Normally, John posts on this blog, but today, I wanted a chance to share my thoughts about a tragedy.

I vividly remember the first time I met Trey Pennington.  My husband, John, and I were at Launch Greenville.  I was not at all thrilled over giving up one of our precious Saturdays to spend sitting in a seminar hearing people talk about launching business in Greenville.  John and I were perfect candidates for this gathering as we had recently started our new business with Homeland Secure IT.  We soaked in every word of the day although later we agreed that there was little to offer in the way of new material to our business plan.  I guess this at least gave us a “good job” pat on the back.  I will never forget and have thought of it often as we were talking to others during a break period, Trey coming up to us to chat.  Sensing  our struggles as new business owners, he wasted no time in connecting with us through family experiences.  He mentioned his regret of not having his wife by his side at such events, but understood given their six children.  Trey offered a boost of confidence in telling us how recent his business had taken a turn in a better direction since recently his family was at a church dinner and both he and his wife had only one dollar to their name.  Today was a different situation he indicated with a thankful heart.

I ran into Trey at a few more conferences in Greenville after that first meeting and connected with him over Twitter and Facebook in the two years to follow.  Every time I saw Trey, I always felt a sense of pain  in his tired, puffy eyes.  John and I always dismissed this as a tribute to having such a big family and always keeping up with their ongoing activities as well as a traveling business.  Then in June, around the 20th, we hear of Trey’s desire to end his life and news of ultimate divorce.  John and I both could relate.

One thing that I find extremely irritating as I read it over and over again in posts and blogs is how great Trey appeared… all skinny and healthy.  When did “Skinny” become the new “Healthy”?  I am certainly not in the medical field, but I can speak from experience.  Thin can be an outward cry for help…an attempt to gain control.  I have lived in the place of such dark despair that eating becomes a huge effort, and even swallowing past the huge lump in your throat almost causes a gag reflex.  I remember how the days continue on in one long sequence and it’s suddenly hard to remember the last meal you ate much less enjoyed.  This feeling feeds into the dark tomb of emptiness and exercise becomes the only therapeutic relief from the pain.  Then one day you begin to hear from others in passing, “Wow, look how much weight you’ve lost!  You look great!”  I began to wonder if I looked so bad before, why didn’t someone tell me?  THIS looks great?  Boy, if you only knew what I look like on the inside!  And the nightmare continues!  Someone once asked me, “What are you doing to lose so much weight and get into great shape?”  I was quick to bark back with, “You don’t want this diet plan it’s called DIVORCE!  You RUN to escape and NEVER EAT!”

I saw this look in Trey’s eyes. The cry for help in his photo posts at the Fall’s Park Bridge and Starbucks downtown. His lips pursed and unhappy, his eyes sagging with exhaustion.  But like many, I just didn’t feel close enough to reach out to him.  What is “close enough” to reach out to someone?  When is it okay to let your guard down and assume someone will respond in like?  I have NO idea what details Trey was faced with in his life anymore than the rest of you scouring social media to find answers to his decision not to continue on in this life.  I have to say that I too was tossed out of my church and I do believe that I must have felt something similar with an institution that once consumed most of my life.  This church faced me and said that they were tired of the drama my family’s problems were bringing and it needed to end.  They strongly suggested that I leave quietly even though I was not to blame (I was the victim).  I should leave “for a season” and allow things to cool down.  After all it was much easier for me to walk away than to ask my husband to leave since his entire family attended the church and offered a big financial support.  Really?  I left with my tail tucked.  I’m so amazed to hear of something like this happening to someone else.  I am very thankful that I discovered my faith in God is stronger than my faith in church.  We are all only human after all.

I have mixed emotions about the passing of Trey Pennington.  Anger that he has cheated his children of the beautiful moments that could have been.  Frustration that he gave up on life and the lives that he had yet to touch.  Pity that his dark demonic life was too dark for him to find any more light.  Sadness for his friends and family that will never have the chance again to make an uplifting contribution in the life of a great man.

Pamela Hoyt – Homeland Secure IT

@PamelaHoyt    -    http://www.facebook.com/PamelaMHoyt

As I sit here, wanting to type up something about computers, computer repair, some new gadget, a security issue or something inane as usual, I am unable to come up with a single thing more important than what occurred yesterday, and that is the death of a social media icon, a Greenville business enthusiast and dare I say, friend.

