Looking to hire part time dispatchers in Central MA – more information at our website, http://www.alphanetsolutions.com/about-us/careers/dispatcher/

Looking to hire an L1/L2 Technician in South/Central CT - see our website for details - http://www.alphanetsolutions.com/about-us/careers/desktop-technician-for-ct-a...

Preparing for Hurricane Irene

It appears likely that Hurricane Irene will make a direct hit on New England over the upcoming weekend, with the latest reports suggest early Monday morning and into the day. We want you to know that AlphaNet is actively monitoring the forecasts and taking several steps to assist our clients in the event of any impact.

Please review the following list of 8 recommendations and share it with the appropriate members of your team. We obviously hope that none of us will suffer any impact, personally or professionally, from this storm. One of my favorite sayings is "Better to have a plan and not need it than need a plan and not have it", so hopefully the simple step of reading this post and taking these recommendations seriously, will help you weather the storm without issue.

1. Prepare For a Power Outage

It is highly likely that you will lose power during this storm. As a result, we are strongly recommending that all non-essential equipment be powered down. All personal computers, printers, copiers, phone systems, scanners, etc. should be powered off and unplugged from the wall outlets for the weekend. All your servers are protected by battery backup power (UPS), however, it is highly likely that you may endure a power outage that will outlast the ability of your battery backups to keep your systems up and running. This will result in the UPS properly shutting down your servers when battery power runs low. If you are in an area that is known for power outages or spiking during storms like this, we also recommend you consider shutting down your servers as well, to ensure maximum safety. Obviously if you power down your servers, you may lose the ability to send and receive e-mail during this time, so you want to evaluate what the impact of not having e-mail during this time may be. For those of our clients that subscribe to our Message Continuity Services, you will always have the ability to send and receive throughout the storm using Message Continuity, see your network admin for details on how to access. All AlphaNet clients will have email protection throughout the storm as all mail will be held for delivery to any server that may drop offline during the storm, either planned or unplanned. You may rest assured you will not lose any e-mail.

2. Remove Backups Off-Site

If you are not presently using an automated off-site backup, to ensure that your backups are safely outside of your office, you will want to be certain that you have a complete copy of your most recent backup taken off-site Friday evening.

3. Find Out What Your Building Management Office Plans Are

It is important to document all emergency and technical support numbers and take them with you off-site. As an example, your Internet Service Provider and telephone line provider. If you do not have access to your office, you will need to contact these providers quickly to make other arrangements. Please make sure you have this documentation on paper since computers may not be accessible.

4. Remove Equipment from Floor & Move All Equipment Away from Windows

If your office has a risk of flooding, this can obviously create significant issues with the computer equipment. Please make sure that all equipment is at least 12" off the ground. Make sure to move all equipment at least 6 feet away from windows.

5. Document ALL Emergency & Support Numbers

It is important to document all emergency and technical support numbers and take them with you off-site. As an example, your Internet Service Provider and telephone line provider. If you do not have access to your office, you will need to contact these providers quickly to make other arrangements. Please make sure you have this documentation on paper since computers may not be accessible.

6. Take Pictures of Your Offices and Equipment

Digital pictures can be stored on multiple pieces of equipment and backed up on your server as well. These pictures will be very handy if your office were to be effected by the hurricane.

7. Make Arrangements to Use Other Vehicles of Communication

If your server and/or ISP are not up and running, you should be able to communicate through a different vehicle. Please remember that cell phone service should remain up, but may be interrupted. Texting or free e-mail services like Gmail may provide a short term way to communicate should your office lose power for an extended period of time. Again, AlphaNet clients using our Message Continuity Services will have these capabilities throughout the storm.

8. Business Continuity Plan (BCP)

While today is not the time, you should periodically dust off your Business Continuity Plan (BCP, also referred to as a Disaster Recovery Plan) and see how well it still applies. If possible, go through a test and make sure all of the required personnel and systems are still available and aware of their roles. Your BCP should include how to contact fellow employees and clients in case the office is unavailable, where to meet and what you will need to function as a company. Distribute cellular numbers as well as home numbers to key team members. Assign an out of area contact to be available to receive information from your employees in case of emergency.  If you don’t have a BCP, you should. Once we get through this Hurricane, please feel free to contact me to discuss getting a BCP in place for your company so you will always have that plan that we all hope you will never need.

