May 16th, 2012
If you are a Life Long Learner, this article from the NYT and the info it contains are going to make your day! http://nyti.ms/Kgadg1
Blog
March 31st, 2012
Today in the New York Times there was an excellent article on Internet attacks and it is worth a read. The implications are for any business that is using cloud services for any transaction based application (app). http://nyti.ms/HaUsKC
April 21st, 2011
11 years ago this month we founded StrategicFusion for IT Support.
We believed at the time, that we could deliver superior technology solutions to small and medium sized businesses in Atlanta and that dream is being realized every day!
Heartfelt thanks go out to our clients who have trusted us, our team who has delivered for us and to our partners who have supported us. Thanks to all who helped make StrategicFusion a truly different kind of IT Support provider!
Sincerely,
Mike Gonsalves
President
StrategicFusion, Inc.
http://www.SF-IT.com
Mikego@sf-it.com
April 19th, 2011
This is worth checking out. Microsoft has put Office in the cloud via its public BETA of Office365. This is in addition to Exchange email and SharePoint file sharing that are currently available! (Remember, BETA’s are fun to play with but please don’t use them to run your business!) Check out the public BETA of Office365 here: http://bit.ly/hJFyyE
March 29th, 2010
In my business is not uncommon to come upon computers that display a Blue Screen with a somewhat cryptic error message written in white on it. These are usually a bad sign and need to be addressed by a qualified computer technician when they occur.
A little history, I believe the Blue Screen error first appeared with Windows NT back in the roaring 90′s. The Blue Screen error came to affectionately be called The Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) by the people running Microsoft Servers across the world. It got this name because once it appeared; you could do very little but hard reboot (shut off all power to you computer) and restart the server.
BSOD’s occurred mostly on servers until Microsoft merged their Home & Business operating system platforms with Windows XP (yes they still have Home and Professional editions of these, but they share the same underlying code). So the computer code for Windows 98 was no longer the underlying code, but the NT code was. The Blue Screen error came along with this underlying operating system. It is sort of like genetically passing a trait from one generation to the next.
In the early days of the BSOD, if you were really lucky, the BSOD was related to some arcane issue that came up, but most of the time it meant you had a really bad problem and needed to fix it to get the Server restarted.
Today, the BSOD is still a very serious error. It also occurs much more frequently because of its presence inside of every XP, Vista and System 7 computer. The good news is that Microsoft has built in a number of really great functions that help you work around what might cause a Blue Screen error.
For example, when restarting your computer after a blue screen error, if you repeatedly hit the F8 key you will get a boot menu (it differs slightly from XP to Vista to System 7) but you can use the up and down arrow buttons to get to an entry title “Last Known Good Configuration” this will usually unload any software, patch or driver that may have caused the Blue Screen error.
In any event the Blue Screen errors are serious and should be addressed by a certified computer technician as soon as possible.
When you are having issues like this give us a call at 687-353-3222 Option 1. We’ll do our best to get you back on your feet.
February 16th, 2010
With this month’s newsletter, we usher in a new era; we are now using a new format for our monthly newsletter that more closely ties our website content and our enewsletter content. All small business owners, whether Professionals, B2B or B2C need to think really hard about how the web and new media (think social networking) are going to drive their business in the future. Fading fast are old ideas about print media. (Have you noticed the size of your favorite newspapers and magazines?)
In January 2010 when we look at search engine market share, we see Google at ~65% , BING! continues to gain share at ~11% and yahoo slips to ~17%, ASK and AOL make up another ~7% (for more details see http://bit.ly/acNZF7 ). For a more jaw dropping impact, Google had ~2.7 Billion searches per month in the US in March 2006 and ~6.8 Billion in January 2010. Total searches in the U.S. alone, in January 2010 were over 10 Billion (see it here: http://bit.ly/as8xYq ) that is about 33 queries per month for every man women and child in the US.
What this tells us is that more and more people are using the web (search engines) to find things. Flights, Painters, Lawyers, Doctors, you name it; people use the web, search engines, to find it. It was once said that you couldn’t eat anything produced on the web, but you can bet that many people are looking at a restaurant’s menu online, and deciding on dinner before leaving the house. Decisions are being made based on your website and how well you present yourself. And it’s not just about looking good to the human eye; you need to look good to the Search Engines as well.
You may have heard the term Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or Search Engine Optimization (SEO), these are terms that relate to how your website ranks for organic search. Organic search results are what appear in the body of the page. Organic results are considered much better than paid advertisements as they carry more weight. Pay Per Click (PPC), think Adwords by Google, is used to increase your rankings in Paid search, or advertisements. These usually show up to the right of the body, sometimes on top and/or on the bottom of the page. These are not prized as highly as organic search results. It is said if you are not in the top 4 or 5 organic results or paid results you might as well throw in the towel as no one will see you.
The question every small business owner needs to be asking him or herself is “am I mapping out our plan to for the company’s future on the web”? You can bet your competitors are. The flip side to that coin, might be “can I get to the internet when I need to”? We can help on either issue.
For more information go to our website http://www.sf-it.com or call us at 678-353-3222, x105.
Thank You,
Mike
Mike Gonsalves
President
StrategicFusion, Inc.
Your Dedicated IT Department
Support: 678-353-3222 Option 1
Direct: 678-990-8595
Mobile: 678-644-4453
Email: Mikego@SF-IT.com
Web: www.SF-IT.com
Computer issues? Please send email to: HELP@sf-it.com
January 27th, 2010
Top 10 Tips every Small Business Owner needs to know about their business computers for 2010!
1) Back up your data. You hard drive will fail, I guarantee it, it’s just a function of time and luck (or a lack thereof).
