I am convinced, and now tell my Indianapolis small business computer outsourcing customers that social media is making a permanent change to the way in which we collect and disseminate information. Blogs are a primary source of news for a growing percentage of the US population. Keeping in touch with an ever-increasing number of acquaintances - people you would like to keep in your life, but who would otherwise not warrant the effort - is made simple by social media. You can find endless lists of good reasons to dip your toes into the social media world so I'll summarize with this: You can't avoid it forever. You might as well get started. Here are some things to remember:

1. The marketers will follow you there and so will the spammers.

2. The hackers won't be far behind.

3. Social Media will become an important element in every organization's marketing.

4. It's not the end of the world as you know it.

5. Your privacy ends if you put it online.

6. Rules and protocols will develop.

7. Something else will come along to supplant it.

Go ahead. Give it a shot. If you're reading this, you've already started. An easy next step is to leave a comment.

With the frequent announcement of security breaches at large and small companies that barrage us each day, one would think that no computer network is secure. As I've frequently argued, that is likely true. However, we hear about more and more breaches because there are more and more Information Systems to be breached. Even with all of the global super-hacker geeks, the vast majority of security breaches still happen thru inadvertent leaks on the part of people who have authorized access or disclosure of passwords that allow unauthorized people into secure data.

I tell my Indianapolis small business computer consulting customers that we can take all of the precautions that are considered reasonable and then monitor suspicious behavior. It doesn't guarantee that a breach won't happen, but it's the most we can do. Lately, a bigger concern for me has been the change in attitude toward personal information security. The generation that is growing up on Web 2.0 has a completely different view of privacy than those of us who are a part of the baby boom. We get suspicious of people who want to know too much information about us without giving us good reason. They get suspicious of people who aren't willing to share every intimate detail of their lives with anyone who casually asks. When they are in charge, we'll be asked what we're trying to hide when we ask for privacy.

I spoke at a memberhip meeting of the Indiana Construction Association a couple of weeks ago. The topic was social media marketing, but we expanded it to include other aspects of online marketing. At the end, one of the attendees came up to me to say that his network support staff discouraged them from using social media sites and he was glad. He said he wasn't sure he could trust himself not to expose corporate secrets "in the heat of the moment" online. If more people thought like him about managing themselves with respect to private data, much of our fear of privacy loss would go away.

I read an article recently where the author declared the latest series of smart phones to be the first of a new category. He called them App Phones. I tend to agree that the iPhones and Android phones and, to some extent, the Windows phones have evolved to the point that they are certainly more than phones. In fact, I'd use the term Smart Devices because calling them phones is too limiting. In fact, a gentleman told me the other day that he loves everything about his iPhone except making calls on it, which he rarely does. A phone manufacturers trying to figure out how to get the jump on his competition should pay close attention to a statement like that.

These are just the first of this next evolution. Today's Smart Phones are the Model Ts or sputniks, or homo erectus of what will become the Smart Devices. Take for instance the latest catch phrase, Augmented Reality. This is where we get to see additional information overlayed on a real scene, kind of like the way Arnold Schwarzenegger saw things in The Terminator. The first real world use I heard about was decades ago at Boeing. Their wiring technicians wore glasses that overlaid the schematic diagram of the plane's wiring so they could see where they were supposed to be running the wires.


I can imagine how this would help my computer network support technicians as they go about doing their jobs in the offices of my Indianapolis small business computer outsourcing customers. The overlay could show them how the screen is supposed to look when they're done, or walk them thru the steps to get software properly configured.

I spent part of the last week playing with the new HTC Eris phone. It's the other Droid offered by Verizon. This phone has the potential to be a real challenger to the iPhone. This first iteration is weak on processing power, making many of the application noticeably slow to run. Of course, the same was true of the original iPhone. The Eris feels good in your hand and its size is right for slipping into a pocket. I found most of my favorite iPhone apps or close equivalents in the Android Marketplace. The battery couldn't last half a day when I had the push mail turned on, but with manual fetching I was able to get more than a full day. I can also swap out the battery, unlike the iPhone. I can also get the phone on networks other than AT&T. Hooray!

