+61 2 8569 2006

I know it’s tempting to leave updating your address book until “later”, especially as faxing is so rare these days, but it’s probably a good idea to get it out of the way sooner rather than later. Human nature, eh?

That said, the old fax number will remain active for at least one month.

We’re now using the online service mBox rather than an actual fax machine. Highly recommended.

mBox provides virtual fax and voicemail services. Incoming faxes are emailed to you as PDF files, and voicemails are emailed to you as MP3 audio files. Very handy.

Their pricing is good too.

Their entry-level MessageIn 200 plan, which is what we’re using, is good for 200 minutes per month of inbound calls. If you only use it for faxes, that’s around 400 pages per month—more than we’ll ever use. That’s $9.95 per month—cheaper than even just the phone rental on a fax line, let alone the other costs of a fax machine.

mBox has other services too — inbound and outbound SMS and outbound faxing, including bulk fax and SMS—but we haven’t explored them yet. They even have an iPhone application for checking your voicemail and faxes.

And no, we’re not getting paid to recommend them, we just thought we’d share the information.

I say “interim” because, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m selecting a business to handle this stuff long-term — a company rather than an individual because one person simply can’t be available 24/7.

I haven’t finished that yet, so I can’t give you full details. However, the hourly rate will be cheaper if the work is done as part of a pre-paid plan, rather than responding as tasks pop up randomly.

Meanwhile, from today I’ll be charging new rates for work I do personally. It’s the first change in two years.

So what are the rates?

The full rate card is on the website (82kB PDF). The key changes:

• The base “standard rate” rises from $140 to $150 per hour, in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increase since 1 September 2006.


• Call-out fees rise by $5, again in line with CPI.


• There is no longer a discounted “SOHO Rate”. When we first introduced this discount for very small businesses, I envisaged being able to use junior staff to deal with “simple” set-ups. However these days even very small businesses have more sophisticated IT needs, and I discovered the hard way that “cheap” staff don’t have the professionalism and range of skills which our clients are used to. A tiny business with only basic IT knowledge actually needs more knowledgeable support because their computer users often can’t describe a problem accurately.


• Discounts for pre-payment only. At this stage, the only discounts offered off the list rate will be for pre-paid work. I will contact you individually if this applies.


• There is no “emergency call-out fee”. This concept assumed, in effect, that we’d drop another client’s work if you paid us more money. That strikes me as unfair. Instead, we’ll work through our jobs like a nurse does triage on emergency patients: critical tasks first, then in the order they came in.

The rate card is also simpler to understand:

• The base rate is $150 per hour, unless we have to hire a specialist.


• There’s a call-out fee if we come to you, which varies according to distance.


• If we come to you, it’s a 30-minute minimum, then we charge in 15-minute blocks.


• Otherwise it’s a 10-minute minimum, then we charge in 5-minute blocks.

The new rates apply to all IT Support job tickets opened after 0800 Sydney time today, and our General Terms of Trade apply. Unless arranged in advance, all work is done on 7-day terms, and late fees apply.

What about existing work?

Any work on existing projects, or on job tickets opened before 0800, will still be charged at the rate you’d been quoted, or the usual rate you’ve been paying until now.

What about Web Development and Internet Hosting?

These rates apply only to IT Support — that is, work done on your computer systems, or for web hosting support beyond the email- and web-based support provided as part of your monthly or quarterly fee.

If you use our Web Development services, I’ll be talking to you about new (and much simpler to understand!) rates shortly. I’m also reviewing Internet Hosting charges as part of a regular server upgrade at the end of September.

And what about that questionnaire?

Well, yes. August was very busy, and there have been personal disruptions as well, mostly health-related. However I do want to get a “spring clean-up” campaign under way for regular clients, and I’ll be in touch about that as soon as I can.

Regards,

Stilgherrian

From Monday 1 September 2008, except in a very few cases, I won’t be doing any IT Support work personally. This article explains how things will work after that.

For two years now, I’ve been intending to operate in line with Prussia.Net’s slogan, Managing Information for Small Business. As I explained in Prussia.Net evolves, this is all really about your business information, not “just” computers. And it’s about a managed approach, not just fixing things when they break.

My personal role will be to do that planning and management. I’ll help you figure out what tools will most effectively support your business, and then select and manage the suppliers who’ll make it happen. I’ll also be working more on web development, and especially the new “Web 2.0” and “social media” tools.

