I had a client contact me recently about email encryption.  I new already that there were 3 ways to go about this:

1. You can use a service that manages the encryption.
2. Install an encryption gateway at your office.
3. Or install a desktop app that you have to manage public and private keys for.

This is a necessity for many that send sensitive email because once an email leaves your organization it is no longer encrypted. 

Example 1:  You have hotmail account and you email a yahoo account: the email is not encrypted once it leaves hotmail's servers.  and visa versa.

Example 2: You have an Exchange Server in your organization and you email another company out there that has an Exchange server by default these messages are not encrypted either. **

While I was updating my pricing list for different services to recommend, I found a very compelling new service:  http://www.sendinc.com

The service does not store any of your data.  You go to the main page which has the email form on it.  After you type in your email address they require you to register.  You then create your message and choose who you want to send it to.  You can attach as much as 10 Megabytes of attachments.  The message is encrypted and then attached to an email that is emailed to the recipient.  So the message is no longer stored at Sendinc.  When the end user opens the website attachment the data is uploaded to the website and decrypted there.  All data transmissions are RSA SSL encrypted (1024 Bits).  Even if you forward your email to someone else they cannot read it.  It has to be opened from your email.

I give this web app two enthusiastic thumbs up!

**You can create a site to site encryption in Exchange server between different email domains but that is beyond the scope of this post and would be time consuming for managing the certificates between any domain and all the domains that you would want to encrypt your email between.

Do you think Strickland Networks has or is helping your business by managing the Information Technology side of your business?  Do you know other companies that could benefit from our services?  If so, recommend us to your friends, colleagues, and business partners.  Strickland Networks is offering $250 for each referred new client that signs and enters into a Managed Service Contract with Strickland Networks.

This money can be paid directly to an individual, credited to your monthly bill, or it can be given to a non profit / charity of your choice in your name.     

Have your friend, colleagues and business partners call or contact us.  Be sure they mention who referred them to Strickland Networks.

info@stricklandnetworks.com

(817) 224-2020

I have switched all my person email to a Google Apps account.  I wanted the email control and the customized domain.  Only problem was that I couldn't use most of the other Google products.  In particular: blogger, picasa, and voice.

I searched for some time trying to figure out how to do this.  Nothing useful was coming across my screen.  I accidentally discovered how to do what I so desperately wanted Google to do when I was trying to setup adsense.  

Here's how you do it:

Create a new Google account.  Here is the link. 

https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount.  

Use your Google Apps domain email address and follow instructions.  Once complete / confirmed, you can use most of the Google products.

Bonus tip:

If you want to transfer your Google voice account from your Gmail.com account to your Google Apps domain, click this link.  

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=cjlWRDFTWERkZEIxUzVjSmNsN0ExU1E6MA.  

You must complete the Google account setup first though.

Disclaimer: not every bank has this setup yet, my bank just happens to be leading the pack.  

I got my iPhone 4 about three weeks after it had been released.   I am finally one of the cool kids and I do not have a blackberry or windows phone anymore.  I installed my banking app and remembered someone telling me that their app allowed depositing of checks via the app by taking pictures.  Honestly, I thought this was the most useful thing to do with the camera and the iPhone in general.  

I get expense checks from time to time that are not direct deposited and my bank has no local branches.  Previous to the iPhone app, I had another bank locally, and I had authorized wire transfers between the two.  But this still required me driving a ways, depositing the check and then transfer the funds.  iPhone app comes along and this is not a problem any more.  I choose mobile deposit and take a picture of the front and back (which is signed with and labeled for deposit only into my account).  Funds are available immediately.  

To me, this is a game changer and should send banks into examining why they have so many branches when a smart phone could do a bulk of deposits for individuals.  Commercial deposits, well, not every solution is a good fit to every problem.   

My definition of CLOUD:  The most over used buzz word of recent times.  Putting that aside, some IT solutions just fit better with someone else hosting and maintaining that part of your business.  Today, I am focusing on email.  

Money: Yes, money talks.  You can host email offsite for as little as $4.17 / month / user and a maximum of $10 / month / user.  This isn't with some fly by night company either.  We are talking about Microsoft and Google.  Let's case study a company with 30 employees needing to upgrade their email server and say that the company replaces equipment precisely every 4 years.  Option 1: Purchase new server and replace.  Cost: Approximately $7500.  (Server + Software + Licensing) .  Option 2: Google apps domain: Yearly cost $1500 and total cost over 4 years is $6000 plus initial setup (man hours). Option 3: Microsoft hosted exchange: Yearly cost of $1800 and total cost over 4 years $7200 plus initial setup (man hours).  Option 4: Microsoft BPOS: Yearly cost of $3600 and total cost over 4 years $14400 plus initial setup (man hours).

With the last 3 options, the best news is that after the first four years, your company is purchasing new equipment.  You continue to pay your monthly fee and upgrades and improvements are added to your hosting solution in the cloud with out any intervention from your IT staff.

Maintenance:  I am in no way saying the cloud is maintenance free, but I am saying that your IT staff will spend much less time maintaining the email hosted in the cloud once the initial setup is done.  Think of this, the burden of backups, uptime, equipment and so on is now rolled up into a nominal fee you are paying.  

Reliability: Service Level Agreement!  What would it cost your company to place a redundant email system to a data center that offered very high speed internet and redundancy.  I have recently priced this and $20k - $30k for hardware alone.  Add on a $500 - $1500 monthly fee for the data center and internet.  All this exercise was to get your SLA up to 99.9%.  Or, when you buy a hosted solution, it comes with that SLA bundled in you low recurring fee. 

Eat our own Dog Food: Not only do we recommend these solutions, but we use them too. Our corporate email is hosted with Microsoft BPOS.  Personally, I have a Google apps domain for my family.  I like both products and they both are reliable and quality products.  