Here's the real drawback. The good folks at Apple put a lot of time and attention into the experience we have when using their devices. The iPhone's interface shows the result of that attention. I found it difficult to figure out how to do common things on the Eris. Not that it took me a huge amount of time to figure them out, but I had to engage brain cells to do it. And I'll be annoyed each time I have to do it in the future because it could have been designed so I didn't have to think about it.

The phone is a great attempt at imitating the iPhone. If you hate AT&T just a little bit more than I do, then this is the best option available to you...until next summer.

When I was in the Air Force I would sometimes come home and, within a few minutes of being there, my wife would say to me, "You spent a lot of time with Colonel Jones today didn't you?" The first few times I would acknowledge that I had and wonder how she knew. I thought perhaps his cologne leached onto me and she could smell it. Eventually I had to ask. She said, "Whenever you spend time with Col Jones, you come home cussing like a drunken sailor."

She was right. Col Jones was a brilliant man, but he had a mouth like, well, a drunken sailor. It turns out that foul language is not only a way to express agony, but a way to alleviate it as well. Recent studies confirm that people who swear can withstand pain longer than those who don't. That explains why those of us in the computer outsourcing business tend to swear more often than most of our peers. Imagine if you had to spend the bulk of your day dealing with computer tech support from a guy named "Bob" in India? That's the life of a network technician.

Now we don't tend to curse and swear in the presence of our Indianapolis small business computer support customers. We wait until we get back in the safety of our office where the free flow of agony relieving language can be heard at a volume considerably above a whisper. We maintain enough decorum to avoid a comparison to Animal House, but we are accustomed to frequent short bursts of four letter words. Now we know it enhances our ability to withstand the hard parts of IT support services.

While Apple has managed to maintain an image of being virus-impervious, most of us in the computer outsourcing business have always contended that the reason there weren't many native Mac viruses was because there just weren't enough Macs to make it worthwhile for evil hackers to bother with it when there were far more Windows PCs out there to attack. In fact, as the Mac continues to becomes more popular on the Intel platform, I imagine computer help desks all over the country will start to see more infected ones. The popularity of the iPhone (30 million sold and counting) has already attracted some attention. A young man in Australia has written a worm that infects the iPhone while pretending to be a Rick Astley screen saver. I have to admit that I didn't know who Astley was, but this is sure to raise his popularity briefly.

One of the most frequent questions from my Indianapolis small business computer consulting customers is, "What can I do to ensure that my network is safe from hackers?" I always answer the same way: "Disconnect your machines from the Internet."

That's the only way to be sure, and even then you may have a mole in your own organization who ferrets out data on a flash drive. (How about that, two rodents in the same sentence?) Data security is an important element of any good network design. We do all we can to keep our computer network services customers' data safe. The best analogy I can use is your home security. You lock the doors when you leave to keep bad people out. If you feel you're at a higher risk, you turn on an alarm as well. These measures will keep out most burglars or thieves. They'll just move on to the next house in search of one without an alarm or with an unlocked door. However, if the burglar is looking to get something from you in particular, your locks and alarms become a nuisance to him. He'll have to plan better and it will take longer, but if he's committed, he'll get around your reasonable precautions. The same holds true for your network. Practice safe computing and avoid upsetting anyone who might have crazy tech skills.

If those infected iPhone users had practiced safe computing, they wouldn't have jailbroken their phones, and the worm wouldn't have gotten in.

Nobody enjoys the process of cleaning up but once it is finished you feel better about everything. Just like your home and office, computers need to be cleaned up too. There are several locations on your computer where files can sit for years without being removed and over time these files can take up space or slow down your computer. There are also addons running in your browser that can slow your browsing experience down and software that you may not have even known you had that is running when your computer boots up. All of these combined will decrease your performance and can make you aggrivated at the speed.