All this is much better use of my experience and skills than crawling under desks or running software installers!

(I’ll also spend more time on my media work, but that’s another story.)

Some of our clients have been “managing” their computer systems with nothing more sophisticated than “call Stilgherrian when something goes wrong”. That will have to change, because I won’t be available! And since computers are essential business tools these days, it’s also unprofessional.

As I’ve said on my personal website, There ain’t no shortcuts to professionally-managed IT.

Over the coming weeks I’ll be selecting an IT installation and support firm to take care of those services — a firm rather than an individual because individuals need to take holidays and so on.

To help you make the transition to proper IT management, I’ve put together a 3-step process:

1. Later this week I’ll send you a questionnaire to help you identify the key IT issues in your business. Please have someone complete the questionnaire before Friday 15 August.


2. Based on your answers, I’ll provide you with a quote for developing an IT Plan for your business. Should you choose to go ahead, I’ll work with you to develop that plan.


3. We can then implement that IT Plan for you, and review it regularly.

How much will it cost?

Filling in the questionnaire and getting that initial quote costs nothing but your time, and there’s no obligation to proceed any further.

The cost of developing an IT Plan will depend on the size and complexity of your business, and on the number of “gaps” between how you’re currently operating and “best practice”.

New rates for IT Support services will be introduced on 1 September, and I hope to announce them a week beforehand. The exact rate will depend on the deal we negotiate with the external supplier. However I’m looking for a professional but cost-effective IT services company, not someone who does things “on the cheap”, and it has been two years since the last change.

What about existing work?

Any work on existing projects or job tickets will still be charged at the rate you’d been quoted, or the usual rate you’ve been paying until now.

However, between now and 1 September I will be giving priority to projects which have already started or where a deposit has already been paid, and to urgent faults.

What about Web Development and Internet Hosting?

I will eventually simplify the other two “branches” of Prussia.Net’s business too: creating and maintaining websites, and the “Internet Hosting” of your web and email. For the time being there are no changes here.

Any questions?

I’ll provide more details as we go, and if we have any open job tickets I’ll be in touch tomorrow to schedule those tasks. If you do have any questions or concerns in the meantime, please let me know.

Regards,

Stilgherrian

Stilgherrian has written a fairly blunt article in his personal website.

Nothing has changed yet, however. All clients will be notified individually as things unfold.

Wireless networks are often unreliable—they’re succeptible to interference and problems with unwanted reflections. A survey by wireless networking company AirMagnet shows that typical office decorations can reduce signal strength by 25%.

“When new elements are introduced… they have the potential to seriously affect the performance of the Wi-Fi network, by deflecting, absorbing or otherwise interfering with the wireless signal,” says Chia-Chee Kuan, CTO and vice president of engineering for AirMagnet. “During the holidays, it could be the decorations in an office, at other times it could just as easily be a new microwave oven or a metal shelving unit.”

If you need a solid, reliable network in your office, then proper Ethernet cabling will always be more effective than wireless networks—no matter what the advertising brochures claim.

What if your server crashed and you needed to restore the data from backup—only to discover that the backups hadn’t been working for six months? Could your business survive? Imagine the cost of picking up the pieces!

Here’s just a few problems we’ve seen with backups:

• Every Friday, the bookkeeper dutifully ran the program which copied the folder “MYOB” to a CD-ROM, which was safely stored off-site. Sadly for her, back on 1 July the MYOB files had been moved to the folder “MYOB Current”. The backups only contained last year’s data.
• The backup system copied data from the server to a backup tape. But everyone’s email, in Outlook Express or Outlook, was still stored in the standard hidden folder on their own computers—which wasn’t backed up. In a disaster, they’d have lost all of their email—ever.
• A backup system reported that the backup script had run. However over time this business’ data had grown so much that it didn’t fit on the backup drive. So only half of their data was being backed up.

Remember, a computer hard disc can fail without warning—and in an instant you’ll lose all of the data it holds. Forever.

You need to test your backup system at regular intervals to make sure it’s working. That means selecting a few representative files and seeing if you can copy them from your backup storage and open the successfully. And make sure those files cover all the types of data your business needs.

If you’d like Prussia.Net to help you develop a comprehensive backup and disaster recovery strategy, just email sales@prussia.net.