62% of users say they plan to increase their IT Spending on Managed Services

October 31st, 2011

A new study of companies that use managed IT services has revealed that 46% of the companies have been able to cut their IT expenses by 25% or more. This is what our CAP-IT Complete program is all about. The study goes on to say that 62% of the people surveyed plan to increase their spending on managed IT services over the next two years. This is further confirmation that the managed IT service industry is alive and well and very beneficial to the company’s that take advantage of this advanced technology.

We at Saunders Business Solutions and been providing managed IT services “CAP-IT Complete” for the last five years. We understand how this technology works in our customers benefit from that knowledge every day. Many companies think that the managed IT services only for larger companies and we wholeheartedly disagree. We offer managed IT services “CAP-IT Complete” to companies with 15 computers or less so that they can take advantage of the cost savings that this technology provides.

For example we have a CPA on our program that got a virus on their server. They were unaware that this virus was on their system. We found the virus during our normal scan and spent the better part of a day getting rid of that virus. Normally this would’ve been a $300-$400 repair for this CPA firm. Instead, they received an e-mail notification from us that we found the problem, resolve the problem and that they will not be receiving a charge for the repair. This is included in our managed IT services program.

For more details on the study click on the link below -

http://tinyurl.com/68qrpkf

Rob Saunders
Saunders Business Solutions
400 Office Park Dr.
Suite 303
Birmingham, AL 35223
(205) 408 – 0600

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Self-Service is now available

September 20th, 2011

Special Announcement

 

Saunders Business Solutions has expanded our service offerings. We now offer a full line of self-service products they can be very beneficial in this current economy. For example we now offer and are self-service line the following:

 

  1. Domains as low is $2.99
  2. Web hosting as low as $6.75
  3. Virtual servers starting at $29.99
  4. Dedicated servers starting at $69.99
  5. SSL certificates
  6. hosted exchange
  7. and much more

 

In the past all you could get from Saunders Business Solutions were full service offerings. Now for the company that would like to register a number of additional domains, has a website they would like to try but don’t want to spend much money on it or has a special application that they want all of their employees to have access to but do not want employees to have access to their server, we have the answer now.

 

Please visit our new website www.CAPITHosting.com and look around. We are constantly running specials so who knows you might find a deal.

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Here are some examples of what we do

September 6th, 2011

Below are some examples of what we do for our CAP-IT Complete customers – there was no charge for any of these items:

  • QuickBooks will not work - No charge
  • Alert Description: Free Disk Space
    Alert Condition:
    Alert subject: Free space
    Drive: C:
    Minimum free space: 500 MB
    Alert Group: CAP-IT Complete Computers
    Generated: 8/21/2011 2:01 AM – No charge
  • Elizabeth’s computer is running very slow. Need to check – No charge
  • We are having a problem getting Sam’s main monitor to work. We have restarted, unplugged and replugged all cables, but we cannot get it to work properly. We have also run the troubleshooter with no luck. when the monitor does show something it says the VGA cable is unplugged or not connected, but we checked the cable and it is plugged in – No charge
  • I keep receiving messages from Mozy that I’m over capacity. – No charge
  • CAP-IT Complete – Standard system review – No charge
  • A “Toshiba Board” is on my desk top and I can’t get rid of it. I am out of the office for the weekend. – No charge
  • Dawn’s e-mail would be doing a spell check and then sends it immediately - No charge
  • MARK-PC has not backed up for 3 days…Please check – No charge
  • On all of our computers. please make the network printer the automatic selected printer. they keep changing back to one note. thanks you -No charge
  • Screen went black after pulling up a website. Restarting it gave a message to get Windows to check and it was not fixable. Possible virus? - No charge
  • Shady and Mitch’s email is down - No charge
  • Add printer to debs computer in huntsville – No charge
  • Jan is having problems with sending e-mail – can you call her? – No charge

 

All of these are actual Work Order descriptions and all of these situations were covered under the CAP-IT program for the customer.

 

Rob Saunders
Saunders Business Solutions
(205) 408-0600
www.SaundersBusiness.com

 

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Stop worrying about your computer

September 2nd, 2011

You have much more important things to do with you time. Instead of remembering to upgrade your antivirus program and run it every week, forget about that and let us handle that for you.  If your computer starts running slow, how do you speed it up? Do you look on line for one of the packages that claim that they will fix it for you? Or do you make a single call and get it handled automatically?

At Saunders, we take care of computers – as if they were our own. The fancy name for what we do is Managed IT Support. The simple term is “we take care of your computer for you”.