We are an Indianapolis IT consulting company that wants to make everything run as smooth as possible for our network support customers. One of the frequent things we do is clean out their computers. We clean out these files and programs on routinely and are working toward making the process automated so your computer never slows down. Tired of your slow computer at the office? We can get it running like new again.

The new Droid smartphone has been on the market for more than a day and I still haven't been to the local Verizon store to play with one. It's rather unusual for me but my schedule was full yesterday and my wife owns my time today. I'll visit during the Colts game when other gadget geeks are working their man-sized remote controls. I'm really excited about the chance to use a phone that has learned from the iPhone success and works on a more reliable network.

Many of my Indianapolis small business computer support customers know that I'm the go-to guy for gadgets, particularly any portable devices. The upcoming holiday season may arrive too soon for the coolest of the rumored gadgets though. It's almost certain that Apple will not unveil their Tablet (iTablet) before the end of the year. If they miss the Christmas rush, it will probably be Jobs' afterthought during his MacWorld keynote in February. The Barnes and Noble Nook, which looked like it had features that would give the Kindle a run, is now bogged down in legal battles. It appears that B&N stole the device from another company. I'm sure there will be tons of new phones and mp3 players soon, but they bore us all any more. It's time for a device that defines a new category. It may just come from Microsoft.

That's right. While the "I'm a Mac" and "I'm a PC" commercials battle for our desktop dollars, the real fight for our souls is going on in the next generation of portables. Even though Apple may not hit the streets with their Tablet, Microsoft will very likely make it to market this year with their new Courier -- I don't know what generic name to call it -- electronic journal. That's right, it's unique enough that it may create a new category.

Fear not, business computer support buyers, I'll be the first kid on the block with one of these new thingy's.

A recent eWeek article recalled the top five priorities of the IT industry. According to Doug Tracy, CIO of Dana Holdings, the top five are:

• Set a Vision
• Manage Vendors
• Improve Process
• Standardize Operations
• Test Open Source

I found this list interesting because it contains the elements of our Pertingo(r) Computer Support service that most of our Indianapolis small business computer outsourcing customers overlook when they are looking for a good computer consultant. We know that our customers use price and convenience as the primary factors in deciding on a computer support service. It isn't until they've had a provider who looks at things like these top five priorities for them that they come to realize the full impact of good IT support services.

• We work with each of our clients to develop a vision for their technology that fits the vision they have for their company as a whole.
• We have always described ourselves as the "one throat to choke" to our customers. We manage the activities of every other provider who touches their computer network.
• We take the time to learn how our customers do their jobs so we can make suggestions to improve the process.
• We strive to standardize, as much as possible, all of the elements of their network.
• We're always playing with something new to see if it has applicability in our customers' IT environments.

In short, we are always working on those top five priorities. Any good IT support services company should do the same. Many don't. Sure, we are also doing those routine things as efficiently as we can. But we don't add value if all we do is fix broken stuff and wait for you to tell us what new stuff you'd like to buy. Our job is to maximize the benefit you get from having bought all this stuff in the first place. That's good IT.

As the customer service rep for our Indianapolis small business computer customers, I listen carfeully to anything they have to say.  I listen to the praise as well as the complaints.  As much as we love the praises, we analyze every complaint or concern from our customers.  One of the issues that we experienced lately relates to our computer help desk.  The service the clients were receiving was fine. The problem was when they received it.  For example, when someone at their office comes in early and finds there is a problem, they would call into the helpdesk.  The helpdesk does not open until 8:00 so the person is not able to get assistance until the helpdesk would call them back about 8:15-8:30.  Port-to-Port has listened and we're changing our hours to start the helpdesk at 7 am. 

