In times past, most business viewed IT departments as a cost center instead of a service center or business enhancement group. A Marketing department would instead be viewed as a business enhancement division of a company. Why? The greatest irony of IT being viewed only as an expense is that all departments are now so integrated with IT, that they cannot function, nor contribute as much without it.

The days of viewing a server or PC as “another expense” are gone. Let’s compare mathematically with a PC that is four years old vs. one year old. First we need a foundation – Moore’s Law. Moore’s Law states that PC processing power effectively doubles within a two year period, recently revised to 18 months. Theoretically, all things being equal, a new PC vs. a four year old PC is going to be about four times faster. Let’s take the common example of an everyday administrative task: E-Mail.

A Deeper Look

On a four year old PC using Microsoft Outlook, a user double clicks the launch icon. The program opens up is in a ready send/receive state after 45 seconds. If this happens every business day, that’s 45 seconds times 5 days a week, times 52 weeks a year. Not accounting for holiday scheduling, that’s 195 minutes of productive time lost waiting for a program to load each year. Multiply that by 20 employees, and you’re looking at 65 hours of lost productivity a year, simply waiting around.

Now apply that math to a PC that’s less than a year old. Let’s say that it opens Microsoft Outlook in a send/receive state in 15 seconds. The same group of 20 employees is losing 21 hours of possibly productive time vs. 65 hours a year. That’s a 65% decrease in idle time!

The Bottom Line

Here is a non-technical example: modern software is designed to take advantage of faster speeds, more resources, and updated architecture. Attempting to run it on older devices is like using a tow truck. It can only tow up to 20 tons, and as time has passed, we’re now asking it to tow 40. We’re stuck waiting for it to haul loads 20 tons at a time, when an updated truck would be able to haul 60.

The point is this – holding out on hardware can hurt your business. Your business is more than likely completely integrated with your PCs and servers. If you’re using the best tools to get the job done, it means you can finish faster, perform more work, and ultimately make more money. Upgrading is important not because it’s good to have the latest and greatest, but because the latest and greatest is designed to do more for you, faster.

Technology platforms that run a modern business are often taken for granted.  Workers arrive in the morning, log in to their PC, open up their business application, and begin their workday.  For the most part, these events go on day-by-day, without much consideration taken regarding where they live, what they run on, and where their data is stored.  This is all well and good, and is the intention of corporate infrastructure technology – to be completely transparent to the end user experience.

Imagine, if you will, that the day comes when suddenly you cannot log in, cannot load your applications, and cannot access business data.  What would happen if the data that operates your business (applications, shared files, databases, websites, security controllers) completely disappeared?  Would you be able to continue your daily operations?  Would you be able to sustain revenue?  What would you do without all your corporate documents, accounting information, or inventory data?  What if payroll was due tomorrow?

This is referred to as a Disaster Scenario.  Billions are spent by companies each year planning and testing for situations involving the loss if IT infrastructure and data.  Each and every contingency plan for a disaster has a key requirement:  the process of backing up and securing important data.  Backups provide a fallback when a primary device is lost, and grants a business a point in time to recover to.  Backups ultimately have the potential to save a business in a worst case scenario.  While most businesses perform basic levels of backups, the last decade has shown us what can happen if only the bare minimum of backup operations provide.

Disasters such as hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, fires, floods, or physical destruction from attack revealed weak points for corporate disaster scenarios – failure to diversify geographical location.  Local backups worked great for local recovery, but when a flood strikes, the safe deposit box at the bank can’t save your data if it’s a mile down the road and in the same flood zone.

To rectify this situation, many backup companies are now offering low monthly rates and easy consumer solutions to copy critical data over to highly secure data centers.  These datacenters are typically far away enough that any form of localized disaster will have no effect, and grants a business peace of mind knowing their data is in a repository hundreds of miles away.  Cloud based backups are the next step in securing your critical business data.

