Slow Hosting Poor Email End Of A Network Solutions Era
You know what they say… everything changes. And change includes Network Solutions, after undertaking a major face-lift and product reposition last year. Whatever you think of the new look, it’s a distraction at best for the difficult position I find myself in.
During the early ’90s, I frequently completed the mail-in applications for domain names and sent them to you know who. I didn’t know that anyone else would sell me a domain name.
I preached accolades for Network Solutions and I certainly didn’t figure out how valuable domain names would be or how ubiquitous the Internet would become. So much for being on the forefront of modern technology.
Anyway, since the early ’90s, I’ve recommended Network Solutions to every person that’s ever discussed the Internet with me. I’ve constantly made a point of stressing how important one’s control over their own business domain name and hosting is to their business continuity and how important bullet proof email hosting is to the success of a company; which brings me back to Network Solutions.
For many years, I’ve depended on Network Solutions to provide me with the very best email services that money can buy, but at a reasonable price. Before last Summer, I can count on one hand the number of spam emails I’ve received through Network Solutions.
I’ve even cut over several non profits I’ve worked with to Network Solutions to solve their spam problems. Pro-bono, but for self preservation; I hated getting the calls about spam email and dealing with the damage caused by unsuspecting computer users after they’ve accidentally (or whatever) opened one of the emails. Then last year, Network Solutions’ email abruptly changed.
Can you imagine letting a email like the obvious spam message below get through your system?
For crying out loud, it’s even got a zip file attached to it. Two years ago, I would never have received anything like this through Network Solutions email servers. Can you imagine the damage this thing could do to a typical windows computer user.
It’s time for Network Solutions to clean up their act. Add their email mess to the fact that their web hosting speed diminished from an average of 500 milliseconds to an average of 3800 milliseconds over last summer and you have a serious customer service issue. Click here, count to ten, and you might see a web page, one that used to render in under a second.
I’ve tried. I’ve called them. I’ve emailed them. I’ve completed their surveys. I’ve given them almost a year. So, I’m gone.
Preaching Backup Again
The Western Digital My Book World Edition 4 TB (2 x 2 TB) Network Attached Storage Drive
Although the design squarely hits the home network sweet spot, it would be a great economical addition to a small office network to aggregate both computer backups and shared files to one office device. It even comes with all of the backup software.
Check out this video. Western Digital specs read:
Automatic and continuous backup for all the computers on your network
Centralize all your family’s digital content
Best-in-class performance cutting-edge technologies to deliver high performance read and write speeds ideal for the most demanding users.
Built-in media server for streaming music, photos and movies to any DLNA certified multimedia device such as Playstation 3, Xbox 360, wireless digital picture frames, and connected audio receivers. DLNA 1.5 & UPnP certified.
iTunes server support to centralize your music collection and stream to a Mac or Windows PC using iTunes software.
This drive even sports remote access to your files. It needs to find it’s way to your office.
Beware Of Twitter User Name Identity Theft
Strangest thing happened to me the other night while I reviewed Google alerts that watch my name, company name and social networking user names. I like to keep an eye out for strange happenings so I’m not blind sided by something. The Google alert for my Twitter username picked up one of my tweets.
I thought that strange so I investigated. Upon clicking the link, I was directed to this Twitter site:
Looks like my Twitter page, but it’s not. After I reviewed the tweets, I decided to delete a couple then tried to logon to my Twitter account. Suddenly, IE security kicked in, alerting me to the account information phishing scam.
Seems that someone‘s after unsuspecting Twitter users. So, time for all of you IE users to update your web browsers to the latest versions. I’m glad I did.
Virtualization Cost For Small To Medium Businesses
Advertising builds expectations that lead to sales pipelines loaded with prospects armed with the seeds of anticipated pricing. Virtualization rapidly rose to the top of technical must-haves for businesses looking to upgrade their computing infrastructure.
Recently, Dell promoted it’s virtualization with an interesting ad. I don’t often get such a clear opportunity to demonstrate the costs that small to medium businesses can potentially incur from typical virtualization scenarios.
I probably don’t need to remind you that this ad does not include software licensing, conversion and maintenance costs. In a typical twenty-five user office scenario, software might include Microsoft Exchange Server for email, Microsoft SQL Server for the LOB database back end, Microsoft Terminal Services application delivery services for LOB software, fax services for network fax capability, a Goldmine or Act server for CRM, file services for document management, services to extend security software to each computer and services for Peachtree or QuickBooks Multi User accounting software.
Virtualizing all of these services and software components would not only require hardware in excess of the $25,999 package, but the software costs would push this project well beyond the $150,000.00 range, not to mention IT costs incurred to deploy and maintain your virtualized environment. I can easily see over $5000 per month in amortized and recurring costs, a large price to pay for a small business to move current infrastructure into a virtualized environment.
From a technical perspective, I love to do this stuff. And, your environment will look more uniform, take up less rack space, will be more recoverable and will perform well, all good reasons to leverage virtualization. However, there is a better way, one I will explore with you in my next post.
How to Ensure EMR Can Co-Exist in Your Doctors Office or Clinic
APC has an interesting white paper about deploying EMR. You can download it here. (requires new account setup) Of course their take is from a power perspective.
The key things you want to be sure of when you consider where to actually put your equipment should include the following:
• Ability to provide enough cooling for the hardware as the hardware needs it
• Ability to simply and easily add new hardware. Storage, for example, is going to grow each and every day – just look at your paper files
• Ability to provide dependable power to the hardware that is protected so that it is not interrupted and can expand when you add new hardware
• Ability to see and manage of potential problems from power, cooling, or security
• Simplifies the set-up and use of new hardware by simplifying cabling.
I see these as the top five reasons to think real seriously about a HIPAA compliant virtual hosted environment for your new EMR deployment. Keep the hardware out of your clinic and save a ton of money and headache.
