It’s my fourth such event.  It’s Kevin’s third (newbie).

Some info for some of you might be in order.  Simplex-IT is what is known as a “Managed Service Provider,” or MSP.  A key component of that concept is automated monitoring and managing of the networks of our customers.  Level Platforms is the tool we choose to work with.

I’m actually a Council member for Level Platforms (yeah, they were desperate, lost a bet…the mind boggles), and Simplex-IT has been working with LP for over four years.  One of the reasons we’ve stuck with them is the product just keeps improving with a steady stream of updates.

Anywho, not the main point.  The best part of these events is the chance to sit down with other MSP folks, and trade experiences and perspectives.  As many of you know, we’re very proud of our marketing, but I’d like to streamline some of the monitoring we do for some of the infrastructure devices, such as switches and the like.  So one minute I’m talking about our Marketing processes with several folks closely listening.  The next I’m just as focused hearing about SMNP configurations.

The bottom line is this.  Any opportunity I get to exchange experience and methods with smart people, boy, am I there.  If you’re a Level Platforms Partner (or are considering becoming one), you should check these events out.

And if you’re not, consider how you can find a way to exchange ideas with similarly minded folks.

You’ll notice I didn’t mention the word “competition.”

Honestly, for these types of events, I don’t believe in it.  Go figure.

So, the day will inevitably come when you need to reach back to a backup and retrieve some data. A drive has failed, someone overwrote your documents, a natural disaster has claimed your location, whatever. Shortly after looking at your backup, your expression changes that to horror as you realize that either A) Your backups haven’t been working like you thought they were, or B) You never had them in the first place. Neither are good situations to be in. So what can you do? Well, first of all make sure this problem doesn’t happen.
CHECK YOUR BACKUPS!
Make it a part of your routine to check them <plug>or hire us at Simplex-IT to do it for you.</plug> Whatever you decide, just check them and avoid the frustrations, time loss and cost of your remaining options. Remaining options? You mean there’s hope? Well, the answer like so many other things is “it depends”. Here’s a brief run through of a few ways to recover data.

DON’T PANIC!
Douglas Adams never spoke truer words. Stop using the drive and execute your game plan for recovery. Even if that plan is “call your favorite IT support company” that’s a great place to start.

Check the Recycle Bin
If the victim was a file on your computer, check here first. You might have just deleted it and it’ll be sitting there waiting for you.

Check Windows Shadow Copies
Shadow Copies? Isn’t that something an anime character does? (I had to get the Naruto joke in there somehow). If you’re using Windows Vista, 7, Server 2008 or Server 2008 R2, you might be able to restore a file or folder on your computer by looking at previous versions of the object. These can also be enabled for network shares, talk to your network administrator if they have it enabled or not. To use it, right click the file or folder you overwrote/deleted and choose the “Previous Versions” tab. If you have any restore points they will be listed there. You can view them or do a restore from here.
The major downside to this is it isn’t always turned on by default and it will use up some system resources (hard drive space, processing power) depending on how long you want the previous versions stored. But generally speaking it doesn’t consume much so I would suggest enabling it on any system. The default settings work well, but you can tweak it as you see fit.

Stick the Drive in the Freezer
I’m serious. Depending on how a drive fails, freezing a drive overnight might allow it to operate long enough to pull the most critical data off. I’ve personally tried this about a dozen times and roughly half have succeeded. The technical explanation for why this is freezing causes physical parts of the drive to change shape, so in the case of a mechanical failure the changing shape might be enough to allow the drive to function. It’s crazy but it can work.

Undelete Tools
If the above didn’t help, there are tools available that will scour a drive looking for any bits and fragments of a file and attempt to reconstruct them. How can it do this? When you delete a file, Windows doesn’t delete the contents, it only delete references to it. A good analogy is think of your hard drive as a filing cabinet. Your data is like the files in it, and outside of the cabinet is a binder with the location of everything inside. Deleting a file is like crossing out the entry in the binder outside, the file is actually still in there, but any reference to it is gone. Undelete programs manually sift through the entire contents of the drive and will report back what it can or cannot retrieve. The problem here is that as Windows operates, it goes through and potentially overwrites the original data. The longer you wait to recover the higher chance you will lose the data.
If I had to list out the cons of any of the undelete programs, I would start at speed and reliability of recovery. Depending on the size of the drive, it could take days to scan. During that time you cannot use your computer less you compromise your reliability of anything it finds. The programs generally aren’t expensive, but depending on how thorough it scans, how it scans and a host of other options, the programs can be a little as free, and go up into the thousands of dollars. In my opinion you get what you pay for. I’ve personally used several pieces of software to do this and I’ve had good luck on simple recoveries. I recently had a family member’s computer hard drive catastrophically fail and lose hundreds of family pictures. The family member also had recently deleted the pictures from their camera, but I was able to go through and extract almost 800 deleted pictures from the memory card with no corruption on the photos.

Data Recovery Services
If nothing else has worked, this is your last resort. In this scenario, you package up your drive and ship it someplace for them to peel the drive apart (both logically and/or physically) and extract everything they can. Most places charge a fee to even look at a drive, and then depending on how it has failed the costs add up, quickly. A simple FAT corruption could be a few hundred dollars to recover, whereas a head crash or firmware corruption might be several thousand dollars to recover. It boils down to how bad you want your data. I’ve worked with a few of these places throughout my career and have had good success with them. They aren’t cheap, but your chances of recovery are much higher here than any other solution.

