spikes, surges, brownouts. These power events have the potential for destroying sensitive components.

A simple and relatively inexpensive device such as an APC or Eaton UPS could help prevent costly damage, lost productivity and save your data by automatically shutting down the computer after a power failure, saving data properly, and during the continual power up/power down cycles, provide the filtering necessary to protect your systems. Your insurance company may offer discounts for coverage of equipment covered by UPS due to the reduced chance of costly computer server repair or service, or even replacement.

Another nice feature of an UPS would be to supply power to internet routers / switches, CCTV system and VoIP systems to allow you to view your security cameras to assess possible damage before you can even enter your building (If the internet connection is not severed), and your phone systems can continue to function if you have a large enough UPS so that Voice Mail and FAX can still come in.  An UPS can serve to power your systems until your generator comes online if you have one, so your Microsoft Exchange system may never go offline assuming your building is not one of the ones affected by structural damage.

The obvious next layer of protection is a backup solution, such as an onsite backup, whether it is an LTO, DLT or other tape drive, external hard drives, NAS / SAN etc, which could help if the need to restore data comes up… Taking that idea one step further would offer an offsite, or online backup solution, placing your data “in the cloud” safely away from your geographic location, so if a fire, tornado, flood or even a theft occurs, your data is located elsewhere and can be downloaded to a new computer or server.

If you would like to discuss how power protection and backup solutions can safeguard your systems or if you require assistance with a business continuity plan, please email info@homelandsecureit.com or call 864.990.4748. We are partners with APC, Eaton, Symantec, Quantum and Servosity.  We also offer a FREE trial of the Servosity Online Backup Solution….

Free Servosity Online Backup Trial

DON'T Dial 911! Dial 990-4748

Nobody expects an emergency to happen to them, but it is nice to know that when you do need assistance, you can pick up your phone and dial 9-1-1 and a dispatcher will arrange for the appropriate response.

What do you do for your IT network when an emergency arises and you do not have in-house IT support? If you have an IT professional or company who maintains your infrastructure, you likely have their contact information programed into your phone, know it off the top of your head, or at least have their business card. If you do rely on the computer to access that information, in a time of crises you may be unable to open your address book, so having a hard copy of important names and numbers is always a good idea.

If you don’t already have a company you rely on for business computer repair, service or support, you might find that during an actual crisis, you will have difficulty even locating one because of a lack of internet connectivity, leaving you cut off from Google or your favorite search engine, and who has an actual phone book handy anymore?

Remember the Boy Scout motto?  ”Be Prepared”…  Now is the time to do some research and find a service provider who can meet your day-to-day needs and rescue you during critical outages. Call around, talk to some computer service companies and write the contact names and numbers down! Ask what their response times are, and if they charge an “emergency response” fee (some companies charge a 2 hour minimum for rapid response, while others may charge a higher per-hour rate).

Many companies will offer you a free consultation, take advantage of that to learn more about them, and allow them to learn more about your company and network.

Ultimately, who you choose should make you feel comfortable with their personality, level of expertise, and be willing to give you references. They should give you an idea of how long it takes them to respond if your server goes down. Better companies will give you after-hours numbers or even personal cell phone numbers. (Almost all companies charge extra for after-hours or holiday response, be sure to ask what their policy is).

Homeland Secure IT offers computer & server service to Greenville, Anderson, Simpsonville, Clemson, Duncan, Taylors, Travelers Rest, Spartanburg and the rest of the Upstate. We do not charge additional fees for emergency calls.  We do not charge based on the technology, you get the same rate no matter if it is a standard computer, Microsoft Exchange Server or VoIP system. We also do not charge a fuel surcharge, travel time or mileage at all within the Upstate.

Please print out or write down our number, you can put it right next to the “In case of emergency, dial 9-1-1″ sticker on your phone: 864-990-4748

Say "no" to stacks of CDs

If you are using CDs,  DVDs, flash drives, external hard drives, or other physical media to backup your notebook computer, you are doing 100% more to protect your data than the majority of all PC owners!

However, you are also spending time connecting devices or inserting backup media and likely are manually starting the backup, leaving lots of room for missed backups. If you are using an external USB hard drive, you may be using the included software to automatically backup to that media when you have it plugged in, which could make for gaps of days, weeks, months, or who knows, even longer between backups.

