Good Morning-
Just an fyi that Anchor's holiday hours are as follows:
December 24th-Closed at 12pm MDT
December 25-26-Closed
December 31st-Closed at 12pm MDT
Jan 1-2-Closed
As always, clients with service agreements have 24x7x365 coverage for server emergencies.
Please let us know if you have any questions!
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year,
Vince
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Holiday Business Hours
Good Afternoon!
Our offices will be closed in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday this Thursday and Friday. We will resume normal business operations on Monday, December 1st.
For clients with service agreements, rest assured that while our business offices are closed, our NOC team will continue to monitor and resolve any issues on your server during this time. As always, we also have our on call technician available for any after hours server emergencies as well.
At Anchor we have much to be thankful for. We thank you for your business and appreciate the opportunity to serve you. Have a great Thanksgiving, and we hope you get to enjoy some down time before the rush of the holiday season!
Our offices will be closed in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday this Thursday and Friday. We will resume normal business operations on Monday, December 1st.
For clients with service agreements, rest assured that while our business offices are closed, our NOC team will continue to monitor and resolve any issues on your server during this time. As always, we also have our on call technician available for any after hours server emergencies as well.
At Anchor we have much to be thankful for. We thank you for your business and appreciate the opportunity to serve you. Have a great Thanksgiving, and we hope you get to enjoy some down time before the rush of the holiday season!
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Urgent Microsoft Patch for all Monitored Clients!
Today Microsoft released security bulletin MS08-067 as an unscheduled patch release. This bulletin affects all current supported versions of Microsoft Windows (Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, & 2008) and identifies a vulnerability where an attacker could execute code of their choice on a vulnerable machine without authentication. Direct external attacks are unlikely due to the public facing firewall you have in place, however if a machine were to become infected from a user download or malicious website, the infected PC on the LAN would be able to infect other vulnerable Windows machines on the LAN as well. Therefore we are working with our NOC team to deploy this patch on all monitored servers and workstations this evening starting at 7pm.
This is very short notice from Microsoft and uncharacteristic for them to release a patch off schedule. As a result, we are heeding their warnings and have a sense of urgency to get the patch applied to all monitored servers and workstations this evening. If you have our patch deployment service for pcs, please ask your users to keep their pc turned on this evening so the patch can be applied. It will also require a reboot, so your users may find their pc at the logon screen tomorrow. Thanks for your time and please contact our Help Desk if you have any problems.
This is very short notice from Microsoft and uncharacteristic for them to release a patch off schedule. As a result, we are heeding their warnings and have a sense of urgency to get the patch applied to all monitored servers and workstations this evening. If you have our patch deployment service for pcs, please ask your users to keep their pc turned on this evening so the patch can be applied. It will also require a reboot, so your users may find their pc at the logon screen tomorrow. Thanks for your time and please contact our Help Desk if you have any problems.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Surprise, Surprise......XP Deadline Extended Again!
Happy Friday to all!
Today we received breaking news from Microsoft which I'm sure will come as a shock to all of you (sense my sarcasm?).....but the sale of Windows XP has been extended from Jan 31, 2009 to July 31, 2009. This means that for the 3rd time since Windows Vista was released, Microsoft has extended the date to which customers can buy computers with Windows XP preinstalled. New computers will continue to ship with the Windows Vista license should you choose to upgrade at a later time.
In my opinion Windows Vista is an ok operating system now that it has had a service pack released for it, however my take is that it is too late for this version of Windows. It has received so much negative press that it will never recover. Do I like it better than XP? Absolutely not (I did say "ok" operating system!). We'll still recommend XP to clients, however we have no problem working with Vista either. Microsoft has been quietly working on what they are calling Windows 7, which is the successor to Vista and is slated for release sometime in 09. We went roughly 6 years without a new operating system, and now they are going to release another one in under 2 years....just a coincidence? I don't think so!