For more information on our system, go to www.SaundersBusiness.com. We will be glad to check your system free – no obligations. It doesn’t matter where you are, we can take care of your system. We even have a customer in Zimbabwe Africa.

Rob Saunders
Saunders Business Solutions
400 Office Park Drive
Suite 303
Birmingham, AL 35223
(205) 408-0600

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The next level of computer support

August 8th, 2011

Back in the 80’s one person or company could handle all of your computer needs no matter what they were. Now we are in the 21st-century and that is not the case. In many situations you have one company that designed your website, another company that put your website together, another company that hosts your website, and even another company that handles your shopping cart. Computers are the same way.


In this age of specialization, especially if you are a small company, you need to have the best technology available so that she can win in this economy. That may mean that you have different companies that specialize in different aspects of computer support such as networking, sales of equipment, software, application development, Internet, e-mail, preventive maintenance and more. As you see specialization can be key because you want the best company to take care of your specific needs.

 

At this time I want to zero in on preventive maintenance. As you know in all of the areas listed above having a computer that works and is reliable is key. None of the other areas are important if you can get on your computer to do you. Just like changing the oil in your car you go to the pros, but those pros are not going to sell you tires or work on your engine – for that you go to companies that specialize in those services.

 

For preventive maintenance you want a company that has experience in the world of preventive maintenance and understand the true aspects of a successful preventive maintenance program. That means that you need to have all of the following capabilities and understanding:

  • After hours availability so the work can be done when you’re not using the computer
  • thorough knowledge of how you use your computer
  • a burning desire to make your computer work better
  • an understanding of viruses and antivirus software
  • an understanding of security and what is needed to secure your system
  • an understanding of networking
  • remote access capabilities
  • a thorough understanding of customer service
  • an ability to spot problems and correct him
  • a complete array of tools and a thorough understanding of how to use those tools
  • systems and processes in place to effectively perform preventive maintenance on your computer

Some people feel that off-the-shelf programs would do the job for them. Just like companies these off-the-shelf programs have their areas of expertise and cannot perform the entire preventive maintenance process. If there is a problem these programs are not designed to troubleshoot the issue. For example if your computer is running slow and you have a program that is scanning for viruses it is not going to know to defrag your hard drive as a part of the troubleshooting process of speeding up your computer. Even if you had a program or programs that could do all the preventive maintenance processes you still have the human element of discussing with the end user issues they may be having and then solving those problems that may be unique to this particular situation. Software cannot handle that and therefore is not a complete solution they are only a partial solution.

 

You want a company that performs your preventive maintenance work when you’re not using your computer. Traditional break fix companies are set up to come to your office and perform the work, this puts their technicians in your way so that you cannot get your work done and it results in additional hours they have to charge you for.  The time they are waiting on your system scans to complete should not be billable time. You want a company that is going to optimize resources and as a result do the scans when you’re not using your computers and charge a flat rate for the service.

 

It is not unusual to have one company that takes care of your preventive maintenance work and another company that would take care of your break-fix work. Each company has their expertise and that is a good thing to you as the business owner. You want to have the best technical support you can have for the least amount of money possible and having one company that maintains your system and another company that handles problems is a good thing and can be very economical. Just like websites, you don’t want the programmer that designs your site to create your website; it is to entirely different technology and skill sets required.

 

For more information feel free to call, e-mail or come to our website.

 

Rob Saunders
Saunders Business Solutions
400 Office Park Dr.
Suite 303
Birmingham, AL 35223
205-408-0600

Rob@Saundersbusiness.com

www.SaundersBusiness.com

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Finally a computer solution that works – every time.

July 19th, 2011

Now for the first time, you can work on your computer and not worry about:

  1. Backups
  2. Speed issues
  3. Viruses
  4. Updates

Not only that but if you have a problem, you have only one phone number to call and we will take care of the problem. CAP-IT Complete is the program and Saunders Business Solutions will support your computers.

We take care of your computer with our 20 point support program where we will make sure your computer is running at top performance. If it is not, you call us and we fix it – no extra charge.

This is not a program you purchase and install and hope that it runs and takes care of your system. You have a technician assigned to your computer and that person is responsible for making sure you are happy and your computer is always running its best. This is old fashioned service – not some automated system.

After many years of testing and working with businesses and individuals, we know what works and what does not work. We know what you need and when you need it, for example, we do our work remotely, when you are not using your computer. This means that if you use your computer all day, every day, we will do our maintenance after hours when you are not using it. This way your system is always available to you and running great! No waiting for the tech to show up at your door.

No more worrying about what to do is something pops up on your screen. You call your rep and he will tell you what to do. If you get a virus, we will remove it for you at no extra charge. Of course we are going to give you the best antivirus software available and keep it up to date to be sure you do not have viruses.

