January 7, 2009 -- We are a week into the new year and most New Year's resolutions are a distant memory, if that. I thought this was the ideal time to look again at what tasks you might want to consider for your system as we move into the new year.  So, here is my checklist of 5 important IT taks to consider for improving the way your computer system supports you.

December 17, 2009 --  It's that time again.  Chanukah and Christmas are here and if you, like me, haven't shopped yet, you're probably desperate for some gift ideas.  So, I have perused a number of sources and come up with some gifts, mostly inexpensive, that you might want to consider.

December 10, 2009 --  So, I got on a technical support call the other day (yes it happens to me to) and the technician asked me to run through a couple of tests that I had already run.  For a couple of milliseconds, I felt exactly what I can tell my clients feel when I ask them to do the same thing. But, in fact, a second pair of eyes are always good, so I ran through the procedures again. And, got the same results. I tell you this story so you will see that I feel the same frustrations my clients and you probably feel when dealing with technical support.  The truth is that there is a lot you can do to help make a technical support call easier for yourself and to get the technician working with you. This post provides some tips about how to do this.

December 3, 2009 -- December is here and what was a new year is about to become the old year.  This is a good time to catch up on all those IT chores that you, or your IT staffer or consultant, swore you would keep up with all year.  But, in the press of day-to-day responsibilities, it's easy to say "I can do this tomorrow." The problem is tomorrow never seems to come. So, here is my list of things you, if you run your own equipment, of your IT staff member or consultant should take care of before the year ends.

November 26, 2009 -- I planned to take Thanksgiving Day off and skip writing a post this week.  However, as I thought about the holiday, I came to feel that just taking the day off was not enough.  Instead, I want to step out of my IT shoes and talk about what this holiday means to me.

ovember 19, 2009 -- I'm lucky. Because I'm in the tech business, I am forced to keep up with what is going on in technology and communications. So, I have to remind myself that for people who are not in the business, the pace of change can be overwhelming.  At a recent meeting of the Executive Committee of the Sierra Club New York City Group, on which I serve, we were discussing our plans for a Facebook Fan Page.  One of the members, a woman that I would guess is in her late thirties, wondered why we would even want to do that. It turned out that she is not on Facebook, unlike 1.6 million in the New York area who are. I know a nonprofit that launched a very poorly designed website because they had already invested money in it and they just wanted to get it up. And, I know many small businesses that think they can increase activity on their sites and attract people to their business just by getting their web sites "right." It is understandable that people think in these ways, but it is not based on facts and it does hurt them. Here is what they need to understand.

When I was an IT Director, my organization had an Exchange server. Staff used Outlook to work on their email, but they could also access the same email on the Exchange server over the web. When I left, I set up email for my business, using what is called a "POP3" account. I can access my email via the web until I open Outlook. Once Outlook sucks the mail down from the email server, it is no longer available via the web.  This can be inconvenient if I need to get an old email away from my office.  Well, I have now moved my business account to Google mail and I can once again access all my mail via Outlook or over the Web..  Let me tell you how.

November 5, 2009 -- I get this question all the time. It's usually followed by "And, what kind." I always start by saying, "Well, it depends." Or, if they have already decided they must have a server, they tell me they are looking at an XYZ server they can get for $699 and isn't that great? Again, I tell them, it depends. So, I thought it might be helpful to explain the kinds of considerations a consultant has in thinking about servers for small businesses and nonprofit organizations.