“I could go on and on about the lack of drivers, the bizarre wake-up rituals, the strange and nonreproducible system quirks, and more. But I won’t bore you with the details. The upshot is that even after nine months, Vista just ain’t cutting it. I definitely gave Microsoft too much of a free pass on this operating system: I expected it to get the kinks worked out more quickly. Boy, was I fooled!”

Surprisingly, even a year after its release, Vista should be avoided like two day old sushi.

Vista Service Pack 1
On the bright side, Vista may be getting better - Microsoft has been releasing details and a schedule for Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1). The expected release is Q1 08, beta (test) versions available soon. Unfortunately it doesn’t sound like there will be fixes to the many user interface design flaws, but performance and compatibility should improve.

iPod and iPhone Update
Just yesterday Apple made some huge announcements regarding the iPod line. The iPod Nano and iPod Classic have an improved interface and increased storage. The big new thing is the iPod Touch - essentially an iPhone without the Phone. iPod Touch has the same 3.5″ widescreen, WiFi, and of course plays music and movies. I’m definitely looking forward to getting the new iPod Touch in for testing!

The 4GB iPhone is now gone, the 8GB iPhone is now just $399. Those who bought the iPhone previously are being given an $100 apple store credit, details will be at Apple.com soon.

The New iMac
On the Mac side of things, Apple recently released the new iMac to glowing reviews. Both PC Magazine and CNet recently gave it Editor’s Choice awards, CNet even said “we can think of very few reasons not to make an iMac your next desktop.” I’d definitely agree for home and student use - the iMac is the way to go.

Reviews

One of the hardest things to know about technology is how it will hold up and be supported over the years. I’d like to share two of my favorite resources - PC Magazine’s Reader Survey and Epinions. PC Magazine each year compiles information about brand satisfaction by product type (printers, desktops, cameras, etc), support quality, repair rates, etc. Some of the results will surprise you - for example Brother’s black and white lasers repair rate is 1/4 of HPs! http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,1874,1626131,00.asp

Epinions is a user driven review site, reviews are overwhelmingly useful and the review quality is well controlled. Epinions has reviews of almost anything - computers, electronics, household items, books, and more.

http://www.epinions.com/

Vista No More Secure

CRN’s recent testing found that Windows Vista and Windows XP are equally at risk of viruses and exploits - even though Vista was supposed to be more secure. We’re still trying to find what Vista is actually better at - in the meantime I can’t keep reminding people enough that Vista isn’t ready for business use and has seemingly no advantages over Windows XP.

http://crn.com/software/199701019

Mozy for Mac!

One of my favorite online backup services is now Mac compatible! This is great news as the Mac has been short on online backup options. Mozy for personal use is free for 2GB of storage and $5/month for unlimited storage (Mozy Pro, the business version, isn’t out on Mac yet) - so there is no excuse for not backing up! Don’t forget though unlimited storage is limited by your internet connection’s upload speed - backing up tens of gigabytes will take days if not longer.

https://mozy.com/mozy/macmozy

Free Voicemail Special

I’m sure everyone who’s called in lately has heard our new phone system, Talkswitch. This month we have a great special on the 240vs Talkswitch system - a free one hour voicemail upgrade ($100 value)! The 240vs handles two inbound lines, four local extensions, ten remote extensions (cell phones), and with the upgrade has 1.5 hours of voicemail all for just $695!

Tech Word of the Month - Whitelisting

With SPAM continuing to come in at high levels, most companies have tightened junk email filters to keep inboxes clean. Inevitably some “false positives” will occur where legit email gets filtered out. Any filter should give you a regular digest of filtered email or show you a separate spam box, however to prevent recurring false positives whitelisting can help. Whitelisting is a feature every spam filter I’ve seen has, simply saying to always allow specific emails/domains through (the opposite of a blacklist).

A few tips to prevent your email from being filtered out:

1) Don’t use free email sites or ISP emails (aol, hotmail, etc)

2) Don’t use excessive capitalization, punctuation, etc

3) Put in a subject line and message body in every email

Perhaps more important is don’t try to install Vista on your current PCs unless you bought really high end systems last year - Vista needs a lot more resources than XP. Some are arguing the practical minimum is a dual core processor and 2GB RAM - something few PCs have.

