March 2010: Microsoft Windows Support Milestones
Technology companies routinely change the level of support for their older products. These are often referred to as "support lifecycle milestones" and range from less support for a given product to termination of support. Changing the level of support for older products allows technology companies to focus their resources on products that their customers are currently using as well as development of new technologies.
- Mainstream Support is the first phase of the product support lifecycle. At the supported service pack level, Mainstream Support includes incident support (no-charge incident support, paid incident support, support charged on an hourly basis, and support for warranty claims), security update support, and the ability to request non-security hotfixes for a fee.
- The Extended Support phase is available for Business and Developer products only and begins after the Mainstream Support phase ends. At the supported service pack level, Extended Support includes security update support at no additional cost and non-security related hotfix support if the customer has purchased a separate Extended Hotfix Support agreement (per-fix fees also apply).
- End of Extended Support - Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) will no longer be the supported service pack level for Windows XP computers as of July 13, 2010.
- End of Mainstream Support - Windows Vista Release-to-Manafucturing (RTM) will no longer be supported as of April 13, 2010.
- End of Extended Support - Extended support will end for Windows 2000 Server and Professional as of July 13, 2010.
February 2010: Introduction to Smartphones
There was a time in the not-too-distant past when a cell phone was a simple device for making calls when away from the office or home. While you can still find simple cell phones, smartphones have gained popularity among consumers and business users for their much greater utility. Smartphones provide more advanced capabilities, often approaching PC-like functionality. Smartphones run their own operating systems, providing a standard look and feel across the many applications you can install on the phone. Think of smartphones as pocket-sized computers that include phone features.
Here are just a few of the technical considerations. Which operating system do you prefer? Each has its pros and cons. What sort of applications would you like to run on your smartphone? Which carrier are you currently contracted with? Each carrier may have different smartphones or variations on the same smartphone. Do you have good 3G (high-speed) data coverage in your area? if you're using a smartphone, you will want reliable high-speed data coverage. What types of data do you want to regularly access on your smartphone? These are just some of the considerations that need to be addressed when picking your new mobile partner for the next two years (typical contract length on a US carrier).
January 2010: Is Your Business 2010-ready?
Colden Company Inc. would like to wish everyone a very happy and prosperous year in 2010. As the new year rolls in, it is a good time to think about if your business is a 2010-ready business or still a 1990’s business. Are you taking advantage of the advances in technology, such as social networking, smart phones, cloud computing, virtual computing and more? If you are not, your competition is. Now is the time to start planning to take advantage of technologies that can make your business more efficient.
In today’s fast paced and every changing environment, businesses and organizations need to have the ability to adapt and keep the competitive advantages that made your business successful in the first place. It is a difficult task. Successful organizations understand that sometimes partnering with other best-in breed organization can move your business ahead more quickly than trying to undertake it all yourself. At Colden Company Inc. we can help you understand how technology can help your business. That is our expertise and we have partnered with many organizations to do just that. We have the capacity to act as your virtual CIO (Chief Information Officer) and help your business take advantage of technology to either save money or increase revenue. Information Technology should not be a cost center; it should be a catalyst to make your other profits centers more profitable.
Call us today and we will listen to you and learn about your business process. Our expertise in technology will help us help you to streamline your business. If you are not taking advantage of some of these new technologies, your business is not a 2010 ready business. Colden Company Inc. can help you get there.
December 2009: Windows 7 Released
Windows 7 is now released and many of you are probably wondering if it is something that can help your business. At Colden Company Inc, we were early adopters of the operating system and are very happy to report that it is a significant improvement over Windows Vista. System performance is much improved and there seem to be fewer hassles associated with the UAC (User Account Control) that caused so many issues with Windows Vista.
Is Windows 7 right for your business? It may be, but likely not because of any particular feature in Windows 7. The new task bar is very nice and so is the ability to natively use touch screen programs, but those are likely not going to be primary reasons for you to migrate. Microsoft’s planned obsolesce of older operating system is likely going to be the reason you upgrade. Microsoft XP is no longer available for retail purchase, and likely will be not be available for OEM downgrade in the near future, leaving you with a choice of Vista or Windows 7.
Before rolling out Windows 7 to your organization, it would be wise to test your critical PC based applications on Windows 7 before finding out the hard way whether or not your applications run properly. Although there is some backward compatibility built in for Windows XP and most Vista approved applications will run, it is always good practice to test your applications before the need arises.
