iPhone 4, Droid, Evo, but where is Blackberry????

Ok, so I am the guy with two cell phones.  Granted I do not wear them on my hip, nor do I have “California Gurls” as a ring tone on one and “OMG” on the other. Like our founding fathers I like separation, but mine is of business and personal.  Although the way I communicate it seems as though my separation is mostly between one phone with my Taylored Systems supplied taylored.com email, and my phone with my personal gmail.com account and text messages.  With all the hype of the new phones hitting the market I have done a lot of research lately.  I have always been loyal to Verizon, why I do not know.  So my loyalty had always stopped me even caring about the iPhone.  However with the release of the Droid phones hitting the Verizon network, I was forced to do some research and make some decisions.  I chose the Droid Incredible because I could not wait for the “possible” introduction of the iPhone on the Verizon network.  So my two phones are the Blackberry Storm, and the Droid Incredible.  Through my research I kept asking myself what is better, and where is Blackberry in all of this???

The first question was to figure out what phone, or phones most peaked my interest.  iPhone had its upsides.  The video chat looks nice and their app store is the best, and the battery life seemed to be better on this phone than any of the others. My concern was that the only Apple product I use is iTunes, and how will this iPhone sync with my Exchange, or my gmail? 

My next step was to move on to the Android platform.  I looked at the Incredible and the Nexus One.  Well once released the Nexus One would only be available on T-Mobile, so I decided against looking any further into it. I focused my attention to the Incredible.  It had everything I needed and wanted.  Better camera than the iPhone, it had a flash and 8megapixles.  It had full html that supported Java, unlike the iPhone.  The display was much crisper than the other phones available.  It just seemed like the best phone and I could keep my Verizon service.

I then looked at the Evo from Sprint.  It appeared to be the same as the Incredible, but on the Sprint network.  The HDMI out was a cool feature, but then I thought I’d have to download any movies from my computer to the phone, so why would I not just use my computer’s HDMI out to connect to my TV?  I suppose it would be nice for videos, or photos taken on the phone, but I would want to back those up on my computer anyway so I can still just use the computer’s HDMI out.

The next step was finding the network I wanted to choose.  T-Mobile is a joke, Sprint’s “4G” is laughable, AT&T is well AT&T, but Verizon has been the lesser of the evils and so I stayed with the Verizon network.  I went with the Incredible, and now within a month of having the phone there is a new one on the verge of release, so there is no WIN-WIN-WIN ever in the world of cell phone choosing.

So now I have my personal phone for apps, gmail, text messages, phone calls etc., but I still did not answer my question of where was Blackberry in all of this trying to woo me with their latest and greatest?

To be honest I have not been overly happy with the Blackberry Storm.  It definitely is not the iPhone killer it was billed to be when it was released.  I dislike the “Optimized Web Browser” and the fact I can’t obtain HTML emails in the form they are designed like I can on my Incredible.  When I did research into items of concern that matter in the business world, i.e. security, reliability, synchronization, I realized that Blackberry is still the trusted work horse it has been for many many years.  So what if you cannot get an app that will tell you where the nearest possible speed trap might be, or an app that turns my phone into a Schwartz light saber, the Blackberry might just resort to being what it started as…as a secure email device.  This was Bill’s comment to me, why do I need any of the other phones?  Other than the full HTML and JAVA I did not have an answer for him.  The synchronization between Blackberry with their Enterprise Server, or without, is by far the most reliable and best synchronization between Exchange (the dominate email source in the business world).  On the Android you have to buy a $20 app to do what the Blackberry does out of the box.  Also recently I ran a battery test of my Storm vs. my Incredible.  The Incredible lasted 18 hours before needing a charge.  My Storm lasted from Saturday mid-afternoon to Tuesday after work.  So fear not Blackberry you are still relevant in this ball of confusion.

This was Michael Martin’s latest conversation with Bill Taylor

Business Cyber Security

You might have seen the recent news article about Marco’s Restaurant and Lounge’s experience with outside hackers tapping credit card machines and stealing card numbers from customers. Customers have had accounts wiped out and there is question around how firewalls and encryption software were breached.