Today we received breaking news from Microsoft which I'm sure will come as a shock to all of you (sense my sarcasm?).....but the sale of Windows XP has been extended from Jan 31, 2009 to July 31, 2009. This means that for the 3rd time since Windows Vista was released, Microsoft has extended the date to which customers can buy computers with Windows XP preinstalled. New computers will continue to ship with the Windows Vista license should you choose to upgrade at a later time.
In my opinion Windows Vista is an ok operating system now that it has had a service pack released for it, however my take is that it is too late for this version of Windows. It has received so much negative press that it will never recover. Do I like it better than XP? Absolutely not (I did say "ok" operating system!). We'll still recommend XP to clients, however we have no problem working with Vista either. Microsoft has been quietly working on what they are calling Windows 7, which is the successor to Vista and is slated for release sometime in 09. We went roughly 6 years without a new operating system, and now they are going to release another one in under 2 years....just a coincidence? I don't think so!
Thursday, September 4, 2008
New Archive Link for ExchangeDefender Clients
For all of our clients using ExchangeDefender as a spam and business continuity solution for email operations, there have been some recent improvements to the product.
In the past, ED's LiveArchive service created an exact replica of your email server for the past 7 days. So if your company's email server were to go down, you could still send and receive email from this web based account while the server was being repaired. The new LiveArchive service is powered by Microsoft Exchange 2007, and looks more like Outlook Web Access. You can even import your contacts into this mailbox so you have what you need in case of emergency. Best of all, rather than providing archiving for the past 7 days, it now includes email archiving for the past year!
To check it out, go to https://livearchive.exchangedefender.com/owa and sign in with your ED username and password that you received at activation time. Best of all, these added features come with no price increase!
In the past, ED's LiveArchive service created an exact replica of your email server for the past 7 days. So if your company's email server were to go down, you could still send and receive email from this web based account while the server was being repaired. The new LiveArchive service is powered by Microsoft Exchange 2007, and looks more like Outlook Web Access. You can even import your contacts into this mailbox so you have what you need in case of emergency. Best of all, rather than providing archiving for the past 7 days, it now includes email archiving for the past year!
To check it out, go to https://livearchive.exchangedefender.com/owa and sign in with your ED username and password that you received at activation time. Best of all, these added features come with no price increase!
Friday, June 20, 2008
Anchor to Implement Trip Charge Fee
Due to rising fuel prices, Anchor will be instituting a trip charge of $35 starting 7/1/2008 for any onsite service calls in the Denver Metro area. While many of our competitors have done this for years, Anchor has never had a trip charge or billed for travel time to clients in the Denver Metro area. Rather than increase minimum onsite fees, increase rates, or bill for travel time, we've chosen an onsite trip fee which we believe is the most equitable solution.
The good news is that this will rarely impact our clients as we do almost all of our support work remotely. For issues that cannot be resolved through remote remediation, only then is an onsite visit scheduled. As always, we will do everything we can to resolve any client issues remotely as it offers the fastest resolution time and is less expensive since we bill in smaller time increments.
Thank you for your understanding. We appreciate your business and value you as a client. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Vince at 303-904-0494 or by email: vince@anchorns.com.
The good news is that this will rarely impact our clients as we do almost all of our support work remotely. For issues that cannot be resolved through remote remediation, only then is an onsite visit scheduled. As always, we will do everything we can to resolve any client issues remotely as it offers the fastest resolution time and is less expensive since we bill in smaller time increments.
Thank you for your understanding. We appreciate your business and value you as a client. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Vince at 303-904-0494 or by email: vince@anchorns.com.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
How to Open an Office 2007 File in Older Office Versions
We frequently hear from folks who are using older versions of Microsoft Office that they cannot open files in the new Office 2007 file format. There are a few ways to deal with this issue.
If you have Office 2007 and others can't read your docs, set Word/Excel to save all files by default in the old format. In Word you'd select the round button in upper left hand corner, choose "Word Options," and "Save" item. You can then select the old format of .doc for your default file type. Follow the same procedure for Excel.
If you have an older version of Microsoft Office and sometimes receive files in the new 2007 format, follow the link at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/HA101686761033.aspx to download and install the Office Compatibility Pack. This will allow you to open new Office 2007 files in an older version of Office.