To access our emergency support during the storm, please call the main office number at 508-797-0629. One of us will ask you for some specifics related to your emergency and then contact an engineer on your team who will call you right back. Should our office phone system be impacted, our lines will auto forward directly to our cell phones.

All of us at AlphaNet hope you will weather this storm without issue and that your family, friends and co-workers will all remain safe and sound. If you have any questions or concerns about preparing for this weekend, please feel free to call our office at 508-797-0629 and talk with a member of our team. We will be here throughout, with all hands monitoring the storm and any potential impact on you, our valued clients.

Stay Safe,

Tim Shea
CEO, Alpha NetSolutions, Inc.

Epsilon, the  world’s largest permission-based email marketer, was breached on March 30th, and some subset of the email lists of their 2500 clients was compromised.

Epsilon’s clients include Kroger, TiVo, US Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Capital One, Citi, Home Shopping Network, Ameriprise Financial, LL Bean Visa Card, McKinsey & Company, Ritz-Carlton Rewards, Marriott Rewards, New York & Company, Brookstone, Walgreens, The College Board, Disney Destinations, Best Buy, and Robert Half Technologies.

I personally received notice from 4 of my vendors that their lists were compromised.

Some are treating this as the “hack of the century”.  The reality is that this sort of thing is going on all the time.  That’s why it’s so important to protect your computers and your data with Anti-Virus, Anti-Malware, Anti-Phishing, and Web Content Filtering systems.

Some are expecting this to result in a wave of phishing attacks, since the data stolen provided email addresses tied to a company – so they can send you a phishing email asking you for your Marriott Rewards account information, for example.

Wondering what to do?  DON’T PANIC.  If you’re under our Platinum Plan, your work computer is well protected.  On your home system,  avoid emails from people you don’t know, and NEVER respond to an emailed request to change your password, verify credit card info, or provide any other financial information.

Questions or Comments?

--Tim

Tim Shea, CEO & Senior Consultant 

Alpha NetSolutions, Inc.

tshea@alphanetsolutions.com

508-797-0629

Fax: 508-519-0351

Web :: Blog :: Twitter :: Facebook :: LinkedIn

I Have A Perfectly Legal Way For You To Save A Bundle Of Money On Taxes, Computer Hardware, And Support, But You Have To Act FAST…

Please forgive the headline if it seems a bit “sensational”, but I really needed a way to get your attention about a perfectly legal way to save a LOT of money on taxes, computer hardware and office equipment that is quickly going to pass you by if you don’t act soon.

Let me explain…

Thanks to a recently updated tax deduction titled “Section 179 Election”, the Federal Government now allows you to buy up to $500,000 in machinery, computers, software, office furniture, vehicles, or other tangible goods and thereby REDUCING your taxable income on your current year’s tax return.

Effective 09/27/2010, H.R. 5297 (the Small Business Jobs and Credit Act of 2010) had a substantial (and welcome) impact on Section 179. The biggest impact is that it increased Section 179’s deduction from $250,000 to $500,000. This could mean a substantial boost to your bottom line this year. But to get the deduction for tax year 2010, you have to act now, as once the clock strikes midnight on 12/31/2010, Section 179 can’t help your 2010 profits anymore.

Get more details on the tax savings, and some additional opportunities to save, continue reading on our website at http://www.alphanetsolutions.com/save-a-bundle-on-taxes/.

Thank you.

Panologic announced Pano System 3.5 today – see their press release at http://www.panologic.com/news/pano-logic-expands-open-platform-with-hyper-v-support

This update supports Hyper-V as well as VMware ESX, so now if you’ve chosen to go with Microsoft’s Hyper-V as your Virtualization platform, you can introduce the Pano Zero clients without also introducing VMware to your environment.

We’re starting to see a lot of interest in the Zero client approach.

There’s also a good article on this announcement up on ZDnet at http://www.zdnet.com/blog/virtualization/pano-logic-launches-pano-system-35/2332

Interested in learning more about Pano?  Send me an email or give me a call.

