"When someone asks you for a penny for your thoughts and you put in your two cents, what happens to the other penny?"

Comedian George Carlin

Why Hardware Warranty on your File Server?

The SCO Unix file servers built by DTR Business Systems are protected by a one year hardware warranty agreement. This agreement covers parts and labor and includes next day on-site response. Once the initial warranty has expired, you can purchase an extended maintenance agreement.

The rate for an additional year of hardware warranty is $600.00. This may seem like a lot but compared to not having warranty and having a technician come on-site, here is an example of what a service call might cost:

The rate for a technician is $150.00 per hour with a two hour minimum, plus parts and travel expense. For example, the on-site charge would be a minimum of $300.00, perhaps you would need to replace the hard drive at $400.00 and then add travel time expense. One service call would be much more than a one-year warranty contract.

Note: Even if your warranty expired a few months ago and your server is in working condition without any problems, you can still purchase the warranty.

Adobe AIR Puts Companies on Desktops

EBay Inc.'s customers don't need to open a web browser to search the site or auction an item anymore. After a quick download, the online auctioneer's users can click the company's logo on their desktop and launch an application that will allow them to do their business directly - no browser required.

EBay is one of several companies, including Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. (NDAQ) (NDAQ), Time Warner Inc. (TWX) (TWX)'s AOL, Nickelodeon and Salesforce.com Inc. (CRM) (CRM), that have created downloadable, desktop versions of their Web sites using software developed by Adobe Systems Inc. (ADBE).

Adobe is launching the application, called AIR. Adobe says AIR will allow any company with a Web site to inhabit a permanent spot on people's desktops. It also reduces the wait time for downloading images and data, because the desktop is constantly updated while the computer is online. Adobe says AIR runs on any operating system. It's a more powerful version of widgets, the customizable little Web pullouts often provided by third parties like Google Inc. (GOOG)

The AIR application removes any kind of go-between, giving companies a direct, constant and versatile link to the consumer, said Adrian Ludwig, a spokesman for Adobe. "The browser was in the way and the widget, in some instances, was in the way," Ludwig said. "It's the willingness to let the brand of the person providing the application to take front and center."

Is YouTube Stealing Your Bandwidth?

The perennial problem of Peer to Peer (P2P) file sharing, the explosion of social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, video sharing sites like YouTube, all conspire to have a significant impact on the volume of traffic on your networks. Recreational traffic steals bandwidth that should otherwise be used for business applications. When bandwidth is consumed by recreational traffic, the business processes that are tied directly to those critical applications are threatened or disrupted.

The Defense Department is scheduled to cut off access to YouTube and other video-sharing sites on all of its overseas computers because of the bandwidth usage. The department was using YouTube as a recruiting and information tool. As far back as 2003, the military was complaining that streaming video was clogging network links between the U S, Afghanistan and Iraq. The situation got so bad that the military could only fly two of its Predator drones in Afghanistan at one time because the vehicles require a high-speed link to transmit flight instructions back to its operators in Las Vegas.

In an article on the Internet, this is how the bandwidth used just by YouTube alone computed. With 100 million hits per month, and each movie that is streamed, it takes 3.35 minutes average to download a movie at 2.5MB per minute, using 8.3MB per movie. That would total 24980858GB per month. The cost to YouTube would be roughly $1.2 million for bandwidth costs on file sharing.

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Things You May Not Know About TOP

Many of our Unix customers are using Anzio Lite 15 as their terminal emulator for accessing the TOP file server. Now this version has been replaced with Anzio Lite 16 and more features are now available when you are in TOP.  You can start multiple sessions by clicking on Add Session, click on Next Session to go back and forth from one login to the next, Copy and paste text, print any screen to your printer, setup your remote printer, etc. See below for the new menu bar.

A new version of Anzio Lite 16 is still at the $55.00 charge. The upgrade from Anzio Lite 15 to Anzio Lite 16 is $25.00 per user license. Call Mindware if you are interested in either choice.

Add Your Signature to your Emails

In Outlook Express:
1. Click on Tools  --->  Select Options  --->  Select Signatures tab
2. Click on the New button to start your new signature
3. Type the desired text for your new signature in the bottom section
4. At the top of the window, change the options for outgoing messages and replies or forwards to your desired setting

Note: Even though you can attach images to your signature (logo, pictures, etc.) be aware that many spam filtering systems see images as potential 'image spam' and could cause your messages to be filtered. To be safe, stick to simple text.