They aren’t alone. It seems as though there are countless stories of laptops stolen with critical and confidential customer information on them, credit card machines being hacked and personal information being compromised.

While speaking with someone who works in company security, I learned that one of the easiest ways hackers are getting beyond firewalls, hacking networks and sharing viruses, is by dropping a thumb drive outside the entrance to a business. Some nice and unsuspecting employee will pick up it up, plug it in his/her computer in an effort to find out who it belongs to and bam…they’ve loaded the contents of the thumb drive onto the network.

I’ve been told that this is 75% successful so it’s a good reminder to educate employees on this type of hacking.

I, along with my colleague Steve McDonald, attended the Indiana Cyber Security Conference this year. One speaker, Dr. Eugene Spafford – Purdue University Professor and CERIAS (Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security) Executive Director, shared that next year marks the 25th anniversary of the first general computer virus that gained traction. Then, 120 viruses in 1990 and today – a whopping 40-50 THOUSAND viruses are reported daily (hundreds per minute), and the situation is getting worse. We try to stop damage once the virus is identified but we need to find ways to act proactively.

Several of the conference speakers talked about the importance of processes and policies to support a business cyber security strategy but everything came back to a common point – people are the most important part of the strategy. It is people that mess things up typically, not the process or the technology.

As an employer, it is important to remember that the most important piece of your security strategy is your people. Pre screening, compliance monitoring and performance reviews, training, and ongoing education will help keep your team alert to potential cyber security threats.

This was Amy Hershman’s conversation with Bill Taylor.

National Broadband. Can we afford it? Can we afford not to?

Talking with Bill the other day, I was reminded of my old rotary dial phone, and the hand-cranked phone that my Uncle had at his farm before the more modern touch-tone phone appeared which has since been replaced by cell phones and VoIP phones. Those were in the days when the big carrier services promoted universal service with a phone in every home. Now those same service providers are promoting Broadband for every home so you could switch from your landline phone to a cell phone or a VoIP phone through your computer. 

We have seen access change from old fashion dial-up which merely streamed minute amounts of bandwidth, and would sometimes be busy because too many people were trying to use it at the same time. With Broadband you are continually connected, and can network your computer, phone, television, music system, or other compatible items together. Bandwidth would depend on your carrier service connection through cooper, fiber or coax cable from 20 Mbps to 100Mbps. Are only problem is that not everyone has access to these services, or can afford this technology. 

In a recent newsletter article Bill and I read that the FCC was trying to develop a National Broadband Plan to ensure that all Americans have access to broadband capabilities. This plan was recently delivered to Congress with an ambitious broadband vision for the county to connect 100 million households to broadband service of 100 Mbps (at least 20 times faster than most current home connections) by 2020.

An ambitious and visionary plan but how realistic is it and with a price tag of $350 billion is it worth doing?

If we want our future generations to have more capability of working from home, their children to have access to the internet for homework assignments and classroom lessons via video conferencing for higher learning, or merely to have the advantage of networking our phone, computer, and other systems all together, then perhaps this broadband service of 100 Mbps seems like a great idea. Broadband is probably the technology that will take us further into the future, so that one day we may stand in a room and have a video chat with someone while on the split screen we watch a movie and at the desk our children search the internet for their homework lessons. This is a far cry from when we only had hand-crank or rotary dial phones and no computers.

Mary Couch’s latest conversation with Bill Taylor

We Really are Only Seconds Away from Everywhere in the World

“Check out this sweet early ‘70s van I’ll be buying next week in New Zealand,” my friend Jordan told me while in Chile. You see, my friend Jordan is traveling around the world. Seeing a window of opportunity to accomplish one of his many life goals Jordan decided to leave his job at Google in London, where he had been transferred six months prior from New York. He and his girlfriend had decided to book an Around the World ticket taking them from Florida to China by route of Latin and South America, over to New Zealand and Australia, up through Southeast Asia into China then?????? Who knows? With the Around the World program you purchase travel destinations, not travel dates, and have one year to travel to these destinations. So when Jordan called me from London to tell me his latest adventure I figured, “well I’ll talk to you in a year. You have my info get a hold of me when you’re at a stopping point.” However I believe I have corresponded and been updated with Jordan more since he has traveled through Latin and South America as I have when he was living in New York and London combined.

