E – N E W S from 2SS.Com

Int’l Standard Serial No. - ISSN: 1523-3537  2008-No. 10

 

Happy Thanksgiving from 2SS.Com


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We've got CONTENTS


Remote access to your office PC?
 

Solutions to this request that can range from almost free to an investment of thousands of dollars aimed at equipping a remote or telecommuting workforce with a full range of applications.  Before getting into the specifics of what and how much, here are a few general prerequisites for making remote access work:

  1. An 'in-office' PC is needed for each simultaneous user.  If 5 folks will be using remote access heavily throughout the day they'll need five separate processors or an appropriately configured server (e.g. maybe with 6 to 10 GB of memory or more) capable of supporting them.

  2. More than one simultaneous user is not advisable on cable and DSL Internet connections.  It may be possible, but the capacity is not likely to be sufficient to keep them productive.

  3. Remote access solutions require some patience since they are always limited by the speed and reliability of the Internet connection.  If possible, it's desirable to aim at transferring files that can be used locally, rather than remotely using an 'in-office' PC to prepare documents, spreadsheets. etc.

Well known from it's history as a dial-up tool, pc AnyWhere (versions 12.1 or 12.5) is still an updated, full-featured and  inexpensive solution.  It works from most any source PC via the Internet and requires a target PC with a dedicated IP number.  For 2SS.Com clients the target PC is often a network server configured with multiple user desktops.  If only casual access is needed, this is a 'least-cost' solution since the only ongoing fee is for a small block of dedicated IP numbers, (Often required for other purposes.) typically under $20 a month.

PS  2SS.Com acquires PC Anywhere version 12.1 via eBay for about $35 a copy.  We don't recommend buying it from a store shelf where version12.5 can be as much as $199 a copy!
 
With annual costs of $125 for one, $144 for two, and $336 for five (5) PCs WebEx PCNow is the current bargain of server-based remote access.  Instead of calling a destination PC with it's IP number (as with pc AnyWhere) a small program is loaded onto each PC to be monitored by the PCNow website service.  Then from any PC anywhere you can surf to the PCNow website and connect, or with a little set-up click a desktop icon on your notebook or home PC.  NO other hardware or setup!
 

There are more expensive solutions available including the 'Remote Web Workplace' feature that's built into Microsoft's Small Business Server, and several others including Citrix, Cisco, 3-Com and more.  But for a small investment and quick, useful  functionality pc AnyWhere and WebEx PCNow are the most cost-effective we've found.

Outlook Archive Files the What, Why and How?


 What?

Microsoft Outlook in all it's recent versions 2000, 2002 and 2003 has an Archive procedure that is turned on by default and typically set to run every 14 days.  If you use Outlook's archive feature by default what happens is that you gradually accumulate the messages (before the current archive date) into a secondary Outlook message file named Archive.Pst' (actually this '.Pst' file works very much like a primary Outlook '.Pst ' file).  This default approach typically does not make much sense for established Outlook users, and our first guideline is to turn it off!

Why?

The purpose of Outlook's Archive procedure and the file it creates or updates is to move older and presumably less-needed messages into a secondary file that can be accessed as needed.  This makes it possible to keep the primary file smaller and more able to respond to the variety of activities that are typical of an Outlook user who tracks schedules, uses contacts, and monitors tasks in the midst of sending and receiving E-mail. It's quite common to find Outlook files that are 1GB, 2GB and with the release of Outlook 2003 even larger. (In earlier versions there was a 2GB limit for an Outlook '.Pst' file that makes it very important to manage the file's size.)

(Please Visit: http://reviews.ebay.com/Outlook-Archive-Files-The-What-Why-amp-How_W0QQugidZ10000000008179374 to see the rest of this article.)

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2SS.Com is proud to be certified with leading IT vendors that include APC (Authorized Reliability Provider), Dell (Registered Partner), Intuit (Certified Pro Advisor), Microsoft (Small Business Specialist), OnTrack and Symantec (PartnerNet) to name a few.

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Last modified: November 27, 2008