Wireless Internet Connectivity at the Office

This week I was in Las Vegas to meet with a number of vendors who focus on wireless connectivity. We often think about cell phones first and foremost when we think of wireless devices, and rightfully so. They have become an ubiquitous necessity in today's business world, and we are just beginning to tap the potential of wireless connectivity as it relates to business. Cell phones are giving way to smartphones that can not only deliver email but also empower us to work over the Internet while we are away from the office. Eventually they will include additional communication options that we can only dream of today.

But wireless connectivity is already more than just cell phones. Consider the wireless cards that allow us to connect our notebook computers to the Internet at speeds that rival DSL in the office environment. I personally use a Novatel Merlin S720 card on the Sprint network with my notebook when I am in the field. We've come a long way from the days when we had to use a modem at dialup speeds to connect a notebook to the Internet. Now we have the ability to connect wirelessly from anywhere in the service provider's signal range. But in terms of business continuity there is a larger point to be made when discussing such a wireless card.

If your business has but a single pipeline to the Internet and you need connectivity in order to conduct business, what do you do if that connectivity goes down? If you haven't given this subject any thought you really need to do so. I have experienced several outages with my Comcast service at my office that could have been very disruptive. By using my Sprint card I was able to continue working effectively despite the inconvenience of the Comcast outage. Essentially, I have a redundant Internet connection (and I don't consider the ability to use a dial-up connection a redundant solution in a business setting). The really great thing about the Sprint card is that there are now several routers available that accept such cards and which can be brought into service in your network in a few minutes should an outage occur. So if you have a Sprint card or one from another cellular provider, why not invest in a solution that will keep you and your business up and running when you need it the most? You'll be glad you did the very first time you need it.

Spell Check for Internet Explorer Forms

The Internet has become a major communication tool and with it have come a new set of challenges. One such challenge is entering information correctly in on-line forms. Several months ago I became annoyed with myself when I posted information to a website only to discover afterwards that I had several typos in my remarks. As a proponent of putting one's best foot forward as much as possible, I felt that this post was less than professional. So I went on a search for a spell-checking tool that I could use in such situations.

With a little effort I found a great utility program called ieSpell that works with Internet Explorer. It is a browser extension that quickly and easily checks your spelling in web page text input boxes. All you have to do is click on the spell check button in the tool bar and it will guide you through the process very swiftly and accurately. It is free for personal use and it is very inexpensive to license for business use. Here is a link to the website: http://www.iespell.com/

Even if you qualify for the free use of the product, I encourage everyone to buy a license or make a donation to the author of any freeware program that they find useful. Support for independent software authors keeps this kind of creativity flowing and encourages the development of additional programs that help us get things done more effectively. As for shareware, where you can try a program before you buy it, there is usually a slightly different arrangement. Most shareware programs allow you to use them for a specific period of time, after which you are expected to either delete them from your computer or pay for the program if you wish to continue using them. Some programs time out and will not run after the trial period while others just keep on running, leaving you on the honor system. Again, if you find value in the program, just do the right thing and pay for it. You'll sleep better at night and a software author somewhere will be grateful for your support.

When Hard Drives Fail

I recently had to deal with a couple of hard drive failures, something that we rarely encounter these days. The first instance occurred while I was at away at a conference. After conferring with my client we decided that he could get by with a second computer until I returned. Upon arriving at my client's office I was prepared to salvage my client's data and get a temporary hard drive up and running until HP could replace the defective unit.

When I opened the case I immediately remembered that we had ordered an HP computer with a RAID 1 mirrored hard drive setup. Simply stated, RAID 1 has two identical hard drives running side by side and if one drive fails the second drive continues operating as if nothing had happened until a replacement for the failed drive can be installed. In this situation, the computer wouldn't start as expected, so I disconnected the failed drive, rebooted the computer and the system started up with no loss of data. The total time to get the client back in operation - about three minutes. Now HP could come in, replace the bad hard drive and I could then rebuild the RAID afterwards.

