Author Archives: thrivewpengine

In today’s world, disaster recovery is a huge topic of discussion for almost all businesses. In case of a flood or fire or any type of natural disaster, companies should want to have a backup plan in place to spend ideally no more than 24 hours down. This is big picture stuff. But what about the day to day? Employees should always be in a position where their productivity and efficiency are not hindered.

At its core, Thrive Networks is a service delivery company.  This means that our people are our product, so as long as they are happy, efficient, and productive at all times, Thrive can be confident in its ability to deliver the best customer service possible.  One approach to making sure that each and every day we don’t miss a beat, Thrive employees are given the technological ability to work remotely whenever necessary.   VPN access, terminal servers, and soft phones are available at Thrive to all employees.  These remote technologies are put into place not only for some catastrophic moment, but also for more common events such as the electricity going out in your office building or a snow storm hitting and the plows falling behind schedule.  Obviously there are industries that will remain exceptions, such as manufacturing or education, but for those businesses that can give their employees the ability to work remotely, I would certainly encourage it.

The reason I mentioned the previous snow storm example is because that is what is going on right now as I compose this blog.  This morning my supervisor sent an email stating that I should work from home today as opposed to braving what are still mostly unplowed roads.  My wife, however, made her way to her office, as her company has a less lenient policy on working remotely.  What this boils down to is that I’ve been working productively for the past 2 hours, while she is still  on the highway trying to get to her office located a mere 10 miles away.  So my point is simply, instead of having your employees arrive 2 hours late, worry about their commute home during the day, and likely have some people leave early to deal with snow removal, you could actually get more than a full day’s work from someone who can just pull up at their kitchen table and not have to worry about any of those things.  This is something I’m quite passionate about, but from a business perspective, as long as your employees are safe and happy on a day like this one, then you are bound to get more production from them.  I would strongly urge any business that hasn’t thought through their policy on working remotely in these terms recently to take these ideas into consideration.

Many executives and members of management alike will tell you that training is critical to the success of their business. Training is used to build and refresh employees’ skills when it comes to being able to do the jobs they were hired to do. Training is a continuous exercise since job processes are constantly changing to meet the business and customer needs and demands. Training is used to cope with these changes both in technology or in business practice.

So with training being such an ongoing and never-ending expense, it can seem daunting to make the investment when everywhere people are trying to cut corners and save money wherever they can. In an economy encouraging cost savings, it’s important to remember to NOT skimp on training. In the end, it could cost you a lot more than the initial training investment would have.

Why is Training Important?

Training is essential when it comes to: (more…)

I have a Mac computer at home and love it.

For those of us that have fallen in love with the Apple computers, it seems there has always been a big disconnect between using a Mac computer in the office versus using one at home. (Unless you are graphics designer).

Here is a list of commonly used programs that run just as well on a Mac as they run on a PC in your office:

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Starting as an add-in with Microsoft Office 2007 and incorporated as out-of-the-box functionality in Office 2010, users have the ability to save files directly to PDF format. This post will provide step-by-step instructions to show you how to utilize this feature.

Microsoft Office 2007 Users

1. Download the Microsoft Office 2007 ‘Save As PDF’ Add-in and save the file to your hard disk (SaveAsPDFandXPS.exe).
2. Double-click the saved file (SaveAsPDFandXPS.exe) to launch the installer.
3. When prompted, check “Click here to accept the Microsoft Software License Terms.” and press “Continue”.
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If you’re a Facebook user, odds are you’ve seen it. Joe Smith posts a new status that says something to the effect of, “Check out the picture I found of you.” It is followed by a link consisting of a series of random letters and numbers. Now, the dilemma ensues.

OMG! Joe has a picture of me?! OMG! I just have to see it. I know it looks shady and it might be a virus, but if there is even a chance that there is some random picture of me out on the Internet, it is totally worth the risk of costing my company countless IT engineering dollars too fight a potential virus.

The user can’t resist and decides to click the link. It produces a “Page Not Found” error. “Well maybe if I click on it 7-8 more times it will come up.”

At this point, that little bot that was downloaded on the first attempt now has 7-8 little bot friends. In a couple days they are going to have a web browser pop-up party on the user’s screen and their Google home page will be redirected to some site of questionable moral fiber.

The user isn’t going to report it right away because they are so embarrassed. When they do report it, they have been doing NOTHING but work for the past 2 weeks and would not even think of surfing Facebook during work hours. It is officially the anti-virus software and the IT administrator’s fault. Lengthy Safe Mode scans with software like Malwarebytes or SuperAntiSpyware find numerous infections in repeated scans eventually prompting the need for a full rebuild of the PC.

How can this be prevented

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As 2011 begins, I think it is an important time to reflect on all that has transpired over the past year and what we can all do to better ourselves. This time of year always provokes thoughts of self improvement, goal planning, and reaching personal milestones.

We tend to always take the personal approach of self-improvement and ways in which we can better ourselves in regards to the typical things such as health, relationships, financial status, and kicking bad habits. However, what we tend not to do is think about a set of New Year’s resolutions from a business standpoint and customer service perspective. Specifically, looking at ways we can better our service delivery to our clients.

There is always room for improvement when it comes to customer service. My hopes are to transcend the typical New Year’s resolutions from the personal perspective to the customer service perspective. So, without further adieu, here are my New Year’s resolutions…

How We Will Provide Better Customer Service in 2011

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If you own a business laptop, chances are it is probably an HP or Dell. These two companies have dominated the PC market for quite some time.  Lenovo is another big manufacturer that should be considered with these two.  Lenovo acquired IBM’s Personal Computing Division in 2005 and has been making what I consider the most valued machines since.

Durability

One of the great things about Lenovo laptops is their durability.  Lenovo ThinkPads are built with the intention of being dropped.  These machines have a magnesium alloy rollcage to prevent the screen and internals from smashing on impact.  Also Lenovo’s have a special keyboard that diverts any liquid spills out through the bottom of the laptop.  Most people prefer a wet desk to a fried laptop.

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Microsoft offers many different licensing options, but they can all be classified into 3 programs:

• OEM (“Original Equipment Manufacturer”)
• Retail
• Volume

While there are benefits to each program, Volume Licensing is the most valued program in the SMB market (5 – 500 users). There are many advantages to the Volume Licensing Program, the most important are: mobile use rights, downgrade rights, and re-imaging rights.

There are further categories within the Volume Licensing program but before we examine them, here’s a common example of a licensing dilemma.

SMB Volume Licensing Scenario

Company X wants to re-provision a server to make it a 200 user terminal server. They already have the hardware and Windows Operating System license, they just need to buy the Remote Desktop Client Access Licenses (CALs) and application licensing (Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus).

Let’s price this under the Open Business Volume Licensing program, using Microsoft MSRP pricing. Open Business is a very basic and commonly used Volume Licensing Program.
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