Bennett Office Technologies Managed Print Services

Last Thursday night the Minneota School Board approved a five-year agreement with Bennett Office Technologies for Managed Print Services.  Managed Print Services (MPS) is the future of our industry.  In the case of Minneota, Benett Office Technologies is taking over responsibility for the operation and service of the entire print and copy fleet.  

Benefits to the client include upgraded equipment, services through a single vendor including responsibility for keeping adequate inventories of printer cartridges, etc., which allows IT to focus on core competencies rather than printer service issues. Administration has a quantified figure for printing costs where none existed before. In education, with funding pressures mounting nearly daily, cost certainty is a major key to future planning.

We are looking forward to this new service provided to the Minneota Schools and to the future of Managed Print Services!

Bennett Family Update – The Quadruplets

We are very excited at Bennett as we have just heard word on the arrival of Quadruplets! Trevor Daucsavage, Bennett Network Engineer, his wife Disa and their three year old son have just welcomed quadruplets to the family.

On September 9th the Daucsavages found out they were expecting multiples. Two weeks later they went in for another ultrasound and found out that it was going to be four!

The doctors have said that to make it to 28 weeks, which would have been the end of January, would be great. Statistically, there would be a 93% chance of all four babies doing very well. If they could make it to 32 weeks, that chance goes up to 99%. The longest they’ve ever seen quads go is 34 weeks. Disa checked into the hospital on Monday, March 1st in preparation for the babies to arrive.

As of Monday, March 15th, Disa and the babies made it to 34 weeks and all of babies were doing good, tests were very positive. The doctors scheduled the C-section for Tuesday, March 16th at 8am.

After much anticipation, the babies were born around 9:00am on Tuesday, March 16th! Mother Disa and all four of the babies are doing well!

You can follow this amazing journey at the Daucsavages Quadruplets Blog, Click Here. Bennett Office Technologies will also add updates to our Facebook and Twitter pages.

We are so happy to support the Daucsavages in this wonderful event!

A fund has been set up for the Daucsavage’s for those who would like to make a donation to the family.

Donations can be made online, Click Here.  You may also make donations at all Lake Region Bank locations to the Daucsavages Quadruplets fund.

Support Ending for Older Microsoft Windows Versions

Microsoft support for some older versions of the Windows operating system will end starting in April of 2010. 

• Support for Windows Vista RTM ends April 13, 2010.
• Support for Windows XP SP2 and all versions of Windows 2000 ends July 13, 2010.  
• Support for Windows Server 2000 ends on July 13, 2010.
• Windows Server 2003 will move from Mainstream Support to Extended Support on July 13, 2010.

The termination of official support for the products means Microsoft will no longer issue security updates for those products.  Under Extended Support, Microsoft no longer provides no-charge incident response, warranty coverage, or design changes and feature requests.

The Bennett Techs stress the importance of having the latest versions of Windows throughout your network.  Through Windows Update, not only are you provided with the latest security updates and service packs for Windows at no cost, but also the latest updates to products such as Internet Explorer 8.  Microsoft regularly issues patches or updates to solve security problems or risks in the software.

What is End of Support?
Support for the product ends. The Microsoft® Support Lifecycle (MSL) provides predictable and consistent support timelines for Microsoft products, to customers worldwide. The Microsoft Support Lifecycle Policy offers a minimum of:

• Ten years of support (five years Mainstream Support and five years Extended Support) at the supported service pack level for Microsoft Business and Developer products.
• Five years of Mainstream Support at the supported service pack level for Microsoft Consumer/Hardware/Multimedia products.

Note:

• Mainstream and Extended Support is ONLY provided at the supported service pack level. Microsoft will support products running at the latest Service Pack level and the prior Service Pack level, 24 months after the release of the latest Service Pack.
• There is no Service Pack 3 for the 64-bit version of Windows XP. If you are running the 64-bit version of Windows XP with Service Pack 2, you are on the latest service pack and will continue to be eligible for support and receive updates until April 8, 2014. To find out if you are running the 64-bit version of Windows XP, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties. If you don’t see “64-bit” listed, then you’re running the 32-bit version and you need to install Service Pack 3. If “64-bit” is listed under System, you’re running the 64-bit version.

Mainstream Support Phase
Mainstream Support is the first phase of the product support lifecycle. At the supported service pack level, Mainstream Support includes:

• Incident support (no-charge incident support, paid incident support, support charged on an hourly basis, support for warranty claims)
• Security update support
• The ability to request non-security hotfixes

Extended Support Phase
The Extended Support phase is available after the Mainstream Support phase ends for Business and Developer products only. At the supported service pack level, Extended Support includes:

• Security update support at no additional cost
• Non-security related hotfix support if the customer has purchased a separate Extended Hotfix Support agreement (per-fix fees also apply).

