OpenOffice - An alternative to Microsoft Office

How often do you get tired of shelling out money for software? Do you wish there were alternatives that work just as well for more then half (as in free) the cost of the other software?

I want to introduce you to is OpenOffice a productivity suite made by Sun Microsystems as an opensource alternative to Microsoft Office. Fully compatible with MS Office, OpenOffice has programs in the suite that are equivillant to Office. They are:

Write = Word
Calc = Excel
Impress = PowerPoint
Base = Access (This does not save to the Access File Format)
Draw = Not sure exactly what to equate this one too.

OpenOffice has many of the same features as Office as well as some others inherently built in, such as the ability to save to *.PDF without having a pdf printer installed on your computer.

To learn more about OpenOffice go to http://www.openoffice.org.
They have versions available for Windows, Linux, Macintosh, and Solaris.

New name for XP AntiVirus 2008

Just wanted to post a quick note....  XP Antivirus 2008 has had a name change.  It is now XP AntiSpyware 2009.  Just wanted to pass along the warning!

Adobe Air Apps

So last night I downloaded and installed the Adobe Air for Linux Beta last night. After installing it, I downloaded the first Air App that I wanted to play with which was Twhirl as I spend a lot of time twittering and wanted to see if I could use twhirl on my linux based laptop.





As you can see twhirl is running without issue on my OpenSUSE Laptop.
Since Adobe Air is still in beta for linux based systems some Air apps do not work correctly or at all.

One app for example that does not work at all is the Google Analytics Air app, which works wonderfully on Windows (and I am assuming on Mac's well).

There quite a few air apps out there and tons more are being created.

Just do a google search and you will find a number of them.

Enjoy!

Tired of spam and viruses getting into your inbox?

How much time do you waste every day deleting SPAM and junk mail from your inbox? How many times have you opened an email to find out that it was an email based virus? Ever wondered if that email that just didn't seem right was a phishing attempt or not?

There is now an easy to use and cost effective solution that also provides a rolling thirty day backup of your email.

Introduce to you a service we provide (I know shameless plug for our services) called MailWise.

The way it works is simple... We make a change to the behind the scenes way your email comes to you. What happens next is all your email goes to the MailWise servers first where it is checked for spam, viruses, phishing attempts, and compared to pass/block lists that you create.
After going through MailWise's secure, redundant servers, only the clean, allowed, wanted email is sent to your server/inbox.

Your probably wondering to yourself what happens to the blocked email.... Well it sits on their servers. At an interval that you set, you receive to your inbox a blocking report that looks like the picture below.







As you can see this blocking report allows you to release the blocked mail directly from your inbox.

By doing it this way, you end up saving space on your email server, since only legitimate email is getting sent to it, you save time, as you are no longer wasting it sifting through the junk mail, and sometimes you save money if you are using a hosted solution where you are not needing to spend as much money on space.

The other huge benefit to MailWise is the rolling thirty day backup of your email. While it is filtering your email, MailWise holds all the inbound (and outbound if you are setup for that) email. If for whatever reason your server, internet connection, power, etc goes down, MailWise is still collecting your mail. At that point all you do is go to a place that has an internet connection and go to their Emergency Portal and log in. This portal allows you to Read, Reply, Forward, and Compose new email messages. By using the Emergency Portal you are able to appear to the outside world that everything is functioning 100%. Once the issue preventing your email server from functioning normally is resolved, 15 to 20 minutes after we place a phone call or send an email to the MailWise staff, all your missed email is right back onto your email server as though nothing ever happened.

At this point it is back to business as usual. If anyone has any questions or is interested in a demonstration or thirty day free trial of MailWise give us a call or send us an email.

Another tool for removing XP Anti-Virus 2008

Well I have found that Anti-virus 2008 has become a bigger pain to remove until I came across a program a few weeks ago that removes it as if it was a regular program.

The program is called Malware Bytes Anti-Malware. This program is downloaded for free from download.com Here is a shortcut to it though.

http://tinyurl.com/3peokf
This free program installs, scans and repairs the damage done by XP Antivirus 2008. One thing that I was really pleased to see was when it automatically detected that XP Antivirus has disabled regedit, and asked if I wanted to re-enable it (I do wish it would just re-enable it automatically but I guess some people have a reason for it to be disabled). After a little while the machine was back to normal as if XP Antivirus had never been installed.

Hope this helps out.

ITG Networking Forum

I have setup and created a forum - http://forum.itgnetworking.com as a place to allow people to discuss different aspects of technology.  There is not much on there yet, but feel free to join and start posting. 

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Removing XP Antivirus 2008

So the other day I made a post warning people about XP Antivirus 2008. I have had 2 clients and 4 other people I know of come down with it in the last couple of weeks. In my previous post I said I was going to post a how to remove guide.

Well here it is!

The first thing to do is reboot your computer into safe mode with network support.

Once in there go to download.com and get the following programs.