When the notice pops up that says to update your program, if you do not know what to do, call us and we will handle it for you. If anything suspicious happens, you call us and we will assist you with the issues. We do not want you to have to deal with any maintenance issues on your computer; we will do all that for you.

There is much more we will do for you and your computer besides what is listed above. In summary we are going to eliminate your security concerns, backup worries, virus threats, update questions and give you the peace of mind that your computers are taken care of by professionals.

In future blogs will give even more details including how we can network all your computers.

For more information go to www.SaundersBusiness.com

Rob Saunders
Saunders Business Solutions
400 Office Park Drive
Suite 303
Birmingham AL 35223

(205) 408-0600 or Toll Free (866) 922-6009

Rob@SaundersBusiness.com

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Drive-by viruses, where do they come from?

June 24th, 2011

Over the last year or so we have experienced the new drive-by viruses quite often. The virus attacks on our occasional customer’s computer and not our regular customers that are on the CAP-IT program. The reason for this is the drive-by virus is designed to attack vulnerabilities with computers that have not been patched correctly.

What I mean by patched correctly is as you use Microsoft Windows people find ways to break into the computer via the Internet through vulnerabilities in the software. As Microsoft discovers these vulnerabilities they come up with solutions (patches) that close up the holes. If these patches are not applied on a regular basis as you surf the Internet websites will find these holes an attack resulting in the installation of a virus. The same is true of Adobe flash player, and Adobe reader – they should all be patched immediately.

What happens when you get the drive-by virus is a screen will pop up telling you that you have been infected by viruses and spyware and it will start counting the instances of that. The pop-up window is the virus not what it is finding. They are trying to get you to click and every time you click it gets more deeply and bedded into your system. They will ask you if you want to buy the software that’ll get rid of the virus, never do this they will steal your identity. Generally the pop-up window will say something like “Internet security” and will look similar to a Windows pop-up.

We have had customers that have gotten this drive-by virus by going to sites like Google, Martha Stewart, UPS and other common sites as well as through search engines and clicking on a site that ends up installing the virus. From a preventive maintenance standpoint the best thing to do is to make sure that you have current antivirus software installed and running properly as well as keeping all of the software patched.

If you get the drive-by virus, the current versions will begin hiding your program files, documents, desktop icons and other commonly used tools. If you are a do-it-yourself person, the first thing you would want to do if possible is to run malwarebites on your system. If you are to have the program on your computer and you can access it you want to run it as soon as possible, preferably in safe mode. Generally this will take care of the majority of the virus. We have seen situations where we have to turn off restore points because the virus will get in and create problems running malwarebites. In that case we will turn off restore points, run malwarebites in safe mode, and then turn restore points back on. Then you will want to run malwarebytes a second time to be sure that it’s got everything.

Another program that will use to get rid of this virus is spybot. You’ll want to do something similar to the process that we just mentioned with Malwarebytes.

In most of the cases this will take care of the problem and the computer will be ready to go. You will also want to be sure that all of your patches are installed and up-to-date.

I mentioned earlier in this blog that the majority of our regular customers do not get the drive-by virus. The reason for this is we make sure that there computers are patched and protected using our CAP-IT Complete preventive maintenance program. If you would like more information about this program we have provided link and you can read all the details.

Rob Saunders
Saunders Business Solutions
(205) 408-0600

Click here to get a free copy of “Tools That Every Business Owner  Should Have to Succeed”

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Sometimes it costs too much to fix a computer but you need to anyway.

June 20th, 2011

John is a customer that would call us and I’m time when he had a problem with his computer. This time he called us and he had a major problem, a virus that infected the system and was very tightly integrated to the point that it’d shut them down. Every time he turned on his computer, it would go to a “Blue Screen” and then shut down. This was rather uncomfortable since there are only two computers in this office and this is the computer with all the accounting information on it.

Unfortunately John was not a subscriber of the CAP-IT Complete program at that time therefore he had to pay the hourly rate to remove the virus and restore his system. This is a rather expensive process since he did not have a backup which made the whole process more complex. We could not just reformat the computer and reload everything, we had to actually clean up the system to get a good backup.

On average it cost $1,247 to maintain a desktop computer that is 5 years old. (Source: Robert Francis Group)

60% of businesses will fail within 6 months of a disaster after losing all their data

We cleaned up his system and it was working the way that he wanted it, but unfortunately we had to present them with a rather large invoice which he understood and had no problem paying, but that did not make it any easier.

