Simplex-IT BizBlog

Like every year before, 2012 promises to bring continued evolution in the world of information technology. Of course, some segments will gain in popularity while others will diminish or even disappear altogether. Who will be the ultimate winners and losers? How will the inevitable changes impact the decisions you will be called upon to make in your professional role?

Join Simplex-IT for our first free Lunchinar of 2012 as Bob Coppedge peers into his crystal ball to suggest what technologies you should be following in the New Year to help your business prosper. Will it be the Cloud, Social Media, Virtualization…or something else? Join us and find out!

Where: Hattie’s Café, 164 N. Main Street, Hudson
When: Wednesday, January 18, 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!

“At the beginning of the year, there were a lot of predictions on how 2011 would be the year of the cloud, and that it would be a tipping point for cloud adoption everywhere. These predictions have been largely confirmed.”

So reports Thoran Rodrigues on his TechRepublic blog article entitled “2011: The Year the Cloud Went Mainstream.” The article goes on to cite some of the growing pains the cloud encountered in 2011 and what the prospects are for 2012. Suffice it to say the future looks bright indeed.

Also featured is a link to an article in Harvard Business Review titled “What Every CEO Needs to Know About the Cloud.” Cited as “a very simple measure of how widespread cloud computing has become” it makes for very interesting reading, particularly if you’re contemplating how cloud services may benefit your company.

Of course, if you’re looking for specific guidance you are always invited to contact us here at Simplex-IT (John@Simplex-IT.com or phone 234.380.1277). We’re always happy to help!

Happy New Year!

Once a month Simplex-IT hosts a free Lunchinar that features an informational presentation aimed at business owners and/or IT professionals. But this year, for the month of December, we decided to do something different. It worked out so well we decided to make it an annual tradition!

First, we kept the free lunch idea. After all, we reasoned, who doesn’t like a free lunch? But instead of a business presentation, we decided to simply open the room to a relaxed atmosphere of networking. It worked! A good number of folks accepted our invitation to take a break from the hustle and bustle of the holidays and mingle with other like-minded professionals. The forum was very well received!

Networking at the Simplex-IT Holiday Lunch

In addition, in keeping with the Christmas spirit of giving we held a raffle for nearly a dozen Geek gifts, the top prize being a copy of Office Professional 2010, donated by Simplex-IT partner, Microsoft. There were several other prizes donated by one of our clients, Life Equity of Hudson. Other geek gifts were hand-picked by our own Chief-Geek-in-Residence, Kevin Dutkiewicz.

Prizes for the Geek Charity Raffle

In addition to the raffle proceeds of just over $200, Simplex-IT wrote a check for an additional amount and contributed a total of $500 to the Hattie Larlham Foundation (http://hattielarlham.org), a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of children and adults in Northeast Ohio with developmental disabilities. Sandy, one of the hard-working employees at Hattie’s Café, gave a brief presentation on the Foundation and thanked everyone for their attendance and participation.

John introduces Sandy from Hattie's Cafe

At the end, everyone agreed a good time was had by all! And that is how an annual tradition is born!!

Simplex-IT president Bob Coppedge gives his fireside address

Merry Christmas to everyone from Simplex-IT, and best wishes for a Happy New Year!

On December 11 the Simplex-IT staff and significant others gathered for the company’s annual holiday brunch. The food buffet was great as was the freshly squeezed orange juice. Everyone seemed to have a wonderful time, clearly evident from all our smiling faces in the group portrait below.

Bob, Sam, Kevin, John, Doug, Mario, Cyndee, Steve

Thanks go out to all of you whom we’ve had the pleasure of working with during this past year. We are looking forward to continuing our tradition of exceeding our clients’ expectations in 2012.

As more than a casual observer, Bob Coppedge, president of Northeast Ohio’s information technology management firm Simplex-IT, has taken notice of a significant increase of malware attacks occurring in the recent past. In his quest to be more like Lenny on the popular TV show Law & Order, Bob has prepared this short video to help you understand what malware is, explain how it is socially engineered to trick you into allowing it to infect your computer network and, most importantly, how easy it is to protect yourself from what is otherwise a likely inevitable attack.

If you can spare just 4 minutes to view this presentation, we trust you will find the investment in your time to be very worthwhile.

At its conclusion, we invite you to call us at 234.380.1277 or send an email to John@Simplex-IT.com. We stand ready to answer your questions and reveal how easy and inexpensive it is to implement effective solutions to help you guard against malware attacks from the internet. Just click on the thumbnail below and you’ll be on your way!

Ok, this is thanks to our bud Dan Hanson over at GreatLakesGeek.com.

Don’t know what to get that Microsoft geek who’s on your list, but you really don’t want to spend anything on?  We’ve got you covered!

It seems that Microsoft has put up 7, yup 7 free technical eBooks for downloading.

Yup, they're free!

Now, these are pretty good books.  Each of them are decent sized, and worth perusing.

