I am sure many of you are looking at strategies to reduce costs and run your businesses efficiently as we get ready for what looks to be a tough year economically in 2009. At Fandotech, the management team has been reviewing our expenses in an attempt to do more with less and keep our team employed in 2009.  Unfortunately, during conversations with some of my clients, layoffs at their companies are inevitable. 

The challenge they are facing is that they still need to move the business forward with technology playing a key supporting role.

So what are some options?

• Reduce Capital Costs: One area that many clients expressed as a concern for this year involved how to support the growth of technology as their capital budgets are being slashed. A Hardware as a Service (360IT ) platform can get a company the technology they need to grow, while eliminating the capital expenditure. Hardware is provided to a client for a specified term (usually 3 years) and the equipment is delivered configured for your environment and fully warrantied for the term. Most providers wrap services into the offering to support the service and eliminate the need for internal support.

Hardware as a Service keeps the assets off of your balance sheet, property tax belongs to the provider, and is billed much like any other utility that a customer might consume. At the same time you can add the new technology assets (Servers, PC’s, Networking) that you need to meet the demands of your business.

• Lower operational costs: At Fandotech we have been looking at ways to reduce our monthly expenses. One strategy that we are deploying leverages Virtualized technologies. Server virtualization gives us the ability to run multiple servers on a single server asset. On our internal network, we are consolidating approximately 20 servers onto 3 servers (and one shared storage device).

We had conducted an energy study prior to moving our infrastructure to the virtual environment and estimated that we will save between $50-$70 monthly per server in energy costs (power and cooling). This translates to a minimum annual savings of $10,200! Additionally, the reduction in physical servers reduces support overhead and future hardware costs. But enough about money, what is the technology benefit?  If you need a new server for a new corporate initiative, you generally only need a copy of Windows to get the project started.

• Fix your costs:A budgeted monthly support model can provide a company with more than a predictable cost model for IT support. Many IT firms implement security tools to reduce the risk of a security breach or unexpected failure in the client environment as an insurance policy against many threats, and to reduce on-site support costs. Customers should also leverage this type of arrangement to include some level of consulting (here at Fandotech we regularly visit our clients to understand their business and to map technology to their business goals).

The strategies above can help organizations cut costs, not service, during this weak economic period without sacrificing the IT tools needed to sustain their business.

Good Luck in 2009!

Brian Doyle

Hello. My name is Sarah Marino, and I don’t have an IT background. In fact, I don’t have advanced knowledge of special applications, I can’t tell you how to get rid of viruses on your computer, and I don’t spend my spare time gaming or reading about computers and networks. Until a few weeks ago, I thought a NetApp was the one appetizer left over from a party. Nevertheless, I feel I help fill an important role here at Fandotech.

My official title is “Dispatch and Ticket Management,” which means I schedule all the field work , including coordinating projects with the project managers, and I follow up on service tickets worked on by the Technical Assistance Center (TAC) and field technicians. Before I continue, I have to qualify what I am going to say: the Fandotech team is filled with smart, talented, amazing people who have the ability to solve every problem I’ve thrown at them on behalf of our customers. However, sometimes with exceptional knowledge and expertise in an area, common sense can be taken for granted. There’s that classic urban myth/anecdote about the 18-wheeler that gets stuck in a tunnel and all these engineers, the fire department, and the police can’t figure out a way to remove it until a little girl (in my anecdote it’s a girl) in a passing car suggests letting the air out of the tires. At Fandotech, I’d like to think that I, along with a handful of others, occasionally help let the air out of the tires.

Jack Bauer, 24, Copyright Twentieth Century Fox

I work very closely with the TAC every day and help determine the escalation path for service tickets for managed service customers. So, when one of the technicians mentions he can’t solve an issue remotely and it needs to be escalated to a field technician, I start asking questions:  Is it just this user experiencing slowness when opening Outlook or is it the whole office? When did it start? Jack Bauer was onsite last week—have you called him for assistance? Sometimes my questions don’t help get an immediate solution because the technician has already dutifully asked them or they are extremely basic, but every once in a while they will spark a new train of thought that ultimately leads to a quicker resolution.

The fact that I interface with all the departments and both locations at Fandotech is advantageous to the team. Sometimes I hear information in one meeting that is useful to people in another, and I try to pass that along even if it seems unrelated. When I hear the technicians and engineers talking about challenging issues, most of it goes over my head. Instead I try to think what the customer would ask if they could hear the conversation—could my network connectivity problems in one location be related to the circuit in the other? What could be going on between 12pm and 1pm that makes my server spontaneously restart every 4th day? We have many customers who are much more technically-savvy than I who ask incredibly detailed questions, and I try to take as many notes as possible and ask as many follow-up questions as I can think of. I never know if any of that information, even the smallest detail, might be useful to the team. Sometimes I won’t know the right follow-up questions to ask, but hopefully I will the next time thanks to my handy technicians.

For some people, simply talking about the problem and trying to put it in plain English, for people like me, is part of their problem-solving process. Answering my questions or explaining the resolution to me may help the technicians get their language customer-ready. And sometimes,when I tell them to take a mental break or that it’s okay to ask someone else for help, that’s just what they need to hear to get to a solution. Hey, anything I can do to help!

Perhaps I don’t have any technical certifications and I can’t customize my own Linux server for home use, but I do have at least one valuable asset in common with our technical team—curiosity. And if my curiosity and desire to get a problem resolved for a customer ends up helping the team in some small way, I’ve done my non-IT job.

