ETC ComputerLand's Business Before Hours

February 28, 2008
7:00 am - 8:30 am

Take a moment to stop by, we would love to see you here.

Do more with less - Virtualize

Did you know an average server only uses 5-15% of its capacity over its lifetime? This low utilization costs money in hardware, maintenance, and power consumption. With VMware virtualization technology you can get more out of your existing investments in hardware and reduce IT costs.

VMware’s server virtualization technology allows you to carve up the resources of a physical server into multiple virtual machines. These virtual machines function like physical servers with virtual processors, memory, hard drives, and network interfaces. With virtualization your critical business applications can run in a portable, cost affective, and flexible environment that can limit application downtime.

ETC ComputerLand has partnered with VMware to provide cutting edge virtualization solutions to our customers. Please contact your ETC ComputerLand sales representative to learn how virtualization can work for business -– large or small at 217-228-6180.

Front Running

Front running is the underhanded technique of registering a domain that someone wants before they have a chance to purchase it. Currently it's possible to “try out” a domain for 5 days before paying for it. If an unscrupulous person or company discovered that you were looking at a domain's availability, they could “try out” the domain you looked at, and not pay a cent. Now when you go back to purchase the domain it is no longer available.

Recently it was discovered that Network Solutions, a domain name registrar, is front running. If you check a domain's availability on their site, they will immediately register that domain for Network Solutions. This means that you are now required to wait at least four days for them to release the domain name or else you have to register with them. The worst part is the absence of a warning describing this malicious action. Despite public outcry, a recent test of Network Solutions sadly shows, they are still perpetuating the same devious tactics.

Avoid the hassle of registering and enlist the qualified professionals here at ETC ComputerLand. We can register your domain, take care of hosting, perform maintenance, setup FTP accounts and more. Contact us at 217-228-6180.

Your Backup – Rest Assured, It's Working

If you're backing up your computers and other network resources, you're doing the right thing. But are your backups working properly? Failed backups are worse than no backups at all – they promise security while delivering disaster.

Presidium's Symantec Backup Exec Monitoring Level 0* program provides peace of mind by monitoring and reporting on the success of your backup system. If your backups don't happen, we'll know about it and we will alert you quickly.

We'll monitor every scheduled backup running on your network and email a report to you the next business day. Successful or failed, you'll know.

Presidium's Level 0 will do even more – we'll give you the information you need to fix the problem. At times simple tape replacement or a drive cleaning will fix the problem. Other times may require improving your backup procedures or systems, or hardware replacement.

Besides monitoring for connectivity and up/down status, we will also be monitoring other important statistics on the backup server such as:

available disk space
processor and memory utilization
bandwidth usage

Our monitoring system alerts our support team any time it detects a fault condition or when conditions exceed predefined thresholds. This allows ETC ComputerLand to prevent most problems from affecting the productivity of your organization… and often prevents problems from occurring at all.

Contact your Systems Consultant today to learn more about Presidium's Symantec Backup Exec Monitoring Level 0 at 217-228-6180.

* This program is only available for systems using Symantec Backup Exec version 9 and above.

Tips to Prevent Identity Theft

Be aware of your surrounding when entering personal information in a public place.
Instead of signing the back of credit cards put Require ID instead.
Shred any information that has personal information on it, do not just throw it in the trash.
Do not dispose of computer hardware that could have personal information on it without properly destroying information on it first.
Check over bank & credit card statements diligently so you are aware of any suspicious activity.
Mail bills at the post office rather than at home, anyone could get the mail out of your mail box and get personal information from it.
Limit the information you provide on your personal checks, leave off Social Security number and drivers license number.
Request a free credit report annually to verify any suspicious activity.
Do not carry your Social Security card with you.
Be aware of companies you are doing business with online. Only do business with companies you are familiar with and who are well-known.

Congratulations Alzheimer's Association!

As many of you may already know, GiFT is a monthly computer and technology giveaway sponsored by ETC ComputerLand to benefit local charitable and service organizations which are tax exempt under IRS 501(c)(3).