Welcome to InterconnectNow - Interconnected Technologies' blog about technology and other items of interest to small businesses and individuals.
The topics here will usually deal with productivity-enhancing technologies of interest to small businesses and individuals, but are often of broader interest. Productivity is the goal of all of this technology that we use. Enabling productivity through refining or adding technology-based capabilities is what we're obsessed with at Interconnected Technologies, and so this blog is dedicated to discussions of all things related to that.
Enjoy!
Saturday, August 4, 2012 at 11:18AM If you are one of our increasing number of happy and productive users of Rackspace’s hosted Microsoft Exchange service and you receive this popup when using Outlook (email address redacted for privacy – this is just an example):
Check the “Don’t ask” checkbox at the bottom, and click Allow.
As always, if you have questions, give us a call!
Saturday, July 14, 2012 at 8:45AM If you are using Windows Live Mail, Hotmail or MSN mail for your email (really, these are all the same thing), and using the very functional (and free) Outlook Connector to sync email, contacts and calendar with Outlook on your PC – good for you! This relatively little-known combination can deliver, for free, almost the same experience with webmail, Outlook and mobile devices that the non-free Microsoft Exchange delivers (and did I mention it’s free?). The overall experience is superior in many ways to the more trendy Gmail.
This add-on, the Outlook Connector, will from time to time demand to be updated. I use the word “demand” advisedly. Unlike most maintenance, the Outlook Connector will stop functioning if not updated.
The message: do the update when asked!
Clients, Cloud computing, Email, Tools Saturday, June 23, 2012 at 8:49AM Why? Because they’re unduly risky and end up costing you money!
Finallyfast.com, PCMatic.com; Registry Mechanic and others; half a dozen “keep your PC’s drivers current” tools. They’re everywhere, and you might think you’re saving money and time by using them, but you’d be wrong. These tools make money for I/T service providers. Now, Interconnected Technologies is in business to make money - but not this way. We want to make money by helping clients implement technologies that improve their productivity, enable new capabilities, and simplify things; not by spending hours repairing the damage done by these types of tools. Sure, we fix things when they break, but self-inflicted wounds are the easiest to avoid – just don’t even think of using one of these things!
It is very simple to get a PC to the point where it’s running optimally. It’s not simple to know how to do that – it takes decades of experience to know how to spend 30 minutes getting a computer running its best. That’s where we start, when working with clients. Once that’s done, we can move on to all the rest of the work we do together – to make sure that these optimally-running computers are then providing the capabilities that can improve people’s business and personal lives.
That’s why we buy these things, remember?
And yes, that’s why Interconnected Technologies is here!
Friday, June 1, 2012 at 8:00AM Comcast is sending out emails announcing a new service called EasySolve. It’s a self-help tool that purports to help resolve multiple types of issues that users may face. While this may be a good and valuable tool, the first question should be: “Is it necessary?” For Interconnected Technologies clients the answer is, for now, “no”.
Just as with the ConstantGuard offering from Comcast, EasySolve may or may not ultimately be a part of what we recommend to clients. For now, though, there is enough concern about stability and function to cause is to advise staying away from both offerings, with one key exception, which we’ll discuss below.
The Comcast home and Business internet service remain rock solid, and we recommend them. It’s just the add-on products of which one must be wary. Not because they’re bad, but because they’re new, relatively untested, and at least for now largely unnecessary. They may prove to be useful, or they may prove to be at best unnecessary, and at worst potentially destructive (like Registry Mechanic, Driver Detective and other well-meaning but overly-invasive programs).
One principle on which we base our service is that we should obtain services from the best specialists in each area, bundling those services only where it makes clear sense. Comcast is an excellent Internet Service Provider, and their phone service is quite good, but as they grow into other areas: product provider, Exchange provider, support provider, backup provider, etc., those other areas must be evaluated individually: are they the best provider of that service?
The one exception? Norton Security Suite, which is at the core of the ConstantGuard offering, is absolutely necessary, which is why our Comcast residential clients use that one piece of the ConstantGuard suite of products.
Navigating all this can be complex and fraught with difficulty, unless you have Interconnected Technologies guiding you through it!
Antivirus, Clients, Cloud computing, Tools Wednesday, May 30, 2012 at 7:18PM There has been a great deal of press lately about the Flame or Flamer virus taking over the world and doing all sorts of nefarious things. Interconnected Technologies clients need not worry about this, however, since we always ensure that Norton Antivirus, Norton Internet Security, Norton Security Suite or Norton Business Suite (depending on the client, the internet service and the business need) is installed and protecting all client machines.
Here is a recent communication from Symantec about this:
This is one of the many benefits of doing business with Interconnected Technologies, and we thank our clients for entrusting their I/T security, among other things, to us!
