In an earlier post I prematurely announced the release of Intuit Quickbooks 2011 as well as the whole suite of software from Intuit.
That release date was pushed back due to some technical issues, and as of today, they are now live!
You can click our affiliate link and save up to 20% on Intuit Quickbooks 2011 and other Intuit offerings….
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Wanna buy a RIM Blackberry 8350i for Nextel / Sprint? We have a few for sale! http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320599349838#ht_694wt_1139
In an earlier blog posts, I rambled a bit about the desire to leave the Blackberry, but why we didn’t, and then last week, I posted about finally dumping the Blackberry phones for new Android smart phones.
Today I will bore you with my thoughts on how these devices are going to fare in our own application. For those of you who don’t know, Homeland Secure IT is a provider of computer, server & network service, support, repair, consultation and sales here in Greenville, SC. We have a number of computer service technicians who need instant access to each other, to the web, and to their email, so they can better assist our clients.
Previously, the Blackberry was THE tool for the job, but more recently, we have had connectivity issues, poor coverage in the Upstate and a general unhappy feeling due to dropped calls, etc. The inability to run the latest applications was also a drag, but it did not prohibit us from performing our job.
Thank God, all of our fears of leaving the Blackberry behind were unsubstantiated, well at least most of them…
We were worried about the slow email transport that active sync to our Microsoft Exchange Server would subject us to… That was unwarranted. We are realizing only a slight delay over the Blackberry Enterprise Server. We are missing our “notes”, but there are ways to deal with that.
We worried that Direct Connect would be missed… While not perfect, the app suggested by our friend Bradley Durham called “TiKL” allows almost the same functionality. The audio quality is not quite as good, and it can get choppy, depending upon signal quality.
The best part about switching is that I am no longer being disconnected from half the calls that I make!!!!
Here’s a partial list of some of the apps that we are finding useful in our application:
There are a number of others I use, but mainly for personal purposes….
In using these phones over the weekend, it is painfully apparent that battery life is going to be our biggest obstacle. As much as I use mine to check email, text, talk and “direct connect”, I am only able to get about 3 hrs max without using a charger… Not good. So I have purchased chargers for everywhere, and await the release of high capacity batteries.
The other problem may be in the durability of this device. A Blackberry can be dropped, or even thrown, and will survive. One wrong bump and I am sure that the Samsung Epic 4g will be damaged… Most likely the screen will break from a slight impact. To help protect myself, I have purchased a high quality cover and holster, after it shows up, I will post about it here.
As always, your comments are welcome!
After another horrible day of Nextel service I gave up and went to the Sprint store where they attempted to upgrade the software on my Blackberry 8350i… What was supposed to take a few minutes (45 or so) ended up taking until the end of their business day, and they were going to have it for me at start of business today.
I was at their door at 9 AM to find the nice little tech all apologetic over the fact that the update bombed during the night and that she had started it over…. I figured 45 minutes, maybe an hour… So I waited… And waited.
Turns out the operating system had become corrupt and the trusty old BB was now a brick… She said a phone could be in tomorrow but it looked like Monday. (This was at about 11:30 or so)
If you know me, you know that I am one connected guy, constantly getting and sending emails, direct connects, phone calls, twitter, facebook, foursquare, yada yada yada, and being without my phone for 18+ hours was making me more than antsy! The tech was going to put my SIM card, keyboard and whatever in another old/broken phone and let me use that. But then the phone would be just a phone, until it was put back on our Blackberry Enterprise Server, only to repeat this again when the replacement phone came in.
At this point, I called my wife and we went for option two. We purchased new Samsung Epic 4g Android 2.2 phones, and swung our service over from the Nextel side to the Sprint side. Then worked on getting all the phones going for the techs and myself. I left there at about 2:15 in the afternoon, with a phone in my hand for the first time in almost 24hrs.