Those of you who want to insure your data is backed up, automatically, without interaction from you at all, should consider an online or remote backup solution. These are ideal for a mobile computer, whether it is an Apple Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows or even a Linux based system! All you do is establish an account, install the software, configure the software for a time frame for running and you are done. “Set it and forget it” as they say.

When you have your computer turned on and connected to the internet, the data is uploaded to the remote server automatically and you get an email that lets you know that it completed correctly or that a backup was missed. You can see the backup details, you can set the backup to be “continuous” where your files are synced as they change, etc.

Your data is stored remotely on encrypted and secure servers. You can access a single file or restore an entire folder via the application or a handy web interface!

Here at Homeland Secure IT, we use, recommend and offer a free trial of Servosity Online Backup. Servosity is a locally owned and operated business here in Greenville, SC whom we are proud to partner with to bring our clients a rock solid, dependable and affordable backup solution. Servosity works with desktops, laptops, server (including Microsoft Exchange, SQL, and more!) and as mentioned previously, multiple operating systems from Windows to Apple Mac, to Linux, etc.

Free Servosity Online Backup Trial! Click Here...

If you would like more information about how Servosity Online Backup can help you or your business, or you would like a FREE TRIAL of the service, please email info@homelandsecureit.com or call 864.990.4748. We offer a full range of backup solutions, both physical onsite and remote.  Don’t go another day without KNOWING your data is protected!

A post today on Trend Micro’s TrendLabs Malware blog pointed out how spammers will use the upcoming G-20 Summit as a way to distribute their content.

It works like this: The spammer sends emails out, they appear to come from the Japanese finance ministry and contain comments on issues related to the Summit.

Should you click on the link, it will lead to a .ZIP file, and when that is run, it opens a Word document which helps cover its tracks so that it does not appear to be malicious… Trend explains that what REALLY happens is that a malicious file is contained in the payload, and the registry is modified so that it is run at startup.

Trend Micro Worry Free Business Security Advanced and ScanMail as well as other Trend Micro products successfully detect this as the appropriately named “TROJ_DROPPER.WTH” and stops it before it gets into your system.  The actual malicious file is detected as “TROJ_AGENT.JAAK”.

This is nothing new, every major news-worthy event for the past few years has served as a transport mechanism for various malware and spam messages. If a spammer uses “US President Attacked” as a topic, chances are good, if the from address looks legitimate that a large percentage of people will open it. If that message contains ONLY spam, then at the very least, thousands or tens of thousands of people have just seen their ad about some product or another.  If it contains a link to a malicious site, many will follow that link if it looks enticing.

As always, use common sense, and be sure to employ some form of mail system protection. We recommend Trend Micro WFBS Advanced for small businesses like our own.

If you would like additional information about Trend Micro’s security products, or how you can stop or at least cut down on spam that affects your Microsoft Exchange Server, email us at info@homelandsecureit.com or call 864.990.4748. We offer Greenville and Upstate businesses free consultations, and we can help reduce your spam and mail issues!

Is your business currently using Symantec, McAfee, Microsoft or Kaspersky for corporate anti-virus protection?

If so, and you are unhappy with the current level of protection and would be interested in trying Trend Micro but the cost has been prohibitive, then maybe the Competitive Upgrade offer will encourage you to make the move!

Trend calls their program “Competitive Displacement”, and should you be using one of the aforementioned security suites, then you qualify for the discounted price. How much of a discount? A large one,  over 10 dollars per seat on Trend Micro Worry Free Business Security Standard!

These updates apply to the following Trend Micro products: Worry Free Business Security (both Standard & Advanced),  Worry-Free Business Security Services, Hosted Email Security, Hosted Email Security-Inbound Filtering, Scanmail Suite for Microsoft Exchange (SMEX Suite), Scanmail for MS Exchange Suite with Email Reputation Services, Scanmail Suite for Lotus Domino, Enterprise Security for Endpoints (Advanced), Enterprise Security for Communication and Collaboration Suite, Enterprise Security for Endpoints and Mail Servers, and Trend Micro Enterprise Security Suite.

If you would like more information about Trend Micro anti-virus, anti-malware, anti-spam products, please call us at 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com

We are a Trend Micro Partner and offer complete sales & licensing for a single workstation, notebook or server to thousands! We also offer installation and support in the Greenville / Upstate SC area.