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Selkowitz Technology | Seattle’s small business network and telecom consultant

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I’m sure many of you noticed the lack of the second April newsletter, turns out we were in San Mateo being trained on what I believe to be the biggest new small business technology of the year…when we get all the capabilities later this year. For now I’ll just say I’m very excited about what we’ll be offering in the near future!

Green Tech
With earth day just having passed its worth mentioning the green PC movement. You’ll now regularly see the term ROHS, its the European Union’s new rules restricting the quantity of lead, cadmium, mercury and a bunch of impossible to pronounce flame retardants in electronics. So far there’s no green standard for the US, but many manufacturers like Dell, Apple, Intel, AMD, HP and others are introducing initiatives to further reduce energy use, reduce toxics, and improve their recycling programs.

Even with greener PC recycling isn’t just important - its the law! In King County as of 2005 computers, monitors, TVs and cell phones are not accepted in the garbage. To recycle these items King County keeps a list of recycling locations online.

http://www.metrokc.gov/dnrp/swd/takeitback/electronics/index.asp

Before recycling a PC, its important to securely wipe it out. Darik’s Boot and Nuke is an easy CD which will wipe out your PC so the data is unrecoverable.

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

Security Lemons
Its not often I talk about security as its so multi-faceted and changing so often. But one recent article “How Security Companies Sucker Us With Lemons” was a fantastic statement on the issue of not just buying security but technology in general.

Security is a lot like the used car market - a used car market includes both good cars and lousy ones (lemons). The seller knows which is which, but the buyer can’t tell the difference — at least until he’s made his purchase. I’ll spare you the math, but what ends up happening is that the buyer bases his purchase price on the value of a used car of average quality.

This means that the best cars don’t get sold; their prices are too high. Which means that the owners of these best cars don’t put their cars on the market. And then this starts spiraling. The removal of the good cars from the market reduces the average price buyers are willing to pay, and then the very good cars no longer sell, and disappear from the market. And then the good cars, and so on until only the lemons are left.

In a market where the seller has more information about the product than the buyer, bad products can drive the good ones out of the market. Back to technology - good technology is often at purchase indistinguishable from bad technology and in short the market doesn’t always reward the best technology.

Purchase cost is the easy way to compare - but is often the wrong metric to find a good product, a low total cost of ownership, or best return on investment.

http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2007/04/securitymatters_0419?currentPage=all

Sunrise Solutions Breakfast
This month’s Sunrise Solutions features Dan Weedin - a reformed (former) insurance salesguy. Dan knows the industry cold and is not affiliated with any insurance company- his advice and recommendations are for your benefit. He’s speaking on 8 Simple Rules to Better Insurance buying, I’ll be there and afterwards I’m told I’ll even understand my insurance (a bit).

http://www.winfreeseattle.com/index.php?pr=Events

Tip of the Month
Google has a great new service - Google 411 beta is a voice activated 411 service which is completely free and so far I’ve found it easy and effective. Just call 1800-466-4411 to give it a try.

- Kevin Selkowitz

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