Free E-Mail Accounts: You Get What You Pay For…€¦ · Free E-Mail Accounts: You Get What You...

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Free E-Mail Accounts: You Get What You Pay For…

We‟ve all been told there is no such thing as a free lunch; yet it‟s hard to resist the siren‟s call of “FREE.” That‟s one of the reasons why so many people have free e-mail accounts through Hotmail, Yahoo, MSN, and Gmail (i.e. free email in the cloud).

And while you might not be paying out of pocket for these ser-vices, there IS a cost. Remember that “you get what you pay for.” Here‟s the price you pay when you use a free e-mail account:

1.) An Extra Helping Of Spam: And loads of it. Are these free services selling your e-mail account? Do spammers have ways of gleaning your e-mail account? No one seems to know for sure (or at least they‟re not talking). But the bottom line is you‟ll end up with a lot more ads for Viagra than you bargained for.

2.) Your E-mails Aren’t Guaranteed Delivery: The majority of spam messages come from free e-mail accounts. Even though you aren‟t sending them, spam filters look at the server sending the message and, if it‟s a known source for spam, will block the e-mail from going through. That means your e-mails might be getting blocked before they even reach the sender.

3.) Customer Service? Non-existent! See you DO get what you pay for! If you have a problem, you‟re on your own to figure it out.

4.) Difficulty In Moving, Forwarding, or Downloading: Free e-mail services require that you read your e-mail through their web interface. If you want to move, forward or download your e-mail, contacts or other information, the process is cumbersome and sometimes impossible.

5.) No Archiving: E-mail archiving, or storing old e-mails in a searchable, retrievable format has become very important (even a

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“As a business owner, I know you don‟t

have time to waste on technical and

operational issues. That‟s where we

shine! Call us and put an end to your IT

problems finally and forever!”

- Debi Bush, CMIT Solutions of Denver

Volume V, Issue V

May, 2011 Denver, Colorado

Inside This Issue…

Free E-Mail Accounts: You Get

What You Pay For........................

Meet Our Partner Of The Month:

Dell Computers………...………. Page 2

What To Do When You Want

The Advanced Features Of

Microsoft Exchange But Don’t

Want The Costs ………...…….…Page 3

How To Get Your E-mails

Delivered………………...………Page 4

CMIT Presents: The Hype Around

The Cloud Webinar..…...............Page 4

Still In A Fog About The Cloud?

4 Things To Bring It Into

Focus.……………… …...……....Page 5

Wi-Fi: 8 Tips For Working

Securely From Wireless

Hot Spots…….……………….….Page 6

Your Business Is Always A

Work In Progress..…….…Page 7


legal requirement) in some industries like medical and financial. E-mail is considered a form of communication and if you use it to support customers, order products, or to negotiate any type of deals, you want to keep a record.

So while these free services are okay for chatting casually with your friends, they are NOT recommended whatsoever for business purposes or for sending anything you consider important.

Here‟s a question to ask yourself: if your e-mail account were

erased tomorrow and all of the message, contact information, and

history went bye-bye, would it be a slight inconvenience or a

catastrophe? If it‟s the latter, then you need to bite the bullet and get

a real e-mail account. And, while you‟re at it, you should also get

an account that reflects your own URL (website domain).

The only reason for keeping a free e-mail account is to provide

certain web sites with an e-mail address when you don‟t care about

getting communications from them, or that may spam you later on.

May is a great month weather

wise – little chance of snow in

Denver (although I remember a

storm on Mother‟s Day back in

the 1990s) and the temperatures

are more consistent. Not too many

mean looking clouds in the sky

either.

CMIT Solutions of Denver is

taking more to the clouds in more

than just one way. We just

returned from Austin for our

annual CMIT Convention and

there was a lot of informational

panels and training on cloud

computing. Our Denver office has

been implementing cloud

solutions of various magnitudes

and complexities since 2005 and

now cloud computing is really

taking off. You hear about it

everywhere and clients and

prospects alike are saying “I want

to go to the cloud.” Most don‟t

have a full understanding of what

it all entails; however, they know

that it can create efficiencies and

overall decrease capital expenses.