1) Spybot Search and Destroy
2) Adaware
3) Super Anti Spyware

Run the three of these in safemode.  Super Anti-Spyware seems to work the best at removing this.  Let me know if anyone has a question 

Beware of XP Antivirus 2008

I know it has been a while since I posted, however, I have come across something that I think should be shared with the blogosphere and the world.





Over the last couple of months I have had clients come to me asking me about a program called XP or Vista Antivirus 2008 because it has begun popping on on their computers while they work.

Another thing that users ask me about is a page that comes up when they go to a web browser and try to go to any sites. Unfortunately I do not have a screenshot of that but I will try and find one.

If you see anything related to this DO NOT CLICK OK! Click cancel, close, end, etc. Anything that will not continue the program along. If you do, then you will only cause the infection to become more embeded into your computer.

I will be typing up a blog entry over the weekend with a step by step of how to get rid of the XP/Vista AntiVirus 2008 software. I wanted to make sure that more people start to find out about this "virus/spam/malware" so that fewer people are affected by it.

Please beware of this and other schemes similar to it. If an "antivirus" or "antimalware" program ends up on your computer and you know that you did not physically install it yourself (or your IT guy), then do not run the program.

Check back soon as I will post a removal guide here shortly.

OUR NEW WEBSITE IS LIVE!!!!

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Leave some comments and tell us what you think.  

Being Smart about getting a "Smart" Phone

Lately a number of my clients have been asking me questions about getting a "smart" phone and how to pick the right one. With so many choices out there between Blackberry's, Palm Treo's, Motorola Q's, Samsung BlackJacks, and a whole list of others, it can be very difficult for a non technical person to know what is the correct choice and what will work for them.



Sometimes this is a cut and dry answer. Some IT people will say use such and such a phone and don't ever mess with the others (I myself have made comments such as that about the Moto Q on this very blog). Some products have major flaws early on, while others seem to work well right at their first release.



Well now to try and help explain the best way to determine what will work for you. This is not a definitive use this phone, but it is to give you a guide line to then go to your IT staff or provider with some idea of what you need so that you can have a meaningful discussion with them about getting a smart phone.



Basically the first question you have to ask yourself is, Do you feel lucky? Just kidding. The first question you have to ask yourself is what kind of email system do you have. If your email is provided to you using what is called POP3 or IMAP, then most of the "smart" will work without issue. On the other hand if your company uses a MS Exchange server or a Novell Groupwise server then that makes things a bit more complex but not impossible for making a decision.



Lets start with an Exchange Server.

In the case of an Exchange Server the following devices work seamlessly and easily with it utilizing various methods to connect.


Blackberries

Palm Treo (WITH WINDOWS MOBILE)

All other Window Mobile 5 or 6 phones

Apple iPhone (with some tweaking of the Exchange Server and firewall)



With the Windows based Palm Treo, and any other Windows Mobile based phone, it is as easy as putting in the URL into your phone for your Outlook Web Access and after a few check boxes your phone is syncing your email and all your calendar, contacts, tasks, and notes all over-the-air. With this phones you never have to plug your phone into your desktop to sync it. If you add a calendar event on your phone it show up on your outlook and vice versa.



With a Blackberry (which I have), it is as simple as creating an account with your phone providers Blackberry Internet Service, again putting in your Outlook Web Access URL and a couple of other answers, and Voila! you are getting your email over-the-air as well. For your Contacts, Calendar, etc you still have to connect to your computer to sync that information, unless your company has purchased a Blackberry Enterprise Server or BES. If that is the case then your company's IT provider or staff will let you know that they have one.

With the Apple iPhone with some tweaking of your firewall, and the MS Exchange server (these are all items that your IT Administrator would take care of). Again once configured, the email will transfer to your iPhone over-the-air. Your Calendar, Contacts, etc are all synced using iTunes to sync with MS outlook much in the same way that a Blackberry syncs using the Blackberry Desktop Manager.

Now lets look at if you have a Novell Groupwise Server.

With a Blackberry it is simple as well using the Blackberry Internet Service as well as using the Desktop Manager to sync your contacts and other information.

For the Windows Mobile based phones you can either use IMAP or POP to connect to the server and then sync using a program called Intellisync. Another option is if your company has a Groupwise Mobile Server. This allows you to connect your Windows Mobile phone to Groupwise and sync all your email, calendar, contacts, etc over-the-air just as if it was connected to an Exchange server.

An iPhone can be connected to a Groupwise server using POP or IMAP as well. I am still trying to determine how well or if it can be synced with the Groupwise client. Once I find out more I will post an add on to this portion of the blog.

The final decision comes down to your specific wants and preferences when it comes to a smartphone but the easiest thing to make sure check with your IT provider and make sure that it works with your email system. If your company has an Exchange Server, your best bet is going to be to get a Windows Mobile based phone or a Blackberry.

Hope this helps. If you have questions feel free to contact us if you are in the Upstate of SC or surrounding area.