We use Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0 and have several network drives that we map to various document libraries. While we can use the browser to navigate and retrieve documents, I find that using Explorer with mapped network drive letters is faster. It has also worked well for providing a seamless transition from our old [...]
Posted by Brad Benner in Technical on 19 June 2009 | No Comments »
You can use this form to download the PowerPoint slide deck from the How to effectively hire an IT company presentation I gave as part of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce’s Technology Thursday series, in partnership with Microsoft, on Thursday, April 16, 2009.
Posted by Brad Benner in Small Business, Technology, X-BAR News on 28 April 2009 | No Comments »
You can use this form to download the slide deck and project plan templates from the 2-hour webinar, Project Management for the IT Services Company, I presented yesterday in partnership with ConnectWise, on Tuesday, April 7, 2009.
For those that were not able to attend, ConnectWise will be posting the video of the presentation next week [...]
Posted by Brad Benner in The Practice of IT Services on 8 April 2009 | 1 Comment »
Join X-BAR Founder, Brad Benner, and ConnectWise CEO, Arnie Bellini, on Tuesday, April 7th, at 1:00pm EST for a look at project management as a key ingredient in a successful IT services practice.
This 2-hour webinar for users of ConnectWise will cover:
What is a project and how is it different from providing day-to-day support?
The anatomy of [...]
Posted by Brad Benner in The Practice of IT Services, X-BAR News on 3 April 2009 | 6 Comments »
Stop by our booth on Tuesday, May 12, 2009, 3:00 pm – 7:00 pm, at the Chamber’s annual tradeshow, an evening networking event where Chamber members provide detailed displays of their products and services. Learn more and register>>
Posted by Brad Benner in Small Business, X-BAR News on 19 March 2009 | No Comments »
Win more than $35,000 in products and services for your small business or organization!
Inspired by the popular show, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Microsoft and Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce members have teamed up to present an Extreme Office Makeover!
One lucky small business or organization will win over $35,000 worth of products and services from: Microsoft, [...]
Posted by Brad Benner in Small Business, Technology on 19 March 2009 | No Comments »
We’ve teamed up with Jessica Vreeswijk, founder of Terrabytes Consulting and GreenITTools.com, to bring you two 1-hour webinars on the importance of Green IT, how it can transform your organization’s sustainability practice, and how to conduct your own Green IT audit. May 7 & 14, 11:00am – 12:00pm.
Introduction to Green IT
Thursday, May 7, 2009, 11:00 [...]
Posted by Brad Benner in Green, Small Business, Technology, X-BAR News on 17 March 2009 | No Comments »
Thursday, April 16, 2009, 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm
More than ever before, small businesses need their investments in technology to yield the rewards that are promised. The most important first step to making this happen is partnering with the right company, yet every day companies form sub-optimal partnerships that undermine the long-term success of their [...]
Posted by Brad Benner in Small Business, Technology, The Practice of IT Services, X-BAR News on 16 March 2009 | No Comments »
Part of our role as a trusted technology advisor is to look at the issues our clients are experiencing, identify common themes and trends, and create comprehensive approaches for dealing with these issues across our client base.
One of the more disruptive and time consuming issues we’ve identified over the past few months is spyware infections. [...]
Posted by Brad Benner in Technical on 5 March 2009 | No Comments »
The recent snow storms here in Seattle will undoubtedly serve as a wake-up call for this region and its residents. By national standards, we didn’t get that much now, but the streets remained mostly impassable, bus service virtually non-existent, and even walking the ice-covered streets became a feat of balance and perseverance.
Our lack of grace [...]
Posted by Brad Benner in Small Business, Technology on 13 January 2009 | No Comments »
Thursday, February 5, 2009, 5:00 pm – 8:00 pm
It’s been way too long since we’ve tucked in our shirts, and combed our hair, and opened our offices to clients and friends.
Stop by, have a drink, and meet all of the other sophisticates we know. But more importantly help us inaugurate 2009 as a year that [...]
Posted by Brad Benner in X-BAR News on 8 January 2009 | No Comments »
We just upgraded to Exchange 2007 at the end of the last week and ran in to one wrinkle with accessing a shared, team mailbox on our mobile phones through IMAP.
A little background
Our practice for creating and managing “shared” mailboxes using Exchange 2003 (I use the quotes to distinguish between the new Shared mailbox type [...]
Posted by Brad Benner in Technical on 5 January 2009 | No Comments »
A few of our clients have received a fraudulent email being circulated that appears to be from UPS about a shipment that could not be delivered. The email urges the recipient to open an attachment that supposedly contains a waybill for the shipment, but the attachment contains a virus.
Play it safe by observing the following [...]
Posted by Brad Benner in Technology on 18 November 2008 | No Comments »
We’ve made several key improvements to our backup and disaster recovery service offering this month:
The Basic model now protects up to two servers, instead of just one.
The Advanced model now comes in both a tower and rack-mount configuration.
We’ve introduced a new, lower-cost offsite storage option. At just 29¢/GB/month, this option allows you to synchronize your [...]
Posted by Brad Benner in Technology, X-BAR News on 18 November 2008 | No Comments »
The next version of Microsoft’s Small Business Server platform launched this past week. Overall, SBS 2008 is more of an evolutionary improvement on a great product than a radical redesign, and it offers several key improvements that will benefit our clients using Small Business Server:
Built upon a new underlying operating system, Windows Server 2008 is [...]
Posted by Brad Benner in Small Business, Technology, X-BAR News on 18 November 2008 | No Comments »