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Saving money on computer repair in Greenville and Upstate SC

Save Money on Greenville computer repair

Save money on Greenville computer repair

Whether you are an individual or a business looking for computer repair or computer service in Greenville or the Upstate (Easley, Pickens, Spartanburg, Anderson, Simpsonville, etc), chances are good that you are not only wanting computer repair but you want that computer service performed as QUICKLY and as inexpensively as possible.

If you already have an IT service provider, you might wish to ask them up front if there is a cheaper way than to have them dispatch a tech to your location. Many IT houses will give you a discount if you take the computer to them. If that is convenient for you, then you can generally save 10%, depending on the company.

Sometimes, saving money in that way can be more expensive in the long run, as you have to take time out of your busy schedule to drop off and pick up the computer. In the case of an attorney billing 200 an hour, that is probably not the most cost effective way to handle the situation.

What about REMOTE SERVICE? Where the tech can look at the computer from remote. This is usually billed at a half hour minimum. The computer has to be functional and connected to the internet for this to work, but this type of service provides INSTANT gratification and a reduced rate! Same with phone service, where the IT provider acts as your help desk to talk you through checking everything. Again, this is billed at a reduced rate or a half hour minimum in most cases.

Think about this for a moment: If you have a computer down at your site, and a technician is dispatched from the IT company, they will usually charge you a one hour minimum, and sometimes the labor may take half an hour. Why not have the tech look at something else while he or she is on location? Instead of just addressing the immediate need of the computer that is broken, you can say “After you get that computer fixed, if you have time left in the hour, could you check a few of our desktops to ensure they have the latest Microsoft Patches on them?”.

A computer that is down is never a pleasant situation. Just like your car, you are suffering from the inconvenience of being without it, then the double whammy of getting slapped with a bill for the service. Knowing the hints above may save you a little frustration and some money.

Homeland Secure IT provides complete computer service & repair, at your location, in our shop, via remote access and we offer excellent help desk support via phone or email. Our response times are above the average in our area, and our rates are very reasonable. Let us help you the next time you need a computer fixed in a hurry. Call us at 864-990-4748.

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Non-Profit Organizations Don’t Have to Suffer with Outdated IT Technology and Slow Computer Service in Greenville / Upstate SC!

old computer terminal

NPOs do not have to use old computer technology!

Last night, Pamela and I attended the Miracle Hill fund-raising banquet and had a great time. The food was good, the program was good, and the key note speaker was very moving with his story. While we would have loved to have given much more to assist such a wonderful cause, we unfortunately couldn’t, at least not at this time. But what it did do was to get me thinking about the services that we offer to non-profit organizations here in Greenville and the Upstate.

We LOVE working with NPOs! We work with churches, community centers, learning centers, free medical clinics, YMCAs, and previously with Habitat for Humanity, Compass of Carolina and the Humane Society, etc. In every instance, it was a pleasure to walk into the facility filled with people who are trying to do something good for their community, and be greeted warmly, receive a tour, hear about what they provided for our community, and assess their needs… That is where the smiles have generally faded.

We have heard and seen it all! Ten year old computers and servers, 10M hubs, slow internet, huge power hungry CRT monitors that were badly burned in, outdated anti-virus, no backup system in place, no firewall, unlicensed or outdated software and operating systems, ball mice that stuttered when they rolled, and generally slow, antiquated and for the most part, unusable network infrastructure.

In many cases, these people who were so eager to give a hand to their community were unable to do so due to the many issues they faced with their computer network. Nothing will discourage a motivated worker quicker than to be typing a document out and have the computer crash in the middle of it. Or to walk in the door on a Monday and have no connectivity or machines not coming online.

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McAfee Anti-Virus Update Kills Hundreds of Thousands of XP Computers

Mushroom Cloud

The McAfee update blew up "real good"

Kaaa-Boom! Individuals and small businesses who used McAfee for their anti-virus protection and happened to be using Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 3 installed, may have been sent into an infinite loop yesterday after receiving the latest McAfee Virus Definition update.