--Tim

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Tim Shea

CEO & Senior Consultant
email: TShea@alphanetsolutions.com 

     Desktop virtualization (sometimes called client virtualization) is a process of replacing your complex, power-sucking, expensive workstation with a much less expensive “thin-client” workstation that requires very little power or maintenance to operate.

     Thousands of businesses are rapidly trading in their overblown, traditional PCs for virtualized desktops because of the incredible cost savings in hardware, software and maintenance. Plus it offers instant disaster recovery, the ability to securely work from home or on the road AND it drastically reduces the amount of power needed, making it far more environmentally friendly. Here are just a few of the reasons why you’ll want to virtualize your desktops:

·         Instantly drop your overall IT expenses (hardware, software, maintenance and power) by 50% or more.

·         Get 2-3 more years out of the hardware you DO purchase. Traditional PCs require replacement every 3 years, whereas a virtualized desktop can last up to 6 years or more (you really don’t need to replace them until they fail).

·         Have new employees set up within hours instead of days.

·         Automatic disaster recovery and protection from fire, flood, theft, viruses and other natural disasters.

·         Instant remote access to your e-mail and files from home or on the road.

·         Save on electricity (cutting costs and going green), but also reduce the amount of equipment cluttering up landfills.

·         Easier to maintain which means lowered IT support costs.

     Want to know if virtualization is right for you? Call us for a FREE cost savings analysis of replacing or upgrading your current network to a virtualized office. Absolutely no cost or obligation!

FREE Cost Savings Analysis Reveals How Much Money You Could Be Saving On IT Hardware, Software And Support

If you want to understand what “going virtual” means and whether or not it’s right for you, call us for a free, educational assessment that will reveal how much you could save by going virtual. This will purely be an educational and informative meeting – not a heavy pressure sales call. During this meeting we will:

·         Explain in plain English what “going virtual” means and answer any questions you have about the pros and cons of switching.

·         Give you a 3-year cost comparison between upgrading your current traditional network and virtualizing your network that will show what you can save on hardware, software and support.

·         Review your current backup solution to see if you really could be back up and running fast in the event of a disaster.

For your free virtualization assessment, call: 508-797-0629

--Tim

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Tim Shea

CEO & Senior Consultant
email: TShea@alphanetsolutions.com

This entry is by Jay McBride, VP and Senior Network Engineer at Alpha NetSolutions.

A particularly annoying virus is making the rounds again, and there are both an XP and Vista variants of it.  I’ve had the pleasure of dealing with it at 3 different client sites recently.  All had reasonably current levels of windows patches, and current anti-virus pattern files on their workstations.  Each time I ran into it, the machine had been hijacked to the point where trying to browse only popped up the warning screen about the level of infection on your machine, and denying access to the internet for the (very frustrated) user.  The dreaded “tracking software found” popup - Internet Explorer seems to be the culprit here; each user had it pop up while browsing an innocuous site.

The solution here is in our standard Malware toolbox, and our old standby Malwarebytes is once again the solution….if you can get it to start. It can be downloaded at http://www.malwarebytes.org/

Unfortunately, some versions of this virus disable it, and you need to apply a patch to get it working again.  The registry fix to get it running if it’s disabled is at the aptly named site bleepingcomputer.com J. Once you apply the patch, which you’ll probably need to transfer over on a thumb drive if your internet connection is blocked by the virus, you can start your malwarebytes program.  Run the updater, which will pull down your latest list of spyware and malware.  Make sure you leave one of the annoying popups on your desktop, so it is detected during the scan.  Usually, one ‘deep’ scan left running will detect your infection.  Click remove, reboot, and you have your old machine back.  Good Luck.

This happens to me all the time - I'm driving to or from a client's site, typically I'm in the car about an hour.  I have this great idea, but I don't have a chance to jot it down while I'm driving at the mandated maximum speed limit on the highway.  So, more often than not, I totally forget this great idea. 

Then a colleague told me about Reqall!  Reqall is a FREE service that allows you to call a phone number, interact with a menu system, and leave yourself to-do items, add things to your shopping list, send notes to yourself, or whatever.  You just record a voice message over your cellphone, and then Reqall converts your voice to text, adds it to their system, and then emails the text (and a wav attachment with your recording) to you.  WOW!

Try it out today - www.reqall.com