A recent story in the New York Times brings up a brand new issue related to teh steadily growing amount of data that we all have online at various Web 2.0 sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, and all the others. Every one of those online services has a volume of information about us that we've put online behind a set of usernames and passwords. What happens to that stuff if you die? Does ownership play into divorce proceedings?

Currently no one knows for sure. Most of the online providers have no provision in their agreements to grant access to your heirs or estate. This is not a common issue that comes up in conversations with my Indianapolis small business computer support customers, but it seems it will before long.

The Times story tells of a woman who, thru her avatar in Second Life, married a man and built a happy virtual home. When the man died, the folks at Linden Labs deleted her entire virtual world because the house had been purchased in his name. The poor woman lost her online mate and all of their online possessions. Imagine if that happened in real life!

This is certainly an unusual thing for your computer consulting company to worry about -- until it becomes important to you or your business. We try to stay one step ahead so our customers can maintain their focus on their work.

Now that Windows 7 has been fully released, Microsoft is turning its attention to the next big software release: Office 2010. That's right! Just as you started getting used to having (or avoiding) Office 2007, the next version is being readied for the marketplace. If you're like me, you probably wonder how they can find anything else to do in a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation tool, or mail client. While I did find some features in Office 2007 surprisingly useful, I could have continued without them forever.

The biggest new feature of Office 2010 will be the web-based version. Microsoft is taking the online office tools like Google Apps and Zoho seriously now. And they should. I know many small businesses that use these exclusive of full desktop applications. Many of my Indianapolis small business computer consulting customers use these tools from time-to-time, but none so far have abandoned the desktop application. With the advent of Microsoft Office 2010 web apps, we may have some that take that route.

One of the things that we do to keep our computer outsourcing customers aware of changes in the IT area is to play with new things as they come along. Sometimes that means we find the coolest new things to make life easier. At other times it means we break our stuff and have to figure out how to fix it. The web version of Office 2010 could fall into either category. Time will tell.

A series of experiments conducted at Princeton and Harvard universities shows that thinking fast can make you happier. It doesn't seem to matter what you think about as long as you think about it fast. Apparently, we're wired to be mentally challenged. So why are so many people trying to get thru life without thinking at all? I hear so many people talk about how much it hurts to think.

Perhaps that's why the people who work with me at our Indianapolis small business computer consulting company are happy in the midst of ever-changing challenges. We can't get thru a day without doing some very quick thinking. Most of the time that we interact with our computer outsourcing customers, they need an answer right away. Even those who earn their living by researching the answers to complex questions expect us to have all of the answers at the tip of our tongue. Oftentimes we do, which perpetuates the myth that every computer geek can run Jurasic Park after looking at the screen for a few minutes.

Nonetheless, we are a happy bunch, even when our circumstances seem to dictate that our attitude should be less cheery. Its one of the joys of coming to work. The quick thinking nature of our jobs helps to keep us happy.

I have a second grade child that has been excelling at her private christian school.  She has been at this school for the last four years. Before Kindergarten and first grade, I compared what she was being taught in the private school to the public school curriculum. For the first two years the standards were higher at the private school so, I didn't evaluate against the public school for second grade. Boy was I wrong in not doing that!  The private school's standards fell below the public school.  When I approached the school to see why and what needed to be done to challenge my daughter, I was informed that it was too hard and I would need to do all the challenging at home. I challenge my child at home but it does need to be reinforced by the education system. Well the public school has increased what they require the children to know. If I had kept my daughter in the private school she would have been behind and potentionally not able to catch up.

What does this story have to do with computers, consulting, etc.?  It is never bad to evaluate who you are using against other people and services.  If you have a good network support group or computer outsourcing company, they will want to know where they are behind and will want to improve.  If the school had said, "Let's try these things to get back to that higher standard," we would have stayed. We liked the school, we liked the people. As I am sure you are with the people that support your computer network. If you don't like the company that supports you or you don't like the people that support you, maybe you need to evaluate why you use them. If you've talked to them and gotten answers like my private school gave me, you should see what other options are available. My small busines computer support company takes feedback from our customers extremely seriously. We don't take a squeaky wheel approach to it either. We assume that if one company is telling us they have a problem, many are feeling the same pain and we need to make changes quickly.

