Our Company IT

Your Corporate IT Department

Apple iPad2 is Very Useful (and a lot of fun too!)

May 23

Posted by admin in Industry News, Operating Systems, Tablet Computing | No Comments

I know I have commented that I saw no need for an original Apple iPad.  I still stand behind that statement, but my opinion has radically changed with the advent of the iPad2.  I purchased one for myself and I have found it to be very useful in not only in my daily life, but also in my business life.  There are great apps for this platform and I will be commenting on those in future blog posts.  My advice to you is to buy one as soon as you can afford it.  I got one without the 3G feature as I don’t need it.  I will go into that more in detail soon as well.  Trust me on that though.

Online Backup That is Reliable and Easy

Feb 16

Posted by admin in Cloud Computing, Desktop Applications | No Comments

Carbonite

It is so important to backup your computers to ensure that you don’t have data loss.  Computers these days are not the costly systems that they used to be.  Computers that used to cost over $8000 in the early 1990′s  cost about $500 and are far more powerful than the old ones.  So replacing your computer hardware is far less costly than it used to be.  The information on your hard drive is what is important.  How would you like to be able to have a constant and up to date backup for about 15 cents per day?  You can.  Carbonite Online Backup is a great solution.  We here at Our Company IT use it and we recommend it for our clients as well.

No more dealing with slow tape, USB disk drives and expensive backup software and licensing.  You can try it for 15 days for free at http://www.carbonite.com.  Give it a try and never lose your information again.  It is compatible for both PC and Mac.

Our Company IT Moves to the Cloud

Dec 31

Posted by admin in Desktop Applications, Industry News, Server Applications | No Comments

Our Company IT, LLC has moved to the cloud.  We are now a Microsoft Solution Partner and we implement and   support the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Services, (BPOS).  What does this mean for your business?  State of the art technology for a very affordable rate.  Your company can now take advantage of hosted Microsoft Exchange email, Hosted SharePoint 2010 portal customized for your company, Microsoft Live Meeting web conferencing, and Microsoft Office Communication as well.  All of this is available for a low monthly cost of $10 per user, (5 user minimum).  Call Our Company IT, LLC at (484) 341-0007 or email us at info@ourcompanyit.com.

Email in the Cloud

Aug 11

Posted by admin in Server Applications | 1 Comment

Our Company IT, LLC has recently moved one of our clients to the cloud.  The first application was their email.  Previously they ran their own Microsoft Exhange Server.  Their server crashed unexpectedly, (they never seem to crash when you expect it).  After considering the options, it was decided that the client would move to Google Apps Premier for their email.  Their email addresses were the exact same as they were before the move.  Also Google has a great synchronization with Microsoft Outlook.  The staff was very comfortable with Microsoft Outlook and were thrilled that the way they do their work with email did not have to change.

The client has had such a good experience with moving to the cloud with their email, they have also moved their mission critical application to the cloud and are now investigating moving their backup regemin to the cloud as well. 

From this experience, I fully recommend the cloud for small to mid-size businesses.  It may work well for large companies as well, but Our Company IT, LLC has not had any experience yet in moving a large company to the cloud.

Implementing Open Office

Jun 23

Posted by admin in Desktop Applications | 1 Comment

There is an alternative to the various Office Productivity applications that won’t cost you a small fortune.  I recommend the use of Open Office, owned now by Oracle.  It is free and completely legal in all respects.  It is compatible with Microsoft Office documents, worksheets and presentations.  It can be downloaded and installed right from the web.  It can be found using your favorite search engine.

Windows 7 Tip

Jun 11

Posted by admin in Operating Systems | No Comments

Many clients have asked us whether it is worth upgrading to Windows 7 from XP or Vista.  We are very impressed with Windows 7.    It has run all our software applications without a hitch.  Some errant older applications have been reported to have some compatibility issues with Windows 7.  For that reason Microsoft has provided free of charge a solution called XP Mode.  It is available from the Microsoft web site for users of Windows 7 Professional or higher.  XP mode can be found at the following URL,  http://www.microsoft.com/virtualpc.