The update was 5958 DATA, and went out early Wednesday the 21st of April. According to many articles on the web, immediately after the update was deployed, users were experiencing the familiar BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) and DCOM errors. Those seeking support were greeted with long waits in queue. The issue appears to be that on XP SP3 machines, McAfee would improperly diagnose machines as being infected with W32/wecorl.a malware after the update.

McAfee quickly reported that the issue affected only “less than one half of one percent” of their ENTERPRISE customers. However, untold numbers, estimated by many to be in the hundreds of thousands of others were affected.

McAfee has pulled the update for the time being.

Not that this could not happen to any anti-virus provider such as Symantec / Norton, Trend Micro, etc, it is just that many feel that this was handled in a less than perfect way by McAfee.

If you are experiencing issues such as BSOD or reboots and are running McAfee, or know someone who is, please have them give us a call, we will assist them in recovering from the inconvenience.

On another note, Homeland Secure IT, LLC is a Trend Micro Anti Virus reseller, and we can help put an end to your virus concerns with the entire suite of offerings from Trend Micro. Whether you need one computer protected, or 1000 computers, there is a Trend Micro product that is right for you. Many small and medium sized businesses have servers and the Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security Standard or Advanced product is perfect for them! Advanced offers protection of your Microsoft Exchange Server against malware and SPAM! Yes, that’s right, the Trend Micro WFBS Advanced can help eliminate spam!

Call us an arrange a free consultation today for your business! If you have a non-profit organization, we offer special pricing for Trend Micro products. 864-990-4748 and talk with John M. Hoyt or Ben Zuber

Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite Offers Cloud Alternative to Hosting Your Own Exchange Server

EVERY business needs email and of course, Microsoft Exchange is the perfect solution for most businesses, however, the cost of purchasing, deploying and maintaining a server, or even multiple servers to host email can easily exceed the budget of a smaller business and in some cases, even larger businesses. Fortunately for them, there are alternatives. Sure you could use Google Mail / gmail to handle your mail, but for most people, they want Exchange, because they already use it and love it. There are many reasons why you may want an Exchange environment.

One alternative is from Microsoft and is known as BPOS, or Business Productivity Online Suite. The basic offering is for Business Productivity Online Standard Suite and is a set of messaging and collaboration solutions hosted by Microsoft, and consists of Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Live Meeting and Office Communications Online.  These online services are designed to give your business streamlined communication with high availability, comprehensive security, and simplified IT management. Your business benefits from always up-to-date technologies that are deployed rapidly, maximizing your valuable IT resources and reducing your need for infrastructure investments. (As borrowed directly from Microsoft’s product description).

What does this mean for you? Well for one, it could mean that deploying a new server that handles all these functions, or updating your current machines and software and then performing the support and service functions that are required could be avoided. This solution isn’t right for everyone obviously, however it is worthy of consideration by a few select business customers. Please contact us to find out if this can apply to your business.

We are a Microsoft approved Business Productivity Online Suite vendor. Regardless of whether your business is in Greenville, the Upstate or even in South Carolina, we may be able to help you with these tools.

VoIP business users beware! It will soon be illegal to display CID info other than your own

caller id

This information better be your own!

If you have a VoIP (Voice over IP) phone system with SIP trunking and control your own Caller ID, then you need to insure that the information sent is actually your information. IE: The phone number should be an actual number at your business, and the name should reflect the name of your business.

Congress just passed a bill known as the “Truth in Caller ID Act of 2010.”

The bill reads, “It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States, in connection with any real time voice communications service, regardless of the technology or network utilized, to cause any caller ID service to transmit misleading or inaccurate caller ID information, with the intent to defraud or deceive,” the bill reads.

Of course, you will still be allowed to block your phone number from showing up using the Caller ID block function, and not surprisingly, law enforcement would be exempt from the restrictions.