At The Colden Company Inc, we can work with you to do this testing. Our staff has been running Windows 7 beta’s since January and we have the expertise to assist you and help you prepare. With the withdrawal of Windows XP from the market, the time is now to start your testing. Call us at (518) 885-2857 and let us help your business prepare.
November 2009: Creating Strong Passwords
October
was National Cyber Security Awareness Month. Their website
describes our shared responsibility as it relates to cyber security extremely
well: Ultimately,
our cyber infrastructure is only as strong as the weakest link. No individual,
business, or government entity is solely responsible for cyber security.
Everyone has a role and everyone needs to share the responsibility to secure
their part of cyber space and the networks they use. The steps we take may
differ based on what we do online and our responsibilities. However, everyone
needs to understand how their individual actions have a collective impact on
cyber security. Each and every one of
us has an account and password somewhere. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that
we all have multiple user names and passwords across many different business
systems, public websites, commercial web services, etc. Understanding how to
pick a secure password and good password management techniques are important to
our business and personal cyber security. Choosing a good
password is not as hard as many people think. Some of the most common passwords
(and very poor password choices) are password, letmein, and monkey. Any common
dictionary word, name, birthday, etc. does not make a good password. A good
password should mix letters (mixed upper and lower case is best), numbers, and even symbols like &, *,
$, etc. Make the password meaningful to you but hard for a person or machine to
guess. For example, using Colden Company's New York address, I could create a
password of 357M!ltonAv3. This is meaningful but would be very hard for someone
to guess by chance or brute force. Another approach to
creating good passwords is to use passphrases.
These create longer but very difficult to guess passwords. For example, let's
say that I am a fanatical BlackBerry user. I could use
myblackberryisthegreatest as a password. For an even more secure password, try
MyBlackBerryIsTheGreatest!!! (mixing letters, cases, and symbols). These
passwords are much longer, meaningful, and very hard to guess. When it comes to
password security, one of the worst habits that many people have is to use the
same password across multiple websites such as email, online banking, etc. Some
people may even use the same password for public web services and private
business systems! Recent informal studies have claimed that as many as 92%
of people use the same password across all websites. A so called "life
password" is just that - it provides access to your life. If a hacker is
able to guess your password or gain access to it through illicit means, then
they have access to everything - your email, you bank accounts, etc. The obvious solution
to the "life password" problem is to use a unique, complex password
for every website or system that you access. Of course, this becomes hard to
manage, and many people resort to writing down their passwords and leaving them
in clear view or obvious places - something that should never be done. Instead,
store the passwords in a file on your computer in a secure location (private
network server drive, My Documents in a password-protected account, etc.). An
even better solution is to use password
manager software. A very popular commercial password manager is RoboForm. Other excellent
(and free!) options include KeePass, Password Safe,
and LastPass. All of these
tools allow you to create one strong password that protects all of your unique
password. These tools will even generate highly secure, very complex passwords
and store them for you. Colden Company takes
your business and personal security very seriously. Please contact us if you
need advice or assistance developing a security plan to protect your business
or personal electronic assets. Attention Accounts Payable Department! Colden Company Inc. has a new address for billing matters: 3501-B N. Ponce De Leon Blvd
Our Ballston Spa, NY location is still in the same location at 357
Milton Ave, Suite A, Ballston Spa, NY 12020. Our phone number for our
helpdesk, where you can expect the same great customer service, is also
unchanged at (518) 885-2857. Colden Company Inc., now in
our seventh year of operation, is expanding because of our commitment
to customer service along with our knowledge of solutions designed for
business. That is why we have updated our company tag line to “Business
Technology Solutions”. The new tag line exemplifies what we do best.
Our unique partnership program is designed to help your organization
concentrate on running your business, while we help you implement the
technology solutions that make your business run more efficiently and
profitably. We understand that our model is not typical in the
industry, but our success and the success of our customers and partners
speak for itself. Please feel free to contact us at (518) 885-2857 with any questions about how our business model can help your organization.
For many of us, our ability to do business is inextricably linked to
our use of computers in some way. Mobility is also key - being able to
take our office with us to a job site, coffee shop, library, etc. lets
us be productive wherever our business takes us. A central part of any
businessperson's mobile office is a good laptop computer. However, many
business buyers don't realize that there are some major differences
between business laptops and the consumer laptops that we see
advertised everywhere at record-low prices. Consumer laptops may save
you money on the front end, but a good business laptop can help you
save even more money by avoiding downtime risks and lost productivity.
Dell, HP, Lenovo - all of the top laptop manufacturers - have business
laptops to meet any budget and business need. Business laptops are very often built from higher-quality and more durable materials.