We have posted blogs on cloud

computing (go to http://cmitdenver.

wordpress.com) and just got

published in a local paper and

have a webinar on May 26th. The

Cloud is getting to be an exciting

place!

Partner Spotlight:

Dell Computers has had a strategic partnership with CMIT

Solutions corporate since before CMIT Denver opened its doors

in 2004. Each of our respective businesses have grown and

evolved over the years with the evolution of needs for the small

business sector and for us to better support our clients.

Having worked hard to achieve the level of Enterprise Certified

Partner of Dell (of which there are only a handful in Colorado),

CMIT Solutions has leveraged its nationwide purchasing power

on behalf of our clients. We have our own team of consultants at

Dell who are dedicated to helping all of us at CMIT manage and

maintain our clients‟ business and hardware needs.

The funny story for having come somewhat full circle is that when

I (Debi) worked for Financial News Network (FNN) in the late

1980s, we had a program all about American entrepreneurs and

Michael Dell had an entire program dedicated to his story. Can you

imagine what Part 2 would be like considering that more than 20

years have passed since that segment aired on FNN?!

Phil’s In The Corner


What To Do When You Want The

Advanced Features Of Microsoft

Exchange But Don’t Want The Costs

With the complexity, costs and problems associated with installing a mail

server, many businesses are now opting for “Hosted Exchange” in the

cloud rather than bringing the server in-house. What are “cloud-based” or

“hosted” services? Think of them like a gym membership. Instead of

purchasing your own home gym equipment, which can be expensive,

require maintenance and take up a lot of space, you can pay a small

monthly fee to go to the gym and use a multi-million-dollar facility that is

kept and maintained by someone else.

Hosted Exchange works the same way. Instead of incurring the costs and

hassle of building and maintaining your own mail server, you can pay a

low monthly fee and get top-of-the-line services, storage and security for

your e-mail. Plus, you get the following benefits:

Being able to access your e-mail remotely from any device

More uptime and fewer issues

E-mail archiving (storing of old e-mails)

Spam filtering and anti-virus included

24/7/365 support

Unlimited storage

Easy synchronization with mobile devices

Want to find out how Hosted Exchange can save you a lot of money and

solve your storage and archiving problems? Give me a call at 303-756-

2648, extension 601.

Beware Of 3 Common And Costly Mistakes With Your Online Data Backups

Mistake #1: Not choosing an online backup service that offers a file versioning feature. Make sure you choose a service that can be configured to meet the needs of your business which includes compliance.

Mistake #2: Backing up everything. Just be careful that your regular local and online backups are not filling up storage space where they shouldn’t be.

Mistake #3: Not having a local backup. It is best practice to have online (offsite) backup and local, on-premise backup solutions in place. As long as the local backup isn’t damaged by fire, flood or such, a full restore of your entire system including your server and all the applications that live on it will be lightning fast.

Shiny New Gadget Of The Month:

Camtasia Studio

With online video becoming

a hot trend and an effective

way of engaging visitors with

your web site, you might be

wondering how you can

quickly and inexpensively

create your own web videos.

Or maybe you want to create

a video tutorial to train

employees how to perform a

certain process or task without

having to repeat the training

over and over again. Or per-

haps you want to create

welcome videos and tutorials

for new customers. All these

are possible using Camtasia

Studio.

Since the software comes in

versions for Windows and

Mac users, anyone can create

professional-looking videos.

The cost is $300; compared to

hiring someone to do this for

you, it‟s a steal. There is a bit

of a learning curve, but

TechSmith (the maker of

Camtasia Studio) offers

several web videos to assist

you. TechSmith also offers a

30-day trial so you can see if

you like it before you commit

to buying.