Now we are getting these new phones setup and tweaked to suit our needs… They are associated with our Microsoft Exchange Server (I have two Exchange servers and a Google account associated with mine), and using the app that Bradley Durham told us about, TiKL, we now have a replacement for Nextel’s “Direct Connect”, though kinda sketchy…
The specs for the Samsung Epic 4g are quite amazing…
Only time will tell, and I will post a follow-up to this post as we get used to these phones….. As for me, I am back to finding the perfect app for Twitter, Facebook, etc, etc, etc….
If you want to read my original post, go HERE
Have a great weekend!!!
Homeland Secure IT Alert
Homeland Secure IT Alert for Thursday, September 30, 2010
Microsoft has addressed an important vulnerability in another “out of band” security update this week… This one is for the Microsoft .NET Framework and it affects every Microsoft operating system across the board from Windows XP, Vista and 7 desktop, to Windows Server 2003, 2008, 2008 R2, regardless of service pack or patch level, and processor (32bit, 64bit, Itanium).
Left unpatched, an attacker could gain information from your system to read or even manipulate encrypted data from your web server.
The long and short of this – Update your systems. Run Microsoft Updates if they are not set to automatically install. System administrators should insure their servers are up to date.
The Microsoft Bulletin can be found HERE.
If you require assistance with this update or any others, please contact your computer service professional as a vulnerable network can cost more than downtime. If you are in the Greenville or Upstate SC area, Homeland Secure IT can provide your business with network and computer support. Please call 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com for more information!
Homeland Secure IT Alert
Hyperactive filters can be cause for a headache!
About a week ago, a network administrator that our company provides assistance to contacted us with an oddball issue…
All mail seemed to be working well, both in and out, except for mail coming into her domain from one company. The obvious was checked, such as the other company’s IP against all known block lists (RBLS), logs for blocked spam from the origin, and then it got even more odd. SOME mail from that domain was making it in, such as from their generic “info@somecompany.com”: address, then another address was able to send mail, but it was narrowed down to 3 addresses that could not send mail. Such as lisa@somecompany.com and art@somecompany.com.
At this point, the network administrator was at her wits end and we checked it out for her, having the company try to send a few mails, and sure enough, some were coming in, and others were not, but it was dependent upon the email address. We checked filters for those email addresses and none existed.
Everything was checked at the Exchange server, full logging was enabled, to watch for mail as it came in, and sure enough, nothing came in to the Exchange server from those email addies. Not even a connection. After ruling out the Exchange server, we went back to the Alt-N MDaemon server, which is a gateway that handles all incoming email, checks it against RBLs, content, viruses, whitelists, blacklists, attachments, etc, then if it thinks the mail is good, it sends it on to Exchange. We watched the logs as mail came in from lisa@somecompany.com and MDaemon reported it was totally happy.
Just to make sure, we added lisa@somecompany.com to the whitelists, and then *@somecompany.com was added. Still MDaemon reported it was happy and nothing was being filtered.
Still, the issue remained. Info@somecompany.com could send email, lisa@somecompany.com could not. The logs in MDaemon read the same, kind of placing the blame back on Exchange, however, Exchange was never seeing a connection.
Long story short, after several emails being sent back and forth with the wonderfully patient people at somecompany.com, MDaemon’s support was enlisted to find the issue. Which took many emails back and forth between our network administrator friend and them, and several days… In the end, the problem was a content filter inside MDaemon. A filter for certain phrases had been added, such as “Breast Enhancement”, “Penis Enlargement”, “Viagra” and “Cialis”… This filter was to blame, even though no logs indicated this was the case.
Just what was triggering the content filter? It was the word “Cialis”… Each individual at Somecompany.com who could not email in, had content in their email that contained the word “Specialist”, and MDaemon was most interested in “Specialist…
The lesson to be learned from this is that careful selection of your content filtering keywords is crucial to a smooth flowing mail system. We have seen content filters block mail in Trend Micro’s CSM (now Worry Free Business Security Advanced) and Scan Mail, but usually there is a log filled with the results that you can use to find an issue quickly.
