While Windows Vista has been out and available for many months now, most business users are not giving the Vista product a very warm reception. While we have certainly seen this happen locally, this is a national trend. Windows XP, as it turns out, is a very solid and capable product. Windows Vista, on the other hand, is bigger, more bloated and sometimes incompatible with current hardware and software.  It also lacks a new "killer application" that everyone "just needs to have" but cannot get in Windows XP.

The first Service Pack (aka SP1) for Windows Vista will be out in very early 2008. According to Microsoft, there will be no new functionality in Windows Vista SP1 . Updates packed in Windows Vista SP1 fall into three categories: Quality improvements, improvements to the administration experience and support for emerging hardware and standards.

Should you upgrade to Windows Vista with your current hardware?
As mentioned last spring, it is still not recommended that you upgrade your Windows 2000 or Windows XP operating system to Windows Vista.

When buying a new computer, should you buy Windows Vista?
For business use, most users are sticking with what works and works well - Windows XP. Windows Vista in your workplace will bring additional support headaches to any organization.

Buying a new PC for home use? If this is the case, then Windows Vista may be worth the ride, assuming your "need to run" software at home will run on Windows Vista.

If you are currently using Windows Vista, hang in there; a service pack is coming. If you are not using Windows Vista, you may want to go with the statement - "If it ain't broke - don't fix it."
 

Office 2007 has been released and is now readily available. Office 2003 has been discontinued by Microsoft and Office 2007 is the only suite product you may be able to purchase on new PCs.

That being said, you may need to be aware of a few things.

• Office 2007, which includes Word 2007, Excel 2007, Outlook 2007 and other products (depending on the version acquired), is far from perfect.  It does have some bugs that will soon be fixed, but a service pack (aka SP) has yet to be released.  SP1 is in beta testing and may be out this fall or early winter.  If you are using or plan to use Office 2007, expect some issues that may not be resolved in the short term.
   

• Office 2007 products no longer use menus. Rather, Microsoft opted for a "ribbon" format in each of their Office products. For many users of previous versions, this does make the product initially more difficult to navigate.  A screenshot of the ribbon can be seen below.
  
  
   

• If you are using any version of Office released before Office 2007, be aware that you may be exchanging documents with Office 2007 users. The default file type of these documents have changed in 2007, which means that you as an Office 2003 user, for instance, may not be able to open a Word 2007 document. As a non-Office 2007 user, you may want to download and install the free compatibility pack HERE. This will allow you to read all documents sent to you from other Office 2007 users saving their work in the new default format.
   

• If you are an Office 2007 user, you may want to set a company policy to save all shared documents as Office 2003 compatible. Each of the office applications has this option, and this assures that Office products from Office 97 on up can read and manage your documents.

Office 2007 will become the standard for which all Office documents are based. Like in any transition from "old to new," there are certainly plenty of issues to keep in mind while we all move forward in this development.
 

For most of us, backup is a necessary evil. While we all understand the need, it is a headache to manage for many reasons - the backup drives, media, logs, etc.

While we are not pretending we can solve all backup woes, we are currently investigating using an Internet-based backup service to backup all of our Windows- and Linux-based systems.

When backup runs each night, all changed data from our system makes its way via the Internet for storage on a remote server. Typically, the Internet backup service charges by the amount of space used for remote storage. This gives us a lot of flexibility. Our goal is to implement Internet backups as seamlessly as possible while making sure we are well-protected.

We are currently reviewing Internet backup services and working out any issues. If you have an interest in this technology, please let us know so we can keep you posted on our progress.
 

Like our automobiles, computers run best when properly maintained. Recently, Hewlett Packard (HP) had a great article on the sorts of things we can all do to keep our PCs "out of trouble."  You may find the information and maintenance schedule in this article very useful.  Please consider implementing some of these ideas into your organization and at home. The PC Tune-up information can be found at:

http://h20239.www2.hp.com/techcenter/pctuneup/Desktop_schedule.htm

If you need assistance with any of these procedures, simply drop us a note.
 

How can we keep employees out of non-business Internet content?

This question has been asked of us many times.

In the past, content filtering products have been available to help manage this situation. Products like Surf Control needed to be purchased and installed (along with a subscription fee each month) to help you manage the situation.

Postini, the email virus and spam control service many of our customers are using, now offers a web content filtering service.  Like most of Postini's services, there are no products to buy and it is priced on a "per user, per month" basis. Once configured, a service manages what types of web content may be accessed on a group or user-by-user basis. 

We are currently evaluating this product from Postini. If you have any interest in the product, please let us know so we can keep you posted on our evaluation.
 

We have all seen the advertisements and the commercials. Many cell phones can now do everything from playing music and video to taking pictures and browsing the Internet. Some phones even let you actually make a phone call! (A little humor here - as some of these phones do everything great but make a phone call).

Many of these phones have some type of email capability. Email access comes in two forms:

• Access to standard email services (e.g. AOL, Yahoo, Google) or a POP3 mailbox (e.g. Time Warner)
   

• Access to business-class email by directly connecting to a Microsoft Exchange Server using a technology called "direct push."

Standard email services work great for personal use. This type of email access is easy to setup, it comes with many standard cell phones, and there are few security issues associated with it.

Business-class email is fantastic when connecting to an Exchange Server. Email is automatically  "pushed out" to the phone as it is received in your Inbox and your business email, contacts and calendar are all automatically synched with your Exchange server. Just as important, it performs these functions in a fashion that does not "break the security" of your organization. Direct push email operates over the same standard port as your web browser (port 80), which allows your spam and anti-virus software to work as it should.

Allowing standard email services like POP3 into your business email server has been problematic over the past year or two. Spammers attempt to come in on the same ports your cell phone would use for POP3 access, which results in more spam and potential viruses entering your organization. It is for this reason that we no longer encourage POP3 access to Exchange Server systems.

In summary, a cell phone's support of email using standard email services and POP3 is fine for personal use. However, to use a cell phone to access your business system's email, it is highly recommended that you look for phones that support email with "direct push" technology. If you are in the market for a new phone and you want to have access to your business email, contacts and calendar you may want to ask for a phone that supports this "direct push" technology.
 

Customer Spotlight: The Hillman Companies

The Hillman business system, written by Copeland Data Systems, includes dispatch operations, order entry, receivables, payables and general ledger. One single integrated system brings all locations and companies together, allowing a company in one location to dispatch from another company in another location. Additionally, CDS supports the Information Technology functions of the company, lessoning the need to have full-time IT personal on staff.