As I thought about this incident I realized that certain clients should, because of their particular circumstances, have a RAID 1 setup in place because they simply cannot be without thier computers. Even though we have measures in place to protect their data, we need to discuss additional measures that can provide rapid recovery from an unexpected computer failure. Just as we employ multiple layers of protection from viruses, spyware and other malware, we can provide a layered approach that can handle hard drive failures. Another tool at our disposal is the use of imaging solutions that let us take a complete "picture" of a hard drive and restore that image to a new hard drive in a few minutes.

Every layer of protection has a cost associated with it, but as a business owner you must weight the cost of the solution against the cost of downtime. By carefully assessing the most critical computers in your business you can create a stategy for minimizing downtime. Unless you place no value whatsoever on what you do to earn a profit, the cost of a properly designed hardware uptime stategy will likely be recovered if and when you experience the first major failure. It is a specialized insurance policy, focused on keeping you in business. And that is part of an overal business continuity plan.

The second incident was a lot closer to home. It involved my primary computer. I had been experiencing a few random startup issues that led me to believe that I might have a faulty memory module on my motherboard. For safety's sake, before I left for the conference I backed up my e-mail account. My operating system and programs were on one hard drive while my data was stored on a second hard drive, which I also backed up. When I returned I decided that I would make some time two days later to replace my aging system with a new one that I had ready to go on my workbench. Enter Mr. Murphy and his famous law. Within an hour of making that decision my primary hard drive experienced a catastrophic failure. But I wasn't really concerned because I was backed up and the new system would be ready with minimal downtime ... or so I thought.

Despite the fact that we can recover data from failed hard drives in many cases, the damage to this hard drive was unrecoverable. And once I discovered that fact I also discovered that I had inadvertently backed my e-mail data up to a default location on the primary hard drive instead of to the second hard drive that held my data. The bottom line was the loss of a lot of e-mail. It wasn't catastrophic, but it was rather inconvenient. So I decided to employ the lesson that I learned from my client's situation and I took the time to rebuild the computer with a RAID 1 setup. I am also using imaging software as a secondary line of defense. So, as we are so fond of saying in this business, I am eating my own dog food by doing exactly what I will advise certain clients to do going forward. And that is a very good thing.

TechSmart Business - Up & Running

Welcome to TechSmart Business. I decided to launch this weblog as a tool that would allow me to share interesting and useful information that relates to our primary business mission - providing guidance and technology solutions to small and medium businesses. We do this with the objective of business continuity in mind at all times. Business continuity, in itself, is a huge subject but I define it like this. Business continuity means staying in business - profitably - today, tomorrow and until you as a business owner want to exit the business. Starting from that definition, we work with businesses and look at every aspect of their operations to help them accomplish that goal.

This concept isn't strictly limited to for-profit businesses. Much of what we do also applies to clients that we serve in K-12 education and local government markets. The profit motive may not be applicable to them, but the fundamental principles of management and many of our technology solutions span all three markets equally.

So what can you expect to find here as this weblog starts to take shape? I plan to share anything and everything, large or small, that supports the concept of business continuity such as:

• Background information that would encourage you to think about an aspect of business that you might be neglecting or might not otherwise be exposed to.
• True-to-life adventure stories that illustrate how and why we recommend some of the things that we do for and with our clients.
• Tips and tricks that can save time, improve efficiency and/or increase profitability.
• Utility programs that do something especially well or that make life easier.
• Breaking news that might have an impact on how you run your business.
• Anything that amuses me (and perhaps you, too).

This is certainly not a definitive list, because I believe in adapting to change rapidly so long as their is a purpose to doing so. Hint - there is a high likelihood that you will see a future post that speaks to the very point of adapting to change. So for now I will leave things at that and invite you to check in often or subscribe to our news feed and I will do my best to make this an interesting resource for you and your TechSmart Business.