Ready to buy yet?   If this peaked you're interest and you are ready to switch, give Strickland Networks a call.  Not only can well help you chose the right solution, we can help you implement it as well.

The other night I was up late (imagine that), and I was tinkering with my phone and some possible cool apps.  I came across one of my all time favorite apps, QIK for my Blackberry.  QIK is really a website, www.qik.com, that allows you to stream live video from your video camera enabled cell phone.  I live streemed this video from my Phone and then it was automatically Published to the site.  You can also mark videos as Private, share them with specific people, or publish to several social networking websites. Your Live Streams are also archived.

If you are also interested in finding out more about the RoomAlert, check my blog or subscribe to the RSS feed.  I Should be posting about it soon.

Very Cool!

So I run into more and more computers compromised by malware or viruses everyday.  With internet access ubiquitous and with computers connected to the internet 24/7 it's just a matter of time before some malicious hacker attempts to add your home computer to a botnet somewhere in the world.  And staying on top of all the required security updates can be daunting for a typical home user.  Our computers are supposed to make our lives easier, right?  They're not supposed to cause us headaches and give us a night job just keeping them secure.

One free tool that I have found invaluable for home networks is OpenDNS for free content filtering for the everyman.  I recommend this service to every home user.  This amazing service not only protects your computer, but it protects your kids as well by blocking viruses and malware, as well as filtering other yucky content like porn, drug references or other adult contet.  All for free if you're a home user.  They do offer businesses service as well for an incredibly cheap price.

They have great walk throughs on setting it up on their website (http://www.opendns.org), but to summarize, you configure your home router to use OpenDNS servers to resolve internet addresses instead of the DNS servers your ISP provides.  Most users will need to run a small piece of software on one pc on the network to update OpenDns whenever your IP address changes, but it's aslo very easy to set up.

I can't recommend this service enough - I've been using it for several years now.

Here is a great blog post that gives instructions on configuring many different types of home routers:

http://pixiescorner.wordpress.com/2010/05/27/otherusing-opendns-to-filter-unwanted-sites-to-your-home-network/

So okay, I wasn't able to sleep so I started reading some email. You kow trying to catch up on some inbox reading.  I then came across my occasional MCP Flash email that told me about a new online game.  It is a  Microsoft Professional Quiz Show style game!  I know sounds geeky, but I figu re if you are reading my blog you might be into this kind of thing.  Anyways, You can use your passport login on Live ID whatever you have, and give it a go.  If you login it will track your progress so that you can leave and pick up where you left off later.  Also for me it was adictive, and it points out what I need to brush up on (since this is my career I figure I need to stay sharp). 

Questions Range from Easy, Medium, and Hard and it is timed when you see your answer choices.  There are also some lifelines or as they call them, "Vouchers" that you can use.  Questions topics include but are not limited  to: Win 2008, 2003, Exchange 2007, Win 7, XP, and SQL 2005.  There could be more but I didn't play for long.

The name of the game is Are You Certifiable?.  And, here is the link: http://www.microsoft.com/click/areyoucertifiable/default.aspx

If you want add me as a friend in the game, screen name: DRMILES

Happy Gaming!

Over the past 10 years I have worked on a multitude of routers / firewalls.  SonicWall is my absolute favorite.  In operating systems, I have switched around liking one over the other but in firewalls, SonicWall has always been my champion.  

One of the best features is you do not have to be a genius to program the firewall.  No memorizing long commands and perfect syntax to be used in command line.  There is a simple, easy to understand GUI that is web based.  Any computer with IE or Firefox (no chrome support, yet) can connect and make changes.

The price is just awesome as well.  We have had customers request Cisco and I throw in a SonicWall quote to compare; SonicWall wins hands down every time.  The add-ons that people crave like Intrusion Protection Service, Antivirus / Anitspyware protection, and Content Filtering are very solid products with low prices.  

Wireless: SonicWall has you covered.  My first sonicwall wireless install was for a 3 story 15,000 square foot office building.  I placed the access point dead center vertically and horizontally and I had the whole office covered.  Not one single dead zone.  This was in 2005.  Pretty much unheard of to cover that much area for about $500.  Recently we installed a much smaller office with 4 access points, let's just say the neighboring tenants are now having trouble using their wireless because the SonicWalls are broadcasting so well.  

The two things that just bring it home for me are support and reliability.  When I call support, I do not wait that long and I get knowledgeable people.  This is not like calling a PC company and everyone reads a script.  In the reliability department, I have installed hundreds of these units and the most common replaced part, power adapters.  In 10 years, I have sent 1 SonicWall back to the manufacturer for replacement.  

Everyone's blood is blue until it hits oxygen, mine just happens to be SonicWall blue.

With all of the new features of XenServer 5.6, I have been very excited about rolling it out.  There has been one thing though.  OpenManage and XenServer haven't been the best pals.  When we had been trying to rollout any XenServer on a Dell Server, it seems that we had to jump through hoops to make OpenManage work.  Well Dell has really worked on being more XenServer Friendly and released a Supplemental Pack for XenServer. 

A Supplemental Pack is an install package that can be slipstreamed into the install of XenServer.  So if you were installing XenServer you would simply start with the install CD, then use the Linux Templates Supplemental CD, and then use the Dell OpenManage CD when it asks for you to continue the install.  It is great!

I had to call Dell to get a copy of the ISO because it was not yet available on the website.  Here is the link so that you too can enjoy some Dell and Citrix Xen!

http://ftp.dell.com/sysman/OM-SrvAdmin-Dell-Web-LX-6.3.0-2075.XenServer56_A00.10.iso

By the way, Thank You! Johanness Far (Dell Enterprise Technical Support Senior Analyst) for getting me the link.