I can’t stress how important it is to test you backups regularly and not have to do anything that I just ran through. Outside of the inconvenience of it all, depending on the data for your business there might be legal issues involved with being unable to reproduce old records.

I think I’ve rambled on enough. If there are any questions or comments feel free to contact me at kevin@simplex-it.com

And if I didn’t mention it already, CHECK AND VALIDATE YOUR BACKUPS! Just hearing a tape spin up or job marked “successful” isn’t enough. Verify contents and test them regularly.

I stumbled on this site recently, BPOS Tutor, that includes a nice 90-second video that shows how a BPOS administrator can easily add email addresses, domains and IP addresses to black/white lists.  Pretty straightforward.  And you can find it here.

• The Cloud
  • Are outages inevitable?
• Microsoft’s Strategy
  • New Products – Windows 8, Office 2012, SQL Server 2012…Kinect!
• Climate Change – Weather’s Impact on Global Production
• Backup’s Focus is Shifting to Business Continuity
• Government Regulations (SOPA)
• Social Media (of course!)

We hope you enjoy!

So it’s taken me a while to get comfortable with adding a support position to the organization. To date I’ve taken personal responsibility for billing, reporting, trying to maintain project timelines, vendor relationships, payables and the like. So far, so good.

But I can tell that’s not going to last for long, therefore I’m creating a new position within the organization. Tentatively titled “Office Manager,” this position is still somewhat under construction. However at the least it will have the following responsibilities:

• customer billing
• accounts payables
• Accounts Receivable
• verify technicians schedules and ticketing

Salary is commensurate with experience (whatever the heck that means). The ideal candidate needs to be able to work with a wide variety of people, must have attention to detail, and be able to work on many projects daily. In addition, basic computer skills including Microsoft Office are a necessity. This position is neither a gopher nor a secretary but a critical piece of this organization.

If you’re interested, send me a resume along with salary requirements to Bob@simplex-IT.com.

During Simplex-IT’s next free lunchinar, you will learn about Microsoft Lync, an often under-appreciated component of Office 365. Offering secure instant messaging, Internet-based voice, video conferencing, collaborative whiteboarding, presence and seamless document sharing on almost any device, Lync is transforming business productivity. If you’d like to see how your information workers can get more done in less time, this presentation is for you!

Where: Hattie’s Café, 164 N. Main Street, Hudson
When: Wednesday, February 15, 2012 from 11:30am-1:00pm

As a bonus, we will be awarding door prizes of Windows 7 and Office 2010 to two lucky attendees. Free food AND free software – how awesome is that!

We remind you, though, seating is limited. To reserve yours, email John@Simplex-IT.com or call 234.380.1277. Come join the fun!

President and Chief Technical Guru Bob Coppedge entertained the group with his prognostications of IT Trends we can expect to see in the coming year. The Cloud, the differences between backups and business continuity and Microsoft’s planned new product offerings for 2012 (Windows 8, Office 2012, Server 2012, others) were among those topics highlighted. An energetic discussion of his picks occurred throughout the presentation.

Simplex-IT hosts these free lunchinars every 3^rd Wednesday of each month. Watch this blog for announcements of future events. In addition, our monthly eNewsletter provides details of each monthly gathering. To sign up to receive it, just go to our website – www.Simplex-IT.com – and click the link for the newsletter.

A similar BlackBerry service for Office 365’s precursor, the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), originally cost users $10. But RIM made the service free for BPOS a year ago and committed to making an Office 365 version free, as well, when it shipped. It now looks like that is Mission Accomplished!

Key features of the new service include:

• Wireless synchronization between a BlackBerry device and Microsoft Exchange
• Self-service security access that allows employees to reset their passwords and remotely lock or wipe their devices in case of loss or theft
• Web-based console for provisioning, managing and securing BlackBerry devices
• BlackBerry Balance, a RIM technology that presents a unified view of work and personal content on a BlackBerry while keeping the content separate and secure

If you have been holding off on moving to the Microsoft Office 365 cloud services until they can fully accommodate BlackBerrys, now is the time to give Simplex-IT a call to get the ball moving. Your last excuse has just been removed!

For some, whether Microsoft met their goal remains open to debate.

But, for me, I was curious as to how they actually arrived at and ultimately decided upon the Ribbon configuration. I’m happy to report if you have 90 minutes to spare I have located The Story of the Ribbon, documenting the entire history of how this User Interface was created. It’s a truly fascinating story and entertainingly presented.

It’s not often you get to go “behind the scenes” of the development of a product and this is truly an eye-opening experience. You may find it even helps you understand Ribbon better.

If you are still using Office 2003 or earlier, this might just motivate you to consider making the jump to Office 2010. To those I would say “Come on in, the Ribbon’s fine!”

Enjoy!

But I’ve come to realize the importance of talking about business.  About understanding business processes and needs.

And it’s a skill that’s still sorely lacking in the IT world these days.  And in my mind it’s the best skill set any IT professional can develop in terms of increasing their worth to their organization (or client, in the case of consultants).

I’ll be speaking at the Ohio North SQL Server User Group on Tuesday 3 January about this very topic.  Click here for more information, and to register.

The meeting is free, open to the public, and there will be pizza, plus a couple raffle prizes (at least 2 copies of Windows Ultimate!).