Monthly Archives: October 2007

Are free email services worth the cost?

Posted on October 20, 2007 by John Kisha

Are free email services worth the cost?
 
The answer seems to be yes and no, depending on your needs and expectations.
 
"What cost? Free email services are free, aren't they?" Here are some of the costs I associate with free email services: 

  • Spam – free email services seem to receive a disproportionate amount of spam. There are various theories about why, but the fact is you'll get more spam with a free mail service than with a regular ISP.
  • Deliverability – free email addresses also seem to send a disproportionate amount of SPAM. Even though you don't send SPAM, it still impacts you. When spam filters see your email as coming from the same service as lots of SPAM, it's a strike against you, and can quickly cause your email to be blocked.
  • Customer Service – for all intents and purposes, there is none. This is truly a case of "you get what you pay for". While there might be web forms and email address that will accept your question, your chances of getting a response are pretty much proportional to what you paid: zero.
  • Limits and Restrictions – With most free services you must read your email through their web interface. If you want to move, forward or download your email, contacts or other information, the process is cumbersome, if it's even possible at all.

In short, I wouldn't suggest a free email service for anything that you consider important or anything that you want to keep long term.  Read more... (499 words, estimated 2:0 mins reading time)

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A better way to communicate and collaborate: SharePoint

Posted on October 13, 2007 by John Kisha

Do you work with clients on projects that rely on a schedule? Do you have on-going conversations via email with clients that you find hard to keep organized? Is it ever necessary for you to deliver documents–either contracts, proposals, drafts of projects or letters that you need to collaborate on? Would you like to be able to survey your clients to get their opinions on your service or current trends?
 
These are but a few of the capabilities that are available in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.
 
Imagine being able to post your client's project schedule on-line as a gant chart. Assign the different phases of the project to those people that are responsible for them. Then, as the different phases of the project are completed, those responsible can login to the site and update their areas of responsibility as they are completed. Imagine also that your clients could also login to the schedule at any time to see exactly how the project is progressing. Every person involved with the project now has access to the schedule and everyone is kept in the loop. You as the project administrator can see exactly what needs to be done and are now in complete control. This is only one of the many powerful features of Windows SharePoint Services–and the only tool you need to implement this tool is your web browser and an Internet connection. No additional software to buy, no programs to learn–simply login and get to work. Here are links to two great demos.
 
Demo 1
Demo 2
 
I will be outlining additional features of Windows SharePoint Services in other articles, but if you would like a free 30 day trial to see first-hand how WSS can benefit your company, give me a call. 323-463-8300 and I'll have you set-up within 24 hours.

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Go Daddy — NO Daddy

Posted on October 9, 2007 by John Kisha

I am sometimes amazed that I am still caught up by a bargain or the possibility of saving some money. There was a lot of buzz going around for awhile regarding Go Daddy–a domain name registrar that sells both retail and wholesale–both domain names and other services that are in competition with our company.
 
So, I decided to try them to see if they could possibly be a provider for us and our clients and purchased an SSL certificate from them. And of course, I got what I paid for. An inferior certificate and poor service, not to mention unauthorized renewals on my credit card.
 
First, from the technical side, the certificate once installed, would not be recognized unless additional root certificates were installed on the server. Without this extra installation, pop-up warnings would be generated to anyone viewing a page protected by the Go Daddy certificate.
 
So, that was it. I decided if their certificates were not automatically recognized by the major web browsers by default, it was not a good sign and I decided not to pursue Go Daddy for any of their services. 

Now, 11 months later, I get an email from Go Daddy telling me they automatically renewed this certificate and charged the credit card I had on file with them.  Read more... (532 words, estimated 2:08 mins reading time)

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Server Upgrades — Phase One

Posted on October 4, 2007 by John Kisha

Just a note to let you know we will be upgrading our servers to the latest 64 bit technology in anticipation of the coming upgrade to Windows 2008 Server (Longhorn) which is scheduled for release in February 2008.
 
We are currently testing the pre-release version and will be migrating client web sites to the new servers as soon as testing is completed.
 
The benefits of upgrading are improved security, better performance and faster loading of web pages and easier trouble shooting; but for those more technicly inclined, here are a list of some of the new web server improvements in IIS 7.0
 
IIS7 Features

IIS7 in Windows Server 2008 offers functionality that enables Web administrators to reliably manage Web infrastructures more effectively and enables Web developers to rapidly build more compelling Web solutions.

The IIS7 release delivers five key enhancements:

  1. Modular architecture: IIS7 is designed to enable the IT professional to customize exactly which features are installed and running on the Web server. IIS is now factored into more than 40 feature modules that can be independently installed on the box, dramatically reducing the potential attack surface and lowering the footprint requirements of the server.

  2. Comprehensive extensibility APIs: IIS7 enables developers to extend the Web server in a smoother way. The core Web server features of IIS7 have been built using a new set of public Web server APIs that all developers can use to extend, replace, or add functionality to the Web server. These APIs are available as native Win32 APIs as well as managed .NET Framework APIs. Developers can also take advantage of IIS7's extensibility of event logging, configuration, and administration tool feature-sets, providing a smooth experience for customers using third-party extensions.  Read more... (677 words, estimated 2:42 mins reading time)

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