This explains why you'll often see three-year manufacturer warranties
offered on business laptops rather than their plastic-based consumer
siblings. Lenovo, for example, makes use of magnesium and carbon fiber
in its laptop shells to protect the sensitive inner components from
damage. Other manufacturers use external metals to provide an extra
layer of protection from scratches and bumps. Many laptop manufacturers
make use of a "free fall sensor" to determine when the laptop is
dropped or jarred, stopping the hard disk to protect it from impact
damage. These technologies in combination protect your business data
and minimize the risk of downtime caused by damage that would leave a
similar consumer laptop inoperable. Security - particularly of your business data - is
a key concern for everyone who lives in a digital world. Business
laptops often feature "two-factor authentication," which involve
something you know such as a password, and something you have
such as a fingerprint, access card, etc. Two-factor security-enhancing
technologies such as fingerprint readers and smart card readers are
available in nearly every business laptop. Even more advanced security
is available in the form of a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip. A TPM
chip can generate, store, manage, and protect encryption keys, digital
certificates, and other types of digital security credentials in a
hardware-hardened device. Business laptops also offer many
more connectivity and power options that the typical consumer options.
Business laptops offer standard options such as wired and wireless
networking, but many also offer WWAN (Wireless Wide-Area Network)
options from cellular carriers such as Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint.
This means you can be connected to your business from wherever your
business takes you - not just at WiFi hotspots. Power options are also
abundant, with many business laptops offering larger battery options
than consumer laptops. The reason, of course, is so you can continue to
be productive no matter how long you have to be away from a power
source (at a remote job site, on a plane, etc.). An often-overlooked benefit of purchasing a business laptop is peripheral compatibility across models.
For example, Dell's business laptop line is the Latitude. Dell recently
started the Latitude E series after approximately five years selling
the Latitude D series. If you purchased a Latitude D series laptop in
the earliest days of the line, you could be assured that your
peripherals (optical drive, power adapter, etc.) would be compatible
with any other Latitude D throughout the life of the product line. That
translates to lower costs - less hardware repurchasing, higher
potential for hardware reuse, etc. By contrast, consumer laptops focus
on getting the latest and greatest technologies worked into the product
as quickly as possible, meaning that you are nearly guaranteed that
what you purchase today will not be hardware-compatible with what you
may purchase in a year. Navigating the wide array of
options for business laptops can be an overwhelming experience. Call
Colden Company Inc. at (518) 885-2857 for assistance in picking the
perfect laptop for your business needs and budget.
We can all agree that avoiding a disaster is much preferred to
implementing your disaster recovery plans. After all in the words of
Benjamin Franklin, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.
Preventing a disaster from happening in your organization is not an IT
function. Typically, the IT person is given those duties, but really
there needs to be a management sponsor for effecting planning since
there is more to protect in a business than computers. People and
processes need to be protected as well. Whether it is management
succession planning, key person insurance, or cross–training, there are
methods available to protect against the loss of key personnel.
Processes should be documented and reviewed periodically for updates.
As your business changes to market conditions, so should your
documentation. This is often a forgotten step, or if not forgotten, put
to the back of the priority list. The same principle
applies to your technology infrastructure. Colden Company Inc.
customers will be undergoing life-cycle planning this fall. What does
this entail? We examine the technology equipment and determine which
equipment is nearing end of life and thus creating risk. Planned
replacements can avoid costly downtime on critical equipment. If you would like to hear more about our processes, please feel free to contact us at (518) 885-2857.
You may have read about the concepts of "IT/business alignment" or
"business/technology alignment" in many business or information
technology magazines, websites, or blogs in recent years. The concept
has been the subject of many debates in the business world. Many IT
projects fail because the goals of the project are not correctly
aligned with the goals of the business. What exactly does this mean?
Please allow me to offer my simple explanation - your technology should work for your business, and not the other way around.
Particularly in the current US economic climate, technology that
doesn't somehow move your business forward or positively contribute to
your bottom line may not be a good fit for your business.
Sometimes alignment can be hard to detect. For example, disaster
recovery/business continuity initiatives are often seen as problems and
expenses that can be put off until another day. However, think of these
more like your automobile, health, home, or life insurance. We all pay
our insurance premiums to avoid the financial impact of a personal
disaster when it occurs. A well-laid disaster recovery plan can help
your business avoid the impact of a disaster (fire, flood, loss of
access, etc.) and avoid the costly loss of business that so often
plagues companies without a plan. Technology, of course, is only one
element of a disaster recovery plan - your business leaders must also
be involved. A well-aligned disaster recovery and business continuity
plan that intimately involves both your technology department (or
outside partner) and your key business leaders can directly impact your
bottom line - by protecting it! Technology solutions are
rarely a one-size-fits-all proposition. In fact, very few technology
solutions ever achieve one-size-fits-few status! It takes time, focus,
and expertise - both on the business and technology fronts - to
determine if a technology solution is aligned with your business goals.