Don't allow your computer network services company to take your business for granted. Make them work to continue to earn your business. We know that's what our customers expect, and we do all we can to deliver. Every IT consultant in the nation should do the same.

One of mycolleagues and I went to the gym after work the other day to work out.  As the workout went on we both noticed how sore we were becoming but said that's good because it means we are improving ourselves.  It is that way for our Indianapolis small business computer support customers as well.  As their businesses mature and grow, they have to keep exercising them to keep them strong and growing.  Our task as their computer consultants is to work along side them so their technology can change as it needs to.  Sometimes, we are involved in those planning meeting but other times we are not.  Often, people don't realize that a decision they're make directly impacts their computer network and should at least include input from the outsourced IT department.  We have had trouble with a couple of clients lately in this area.  One of them uses email to run their business.  Due to the amount of email they were storing we needed to make changes to their system to allow them to keep the email in the way that they prefer. We attempted to change their behavior by archiving email instead of keeping it. They decided as an organization that they wanted to keep the email. ( As their computer consultants we can only advise them.) So, we spent many late nights dealing with corrupt mail storage to get them working. The reality is that they have outgrown their current configuration and need to do some significant upgrades. So even though the large bill for equipment may be painful, it is necessary for them to continue to grow and develop.

This incident reminded me that they hired us to be their computer consultants. Our not saying something turned out to be more painful than just telling them what they needed to hear and addressing it from there.

Part of being with IT support companies is getting to know new technology. This technology may be new devices, phones, software or, in this case, an operating system. A few of us at Port-to-Port Consulting have been running Windows 7 on our systems for months now to get a full understanding of how it works and to figure out the shortcuts.

Windows 7 is much faster than Vista. The average startup time for my Windows 7 computer is twice as fast as the average startup time for my Vista computer. It is also much more stable than Vista was before service pack one was released. In the five months that we have been running Windows 7 at 9+ hours a day we have not received one error or stumbled across a bug.

Up until now we have been implementing Windows XP Professional on all of our networks and bypassing Vista. When Windows 7 is released our computer consulting services will be issuing the new operating system with the new computers. Windows 7 appears to be stable enough for our networks and also holds a speed that won't slow our clients down.

I know it isn't spring time and no one really wants to do any cleaning, but just think about how much you enjoy the nice clean straightened out space.  That is exactly what we do for our clients.  We try hard to clean out things as time goes by for our Indianapolis Small Business Computer support customers, but for one reason or another it doesn't always happen.

I had a meeting with one of my Indianapolis small business computer outsourcing customers. She mentioned that they had some old computer stuff that needed to be removed from their office.  A couple of techs were scheduled to pick up the equipment from their office.  Boy were we surprised to find filing cabinets and shelves filled with old IT equipment...two vehicles full of stuff! It took 3 hours and 3 people to go through the stuff to see if there was anything of value.  When we finished, there were a few items that we are keeping for spare parts ( a couple USB keyboards and mice, software and spare monitor).  The client wants to help other organizations as much as they can, we will be formatting the laptops and desktops to be reused at another of our Indianapolis small business computer customers.  

Just like at home, the rooms need to be cleaned out in your offices as well. And even though my boss still has a couple of Apple Newton's in his desk (He says the portable device technology is headed back toward this idea.), most of the stuff you stashed away has no usefulness after it's been put away for more than a few months.

We have all, at some point in time, come across the unnavigable web of customer support in one industry or another.  I have days where I want to pull my hair out because of the run-around that support hotlines give me.  The question for someone like me is:  How do I make small business computer support personal for the customer?