Extended support does not include:
Requests for warranty support, design changes, or new features.
Support for Consumer, Hardware, or Multimedia products.

Contact Bennett Office Technologies to updage to Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 toady!

Source: www.microsoft.com

The Benefits of Managed Services

Managed services makes your IT costs more predictable and reliable, reduces risk to your data and IT assets, and frees up your resources so you can focus entirely on your core business activities.

Experience worry-free business computing, control IT costs, and get the most out of your IT investments with managed services.

What are Managed Services?
Managed services refer to IT services delivered in a defined manner with a predictable expense. Managed Services are delivered with a remote monitoring and management (RMM) system that allows Bennett Office Technologies to monitor the health and performance of your IT assets 24/7. RMM means that we can perform proactive maintenance efficiently to stabilize your IT, and respond with rapid remote remediation when things go wrong.

Business Before and After Managed Services
Business without managed services is more reactive, costly, and unpredictable. Consider the impact of unscheduled downtime, caused by a virus or technical failure. The average costs to small and midsized businesses can be staggering. With Managed Services, you can expect to experience a dramatic reduction of unscheduled downtime and lower IT costs because problems are detected and resolved faster—often before you’re even aware of them. Managed services also helps you reduce and optimize your IT spending, keep more of your internal resources focused on core business activities, and arms you with accurate data about the health and performance of your IT assets.

Managed Services monitors and manages anything with an IP address, including: desktops, laptops, servers, managed switches, routers, firewalls, gateways, VoIP switches and phones, printers, faxes or scanners, off-the-shelf and custom applications, specialized equipment and environmental control devices, internal and external websites, SaaS resources, virtual machines and much more.

Reduce Downtime, Reduce IT Costs
Industry experts and comprehensive studies from third-party research groups consistently conclude that Managed Services cost less and protect IT assets better. For example, 2007 CompTIA study found that network servers and devices that went down took 96% longer to repair when they were not covered by a remote monitoring service, resulting in costly unscheduled downtime.

CompTIA also discovered that network servers and devices that go down take an average of 96% longer to repair and end-users experience an average of 88% longer periods of downtime when the network server or device that fails is not covered by remote monitoring. They concluded that remote monitoring and management services have the greatest impact on reducing IT downtime and its impact on users. Reduce and stabilize your IT costs and experience unprecedented reliability with Managed Services. You’ll gain peace of mind, reduce risks to your data and assets, and be empowered to leverage your IT investments more fully.

SonicWALL Identifies Top Ten Online Threats, Scams and Frauds This Holiday Season

“We see malware and phishing attacks increase dramatically right before and right after the holidays,” said Andrew Klein, Product Manager, SonicWALL. “The hectic pace of the holiday season combined with the dramatic increase in online and in-store transactions strains the attentiveness of consumers making them susceptible to scams they normally would be able to identify. Unfortunately, most consumers won’t learn the extent of any damage until the holidays are over.”

During the holidays, malware and phishing threats tend to show up in a variety of forms unsuspecting consumers would not expect. Malware is disguised as a multi-media Christmas greeting card from an old aunt. A phishing attack comes from UPS or an online retailer where they just completed a purchase. A Facebook “friend” nudges you to play a special holiday game. Your favorite online retailer offers you a special discount if you “click here.”

 To prepare consumers this holiday season, SonicWALL’s Klein outlined the top ten threats for the season.

 Online Purchases: Online transactions not only increase, they are also likely to be with vendors (i.e. retailers, shippers, etc.) you do not deal with often. If you receive an email that your “Credit Card was Denied” the best course of action is to contact the vendor directly using a phone number or email address you obtained from their website – not the rejection email. Also, type in the URL of the vendor into your browser. Do not click on a link in the email itself.