The Colden Company is ready to help. While we offer many technology
services, we are also well-equipped to advise in areas of technology
choice, acquisition, and life cycle. Think of The Colden Company as
your "Virtual CIO". Even small businesses need someone to help guide
them through the maze of business technology, and we are here to help.
Unlike many technology services companies, The Colden Company is
vendor-agnostic. We want to work with our customers to find solutions
that are well-aligned with their business goals. We push our customers'
agenda - not the agendas of software developers or hardware
manufacturers. Contact The Colden Company Inc. at (518) 885-2857 to make sure your technology is working for your business.
The Colden Company Inc. is pleased to announce the addition of William
(Bill) Polymenakos as Vice President. Bill brings more than 20 years of
technology industry experience in such varied roles as executive
management and leadership, project management, systems architecture,
support, applications development, sales, systems engineering, and
consulting. Immediately prior to joining The Colden Company, Bill held
the position of Director of Professional Services with Permessa
Corporation, where he oversaw Permessa's consulting, services, and
support practices as well as all internal information technology
functions. Polymenakos previously held the position of Director of
Technology/CIO at Ecker Enterprises, Inc. Polymenakos' work at Ecker
earned him nominations for the Executives’ Club of Chicago/Association
of Information Technology Professionals 2006 CIO of the Year and CIO
Magazine 2007 Ones to Watch awards, as well as numerous press citations
in such industry-leading periodicals as eWeek and InformationWeek.
Prior to Ecker, Polymenakos held key roles in GlaxoSmithKline in such
varied areas as managing end-user support, through managing support for
a global mission-critical Lotus Domino infrastructure, through
technical architect and program leader for global information systems
standards for use across all divisions of the enterprise.
We are sure our customers will benefit from Bill’s experience and
commitment to customer service. In particular, our construction
industry customers can count on Bill’s many years experience as CIO of
a large construction company to help evaluate products and advise on
technology for that industry. Bill also has many years experience with
the LincLASER/COINS product and will prove a valuable resource to that
segment of our customer base.
Keeping your mission critical applications and hardware up to date is
not always an easy task. Software upgrades are released, hardware
maintenance contracts need to be kept up to date and operating system
patches and security updates come out regularly. Do you feel confident
that your critical systems are up to date with all the necessary
updates? The Colden Company Inc. can help. We make sure our customers
critical servers have all the necessary security patches and are made
aware of the latest versions. Our goal is to make the process
hassle-free for our customers. For UNIX users, AIX 5.2 is
going off support from IBM at the end of April 2009, as our customers
already know. AIX 5.3 or AIX 6.1 are the current releases and depending
on your application, you may want to consider upgrading in order to
maintain support from IBM. The Colden Company Inc. has many years of
experience upgrading operating systems including AIX and can perform
these upgrades at a fraction of the cost of other vendors like IBM. Our
proven methodology is safe and effective. Feel free to call us at (518) 885-2857 with any questions. We are happy to help!
It is often required on a Windows server to run scheduled tasks on a
server. For example, certain backup routines, or off hours work can be
scheduled to run instead of having a person run the task. The Windows
scheduler is the tool to so this, much like the crontab in the UNIX
world. In order to run a job in the Windows scheduler, the job must
have the proper credentials to run. Often times we see administrators
runs jobs using the “administrator” account. Best practices is to run
the job another way. Create a separate user account in
active directory with only the required permissions and set that
account so that its password cannot be changed or cannot expire. Be
sure to use a strong password when creating the account to limit
security risks. Use the credentials from this account to run your
scheduled task. The reason for this is so that when you change the
administrator password, as good security policy says you should, your
scheduled tasks will continue to run as they should. Feel free to call us at (518) 885-2857 with any questions. We are happy to help!
October 2009: Business Technology Solutions
PMB 383
St. Augustine, FL 32084 September 2009: Business Grade vs. Consumer Grade Laptops
August 2009: Life Cycle Planning
July 2009: Aligning Your Technology Goals
June 2009: Bill Polymenakos
May 2009: AIX 5.2 End of Life
April 2009: Scheduled Jobs