Sarah C. Marino

In January of 2007, Microsoft released what some would say is one of the worst software products in the market. I’m talking about none other than Microsoft’s current operating system, Windows Vista. Now, I know that some of you who just read those words may have had a cold chill run down your spine, but I’m here to talk about why I don’t think Windows Vista desserves such negative views.

I admit I was one of the many who criticized the entire operating system before I ever had a chance to work with it. And I’ll be among the first to admit that I was wrong. I have been using Windows Vista on my personal computer for about six months now in a dual boot environment with Windows XP. It’s been about five months since I’ve used Windows XP on that computer. Let me address the top three complaints I’ve heard about Vista:

• It’s a resource hog. While this canbe true, I’ve found that people are looking at the requirements to run Windows Vista Premium. In reality, Windows Vista Basic requires only an 800 Mhz Processor, and 512Mb of RAM. Most of the computers you can buy today come with at least these specs. Vista is only a real resource hog when you want to use nice features such as Windows Areo (the slick semi-transparent interface), or all of the new advanced display options. While these features are great, they’re not essential, and I could live without them if I had to.
  

  Windows Vista logo

• The User Account Control (UAC) feature is irritating. This is that little message that pops up every time you try to run a program, or install a new program, or make a change to anything inside of the system. I will admit that I was endlessly annoyed with it, but after disabling it, I found my experience with Windows Vista was far smoother. While this is mostly okay for personal computers, I do not recommend it for a corporate environment. Whether at home or work, the UAC can actually help detect a rogue program trying to make changes within the system, so disabling it makes your system a bit more vulnerable. The easiest way to disable User Account Control is to open up the control panel in Windows. Once inside this window you can type ‘UAC’ in the search box located in the upper right hand corner of the window. The first result of the search should be, “Turn User Account Control (UAC) on or off”. Simply click this option, and make sure the check box on the next screen is not selected. Windows will show one last UAC prompt to make sure that this is what you wanted to do, and then Windows will ask you to reboot the machine. Once the PC starts up again you should no longer be prompted by the UAC to make changes.
• Windows Vista won’t run programs that run in Windows XP. While I can’t vouch for every program ever made, I can say I have yet to personally encounter a program that runs fine in Windows XP but not in Windows Vista. I have installed programs that range from Microsoft Office to Rational Rose. I suppose that there may be cases of a software company that does not support its product running in a Windows Vista environment, but I have yet to run into even one case of that.

I feel that Windows Vista is a hidden gem, and because of a few minor bugs that showed up when it first came out, it developed an undeserved reputation. I also feel that if people would just give Vista a chance, they will be impressed with it. Yes, there are some annoyances, but with a few small tweaks, these annoyances can become a thing of the past. If you really want to try Vista, but don’t want to buy it, go to your local Staples or Circuit City and try some of the floor models they have, I am sure you will be pleasantly surprised.

Chuck Lindblom

Everyone by now will be watching, will have watched, or have seen some part, if not all of President Barack Obama’s inauguration as the 44th President of the United States. While watching the lead up to this historic American tradition, perhaps you noticed the use of G.I.S. in the televised coverage (look in the bottom right corner at the video source). If you are familiar with the power of G.I.S., you should not be shocked to know that it plays a significant role for the media.

In addition, at least one company offered G.I.S. functionality on their web page for use on BlackBerry or iPhone products. PointAbout created the “ultimate mobile survival guide for the 2009 Inauguration“. They mapped many different aspects of the event showing geographic data like security zones, public restrooms, planned events, and public opinions. It’s a downloadable application letting you provide some of the data for mapping. This is a great use of mobile G.I.S.!

You can almost guarantee that G.I.S. was used in the security planning for this event. I’m sure that Michael Chertoff utilized the viewshed capabilities to map out security countersniper positions in relation to the ceremony site. I would also bet that G.I.S. was used for running disaster scenarios for evacuation routing purposes and logistic planning. It was most likely used to analyze the parade route, staging areas, crowd control, and viewing facilities.

The entire event will be captured by many with digital cameras, some further away than others. This includes the camera on a satellite orbiting the earth 423 miles above Washington, D.C. The image provided by GeoEye will be sold to many news organizations for use after the event. Be sure to look for their photo credit on your local news broadcast.

Fuss & O’Neill Technologies G.I.S. Department performs many of the same tasks, though on a smaller scale and local stage versus the grand scale and international stage of the inauguration. Mobile applications such as public works field inspection, snow removal routing, and garbage collection routing are all common in many communities. Emergency response maps are used by local police and fire dispatchers every day. In addition, viewshed analysis is done for cell phone companies and advertising billboards on a regular basis.

G.I.S. is an incredibly powerful tool! It will be used for one of the most historic days in our nation! As a practitioner in the industry, it excites me to know that I am linked through my profession to something so technologically advanced!

Thad

Your PC could be hosting spyware or adware programs without your knowledge. These small applications, installed knowingly or unknowingly by the user (adware licenses are often buried inside the End User License Agreements of some software packages like file sharing software) and can pass information on your web surfing habits, among other things, to advertising companies, and enable them to target advertising based on your habits.

These programs can also consume valuable system resources. While not specific to Microsoft Windows XP or Windows Vista, removing Spyware and adware from your computer is an excellent step towards better PC health.

You can check for these programs by downloading either LavaSoft’s Ad-Aware or Spybot Search and Destroy, or both. Run these programs and update them via the built in interface, then check your system for spyware and adware programs. By running these programs on a regular basis your computer will run better.

Rob Ljunggren