Ironically enough it is Google that has been primarily keeping us in contact. Through Gmail and Google’s chat feature we can talk and share files no matter where he is as long as he has an internet connection or cell coverage. In the instance of the van, Jordan sent me the link to the ad where he found the van in New Zealand. I was updated the next day when he was robbed by the police, chatted with him while hiking in Patagonia, and received pictures from the top of Machu Picchu. I can also send him updates from what is going on here; music, pictures, stories, etc. I believe that helps with any of the home sickness that might be felt. But we all know how this works, the internet connects everyone to everyone no matter where in the world, it might be the only thing constant around the world. But my inquisitive mind had some other questions for Jordan and those questions also sparked interest for my own research.

I noticed that I was talking with Jordan not just in large cities like Buenos Ares, but also in small towns throughout his trip. When I asked if his hostels all had computers he was using he said yes, but most of these areas, even the small towns, have internet cafes. Internet cafes are nothing new, but in the last five to ten years bandwidth costs, even in rural areas have decreased so dramatically it allows for areas to establish connection to the Interweb for the citizens. When I asked Jordan if it was only tourists and business people in these cafes, he responded “I wish.” Apparently bandwidth is inexpensive however cost of the computer to access the world is still an issue in most of the areas he has been. So the cafes are filled with locals downloading music, movies, watching viral videos, etc. Jordan has said it can be a bit distracting when he is trying to write his blog and update everyone and the 13 yr old kid next to him is loudly singing Miley Cyrus (can’t escape it anywhere). While none of this is breaking news of what is available I found it interesting that someone can backpack around the world and not have a day go by where he is not updated from home and is not updating people at home of what is going on. We really are only a few seconds away from anywhere in the world.
If you would like to catch up on Jordan’s travels and follow the rest of the trip visit his blog….
http://ilivevicariouslythrume.blogspot.com/

DEDICATED PC for Online Banking

Bill and I often pass newsletters and articles back and forth.  We recently shared one with our Vice President of Finance, Amy Hart Ramey.  It was about the alerts issued by the FBI and the American Banking Association suggesting that businesses use a dedicated PC for any online banking.

There are several articles and blogs on the topic.  We discussed the “areas of exposure”.  Most businesses are concerned about viruses, so they have protection.  The bigger percent of exposure is linked to how secure your business surf controls are.  If an employee is surfing the internet they may inadvertently download a worm or virus or may open the door for hackers to install keystroke loggers that your anti-virus may not pick up. 

As a business owner, it is important to understand your bank’s position on the topic.  Many banks will not accept any liability for fraudulent transfers if they determine that you were negligent in your online banking security measures including but not limited to a well-configured firewall and current anti-virus programs, or dedicated PC.

The core requirements to keep in mind are:

1. The PC should be dedicated and should only be used to link to the banking website
2. The PC should have no email access

We had a situation in our office where an employee visited a church website not knowing that it had a virus and it was showing up as a “malicious site” because of the virus.  Thankfully we had our current anti-virus software running.  And, we’ve instated a dedicated PC for online banking.

This was Amy Hershman’s last conversation with Bill Taylor and Amy Hart Ramey.

IS YOUR TELECOMMUICATION BILL A TWIN?

Just last week Bill and I were discussing the Mobile Twinning on his phone. This Mobile Twinning feature allows the twinning of an external device to his IP Office extension.  When a caller phones his line, both his extension and the twinned device (such as a cellular phone or home phone) will ring, allowing him to take the call from either device. This double or twin feature is a very handy piece of technology.

However this is not a feature you would want in your telecommunications bill. Say you have voice, data, long distance, internet, cable and cell phone usage at your business. Are you paying twice for any of these features? Is your cell phone usage costing you long distance charges as well as your voice and data? How do you know?