In this case, “Cialis” was found in the word “Specialist”, but others have been as simple as filtering profanity such as the word “dick”, which happens to be some people’s first name… Even the word “Fanny” was someone’s given name.
More about MDaemon:
In MDaemon, this is what the logs look like when it encounters content:
Wed 2010-09-22 10:47:31: Start Content Filter results
Wed 2010-09-22 10:47:31: * Message matched rule: Penis <- this was the name of the rule
Wed 2010-09-22 10:47:31: * Matched 1 of 14 active rules <- this shows that there are 14 rules and 1 matched
Wed 2010-09-22 10:47:31: End of Content Filter results
Keep in mind this does NOT show up in the MDaemon GUI, you have to find the log on the machine and examine it….
Last night’s storms in Greenville played havoc with the sensitive computers, servers, network equipment, CCTV systems, VoIP systems and even alarm systems!
At 10pm we received a call from the alarm monitoring company saying that we had multiple zones activated at my wife’s business, including a door, and several interior motion sensors! Police were dispatched, and Pamela and I rushed out the door headed towards her office with flashlight and firearm at the ready. We actually beat the police to that location due to the large number of calls they were receiving due to power outages and lightning strikes in that area.
It was immediately apparent that we had a false alarm… Thankfully, nobody was arrested or shot, and in fact, the only casualty was the alarm system sensors that were damaged by the strike. The power had been off all around that location, and computers, servers, and more were offline.
After the storm died down and morning came we were greeted with calls from our clients. As you can imagine, computers were down and would not come up, servers were down, a lot of network connectivity issues such as no internet access, no access to application servers, etc. Most of these were solved over the phone, but a couple required visits to the sites.
Thought I would just take a moment to remind everyone that a large number of service calls and computer repairs can be avoided by simply investing in adequate UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) devices. These affordable products can be used to protect almost everything you plug into AC power. Those switches, routers, firewalls? Protect them! What about your time clock? Yes, that too. How about that expensive CCTV or VoIP system? Yewbetcha!
Small surges that come in on the power line can cause big damage to sensitive electronics!
Homeland Secure IT is happy to partner with some great power protection companies such as Eaton and APC and we can provide you with a quote for the proper product for your application! Please email info@homelandsecureit.com or call 864.990.4748 for more information…
Help fight breast cancer!
Earlier in the year, we saw one of our friends asking for contributions to their Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure team (Plus Inc.) and two of us here at Homeland Secure IT supported them with small contributions.
After discussing it further, we decided to form our own team and participate in the 5K walk ourselves. It made total sense, as we all have people in our lives that have been affected by this horrible thing (Breast Cancer)! We had never done anything like this before so we really didn’t know where to start other than reading the “Team Handbook”… We named our team for the Google On Main (We are Feeling Lucky) movement, hoping we would get a few contributions from those who participated in that uber cool event. We didn’t print T-Shirts because there were only a few of us, and we opted to give the money instead as a contribution.
We emailed our friends, family and clients, posted it to Facebook, posted it to Twitter, to the point of being annoying. I personally sent out 90 individually addressed emails a few days before the race. We blogged about it. Yet we still couldn’t get the results was hoped for. We had set our goal at $5000, thinking that would be “easy”. We were wrong. Though we did manage to get over $1300 dollars in contributions!
Multiple issues were working against us reaching that goal. A bad economy was probably the largest problem. And close behind that was the fact we started late in the game. Most of the other teams had already been formed, and THOUSANDS of people were hitting up everyone they knew. I was told “We already gave” by many people, and “We are walking too” by dozens! I believe there were 6000 people or so participating in this walk! An awesome show of support for this cause!