Ardham provides businesses with regularly-recurring services that will verify the integrity of your backups.  We also partner with a variety of vendors and software suites that provide backup solutions, both local and cloud-based.  Contact us today to inquire about protecting your critical data.

Keyboard Shortcuts

(Windows Key + D) – This shortcut combo quickly minimizes all of your open windows and displays your Desktop.  Very useful for quickly getting to My Computer or launching an application.  This also works in previous versions of Windows. (The Windows Key is the one with a Windows logo between the left Ctrl and Alt keys.)

(Windows Key + Tab) – This key combination brings up a nicely-rendered cascade of miniaturized versions of all the windows that you have open.  You switch between them by holding the Windows Key and tapping Tab until the one that you want comes up, then releasing both keys.  (This one’s for Windows 7 only, but the less-fancy version of Alt+Tab works on any version of Windows.)

Mouse Shortcuts
(Drag a window to the side of the screen) – This is similar to maximizing, but it only maximizes on the half of the screen that you dragged to.  You can drag, say, a spreadsheet to the left side of your screen and a Word document to the right side and have them side-by-side so that you could reference one while working on the other.  Very handy in those circumstances where you would like to have 2 things up on the screen at once. (Windows Key + Left or Right Arrow does the same thing.)

(Drag a window to the top of the screen) – This quick action will maximize the window.  To restore it back to its original size, just drag it down from the top by the title bar.  (Windows Key + Up Arrow does the same thing.)

That’s all for this blog post. We don’t want to overwhelm you with new stuff if you’re not already familiar with these. Implement them into your computer use habits and we bet that you’ll find your productivity increases! In later posts, we’ll be exploring more shortcuts and tricks to make you faster and make using your technology more fun, so check back often or subscribe to our Twitter feed.  :)

We’ve created new cards for attaching to your monitor that allow easy access to Ardham’s support contact information and also answers a few questions that we get asked frequently.  In the field, we often see a sticky note with our support phone number written on it and thought that this would be a more attractive and handy way to keep that information handy.

To the right is an example thumbnail of the card, but if you click here, you can download a  PDF for easy printing.  We recommend printing on a heavier card stock for durability.  Please let us know if you are having any difficulty printing or retrieving the printable file and we would be happy to get one to you by mail.

Printable Monitor Card PDF download

Job Description

• Responsible for representing Ardham Technologies to a defined set of retention customers in a given geography through onsite meetings and presentations. In addition, they are responsible for understanding and owning the sales strategy within that account set. This includes working with the sales team to develop new opportunities in order to meet sales objectives on a quarterly and annual basis as well as accurately forecasting opportunities.  This is a remote office role with approximately 70-80% travel expected.

Skills & Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience in related industry
• Strong organizational and communication skills
• Strong business acumen
• Exceptional presentation and public speaking skills
• Proven track record of success in sales environment
• Understanding of technology industry in general
• Technical skills are a plus

• Deploy, troubleshoot, and maintain hardware such as servers, desktops, laptops, printers, telephones, and smartphones.
• Monitor and maintain IT services to agreed levels and standards.
• Participate in Root Cause Analysis to identify actionable areas of responsibility in achieving thorough resolution and prevention.
• Research and advise on technology standards and best practices to maximize productivity internally and for our clients.
• Assist with Service Desk coverage to maintain service levels as needed.
• Provide a rapid and efficient resolution service to clients with escalated technical issues. Ensure that all incidents and service requests are addressed through comprehensive, appropriate and acceptable resolution.
• Participate and lead planned project work and allocate local resources accordingly.

Skills & Qualifications

• Skills include a strong background in technical systems and the ability to understand business operations, as well as previous project management experience.
• Windows server admin 2003-2008, Active Directory, Exchange 2003-2010, Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES), SBS 2003-2008, virtualization products.
• MCSE or MCITP and CCNA certifications.
• Hardware experience with Dell, HP & Cisco; Mac experience a plus.
• Experience supporting Windows desktop operating systems.