Hope this a useful tip!
If you have Office 2007 and others can't read your docs, set Word/Excel to save all files by default in the old format. In Word you'd select the round button in upper left hand corner, choose "Word Options," and "Save" item. You can then select the old format of .doc for your default file type. Follow the same procedure for Excel.
If you have an older version of Microsoft Office and sometimes receive files in the new 2007 format, follow the link at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/HA101686761033.aspx to download and install the Office Compatibility Pack. This will allow you to open new Office 2007 files in an older version of Office.
Hope this a useful tip!
Friday, April 18, 2008
Undeliverable Emails & Why You Get Them
We've received many inquiries lately as to why you might receive an undeliverable email for something you've never sent. The email might look like the one below:
From: System Administrator
Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2008 10:07 AM
To: Vince Tinnirello
Subject: Undeliverable: Replica watches
Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients.
Subject: Replica watches
Sent: 4/17/2008 8:17 AM
The following recipient(s) could not be reached:
h@mmi.com.sg on 4/17/2008 10:04 AM
The e-mail account does not exist at the organization this message was sent to. Check the e-mail address, or contact the recipient directly to find out the correct address.
<>
What's most often happening is this: Either a spammer or a virus has gotten it's a hold of your email address, and is forging it into the 'From' section of the email they are sending. In the 'To' section, it is putting other email addresses it knows. Not all of the 'To' addresses are valid, since people do occasionally change email addresses. Thus, these invalid ones get returned to you, even though you didn't send the email in the first place. How do spammers get your email address? Most often not from you, but from someone you've sent email to. It could be that someone you've sent email to has a virus, or in other cases it may come from your website if you have email addresses listed there. Many spammers use tools that gather emails off of websites in the "contact us" section to use. So if you have "info@" or "sales@" forwarding to your mailbox, this is the probably the culprit.
What can we do about it? Unfortunately there is nothing that can be done to stop this from happening. Using an email security tool like ExchangeDefender will reduce the number of these you see, but it can't prevent it 100%. I'd also recommend not putting individual emails such as "vince@" on your website to further reduce the risk. For the rest that come through, your best bet is just to delete them and move on with your day. I hope this was helpful and please let us know if you have any questions!
From: System Administrator
Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2008 10:07 AM
To: Vince Tinnirello
Subject: Undeliverable: Replica watches
Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients.
Subject: Replica watches
Sent: 4/17/2008 8:17 AM
The following recipient(s) could not be reached:
h@mmi.com.sg on 4/17/2008 10:04 AM
The e-mail account does not exist at the organization this message was sent to. Check the e-mail address, or contact the recipient directly to find out the correct address.
<>
What's most often happening is this: Either a spammer or a virus has gotten it's a hold of your email address, and is forging it into the 'From' section of the email they are sending. In the 'To' section, it is putting other email addresses it knows. Not all of the 'To' addresses are valid, since people do occasionally change email addresses. Thus, these invalid ones get returned to you, even though you didn't send the email in the first place. How do spammers get your email address? Most often not from you, but from someone you've sent email to. It could be that someone you've sent email to has a virus, or in other cases it may come from your website if you have email addresses listed there. Many spammers use tools that gather emails off of websites in the "contact us" section to use. So if you have "info@" or "sales@" forwarding to your mailbox, this is the probably the culprit.
What can we do about it? Unfortunately there is nothing that can be done to stop this from happening. Using an email security tool like ExchangeDefender will reduce the number of these you see, but it can't prevent it 100%. I'd also recommend not putting individual emails such as "vince@" on your website to further reduce the risk. For the rest that come through, your best bet is just to delete them and move on with your day. I hope this was helpful and please let us know if you have any questions!
Monday, February 18, 2008
Welcome to Anchor's New Blog!
Welcome to the new Anchor Network Solutions "IT Update" blog. We will use this tool as a means to communicate pertinent information relating to IT and doing business with Anchor. All postings should come to you via email, and you should only hear from us once or twice per month. If at any time you no longer wish to receive the occasional posting from us, please just let us know!
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