Long and short of it is there isn’t a compelling reason to upgrade yet and plenty of opportunity for problems. I recommend waiting and giving Vista time to mature - Vista’s time will come, just not right now.
Lights Out
Last month’s power outages reminded many of us how dependent we are on power - I can’t even make a phone call without having power. I went looking for practical emergency power and found the Powerpack. The Powerpack is a battery backup (like a UPS) but is designed for emergency use - it has AC and DC power outputs, charge and load monitoring, a light, and radio. The PowerPack can charge off household AC or off the lighter jack in your car when you drive around. It can even jump start your car.

Obviously the PowerPack won’t run the fridge or furnace, but is great to keep a laptop running, cable/DSL modem, cell phone and other small electronics for days. At about $130 its a bargain for a bit of comfort in an outage. PowerPack is available at Amazon.com
Cookies, Defrag, and other Old Wives Tales
Cookies and de-fragmenting the hard drive are common “household remedies” many people use when encountering unknown issues with their computers. Unfortunately these rarely solve any problems and can create others. The threat of cookies was long ago over-hyped and somehow they’ve become in the eyes of many to be a threat to security, privacy, and will cause the sun to go nova. The truth is cookies are an important and safe tool on the web - cookies are benign files which help web pages know your customer ID or shopping cart contents. Cookies are rarely the source of computer problems.

De-fragmentation in the process of “organizing” the hard drive in a more efficient manner - think of it like re-alphabetizing a bookcase. While fragmentation hurt performance of older operating systems, new ones like XP, Vista, and Mac OS X don’t suffer significant performance hits due to fragmentation. Its not bad to de-fragment and you may get a temporary boost, but it won’t solve any problems.

When things go awry the best thing to do is write down exact error messages or conditions and either google them or email us. And definitely skip the matzoh ball soup.
Utility of the Month
While there are many dangers of smoking, there’s one benefit of regular smoking breaks - getting away from your computer. Overuse of a computer without a break can cause injury and hey, people can’t buy new computers if they’re injured. So having said that, download a copy of Workrave for Windows or AntiRSI for the Mac - its safer than smoking and gets you needed time away from your computer.

1) The de-facto standard implementation
In the technology business certain products and techniques have reached de-facto standard status. However the question is who’s setting the standard? The tech industry as a whole is only discovering the tremendous opportunity and need for small business technologies, most of their focus has been largely
on bigger business or consumers.

As the “small business” technology market emerges I’m seeing many enterprise products repackaged and claiming to be designed for small businesses. While its great to have the same power as big business - those businesses also keep full time staff to maintain these systems. Some people dedicate their careers to just one component of a computer network (exchange, firewall, backup, etc). But small businesses can’t afford full time staff or specialists for each component of their systems…which often leads to option two…

2) Blow it
Its not a technology option we consciously choose, but sometimes by under or overdeveloping our systems we end up putting ourselves at risk. Too simple of systems leave us open to being hacked, wasting time, or losing data and too complex of systems put us at risk of having what one can only call a boondoggle. If only there was something just right…

3) Pick a simpler system
Ask yourself “what do I really need out of technology” and use the products that provide just what you need without the frills. Ultimately a limited, simpler system that always does what its supposed to is far better than a system that can do anything but can’t seem to do anything easily or reliably. A few technology companies have dedicated themselves to making products specifically for small businesses - and those products really work better and cost less.

4) Use managed/hosted services
Instead of investing in equipment, let external services “host” the functionality you need. In other terms if owning your own equipment is like having a kitchen and cooking dinner, hosted services are like dinner delivery. This is particularly appealing for services that require a significant amount of regular tweaking, monitoring, or maintenance - like spam filters. Hosted services sometimes can save money, but sometimes can cost a lot more - if you need more bandwidth (internet speed) to utilize hosted services the TCO will be higher than in-house options as serious bandwidth costs serious money (though selling it makes me seriously happy).

For most small businesses the best options usually are simpler systems and managed/hosted services as these will provide the necessary functionality with the lowest total cost of ownership. These two fields will increasingly be our focus this year as I think the greatest value we can offer small businesses are unique, smarter options for their technology needs.