Trey Pennington, a man I met no more than maybe a dozen times in person, never shared a meal with or had a real conversation with outside of business, marketing or social media, took his own life, and there are countless blog, facebook and twitter posts about that unfortunate incident.

No, nothing I have to say is important at all, other than to say a thank you to Trey for all he did for us, and to apologize for not taking the time to get to know him on a personal level.

To his family, especially his children, God bless you all. He loved you dearly! He made that apparent with every appearance and conversation he had.  You will be in our prayers.

It will come as no surprise that anything newsworthy results in the creators of malware intensifying their efforts to spread their malicious code. The demise of Usama Bin Laden in no exception as various attempts to entice people to follow links through are being reported all over the place. I have seen 3 people I follow on social media who were posting malicious links already.

As always, if you see a link such as “See Bin Ladens last moments” on someone’s Facebook profile, don’t click it, it is likely not something you want.

Using a reliable and trusted anti-virus with web filtering capabilities, keeping your computer operating system up to date, as well as all supporting applications such as Java, Microsoft Office, Adobe products, etc is always a great idea. We recommend and offer Trend Micro for anti-virus for either your personal desktops or for your entire business network security! We also offer complete computer security, repair, support and sales in the Greenville & Upstate SC Area.

If you would like additional information, please contact us at 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com

While we are on the subject of Bin Laden, let me take a moment to thank our military and everyone involved in the events of the last 24hrs. I think we may all sleep a little better at night….

Most of you probably wonder why Homeland Secure IT doesn’t advertise… Or maybe since you have never seen any kind of ad, you haven’t thought about it at all! hah

The number one reason we don’t advertise is because we have a very strong & established base of amazing clients and so many terrific friends and family who believe in us so much that they do an incredible job of spreading the word of what we offer! That’s the main reason. There are other reasons, such as the fact that I don’t believe the majority of people who want to buy a Cisco ASA 5505 security appliance or license Trend Micro Anti-Virus are going to pick up the newspaper or phonebook to find us.

I know for a fact that the IT people that we work around don’t get the idea to get a backup solution from listening to top 40 radio, etc. So, in short, advertising in those ways has not been very attractive for us.

But, I couldn’t pass this one up… @BigJonEvans is available for rent. That’s right. This crazy guy over at http://www.youbrand.me/ is allowing us to tattoo our logo on his forehead for a day, as well as streaming a live video where he will discuss some of our products and services, and making a short promo video. But wait, that’s not all, he’s also going to introduce himself as “Homeland Secure IT” for an entire day. And, because we acted right now, he’s throwing in a video of him lip syncing to a song!

I can’t afford a billboard on I-85 that says “Homeland Secure IT offers computer, network and server support, service, repair, sales in Greenville and Upstate SC”, etc, and frankly I don’t think the system administrator at XYZ corporation would read it and give it a serious thought, but I CAN afford Jon’s forehead for a day!  While not quite as big as a billboard, I think more people may see it!

All for the low price of 9 dollars! Now that is advertising money well spent. Advertising with an impact!  (The price goes up one dollar each day, so reserve your spot NOW)

Tomorrow, SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY!  That’s the day you can watch @BigJonEvans talk about Homeland Secure IT and wear our logo. For more information, HEAD on over to Jon’s website at www.YouBrand.Me or follow him on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.

If you have a business or cause or something that you would like the world to know about, this is certainly a fun way to increase awareness =)

Have a great weekend and prepare for the snowpacalypse that is coming!

Oh and Jon, I love your current project… That’s using your head!

These guys did such a great job with the song, and the video….   Please take some time to go to digg and reddit (as mentioned in the video of course) and help promote them.

Click on the video below to view on YouTube and LIKE them and comment…     See if you can spot and hear all the memes that are in there, there’s a ton!

Homeland Secure IT Alert for Thursday, October 28, 2010

In the news today you will find that a new variant of the infamous Koobface is making the rounds via social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace.

Unsuspecting users are enticed to click a video link in a direct message which links to a bogus YouTube page where they are presented with a thumbnail of the video, which when clicked runs a JAVA applet, and the user will then accept it, thinking they are going to see the greatest video ever. Instead, they get a blank screen more times than not, and have just given access to their computer to the bad guys.

