Time To Clean Out Email

We have been fielding a few calls regarding issues with Outlook and/or Exchange lately. In resolving these issues we are noticing that some users are becoming very lax in keeping their email folders cleaned up. In some cases users have over 15,000 messages in their folders.

With disk space becoming cheap a lot of users simply aren't taking the time to clean up. This is a bad idea. First, why keep old stuff? Evaluate how often you go back to find something that's 1 year or less old. How about 1 to 2 years old? How about 2 to 3 years old? If you really must get back to that stuff you should be creating yearly archives that will allow you to call things back while getting them out of your Outlook folders. Large Outlook mailboxes make things run slower and can cause you to receive various Outlook errors. If your Outlook is anything less than Outlook 2003, you can crash Outlook if the file gets larger that 2 Gig.

Organizing Outlook is another concern. Do you keep all your items in your Inbox or your Deleted Items folder? When was the last time you cleaned your sent items folder out? Creating a simple folder system for storing your email will save you lots of time when you are looking for things and keep your Inbox reserved for what it was intended - new items coming in.

Outlook is a great tool. However, it does require regular house cleaning. Give us a call if you want to know more.

Welcome to 2005

It is the end of one year and the beginning of a new one. This is always a good time to do some thinking about your IT assets. First, make sure you have created an End of Year backup and separate it from your normal backup media. If you ever need to be able to get back to 2004 you will be able to. Regarding backup, it's also a good time to cycle out some old tapes and insert fresh ones in their place. If you have tapes that are more than 18 months old you should phase them out. Also, check your backup. Make sure you are able to read tapes back and that everything is being backed up as it should. Have you added storage space this year? Is it included in your backup process?

This is also a good time to review the status of your servers, workstations and peripherals. Replace older machines that are slowing your users down or creating security risks. At the same time evaluate your software licenses. Are you legal? Should you be considering upgrades.

Evaluate how you might use training to help your employees be more productive with the software applications you are using. How about some training for yourself?

Make one of the resolutions you make for 2005 to be more productive with your IT assets!

Microsoft Buys Anti-Spyware Company

Microsoft purchased Giant Software Company on Thursday. Giant Software Company is a startup that has created a popular anti-spyware program. Most people know the program by the name of I Hate Spam, although this is not the program that is marketed by Giant Software. They licensed the product to another company that sells it under that name. In fact there is now a legal battle going on between Microsoft and the other company. It seems that the other company owns partial rights to various components of the program. This should be interesting.

Last year Microsoft purchased an anti-virus company. It is expected that they will introduce an anti-virus, anti-spyware program sometime before mid-2005. I expect that it will be a paid product instead of a free add in. The anti-monopoly thing will probably insure that. Besides, Microsoft could use another revenue stream!

Sprint To Purchase Nextel

First it was Cingular buying AT&T Wireless to form the largest wireless carrier and now Sprint is purchasing Nextel (as long as all the regulators agree), to form the third largest wireless carrier. Verizon is in the middle.

I thought the Cingular/AT&T deal was probably a good idea. They have compatible systems and AT&T is really lost lately. Unfortunately, the merger will be a negative for us in Connecticut as part of the deal was a requirement that they divest some of the properties. Connecticut was one of those. In Connecticut AT&T Wireless was sold to AllTel .... Who? .....Great!?

Sprint/Nextel is a different story. They do not have compatible systems and really have totally different clients. Sprint is mostly consumer oriented and Nextel is business oriented for the most part with its push to talk function the biggest feature for its business customers. Sprint has been unable to get its push to talk functions to gather steam. Time will tell but Nextel customers better keep their eyes open, this is going to be a rough ride.

Verizon will not stay idol. Keep your eyes on them.

Spam The Spammer?

Lycos Europe (an internet Service Provider) is offering its customers a free program that bombards known spam servers with a stream of garbage that is intended to slow the server down enough to make it difficult to send the quantity of messages that it needs to send out. The idea is that if enough people do this the spammers will give up I guess.

It won't work, and I suspect that some legal action could be generated by this. I don't think you'll see this program available for long. I do think you will see Lycos's own servers bombarded by spammers and hackers.

The best way to stop spam? Stop buying the stuff! Did I tell you the story of the spammer that made $24 MILLION in 4 years?