Suppose your IT department wants to know what they are paying on a bill, will they know if they are paying for similar services in more than one place. Does your accounting department know if they are paying for the same service from two companies? These are questions that as a business you should ask about your telecommunication bills in order to not duplicate payments.

Now is a good time to call us at (317) 776-4000 and have a Taylored Systems representative come out to your business and analyze your bills. They could discover that you are paying double for the same service. Any of our knowledgeable representatives can assist you with condensing, combining or bundling your telecommunications costs.

Twinning as a phone feature may be the newest technology, but twinning on your telecommunications bill is not something your company needs to afford. Call Taylored Systems today and let us assist you to find out if there is a twin in your bill.

 This is Mary Couch’s latest conversation with Bill Taylor.

Utilizing A Wireless Cell Network for Back-up

Think back to the day when you went to your local store to purchase the latest “single” or “album” of music. Then came the internet and you could listen, purchase, and share the music you wanted through a few licks of a mouse. The internet opened up the ability to share files which had a profound impact on the music industry and the way people go about purchasing music…the shift could have been devastating to the music industry but wasn’t because they responded by  reinventing themselves to integrate. 

Our industry is in a similar situation. Some predict that cell phones are taking over the business phone world and will make desk phones obsolete.  We continue to identify applications where the cell and business phones overlap and can provide additional benefits to businesses.  Business telephone manufacturers and internet service providers have jumped into this game full force and are continually introducing new ways to incorporate cell phones and cell networks into new business applications.

The other day Bill related an interesting story to me. Recently, we were contacted by a prospective customer who was moving.  They had ordered their business internet service through a cable company and at the last minute, learned that the cable company would not be able to provide the service that had been agreed to. They called us to help.

We started by checking to see if we could help this prospective customer by providing DSL, but they were too far from the circuit.

After a “Taylored Systems mini brainstorming session” we determined that we could utilize an Adtran router (that we had in stock) and insert a card from Sprint or Verizon to allow the prospective customer to  have internet access to multiple devices through this one connection. Voila…it worked.

We don’t recommend this as a permanent solution, but it is an outstanding temporary option until the permanent circuit can get installed.  And, the customer is able to keep working without worrying about lost productivity.

We have since tested this option in areas that we didn’t think had great cell connections – and it worked; even in environments without strong cell strength. And so, as you are looking at have redundancy and back up plans in to support your business applications, don’t underestimate the power of the cell phone network.

Call us, we can help.

This was Amy Hershman’s last conversation with Bill Taylor.

What is an IP Address?

Everyone’s talking IP (Internet Protocol) so I tossed it out as a topic to consider, “ Why not have a discussion about IP Addresses, how business continues to change, and how everything requires an IP Address?”

Great idea, Amy. Put a few sentences together and it will all make sense to the general public, right? It really isn’t that simple.

What is an IP Address? An IP Address is a number used to identify all information technology hardware (printers, routers, etc) allowing that hardware to communicate with other hardware on a computer network.

Think of it as houses on a street. Who are the people in your neighborhood? Each house has a separate address and the correct mailing address is required in order for that house to accept mail. In the IP world, the “houses” are the hardware and the “neighborhood” is the network. IP Addresses are either Public (outside of your network) or Private (inside your network).

Now that we’ve established the neighborhood, let’s talk about Dynamic IP Addresses versus Static IP Addresses. A Static IP Address never changes. (This makes sense and works with my house and neighborhood example.) A Dynamic IP Address, however, could change at any time. This address is merely assigned from a pool of IP addresses allocated by your ISP (Internet Service Provider) or DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) Server. Think of it like we think of zip codes. One of our employees, Steve Dietterle said he remembered getting mail addressed to Steve Dietterle, Herscher Illinois. His postmaster acted as a DNS server to route the mail to him.

Look for future posts where we talk about classes, versions, and the other components that may be linked to your IP Addresses. Welcome to the neighborhood!