According to various sites, the applet affects Linux and Mac in a different manner than the Windows based systems because it remains running longer, giving attackers a long time to exploit the machine for evil purposes. (So all that wonderful uptime you get from a *nix machine works against you as a Microsoft Windows machine gets rebooted more frequently).

It is suggested that you keep your operating systems updated, your JAVA updated, and keep current and quality anti-virus products on your computer such as Trend Micro. Even an anti-virus package like clamAV is advised over nothing at all. Mac and Linux users need to be very aware that the good old days of running “bareback” are over.

As always, avoid sketchy sites, don’t run JAVA apps unless you trust them. If you are on social media, use some common sense and don’t click on odd looking links, even if they come from your friends.

If you feel you may have been compromised, contact a computer service professional immediately. If you need assistance in Greenville or Upstate SC, we provide complete computer service, virus removal and cleanup and sales of Trend Micro and Symantec security and anti-virus software. 864.990.4748

Homeland Secure IT Alert

If you have been paying attention, you know about the Social Story Conference put on by Trey Pennington here in Greenville today at the Warehouse Theatre (@WarehouseGVL). Pamela and I played hooky from work and attended it, feeling a bit naughty, like a kid skipping school!

The speakers were Tim TV, Sean Buvala, Amber Osborne (@MissDestructo), Rick Murray, Olivier Blanchard (@TheBrandBuilder), Trey Pennington (@TreyPennington), and moderated by Phil Yanov (@ThinkHammer).

The topic was “Building your social story”, and while social media was discussed a good bit, it was not the focus of the conference.

It was a total blast! Let’s do it again!  If you missed it you can travel to the next venue!  www.SocialStoryConference.com for more information about it.

I would like to thank the speakers for traveling to see us, especially @MissDestructo who is responsible for getting me into Four Square and has brightened many days with some words of wisdom! Also, to the staff at Bit Tyrant (Aaron Von Frank, Susan Sebotnick and Kat Hardaway), you guys did a bang up job, and your volunteers were awesome too.

Here’s what I am looking forward to this month in Greenville:

Trey Pennington (@TreyPennington) has created the “Social Story Conference” which is going to be in Greenville, SC on September 24th. Trey, along with some other awesome people will be speaking on the subject of social media and social stories.  In short, how businesses can, and do, connect with people and form relationships, rather than force-feeding marketing down a one-way pipeline.

If you want to learn more about how to connect with your customer base, how to share in their lives, and how your products or services are part of their lives then you should consider going. If you are just wanting to continue to “broadcast” your information in the hopes that someone is going to listen, then avoid this conference by all means. Let’s face it, if you are constantly blathering on twitter about the $29.99 special your company offers without ever taking the time to follow your followers or listen to what they have to say, you are going to be unfollowed or filtered, just like the annoying car dealership commercials are muted by TV viewers.

The line up of speakers for Greenville is exciting! In addition to Trey Pennington, we’ll get to hear from and connect with Amber Osborne (@MissDestructo), Tim TV, Sean Buvala (@StoryTeller), Olivier Blanchard (@TheBrandBuilder), and Rick Murray… The emcee will be Phil Yanov (@ThinkHammer).

This is not about the social media platform, it is independent of the transport mechanism. It’s not about Twitter, or Facebook, it’s about connections.

More information is on the Social Story Conference website at http://socialstoryconference.com/ and you can also follow the hash tag of #SocialStory on Twitter.

Homeland Secure IT is proud to help sponsor this event and we can’t wait to see you there!

Poison Tap Water is trending on Google…    And I am doing everything I can to see if I can get some of that. hahaha

Please ignore this….

Tanya Thompson / @thompsontanya commented about a device on Twitter this morning that caught my eye… It is the Withings / @Withings Wi-Fi connected scale, which uses network connectivity to log and track your weight loss (or gain) among other things.

You can view your trends with a web interface, and access the data with your iPhone. I believe something like this really could encourage you to lose some weight. Recently there have been news stories which cite studies about weight loss and the results indicate that those who use internet weight tracking actually do lose more weight and manage to maintain that loss better than those who do not.

The thing that bothers me is that it will Tweet out your weight once a week to Twitter. All I could think was exactly what it would be tweeting when I stepped on it… Something like, “HELP ME! This fat guy is smushing me!” is probably what it would have to say about me! Still, it is an interesting gadget and I would love to have it. Who knows, maybe I will order one. Follow me on Twitter to see what this thing has to say!