How To Get Your

E-mails Delivered

Since e-mails are cheap and easy and deliver instant results, there’s a good chance you are (or plan on) using e-mail broadcasts to communicate with your clients and prospects. But with so much spam, how can you make sure your e-mails stay OUT of the spam filter and get safely delivered to your recipients’ Inbox? Here are a few tips:

1. Send e-mails only to people who have opted in or requested to receive e-mails from you. Otherwise, you’ll risk being flagged as a spammer and will get your account or server blocked.

2. Use a legitimate e-mail broadcasting service. This goes along with the above recommendation. These services have entire teams of people working to make sure the e-mail broadcasts sent from their servers are delivered – a huge task that is no simple thing in the online world. That’s why it’s better to use these services like Constant Contact versus broadcasting from your own server. It takes only one person to flag you as a spammer to get your server shut down.

3. Send text e-mails instead of HTML. A study by AWeber.com shows that plain text messages are undeliverable 1.15% of the time and HTML-only messages were undeliverable 2.3%. If sending HTML, always send a plain text alternative message, also called text/HTML multi-part mime format.

CMIT Presents:

The Hype Around The Cloud Attend our free educational Cloud webinar on Thursday, May 26th, 2011

at 12:00pm MDT. We work with thousands of small businesses, many of

whom are beginning to ask questions about what real benefits the cloud

offers and what to look for in a provider. Join us May 26th as we uncover

the important factors to consider and demystify the “Cloud.”

Register at www.cmitsolutions.com/denver/webinars!

7 Aspects Of Cloud

Computing That May Hold You

Back

“But cloud computing isn’t a cure all. In fact, there will be many things that won’t go into the cloud.” Here are some potential drawbacks:

Service Management

Scalability

Costs

Culture

Connection

High Availability

Customization

“Bottom line: There’s a lot of work to do. For now, the best course is to plan for cloud computing and beware of marketing speak.”

Source: Gartner and ZDNet.com.

http://www.cmitsolutions.com/denver/webinars


Still In A Fog About The Cloud?

4 Things To Bring It Into Focus

You have already read some blurbs, articles and hopefully blog posts

about cloud computing, compliments of CMIT Solutions of Denver. Here

is somewhat of a primer or Lesson One for your path to understanding the

“Cloud.”

What is it? Cloud computing refers to the access of computational

resources on demand via a computer network. Those resources include

computing power, software, data access, storage services, and more. The

main benefits of the cloud are convenient, easy and secure access to all

your data and applications anywhere you have an Internet connection.

Have you ever used hosted Exchange or a special application going

through a web browser that is specific to your line of business? Or stored

photos on sites like Flickr or Photobucket? Then you‟re already using the

cloud!

The key characteristic of the cloud is that the bulk of actual computing

takes place “in the cloud.” In other words, the processing of data happens

not on the local computer, but on a machine somewhere on the network.

To use a metaphor from the early days of computing, the local computer

acts as a terminal, but the data lives and number crunching happens in the

cloud, which acts (sort of) as a mainframe. What makes Flickr a cloud

service, for instance, is not merely that one can store photos on the site,

but that one can edit photos using the computational power of Flickr‟s

servers.

The 4 Flavors of Clouds

Several varieties of clouds exist, each with their own features and

purposes.

Public Cloud – A public cloud‟s infrastructure is made available to the

general public or a large industry group and is owned by a cloud services

provider. Examples include Google Apps, Microsoft Business

Productivity Online Services (BPOS), and Rackspace Cloud Server.

Private Cloud – The infrastructure of a private cloud is operated solely

for an organization. Sometimes, the organization manages the cloud

directly. Other times, a third-party handles operations, in which case

it‟s referred to as a Hosted Private Cloud. A private cloud may exist

either on-premises or off.

Community Cloud – A community cloud‟s infrastructure is shared by

several organizations and supports a specific community that has shared

concerns (e.g., mission, security requirements, policy, and compliance

considerations). Like private clouds, it may be managed by the

organizations or a third-party and may exist on-premises or off-premises..

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Pizza Terrorist?