One may argue that large companies that use enormous networks of extensions and endless menu options breed efficiency.  To an extent, this is true.  They're able to weed out what kind of problems customers are having with the products, and then sort them into different departments.  I, for one, do not believe this works as a form of Indianapolis small business computer support.  But what happens when your problem falls within multiple options on a menu?  I'm not sure about you, but there's no key on my phone that says "a little bit of #1 and a little bit of #3."  So, without a person to speak to, how do we really identify the computer issues at hand?

The best way to solve an issue is to outline the symptoms that presented themselves.  The only way a customer can truly do this is if he or she is speaking with a live human being.  As far as I'm concerned, it is the only way to perform customer support.  I receive a myriad of phone calls throughout the day, and I do my best to give a direct answer in relation to the issue.  If I cannot provide an answer, then I ask another live human being in the office.  Everyone is happier when they don't have to argue with an automated operator who cannot tell whether or not you said "tech support" or "wreck the fort."

So to anyone out there who'd like to voice his or her concerns to a real person, my ears are open and ready to assist you.  Here's to live customer support!

When we started doing computer network support as Port-to-Port Consulting in 1991, people didn't have much trouble figuring out the connection between our name and the PC on their desk. Sure, we've had a few troubled souls along the way who wanted to know if we were overseas shippers. We even had one poor man who hoped to rent portable toilets from us. Most, however, had no problem understanding that we were referring to all of those different ports on the back of your machine. As the PC has progressed, the number of ports on the back has gone down considerably. Today you can connect just about everything using only a USB port. So much for a cool business name!

About the only thing that is the same about our Indianapolis small business computer support company is the name. Our logo has changed several times. Nearly 100 people have worked here at one time or another. We've served more than 300 different businesses. And the IT industry has changed so much that we tell stories to our new staff members that sound like our grandparents stories of walking to school in the snow (uphill both ways).

My son turned 21 over the weekend. Thinking about how much he has changed thru the years made me start to think about how much other things have changed. One steady element of central Indiana computer outsourcing has been the people at Port-to-Port Consulting. While there are as many as 60 companies in the Indianapolis area that provide some subset of the services we provide, few of them have been around for more than a few years. Most are the result of recent layoffs. 

It does make me feel old to reminisce about the times we've spent working with Indianapolis small businesses on their Information Technology support. It also makes me proud of the incredible things we've done for our community thru our efforts to keep some of the most vital organizations in the area operating at peak efficiency.

I had a meeting with one of my Indianapolis small business computer outsourcing customers today where we talked about planning for their coming year. We discussed the mundane stuff like which computers should get replaced and how many new printers we should plan for. Then we talked about the things that constitute the reason I've been working as a computer consultant for the past 18 years: the future!

He told me about his vision for his organization and asked me, "What's happening in computer technology that will help me make this vision come true?" Just hearing the question gave me goose bumps. I dove right in, starting by pulling things out of my briefcase that he needed to see. The Amazon Kindle let me talk to him about the transition of printed material and how it is consumed. Pure Digital's Flip video camera let me talk to him about the way in which everyone is becoming a creator of content. My Sony Vaio TT which is one of the coolest laptops I've ever owned, let me talk about the constantly shrinking size of our most powerful computer technology.

With each item, we had a mini-brainstorming session about how the concept can impact his vision for his organization. We didn't decide to run out and get any of these things or competing products. We just imagined together how these ideas can one day make his vision more clear in his organization. Then we went back to work.

As I was leaving his office, another gentleman was waiting in the lobby to meet with him. He took a moment to introduce me and explained to the man that Port-to-Port Consulting had been with him since he opened and he has tried many times to replace us but none of our competitors will commit to learning enough about his business to help him use technology to create his future.

I was flattered to know how much he appreciates the way in which our IT services staff watches out for technology trends that can impact his business. I was a bit distressed to hear that he's been trying to replace me. The gentleman turned to me and said it was quite an accomplishment to have been supporting this organization since its inception. He knew exactly how demanding this CEO was of the people around him.