1. After Holiday Attacks: Right after the holidays, the bills arrive and, given the number of transactions, you may only glance at the charges. Don’t. Carefully review all the charges and make sure you know that all are valid. This can be hard when multiple people use the same card over the holidays, but do it. Often scammers make a small charge on a card as a “proof of use”. A missed charge one month can lead a really large bill of fraudulent charges the next month.
2. Greeting Cards: Millions of e-greeting cards will be sent this holiday–some of them will be scams. When you open such messages, they may want you to download a program, codec, or other “code” to see a picture. Before you do anything, stop right there. Contact the sender through some other means and find out if the card is real before you proceed. Also, consider using alternative methods for greetings like using photo sharing service to share pictures.
3. Package Delivery Services: This type of phishing threat takes the form of a friendly notice from a package delivery service letting you know that there is a problem shipping your package. Typically the e-mail message includes a few lines such as “We tried to deliver your package, but were unable to reach you. Please click here to reschedule your delivery,” or “Open the attached document to see the problem”. When you send a package you’ll receive a tracking number. If you get an e-mail notice, don’t click on a link in the email. Find the package tracking number and see if it matches the tracking number on the email. The alternative is to go directly to the delivery service web site and check the status yourself.
4. Holiday-themed videos: Using the holiday as the hook, you’re certain to receive an invitation or two to watch the latest “Santa Gets Stuck in a Chimney” video by just clicking on a link. If the invitation (via email, chat, etc) is from a known friend then find out from them where the video is hosted (youtube, hulu, etc) and go to the site directly and search for the video. If the invitation is from an unknown person – delete it.
5. Social media threats: Over this past year, phishing and spam attacks dramatically increased on popular social networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook. With more people connecting using Facebook and Myspace, consumers may get nudges and suggestions from “friends” to view their pictures, receive some special holiday “offers” or games to play that may be malware or a phishing attack. Decide right now, who are your real friends – the people you can trust not to send you junk. Everyone else can be “friends” whose “best holiday offer ever” messages can deleted.
6. Drive by Savings: Around the holidays we may find ourselves going to web sites we don’t typically visit. Some of these sites may ask you to disable your pop-up blocker to “get extra savings”, when you do you may get a really great offer if you just supply your email address. The results may be a discount, but almost certainly be more email spam in your inbox. Most reputable online web sites don’t need pop-up windows to make you a deal.
7. Strange Searches: The holiday season brings web searches for “dog knickers” and other less typical items and the list of web sites may be less than familiar. Following a “Christmas” search result can take consumers to a web site hosting malware. If you click on a search link and you are asked to download anything to continue to that site, stop the search immediately. If you arrive at the site and you are asked to download a “plug-in” don’t. If you think the site could be legitimate then go to the web site of the plug-in vendor (Adobe, Microsoft, etc) and download the plug-in from there. Then go back to the original site and see what happens.
8. Password Requests: If you plan on tweeting about your holiday greetings or plan on use e-mail accounts from cloud-based systems like gmail or yahoo mail, take extra precaution this holiday season. Your credentials may be subject to exploits and the address books you use for sending holiday greetings from these accounts may be used for e-mail harvesting. You can protect access to these different systems by protecting your account name and password. Protect your passwords by having a different password for each different service. Don’t share them with anyone, don’t email them, IM them or tweet them either. And be sure to change your passwords every so often.
9. Out of Date Passwords: The biggest trick happens when your system protection is out of date or is non-existent during the busy holiday shopping season. Make sure your firewall can not only block hackers, but also, malware and maybe even spam. Keep your anti-virus, anti-spam and anti-phishing software up to date. Finally, invest in a good content filter, one that identifies and blocks bad web sites.

“This holiday season, online consumers should be wary of any e-mail or social interaction that looks suspicious. They should always check to see if the e-mail or social interaction is legitimate,” said Klein. “When shopping online, know how the online merchant communicates, especially in case of shipping delays and credit card matters. Assume that e-mail that either directly asks or indirectly asks for your account, financial, or identity information is fraudulent. Lastly, double-check your credit card statement–especially in January–for incorrect expenses. With these simple steps, consumers have a baseline for protection.”

To test your phishing IQ knowledge before the holiday season begins, go to: www.sonicwall.com/phishing/. For more information about phishing, malware and other related threats, go to: http://www.sonicwall.com/securitycenter

About SonicWALL, Inc.

SonicWALL, Inc., the leader in network security, develops solutions that remove the cost and complexity out of managing a secure network environment. With over one million award-winning appliances shipped through its global network of ten-thousand channel partners, SonicWALL provides end-to-end solutions that include firewalls, SSL VPN’s, e-mail security and continuous data protection that collectively ensure robust and secure network protection. For more information, visit the company Website at http://www.sonicwall.com/.

Safe Harbor Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this press release are “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The forward-looking statements include but are not limited to statements regarding various courses of conduct designed to protect consumers against certain types of online threats, scams and frauds. These forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management at the time the statements are made and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements. In addition, please see the “Risk Factors” described in our Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2008, for a more detailed description of the risks facing our business. All forward-looking statements included in this release are based upon information available to SonicWALL as of the date of the release, and we assume no obligation to update any such forward-looking statement.

NOTE: SonicWALL is a registered trademark of SonicWALL, Inc. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

SOURCE: SonicWALL, Inc.

Web site: http://www.sonicwall.com/

Podcast Video: Using Hyperlinks in Microsoft Office Documents.

Click Here to watch the Microsoft Podcast on Using Hyperlinks in Microsoft Office Documents!

Document Management, Storage and Retrieval