According to the Philadelphia Business Journal, a pizza shop owner was jailed for dumping live mice at his competitors' restaurants. The police are calling this “food terrorism by mice.”

Nikolas Galiatsatos, owner of Nina's Bella Pizzeria in Upper Darby, walked into Verona Pizza, a neighboring competitor, carrying a bag and asked for the bathroom.

When the owner went to inspect the bathroom after hearing a banging noise, he discovered footprints on the toilet and a bag tucked into the ceiling. Fortunately, two police officers were in the restaurant at the time and promptly investigated what they thought was a drug deal. However, instead of drugs the officers found several mice.

Galiatsatos was then seen walking across the street to another competing pizzeria, Uncle Nick's Pizza. The police reported that after he left the second pizza parlor they found another bag containing five living mice and one dead mouse in a trashcan.

He was promptly arrested and now faces charges of criminal mischief, disorderly conduct, harassment and cruelty to animals.


(Continued from page 5)

Hybrid Cloud – Finally, a hybrid cloud consists of two or more clouds

(private, public, or community) that remain separate entities but are bound

together by a standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and

application portability. Hybrid clouds exist for purposes of handling high

traffic, load balancing of data, intensive processing, and more.

Each flavor of cloud has pros and cons, and each business has different

needs. CMIT Solutions is here to help you weigh the factors you‟ll need

to consider before moving to the cloud. And be on the lookout for more

educational articles and blog posts on the subject of the cloud.

Wi-Fi: 8 Tips For Working Securely From Wireless Hot Spots

How many people do you see working away at the nearby Starbucks or an airport? It’s wonderful to have such flexibility for working remotely; however, public Wi-Fi hot spots are “open networks that are vulnerable to security breaches…. That means it’s up to you to be aware of wireless hot spot security and to protect the data on your PC or mobile device.” Depending upon what operating system (OS), different tasks may need to be completed in order to take advantage of each of the following tips.

1. Disable Your Wi-Fi Adapter: Best practice is to have your Wi-Fi turned off on your portable computer or mobile device at all times with the exception of when you actually need it for a public hot spot place.

2. Try To Choose More Secure Connections: If your business has a VPN or Virtual Private Network set up, you should use this in most circumstances.

3. Make Sure Your Firewall Is Activated: Some anti-virus software includes its own firewall so make sure to ask your IT support team about this.

4. Monitor Your Access Points: You need to approve access points before you connect to a hot spot.

5. Disable File And Print Sharing: You can turn it on back on at the office.

6. Make Your Folders Private: If your files are made private, this will present a big challenge to those pesky hackers.

7. Encrypt Your Files: You only need to protect the files that you plan on using while you are in a public place using their hot spot.

8. Consider Removing Sensitive Data From Your Portable Computer (Or Mobile Device): You can store the file on your corporate network or on a password-protected site like Windows Sky Drive.

Excerpts taken from Microsoft At Work article and for the entire article go to http://www.microsoft.com/atwork/remotely/hotspots.aspx.

Social Media Isn’t

Something To

Disregard

According to the 2011 Social

Media Marketing Industry

Report by Michael Stelzner of

Social Media Examiner, there is

good news for small businesses

that includes social media in the

mix of marketing tactics.

Some benefits of social media

are:

Increased Brand Awareness

Increased Traffic

Improved Search Rankings

New Partnerships

Better Sales

Reduction in Marketing

Costs

Twice as likely to find

Qualified Lead

In order to benefit from social

media, you do have to dedicate

a chunk of time to it and on a

regular basis. This needs to be

part of your overall marketing

plan and planning calendar. The

greater amount of time invested

in working on social media, the

more benefits will be derived

for lead generation, brand

awareness and all the other

benefits listed above.


Your Business Is Always

A Work In Progress Gartner Research has reported that “By 2012, twenty percent of businesses will own no IT

assets.” In normal, everyday terms this means that more businesses will be moving parts of

their operations to the cloud. Wow! What a change I have witnessed in the world of

technology since I started in this business seven years ago!