I would like to thank one person by name, Michelle Varner, Greg’s wife, who managed to get the majority of our contributions! She is awesome and her hard work is appreciated. Our team consisted of me (John M. Hoyt), Pamela Hoyt, Greg Varner and Michelle Varner. (Our son and daughter were signed up, but slept in!)
From the bottom of our hearts, I would like to thank every single person who contributed to our team, or to this cause in general! Together, we can help find a cure!!!!
We will likely do this again for 2011, as the majority of the clients we provide computer and IT service to here in Greenville / Upstate are female and I can think of no better way to show them how much they mean to us than to support the Race for the Cure!
John, Pamela & Greg at the Start
Greg & John
The start of the 5k walk
6000 of our closest friends
A new world record! HAH!
Greg & Michelle crossing the finish line!
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.
It’s that time again! Intuit is releasing their fiscal year 2011 products on Monday, September 28th.
Products that have been updated include:
QuickBooks Simple Start 2011 is the easiest way to track sales and expenses. All your finance information is organized in one place, so you can easily stay on top of your business and be ready for tax time.
QuickBooks Pro 2011 makes accounting easy with tools to organize your finances all in one place. Complete tasks like paying employees1, invoicing, bill tracking and check-writing. Track sales and expenses, and easily share this data in Word and Excel2. With QuickBooks Pro, you’ll spend less time on routine tasks and more time on your business.
QuickBooks Premier 2011 has all of the great features you know and love in QuickBooks Pro, plus industry-specific, timesaving, ready-to-use reports and business planning tools tailored to help your company grow. Along with saving you time on routine accounting tasks, Premier makes it simple to monitor business performance, build forecasts and manage payables and receivables. Premier also includes tools for tracking inventory, creating purchase orders and setting pricing levels.
QuickBooks 2011 for Mac – Organize your business finances quickly and easily with QuickBooks 2011 for Mac. Get quick access to everyday tasks like invoicing, bill tracking, check-writing and payroll.
QuickBooks Premier Contractor 2011 gives you standard accounting features, plus easy, timesaving tools designed for contractors:
QuickBooks Point of Sale 2011 makes it easy to track and manage your inventory, sales and customer information––so you can concentrate on running your business.
Other products include QuickBooks Payroll, Enterprise QuickBooks, Online additions and multi-user versions of QuickBooks.
Removed from the Intuit line-up for 2011 are the Simple Start CD version, QB Online Basic, Getting started with POS, End User Certification, Setup and training, Cash Register Plus and Point of Sale Multi Store.
Click This Link & Save Up To 20%!
Homeland Secure IT is proud to be an Authorized Affiliate for Intuit… If you are considering an upgrade to QB 2011 or other Intuit products, you can click on the Intuit banner and receive a discount of up to 20% off the retail price!
We also offer installation and upgrade services as well as full computer & server support, service & repair in the Greenville and Upstate SC area!
Should you need to locate a QuickBooks Expert, we can refer you to one of several…
Shiny Happy People
According to a story published in the Washington Post, computer users are happier with their PCs than at any time since the first year (1994) that this was tracked! This was based around a poll run by ACSI LLC.
It was not surprising that Apple had the highest user satisfaction with their “cult-like” Mac following, though it may catch some off guard that Microsoft held its own. The article cites improvements in Microsoft customer satisfaction since the release of Windows 7, which we have seen ourselves. In fact, since the release of Microsoft Windows 7, we have been seeing people dump their aging Macs and opt for less expensive Windows machines as replacements.
Some factors that appear to be contributing to the migration from Mac to the Windows platform are the consistently lower prices for Microsoft Windows based machines, security holes being exploited in the Mac rapidly narrowing the “Mac is more secure” gap, the overall user friendliness and reliability of Windows 7 and of course the larger software selection.
Either way, across the board people are as happy as ever with their computers!
If you find your experience is less than satisfactory, I would like to hear from you. Reply here, shoot me an email, give me a call, etc. We can likely help improve your satisfaction!