We explained the CAP-IT Complete program to him and he immediately signed up his computer and his partner’s computer on the program. Since then he has had a few additional virus scares but in each situation he called us immediately, we logged into to the system, and took care of it at no additional cost to him. He knows he has a good backup in place and that the backup is being checked. We have given this customer piece of mind that his system is safe and that he will be able to get the work done.

His computers are now our responsibility to maintain. If we do not maintain them properly, we must spend the time to fix the system and he will not receive another bill from us.

Rob Saunders

Saunders Business Solutions
Rob@SaundersBusiness.com
(205) 408-0600

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When was the last time you left your notebook computer on the airplane?

June 14th, 2011

Bill is a very likable guy, played football for Auburn University, and owns his own consulting business. Bill travels all over the country and never leaves home without his notebook computer. Everything in his business is on his notebook computer.

One day Bill was coming back from a three day trip to New York City, and as usual was working very hard on his notebook computer on the airplane. Per the instructions from the stewardess, as the plane was beginning to land he shut down his notebook computer and out of habit, put the notebook in the pocket of the seat in front of him.

In his hurry to get home when the plane reached the gate, he grabbed all of his stuff and headed for the terminal. As soon as he entered the terminal he realized that he had left his notebook computer in the pocket and the seat in front of him. He immediately returned to the plane, went back to his seat, and reached into the pocket to retrieve his notebook computer and it was gone.

Many things went through Bill’s head at that moment, do I  have a backup, what other information was on the computer, how long does it take to recover from all this and many other thoughts.

Key findings of the 8th Annual 2010 BSI Computer Theft Survey

° There were over 5,500,000 computers stolen in the USA in the last three years. Worldwide statistics are proportionally similar.

° According to the FBI, only 3% of unprotected (those that do not use a software tracking and recovery software) stolen computers are ever recovered.

° More than half (58.7%) of the survey respondents have been the victim of computer theft in the last 12 months.

° Sixty-seven percent of computer theft occurred while respondent was mobile (moving about), rendering cables, locks and enclosures virtually useless.

° Laptops comprised more than two thirds (68%) of those devices reported stolen, followed by desktop computers (10%) and PDAs, iPods, iPhones, etc. (22%).

° Ninety-seven percent of survey respondents that experienced computer theft report the thief was never caught.

° Forty-six percent of respondents report the estimated value of proprietary data on their stolen computing device at $25,000 or less; 46.5 % estimated the value at between @25,000 and $1,000,000. ; 6.5% estimated the value at $1,000.000 or more and 1% estimated the value at more than $10,000,000.

Is your data safe? Your computer is not.

Rob Saunders
Saunders Business Solutions
Rob@SaundersBusiness.com
(205) 408-0600

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Are you tired of worrying about the information in your computer?

May 25th, 2011

One of the most feared events in computing is the thought of losing your information. Is your hard drive going to crash? Is the information in the backup current? Is there a backup? What happens if the computer is stolen?

There is not a simple solution to all this. That is why people get stressed about their computers. In this blog I will discuss the various precautions you need to consider. First and foremost is back up your system. This is easier said than done but can be done by most anyone. There are many options that have been discussed in previous blogs, and you will need to be sure you have something selected. Once that is done, make sure you backup as often as you need to. We use as a rule of thumb, how much history do you have on hand? If you have a day’s history, then you need to backup daily. If you have a week, you can backup weekly. Next you need to be sure to verify that the backups are working and lastly, make sure there is actually something being backed up.

All this backup stuff will give you the ability to recover but you do not want to have to do this, you would prefer to have it never happen at all. You need good Antivirus software, again discussed previously and you want to be sure it is up to date and running on a regular basis. You will want to check it from time to time to be sure.

If your system is running slow, this could be a signal that something is getting ready to happen. Sometimes systems run slow because the hard drive is failing, full, fragmented or hot. Sometimes it is slow because of Spyware or Adware is slowing down the system because it is causing it to do things you do not want it to do such as sending out bulk e-mails asking all your friends for money – but it really is not you asking. There are other reasons a system may be slow but regardless, you want to be sure to know why. Again, there is a previous blog that addresses this and what you need to do about it.

I can go on and on about this but the point is you do not want to lose your information. You have worked too hard to assemble it; it would take too long to reassemble it. You may have a deadline for a report that would be missed if you lost your system. You want to do preventative maintenance on your system for all these reasons. Don’t wait till it is too late, deal with it now. Make sure you have all these areas covered and protected so you will not become one of the statistics that has lost all their information and are now having to recreate it.

Rob Saunders
(205) 408-0600
Saunders Business Solutions
rob@saundersbusiness.com

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