Much like a website is a living and changing thing and always a work in progress, so is my business. After return-

ing from our CMIT national convention (just got back a couple days ago from Austin) I am often prompted to reflect

on how my CMIT Denver business has evolved in all areas. My thoughts and goals are reinforced as to where we want to take the business. Best practices and challenges were

shared with my CMIT colleagues and partners as well as diving deeper into cloud computing. Learning comes and sticks better from making a mistake or mistep in life and

making the tweak so that the “learning experience” doesn’t happen again. Progress means moving forward or “avanti.”

One best practice that I have more often than not followed is leveraging my peers, business partners and strategic alli-

ances. I write about this in my newsletters and hope that my readers do not get bored with this topic and think to

themselves “not again Debi.” Last week I had a call with a new member in my marketing accountability group, Adam from the UK. He and I were asking about each other’s

businesses. We are in a similar place in that he just hired a marketing support person and I am on a quest to find a new one. We discussed the roles and responsibilities and what we

want to happen as a result. It’s the entrepreneurial sharing and looking out for one another that enables and

empowers us to grow. We continue to develop and massage solid relationships

with our strategic alliances. Prior to the CMIT convention, I sent personal cards to my key partners. It’s that low level

yet very important touch with an expression of gratitude and collaboration that makes an impact. Relationships in business (as well as in life) are meant to be reciprocal and

that is my intent with my partners and clients of course. Time invested in working the relationships will reap benefits for both parties all along the way. My partners

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Quotes for May -

More Cloud Hype

“Above the cloud with its

shadow is the star with its light.

Above all things reverence

thyself.” --Pythagoras

“A cloud hangs over baseball.

It‟s a cloud called drugs and it‟s

permeated our game.”

--Peter Ueberroth

“Every silver lining has a

cloud.”

--Mary Kay Ash

“Every cloud has its silver lining

but it is sometimes a little

difficult to get it to the mint.”

--Don Marquis

“I fell off my pink cloud with a

thud.”

--Elizabeth Taylor

“If I win seven tournaments in a

row, I get so confident I‟m in a

cloud. A loss gets me eager

again.”

--Chris Evert

“Nature is a mutable cloud

which is always and never the

same.”

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The word „potential‟ used to

hang over me like a cloud.”

--Randy Johnson

“There‟s a bright spot in every

dark cloud.”

--Bruce Beresford


(Continued from page 7)

certainly are more open to taking my calls (or emails),

requests and inquiries because they enjoy and value our relationship and want both of us to be suc-cessful. Tip: Yummy treats help too!

This relationship and value building is evidenced in my latest PR efforts that have

positioned us as Cloud Integrators. I reached out to our corporate PR firm in Chicago and

they secured an interview for us with the Denver Business Journal. Timing was perfect

due to the recent “hiccup” with Amazon Web Services (AWS).

We will also have a lengthy article in the May issue of the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle about cloud computing.

This is all attributed to having nurtured my partnerships. Remember that progress is the operative word and strategy

for success. Have a Magnificent May and may your business bloom and grow!

Lastly, if you would prefer to receive this print newsletter in electronic format (pdf), please call or email me and I will

move your name from the hard copy newsletter list to the electronic version. A client friend recommended that I make this available so know that I accept suggestions with

pleasure!

Warm Regards,

P.S. In case you are not receiving my monthly e-newsletter and would like to, please email me at [email protected] to request that your name be added.

925 S. Niagara St., Suite 220

Denver, CO 80224

Phone: 303-756-2648

Fax: 303-484-7314

Web:

www.cmitsolutions.com/denver

Blog: cmitdenver.wordpress.com

Email: [email protected]

E-Newsletter Articles:

cmitdenvernews.wordpress.com

Call us now at 303-756-

2648 to request your copy

of our book!

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh (the founder of Zappos.com)

The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google by Nicholas Carr

mailto:[email protected]

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