This was Amy Hershman’s last conversation with Bill Taylor and Steve Dietterle.

Technology and Workplace Wellness – Easing the Strain

Have you ever considered how technology can help improve office wellness? We recently invited a company into our office to complete an ergonomic assessment.  Initially, we braced ourselves for a hefty price tag of adjustments and a laundry list of purchases to help ease the discomfort some employees were experiencing. We were pleasantly surprised to learn that we had minimal adjustments to make and were reminded of how important it is to use technology to aid us in our workplace wellness.

One change for us was making sure that employees who are on the phone a lot use wireless telephone headsets.   I’m not talking about the headsets you might be thinking of…the big, clunky, over the head ones with cords that tangled and limited your mobility.  There was a day here at Taylored Systems when, prior to selling a telephone headset we’d ask , “Do you want an over the ear or over the head piece,” or “ Would you prefer a one-ear or two-ear piece headset”?  And don’t even think about those headsets being wireless…these had a limited radius of mobility!

 Today, thanks to blue tooth technology and the types of ear pieces prevalent with iPods and cell phones,  most people have come to expect and enjoy the small size and excellent quality that is also available with business phone compatible head and ear pieces.

You may recall a scene from the movie Black Sheep where Chris Farley’s character is making campaign calls and he straps the phone receiver to his head using a sweatband in order to have his hands free to work.  Now it’s easier – no sweat band (or sweat) required.  In fact, we’ve seen business telephones adapt by providing “blue tooth integration”.  This technology allows you to “pair” a standard Bluetooth headset with your office phone, so you can seamlessly answer, originate, and terminate phone calls directly from the headset. It provides the standard headset features with the mobility of Bluetooth.

We recently worked with a customer who decided to swap out their cordless telephones for cordless headsets because they wanted the mobility and convenience of a headset with the quality of a business telephone system.  It means increased productivity for employers and convenience for employees.

So what does this all mean for us and our ergonomic study?  We purchased a few foot rests, adjusted a few monitors, and encouraged everyone to utilize a headset…and things are working great.

This was Amy Hershman’s last conversation with Bill Taylor and Steve McDonald.

THANK GOODNESS FOR DISASTER RECOVERY PLANS

While talking to Bill at Taylored Systems the other day, he commented “Thank Goodness for Disaster Recovery Plans.” I asked him why, and Bill replied that on Friday, July 24^th at 3:30PM when he was out of the office, someone cut the AT&T fiber outside the building knocking out the Taylored Systems phone lines.  Of course, with our Disaster Recovery Plan, it didn’t matter if he was at the office or not because he has a strong team that knows how to execute the recovery plan.  We have multiple ways to reroute all the telephone traffic in this type of situation:

1] reroute our calls to SIP trunks that come in on separate circuits to the building,

2] forward our extensions to cell phones, or other phones outside the office building, or

3] forward our lines to the live answering service we use for after hours and weekends. 

So at 3:30PM that Friday we elected to send calls from our customers to the live answering service as the most convenient and efficient solution, since we would have forwarded our lines to them within the next hour and a half as usual. We could still call out using the SIP trunks( which are live all the time), so work went on for the rest of the day. Even our router for the internet according to Mark Sassman, an IT staff member, did its job correctly. It appears that when the main T1 internet connection drops for about one and one-half minutes it fails over to an alternate fiber internet connection on another carrier. This allowed for our SIP phone lines to keep on working even though our main phone lines had been cut, and email continued to flow in over the alternate connection to the server. This was a great example of disaster recovery technology at work compared to years ago when we might not have been able to continue helping our customers.

Bill checked to see that everything was up and working properly in the interim, and returned to the office at 7:00PM that night to let the AT&T repairman in to test the circuit, which came back up at 8:30PM. By Monday everything was back to normal as if it had never occurred. A Disaster Recovery Plan is something that we here at Taylored Systems use, as well as advocate for our customers.  Please feel free to comment on this posting with stories of how your plan has saved your organization or how not having a plan has made it difficult to continue. 

Mary Couch’s conversation with Bill Taylor