Roomba
Roomba is a robotic vacuum and while its not quite Rosie the robotic maid from the Jetsons, it does a remarkably good job of vacuuming (I bought one for “testing”) and certainly likes vacuuming more regularly than I do. Its also fun to watch it figure its way around a room, avoid obstacles, etc. If this is our future, I welcome our new robotic helpers right up until they revolt like the Terminators or Cylons. Roomba at Amazon.com

Nintendo Wii
This is the first gaming console that’s excited me in quite some time, since its the first console in a long time that wasn’t designed for hard core gamers. While the other consoles keep getting more expensive, complex, and make more detailed games shooting people - Nintendo is trying a different approach. The controller is simplified, but more revolutionary is a significant amount of game play is done by the motion of the controller - not pressing buttons. The game selection is looking very diverse and there’s even classic games downloadable from the Wii online service - the Wii will be making gaming popular among the masses again, not just the gamers. Wii at Amazon.com
Slingbox
Ever been at the office or traveling and wish you could be watching TV at home? While the Slingbox can’t teleport you home, it can bring your home TV to you across the internet - even to your Treo! Slingbox at Amazon.com
iPod
While Microsoft would like you to believe their Zune is the iPod killer, it just doesn’t rock like the iPod. Apple introduced an all new lineup of iPods about a month ago including the new (Product) Red model with a portion of profits going to the Global Fund to fight AIDS in Africa. Of course I’d be remiss to not mention we sell iPods at selkowitz.com with free shipping and free engraving.

Mirra
Digital cameras have been hot the last few years, but now that almost everyone has them, few people are actually backing up their family photos! Mirra is great for families - just plug it into your network, install the software on all your PCs and Macs, and it does the rest! Backups are automatic and painless with Mirra. Mirra at Selkowitz.com

Windows Vista (kinda)
Early next year Microsoft is releasing Windows Vista to the world, which replaces Windows XP. But buying a PC now with XP actually makes a lot of sense, because you get a free upgrade to Vista with any PC bought now with XP Pro. You might wonder why not wait a few months, but the thing is I never recommend running a new version of Windows right when it comes out. Vista is bound to have major problems and the programs you need to run may not be fully compatible. Let other people be the guinea pigs and wait to find out what problems crop up and when they’ll be fixed. I’m sure by summer or fall Vista will be fine for most users, but in the meantime if you need a PC it is better to get one with XP and the free Vista upgrade which you can install anytime than to wait and get Vista first thing.

If you are looking at running Vista, be sure to get a PC with a dual core processor and 1GB of RAM for best results. Our new BizBox Core 2 RTS fits the bill and actually costs less than the same configuration from Dell!

Happy (almost) holidays all, if you have any questions about these or other geeky toys, don’t be afraid to ask!

- Kevin Selkowitz

How it got started
Years ago we didn’t sell very much equipment, like most computer consulting companies we mostly installed and managed what people bought online or at the computer store. The problem was people often bought the wrong thing or poor quality products and often things didn’t work as well as our clients or I desired. Ultimately if our clients were going to hold us accountable for their systems, we had to pick the equipment.
Is it the consultant or the product?
Technology is often seen as being difficult and unreliable and sometimes that’s definitely the case. The question is why - I think its combination of configuration, consultants, and equipment. We could be greatest consultants on earth, but without the right configurations and equipment the systems we sell and maintain would still be problematic. The right products and setup is vital to good systems - and we can’t depend on Frys, Dell, or CompUSA to offer them.

How we pick products
When we pick a product there are many factors we look at:

• Availability - we need to know we can reliably and quickly get a product to a client.
• Ease of setup/use - we know you won’t use it if its too complex and frankly even we prefer simpler installation and management.
• The right features - having every feature and the kitchen sink just makes systems more difficult and unreliable, we evaluate what features businesses really need and find the product that fulfills those needs best.
• TCO - total cost of ownership, we look at the cost for the lifetime of the product and even migration to the new system. People look too much at cost of purchase without looking at the installation cost, maintenance, downtime, repairs, and life-span. The lowest TCO usually comes with a moderate purchase price.
• Warranty - warranties are evaluated both on duration and how they’re fulfilled. For example some companies will run you through hoops and make you wait a week for a replacement unit, while others overnight a replacement no questions asked.

We evaluate these aspects by consulting other people in the industry, reading reviews, studying manuals, talking to the vendor, and even bringing in test units. Needless to say picking a product or vendor does take a fair bit of time, but in the end its worth it. One of the side benefits is our staff knows the systems we sell best - we can configure them blindfolded, we know the little tricks, and we know how to resolve problems quickly. I know we’ll do a better job every time with the equipment we know and trust - what’s why we sell what we sell.

Buy an iPod for AIDS
Apple just released a new red iPod Nano with a portion of the profits going to the Global Fund to help people affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa. Of course I doubt iPods will cure the world’s ills, but hey, every little bit helps and its a nice little bonus. We sell iPods at our Apple Store - we’ve got free engraving and free shipping too!

http://www.selkowitz.com/images/apple/atstore.html
- Kevin Selkowitz

P.S. next month I’m planning a christmahanaquanzika tech gift report. I can’t believe its almost that time again…