3501-B N. Ponce De Leon Blvd PMB 383 | St. Augustine, FL 32084 | 904.687.1014

357 Milton Ave Suite A| Ballston Spa, NY 12020 | 518.885.2857


Colden Company Newsletters

March 2010: Microsoft Windows Support Milestones

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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.

There are a number of important support lifecycle milestones for Microsoft's Windows product line in 2010 that businesses need to be aware of. Before we discuss the specific milestones, there is some terminology with which you should be familiar. Microsoft differentiates between "Mainstream Support" and "Extended Support" as follows: 
  • 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).
The most important point to take away is that when Extended Support ends, Microsoft no longer provides security updates for the affected product.
The most signifant Microsoft Windows support lifecycle milestones in 2010 are:
  • 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.
What does this mean to you? If your business is running Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista RTM, you should upgrade to Windows XP SP3 or Windows Vista SP2 as soon as possible. Either update can be applied by running Windows Update, although you should be careful when applying service packs due to the number of changes that are incorporated. Rather than updating to a new service pack, this may be a good opportunity for you to evaluate a migration to Windows 7 for your business. Windows 7 has many new productivity-enhancing features, improved security, and other benefits. It is, in the opinion of Colden Company, the best version of Windows that Microsoft has released in many years. From a support standpoint, you will place your business at the beginning of the support lifecycle, guaranteeing you a level of support for the next ten years. 

If your business is running Windows 2000 Server or Windows 2000 Professional, then you need to migrate to Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows 7. 

Whether you decide to update to a supported service pack or migrate to Windows 7, Colden Company will help you. Contact Colden Company today to assess your Windows environment and develop a plan to ensure uninterrupted support for your business computing systems. You can contact us at 518-885-2857, info@coldencompany.com, or on Twitter.


February 2010: Introduction to Smartphones

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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.


At Colden Company, we often have customers ask us which smartphone would be best for them or for their business and employees. That's a very difficult question to answer because there are many considerations involved. The questions to ask yourself generally fall into one of two broad categories: technical and financial. 

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).

The most common smartphone operating systems are iPhone OS (Apple), Android (Google), Windows Phone/Mobile (Microsoft), BlackBerry OS (Research in Motion - RIM), WebOS (Palm), and Symbian (Nokia). The selection of an operating system will contribute most significantly to your experience with the phone - arguably more than the hardware or carrier. Apple's iPhone is intuitive and sleek, BlackBerry is great for email power users. Windows Phone works best with Microsoft Office files out-of-the-box, Android offers a feature-dense experience. Using your smartphone for mobile access to your business email is an incredibly powerful tool to keep in contact with your customers and employees, but you must be sure that your smartphone is compatible with your business email system and will provide an ideal experience.

Applications are another key consideration when selecting a smartphone. What kinds of things do you want to do with your smartphone? Do you want to read and edit Microsoft Office files on-the-go? Do you want to have access to great games when you need some downtime? Do you want to read electronic books? There are smartphone applications for just about anything you can think of, but not all applications are available for every smartphone operating system. 

The iPhone is currently the most active and innovative application marketplace, with over 140,000 applications available in the App Store and over three billion downloaded. Every smartphone operating system has its own application store, but Apple is currently best for attracting innovative developers and loyal customers. Android is quickly gaining ground with the power of Google and an enthusiastic developer community behind it. Microsoft is readying Windows Mobile 7, which it plans to use to springboard them to the top of the smartphone, application developer, and mobile market mindshare.

A very important consideration when selecting a smartphone is the quality of the carrier's data network in the area(s) where you will most often be using your smartphone. A good-quality 3G (high-speed) data connection should be high on your list of "must-haves" when selecting a carrier partner. Smartphones offer a variety of data-intensive features (high-quality Internet browsing, audio/video streaming, photo uploading services, etc.) which require sufficient data bandwidth. If the carrier that you've been using has excellent voice coverage in your area, but very poor data coverage, your experience with your smartphone will be poor.

Your selection of a smartphone make/model will be limited by your cell phone carrier. Some phones have exclusivity with certain carriers, the most well-known example being the Apple iPhone on AT&T. You may be under contract with a certain carrier, or you may be loyal to your current carrier and want to continue doing business with them. Again, regardless of your carrier choice, be sure that you have a good-quality 3G data connection in your area.

The other consideration, often forgotten when selecting a smartphone is the cost of the device over the length of your contract (Total Cost of Ownership, or TCO). The smartphone itself may cost a couple hundred dollars, but the real cost of the device is in the two-year contract. A simple cell phone or feature phone with a calling plan may cost $30.00-$50.00 per month depending of number of minutes, text messages, etc. Add smartphone features like unlimited data, unlimited text messages, etc. and your monthly recurring cost can easily reach $100.00 per month or more, leading to a TCO of $2000.00-$3000.00 over the length of the contract. Increases in productivity and customer contact and satisfaction, while difficult to quantify financially, often lead to a return on investment for smartphones. 

Colden Company is very active in mobile device and application review, analysis, and support and can help you select a smartphone for your personal or business use - or even equip your office with a fleet of smartphones that are aligned with your business technology and goals. If you have questions about smartphones, feel free to email info@coldencompany.com or contact us via Twitter at @coldenco

Would you like to see this newsletter topic expanded in future months with deeper looks into popular smartphone platforms such as iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, etc.? If so, please let us know.

January 2010: Is Your Business 2010-ready?

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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

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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

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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 KeePassPassword 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.

October 2009: Business Technology Solutions

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Attention Accounts Payable Department! Colden Company Inc. has a new address for billing matters:

3501-B N. Ponce De Leon Blvd
PMB 383
St. Augustine, FL 32084

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.

September 2009: Business Grade vs. Consumer Grade Laptops

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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.

August 2009: Life Cycle Planning

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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.

July 2009: Aligning Your Technology Goals

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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.

June 2009: Bill Polymenakos

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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.

May 2009: AIX 5.2 End of Life

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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!

April 2009: Scheduled Jobs

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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!

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