And the topics cover a wide range of topics, including:

• IT Careers
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• Virtualization
• Office 365
• SQL Server 2008 R2
• SQL Server “Denali” (the new version!)
• Deploying Windows 7

 Good stuff!

Click here to get your copies (oh, and check out the poster showing creating snapshots in a Hyper-V environment)

Simplex-IT’s October 2011 Lunchinar presentation “Upgrading Your IT Network: How Do You Know When It’s Time?” is now available for viewing on our YouTube channel.

At just a little over an hour in length, this excellent overview discusses the costs and compromises in productivity that result from letting your organization’s hardware and software become too outdated. Part of Simplex-IT’s ongoing monthly free lunchinars it was positively received by both the technical AND non-technical people in attendance.

Just click on the thumbnail below and enjoy!

Bob here.  Over the past couple years, I’ve tried a lot of different marketing techniques. E-mail, postcards, social media, mailing lists, blitz contains, smoke signals, phone campaigns and more.

Some things work. A lot of other things, not so much. But I do think that we’ve developed a pretty good program that’s working for us. It’s relatively low-cost, relatively measurable, and seems to generate an appropriate amount of business for us.  It’s a combination of blogs, email, FaceBook, LinkedIn, mail, phone, YouTube and shoe leather.

In discussions I’ve had with other business owners, both in and out of the IT business, there’s always been a keen interest in just how we do this. And, as you can see from this YouTube video (recorded from an online meeting I gave to about 75 similarly positioned IT firms back in June), I’m always willing to share our methods and madness.

And it recently occurred to me that some non-IT folks might want to hear what we do.

So here’s my offer. If you’d be interested in hearing what we at Simplex-IT do for our marketing programs, drop me a line. If enough people are interested on this, I’ll put together an informal get-together where I’ll review our programs, and have some open discussion on what works and what doesn’t in this fun economic time.  Obviously, no cost or anything.

What are we selling? Nothing. But I’ve had enough conversations with folks to know that this is a tough topic. And I thought it might be worthwhile to hear from someone who’s not selling something.

So, if you’re interested, e-mail me at Bob@Simplex-IT.com, and let me know! Operators are… Well, actually we don’t have any operators. But if we did, rest assured they’d be standing by.

Perfect weather and a great turnout combined to make Simplex-IT’s 4^th Annual Community Appreciation Picnic this past Wednesday, August 17, 2011 a resounding success. With nearly 70 attendees over the 4-hour duration there was plenty of discussion and lots of networking that took place.

There were the usual suspects: folks from the Streetsboro, Hudson and Greater Akron Chambers were in attendance as were IT professionals from the Greater Cleveland PC Users Group (GCPCUG). Several associates who are ‘in transition’ and various Simplex-IT clients rounded out the guest roster.

Chef Steve manned the grill most of the afternoon (I don’t know how Bob’s wife, Julie, talked him into it!) and he managed to keep the hot food coming to meet the demand.

Several low-key demonstrations were held on Microsoft Office 365 for those who expressed interest and island music played in the background giving an extra edge of summertime fun to the occasion. There’s nothing like a little Bob Marley to help put one in the mood!

Get a taste of what it was like by visiting our Facebook page where Cyndee Duhon, Simplex-IT marketing expert and photographer extraordinaire captured the moment in time: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.268640259816485.90697.141004949246684&type=1

If you missed it and now wished you hadn’t remember that old northeast Ohio mantra: “There’s always next year!”

Thanks to all who helped make it a great afternoon

We are pleased to announce Simplex-IT’s Lunchinar, “Introduction to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2011,” is now online at our YouTube channel and is available for viewing. For your convenience, we have embedded all four parts of this presentation below, making it even easier for you to review Doug Tombow’s excellent overview of this exciting new cloud service.

Customer Relationship Management, commonly referred to as CRM, is receiving increased attention by today’s businesses. The ability to track an organization’s contact with a customer – from the sales department to customer service to accounting and everywhere in between – provides the kind of control needed to take advantage of every possible opportunity to exceed client expectations and increase revenue.

And since keeping a lid on costs is so important these days, the fact that companies can get started with CRM Online with no upfront costs for hardware and software is a huge plus. Since it is a subscription service, you only pay for what you need and use.

But you can listen to the whole story below. Just sit back, get comfortable and click on a thumbnail to get started. When you’re finished, if you have questions please give us a call (234.380.1277) or email John@Simplex-IT.com. We’re always happy to help!

Part 1: What is CRM? – Benefits of CRM – The “US” vs. “I” Challenge – Online vs. On-Premises – The CRM Online interface

Part 2: Exploring Tasks, Contacts and Accounts – Integrating CRM Online with Outlook

Part 3: Tracking Activities – Customization Possibilities! – Challenges – Defining Business Processes

Part 4: Setting Expectations – Free 30-Day Trial – Reporting Services – Costs – Synchronizing Offline Data