2) If your Hard Drive dies, 95% of the time, we can recover it, sometimes it takes less than an hour, sometimes it can take much longer and cost hundreds of dollars, just back it up… NOW.
3) Patches are sent to your computer by software publishers to plug the holes they have found in their computer code in the programs on your computer. Stop the patches and you will open yourself up to infection from a computer virus, again, I feel very safe in saying that I can guarantee it!
4) Having more than 2GB of data in Outlook is not a good idea. Outlook starts slowing down the more email you keep in it. Additionally, the larger the Outlook file is, the harder and longer it takes to recover it if corruption happens. The simple solution is to regularly Archive your email and copy your Archive.PST to your server or another computer.
5) A computer virus is just like a real Virus, they tend to spread among congregated groups, the congregating is usually somewhere on the internet or in an email you open. Live in the woods and you are safe (and lonely), live in the city and you need to get a vaccine.
6) Antivirus software is like a Flu shot, it helps prevent you from getting the FLU but doesn’t guarantee it. Going to the wrong websites opens you up to infection, opening email chain letters does too.
7) Cheap online backup is great if you never have to get the data back down, this can take days.
Don’t let your kids use your computer, especially not your work computer. Get them their own.
9) Patches for some programs can be sent at any time. It is not unusual for a patch to make all or part of your system stop working, the fix isn’t hard, if we can get to it quickly.
10) To password protect an Excel or Word file, click on File > Save As > you’ll notice a button called Tools to the left of the save button, click the down arrow, click General Options, enter a password. A word of caution, DO NOT LOSE THIS PASSWORD, as the file will not open without it.
Have an awesome 2010 and call us if you need us!
Thank You,
Mike
Mike Gonsalves
President
StrategicFusion, Inc.
Your Dedicated IT Department
Support: 678-353-3222 Option 1
January 12th, 2010
If you ever think you will need more than 4GB of RAM (The answer for most small business people is “yes”), then upgrade to the 64 bit version, otherwise the 32 bit version should do fine.
November 24th, 2009
I want to do a shout out to all of our clients, employees and partners! I am very Thankful to be a part of your world!
THANK YOU!
Mike
November 24th, 2009
Who can forget the 60’s hit Get off my Cloud by the Rolling Stones? If this was written today by any of the tens of thousands of Cloud providers, they would be singing PLEASE get on MY Cloud. Cloud computing is about as hot as things get in IT. When you combine it with the other super hot technology, Virtualization, you get a Perfect Storm scenario, where we the people (the ones who use computing every day to make a living) ultimately win.
There is no doubt that the Cloud concept along with Virtualization are the two biggest items in IT right now; and rightfully so. Done correctly, either of these technologies can save a company money, sometimes lots and lots of money. Who could argue with that, given the American business mantra of do more with less?
So let me give you a quick overview on Cloud computing. First let me define the Cloud. We have all seen pictures of networks and how they work, usually when you are accessing anything beyond your Local Area Network (LAN) you head into the Cloud, the Cloud represents the internet. Here’s an example:
What’s inside the Cloud? Anything that has to do with data, originally it was mostly moving data from one place to another, but today, data can stop along the way and get altered in some fashion and then passed on.
Now, you could argue that the Cloud replaces the Black Box of old, although usually what goes into a Black Box, comes out quite differently on the other end, that is not always true with Cloud computing.
Where this argument holds even more water is when we look at the fact that your application may be in the Cloud. So data going in might be very different from data coming out. Nevertheless, Cloud computing is here to stay. Odds are that you will have some private or non-Cloud data on your desktop computer and some data in the Cloud, these will combine to offer you a unique computing experience on your desktop. However there are some Cloud providers, Google comes to mind, that would rather you have a simple thin client computer (not really a lot of horsepower or storage) as your desktop and that the Cloud does most of the work… hmmm… that is eerily reminiscent of the 1960’s mainframe era when we used dumb terminals and the guys in the “glass house” ran the show on their mainframe computers. Of course we then had the PC revolution started, or at least accelerated and dominated, by our friends at Apple and Microsoft. We the people (Users of technology) wanted to take the power back from the old time “Cloud” and we did a good job of it. Are we ready to let it go again? I feel you could argue this either way, and I’m sure if anyone at Google has read this far, they are thinking NO, this guy doesn’t get it! Well to a degree maybe. The Cloud today allows a lot of personal customization, this is due to the sheer horsepower contained in the Cloud and the ability to slice up the processing of information (Think Virtualization) to ensure your stuff and my stuff only meet when we want them to.
So how does this help you? The benefits of Cloud computing, especially for very small companies can be compelling. If you have less than 5 employees (most businesses in the US), putting your data (or most of your data) in the Cloud can make good business sense. It costs less than provisioning a server for your company, yet you get very tight security and you can access your data from anywhere.
What is the downside? If any part of the Cloud you are using goes down, you are stuck. What happens when someone cuts a wire while digging in front of your building? If you can’t reach the Cloud, or your application provider goes down (it happens, more often than we would think) not much work gets done. What happens if hackers decide to focus on a giant pool of data, contained in the Cloud instead of trying to exploit each individual computer? These are questions we need to ask ourselves.
Do I use the Cloud? You bet, my email Spam filter is a Cloud based application and it is absolutely fantastic. Here is a case where we get economies of scale because SPAM effects everyone, having a Cloud based spam filter allows that provider to handle millions of emails a day and they can better control what is spam and what is not.
If you want to explore Cloud computing options for your small business, or you have questions or comments, please email me Mikego@sf-it.com or call 678-353-3222 x105
Thank you,
Mike