This is good for those who are tired of the “spoofed” calls from various telemarketers, and could be bad for those who use CID information to indicate they are somewhere other than where they are. I know many businesses who have set their Caller ID to show a different name & number from the one they are calling, in order to mask their information, such as an attorney, private investigator, and rehab places, not to mention family & women’s shelters.

To make a long story short, in order to be on the right side of the law, insure your business caller ID information reflects the name of the business and an actual phone number that can be used to reach the business and you should be safe.

If you want to read the bill, it can be found here: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h1258rh.txt.pdf

Homeland Secure IT provides VoIP service, sales, support and consultation to Greenville and the Upstate of SC. If you require assistance with this or any Voice over IP issue, please contact us.

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Using an iPad for business purposes such as remote desktop and with your corporate network

apple ipad

The iPad from Apple (tm)

Do you run a business and want to use an iPad with it? My hold us has been that there is currently no 3G, but that is changing very soon. Until then, a person who wants to use their iPad has to find a Wi-Fi hot spot, or, they could optionally do like our friend and TV personality Amy Wood does. She uses a Verizon MiFi, a device that bridges a cellular modem with an access point, allowing you to carry this device, and have a full time cellular connection and provide 802.11b/g WiFi to your various devices, such as the iPad.

That’s the first step in using the iPad with your business. Next is to configure it to work with your Microsoft Exchange Server, which should be no more difficult than getting your iPhone to work with your corporate email (If you are reading this, you probably have an iPhone already). Once configured, this is a nice mail reader.

Okay, so that is basic stuff, but what about taking an iPad with you, accessing your Terminal Server with RDP (Remote Desktop)? There’s an App for that! Yes, several exist, including one from Citrix that may be the best, but in the App Store, just search for Remote Desktop Client and you should be in business.

You will probably want to get a dock with a keyboard so you can accomplish some real work. Okay, so now this is becoming complicated. You have a MiFi adapter, an iPad, a client for Remote Desktop, and you are wanting to type, so you get this keyboard and mouse.  A netbook may be a better solution for you if you are finding that you are typing more than browsing.

Should you be serious about using your iPad, iPhone or Mac with your Windows based network, and require assistance, please do not hesistate to call us to see how we can help.

An amazing TEDx posting: Eric Whitacre: A choir as big as the internet

Anyone interested in collaborative efforts should go check this out: http://www.ted.com/talks/a_choir_as_big_as_the_internet.html

What you will find a collabrative effort on the behalf of 185 people in 12 countries, who participated in a “virtual choir”, sending in clips (245 I believe in total!) to be arranged into one piece that is beautifully done! Overcoming the noise issue of the various submitted clips would be challenging all by itself, then mixing the audio to the desired levels, and do the video editing on top of this would be so time consuming that I would never be able to do any actual work to pay the bills.

I believe this has to be one of the best collaborative efforts that I have seen on the internet in regards to music.

It also underscores the importance of bandwidth in music / video… 185 people sending one person a ton of clips would consume great gobs of bandwidth, especially if the submitters were sending high quality audio and/or video. Here in Greenville, SC, we are trying to catch the eye of Google, who is going to pick one city in America to use as a testbed for their unbelievably fast Google High Speed Fiber. In fact, it is so fast that it exceeds the speed that most home and business LANs operate right now. That’s right, the data that moves from your work computer to your business server is probably moving slower than the 1 Gigabit Per Second fiber connection would bring internet to you!

Imagine a group of musicians in the same town, performing their parts for a track from their home, while it is being recorded in a master studio for mix down, in real-time! The latency would be overcome with time correction. Everyone would hear the same click-track….  Any issues, corrected in post. Individual parts punched in from remote too. This gets me excited!!!  THAT is why I am so adamant about the #GoogleOnMain / #LuckyGVL  movement! http://www.WeAreFeelingLucky.com for more info!

Of course there are bazillion business collaboration advantages to high speed internet as well, but I won’t get into those now….  It is the weekend for a few more hours – enjoy it!