If you are a Lansing area business owner you have probably received information about the Greater Lansing GO GREEN! Initiative . If you haven't seen it, check it out online.
Businesses like mine have been promoting services where we schedule routine maintenance to occur after hours when your staff has gone home. However much we believe in being green, we want our time at work to be as productive as possible.
So how do you go about reducing power consumption when virtually every office employee now needs a computer to do their job? And how can you accomplish that AND keep your computers running at peak performance?
Intel has been promoting the energy saving features of their VPro technology. This technology allows machines to be turned off and on remotely. So, we can now run routine maintenance, such as patching and disk defragmenting and then turn the machine off. If you wish, machines could even be powered back on just before your staff arrives, so no one has to wait for the power on process to complete.
Intel is also driving towards processors that are smaller and smaller. Why? In part, because smaller means less power. So another way that you can decrease your power consumption is to replace your older machines with newer, more efficient models. If you are still using older CRT's, make your employees happy and save on energy by replacing them with LCD monitors. And whether your computers are on or off at night, ideally your monitors should be turned off. If not turned off, at least insure that every one has a blank screen saver. No need for pretty pictures or colored lines rotating on that screen while we are all sleeping.
[ view entry ] ( 4 views ) | permalink
Late last week, we launched a separate blog for more detail technology issues. This blog is updated by our technicians who will take turns making entries.
If you are more technically oriented and you want some tips that you can put to good use, check out their blog. Each entry will include their name and their picture, so you will get to know each of them as you read.
If you would like to suggest a blog topic, you can send them a message through the Contact Me link on their blog.
[ view entry ] ( 7 views ) | permalink
Yesterday at home I was working on various fun work related projects, exploring the Internet and I clicked where I shouldn't have. You guessed it - my machine had suddenly been infected with spyware, my wallpaper replaced with an ominous message stating that I had an infection and my screen saver had been hijacked by a blue screen saver that led me to believe my machine was crashing and rebooting. Not only that, the only restore point left on my machine was the one created right after they wiped all of my restore points out and created a new, infected restore point.
And yes, I do have anti-virus and anti-spyware software installed.
All of this took several hours to resolve and left me very frustrated. It wasn't that I couldn't use my machine; it was useable, but there were a lot of annoying things happening and some things that wouldn't work - like I was not able to get to Google. I think I was supposed to follow yet another link and provide my credit card number for something that would solve all of my problems. Right!
My point is that, even if you are computer savvy, it isn't hard to make an innocent mistake and end up with a mess. I know that I will be less adventurous in the future.
And if you find yourself in a similar situation and you aren't sure what has happened and what to do, seek help from a qualified technician and don't just click and enter your credit card number. Let your employees know that if they should find themselves in this situation, they need to let you know ASAP so that the problem can be remedied.
[ view entry ] ( 11 views ) | permalink
This morning I heard a news report about the 'debate' taking place on Twitter this weekend. For those of you who are not familiar with Twitter, this is a site where you can tell the world, in 140 characters or less, what you are doing.
This 'debate' was organized by the Personal Democracy Forum. Although Twitter is not a concept I have embraced, I decided to give it a quick look. I can't say that I was impressed, but those who regularly use Twitter may well have a different take on it!
But how else is technology, more specifically social media, being used in this campaign? Well, both candidates have profiles on LinkedIn and FaceBook and probably other social networking sites. Although I am not a big FaceBook user, I logged in only to find that my 17 year old niece has become one of over 1 million supporters of Barack Obama. And on LinkedIn, I discovered that no one I know has yet become a supporter of either Obama or McCain, although quite a few people I know know someone who has.
Now my niece will not be old enough to vote in November, but so much has been said in recent years about young people not being involved in our democratic process. Perhaps that has a lot to do with the fact that young people don't consume information the same way that you and I do.
Social media is sure to create a campaign that is different from any campaign we have previously seen. Conversations already are occurring in ways that were never before possible, between people in different parts of the country and probably the world. Obama has even posed two questions on his LinkedIn profile and invited all of us to respond. One question is closed, but the other one was posed only two days ago and has already generated almost 1600 answers.
McCain hasn't asked us any questions, but he has gotten 13 people to write recommendations for him. Of course, both candidates have links to their websites, making it easy to get more information.
Of course, it remains to be seen if the focus on social media pays off and translates into votes, but clearly technology is going to have a major role in politics over the next 4 or 5 months.
[ view entry ] ( 9 views ) | permalink
Earlier this week, I held my first executive Lunch 'n Learn seminar at Kellogg Center. Thirteen business owners from a variety of industries attended to hear my presentation titled "What Every Small Business Must Have In Place NOW To Insure A Fast, Easy And Painless Recovery Of Their Data After A Disaster".
If you weren't able to attend this week, you can visit the lens I just created with Squidoo at http://www.squidoo.com/protectmysmallbusiness. This web page contains most of the information from my presentation and I hope that you find it useful.
If you have suggestions for topics that should be covered at future Lunch 'n Learn seminars, use the Contact Me link at the right of this page or email me at linda@KITechnologyGroup.com with your suggestions. We hope to be able to host these seminars on a quarterly basis and looking forward to seeing you at one soon.
[ view entry ] ( 13 views ) | permalink
I have been doing a lot of research on what happens to businesses that experience some type of disaster for a seminar I am giving on Wednesday. According to the Department of Homeland Security, only about 6% of business who experience a major disaster survive long term. In fact, some studies suggest that perhaps as many as 43% never even attempt to reopen.
I am sure that many of these businesses simply fail to put a plan in place to deal with a major disaster. Most of us want to believe that it will never happen to us, but that is just foolishness.
If you are a small business owner, check out the free resources at http://www.ready.gov. This information will help you get started on planning for business continuity.
[ view entry ] ( 21 views ) | permalink
Although there is a huge amount of talk right now about green computing, I was intriqued by the recent email I received from Microsoft suggesting that I start promoting Windows Vista as the green alternative.
Apparently all of the great new features and security improvements in Vista aren't enough to convince us to upgrade. So now Microsoft is appealing to our environmental conciousness by stating that every 10 PCs that switch to Windows Vista is the equivalent of taking an automobile off the road.
While that may be true, it probably isn't going to convince me that I should upgrade every machine in the office. Gosh it would sure be nice to know that all of my applications and printers will still work after the upgrade.
You can check out the energy saving features in Windows Vista for yourself at http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9033354
[ view entry ] ( 28 views ) | permalink
Perhaps you are still wondering what Web 2.0 is all about. While I am certainly no expert, I am quickly learning that this is one of the keys to marketing KI Technology Group and I have spent considerable time understanding blogs, social networking and other Web 2.0 concepts.
Today's initiative is to get my blog noticed. Towards that effort I am creating an account at technorati.com and claiming my blog there. You can check out my Technorati Profile there.
[ view entry ] ( 30 views ) | permalink
Calendar
