Quick Tips - Spring 2001

Information Technology Consulting & Solutions

Greetings All! Here are a few tips we hope you find useful.

‘Tis the Season to be Cautious!

Ah! Spring in Oklahoma! The red buds are in bloom, the birds are singing and it’s time to cleanup the barbecue! (and the lawnmower)

Of course it’s also time for those big thunderstorms to come roaring in from the west and, take it from those who’ve been there, done that and have the T-shirt to prove it, the possibility of lightning damage must be taken seriously. This time of year more than any other is the time to pay particularly close attention to your information technology disaster prevention and recovery policies. Here’s a few do’s and don’ts for this time of the year.

Do make sure all of your workstations are protected by quality surge protectors or uninterruptable power supplies (UPS). For computers with modem hookups make sure the surge protector also protects the phone lines. Critical components, primarily servers, should be protected by quality UPS’s to ensure good data backups during power outages. All surge protectors are not created equally. Stay out of Wal-Mart and call us or email us at support@datasystemsokc.com for help on selecting quality surge protectors.

Don’t leave your workstations powered up overnight. The absolute best way to protect against lightning strikes is to turn the equipment OFF. (Don’t forget the monitor.) However, you still need a good surge protector or UPS.

Do consider a short shut down during the day when thunderstorms are rolling through. The worst of a storm will normally blow through in 10 to 20 minutes so shutdown your systems and take a break in the nearest deep hole with the rest of the chickens (please reserve room for us). This is just a little added insurance against lightning damage.

Don’t get lazy with data backups. Quality backups are critical at this time of year. Keep an eye on the sky and check that backup status every day.

Do save your work often when skies are cloudy and gray. Should you take a power hit, you’ll find you don’t lose much this way.

Bill Did One Right!

Data Systems is pleased to announce certification of the Windows 2000 Pro operating system for all Data Systems custom applications. Our testing has found that Windows 2000 Pro is the most stable operating system Microsoft has released since DOS 6.22 and is by far the best new release of Windows ever. It is much less likely to crash and very robust as compared to Windows 98.

Other than a slightly different log in/log out procedure, there are no major interface changes at the user level but, for those of you who set lower level configurations in house and are using Windows 95 or any of the Windows 98 variants, it’s a whole new world (again). You’ll probably want us to help out with upgrades should you choose to go with Win2K.

Then of course... There are a few gotchas to keep in mind.

1. Win2K doesn’t care for DOS programs. Not surprising of course, we’ve been predicting this for years. Our apologies to those we’ve nagged to death but keep this in mind prior to committing to an upgrade. If you’re still running DOS programs you’ll probably want us to check these out to make sure they’ll operate under Win2K. Better yet... DOS IS DEAD FOLKS! It’s past time to retire these beasties out to pasture. Sorry, more nagging.

2. As always, Win2K requires a bit more processing power than previous versions of Windows. You need to be running at least a Pentium III machine to consider this and we recommend a minimum of 64 MB of RAM, 128 would be better. You’ll also need quite a bit of free disk space to perform the upgrade.

3. A simple way to upgrade to Win2K might be to consider replacing a few of your dinosaurs with shiny, new Dell workstations preloaded with Win2K. Hardware prices have dropped so much over the years that this is now a very viable option. Give us a call to help you configure a new workstation or two. This is a service we provide free of charge.

4. One of the ways Microsoft stabilized this operating system is by requiring that third party hardware drivers must be certified as Win2K compliant by Microsoft. In case you didn’t know, a lot of the problems inherent in previous versions of Windows are actually caused by poorly written third party hardware drivers. Granted it’s a whole lot more fun to blame Bill.

The upgrade process does a good job of informing you when you have non-compliant hardware and drivers. We recommend that you DON’T upgrade if this is the case with your systems. Call us or email us at support@datasystemsokc.com if you encounter this. For those of you who have followed our advice and committed to Dell computers, you’ll most likely find you won’t encounter this.

5. Prior to upgrading you’ll want to do some system cleanup. Now is a good time to purge those Word Perfect documents and Lotus spreadsheets you’ve not touched since 1985. Also unload any screen savers or animated cursor programs, and disable your virus protection prior to upgrading.

6. Want to make life simple? Let us check things out prior to upgrading. We know what needs to be done to make sure you have a smooth transition to Win2K.

Time for Spring Cleaning

For most of you, it’s time for us to chase those dust bunnies out of your computers. Keeping your computers clean inside and out extends the life of your systems and helps keep them running smoothly. Now is also the time to cleanup old files that are not needed and perform a few disk drive optimizations.

Give us a call or email us at support@datasystemsokc.com to schedule a spring cleaning.

Check Out the New Web Site

Our web site has recently undergone a bit of a face lift and has moved to a new address. You can now find us at www.datasystemsokc.com. You’ll find some new features on the site that we believe you’ll find helpful. Subscribe to our mail list so we can more easily keep you informed of new features and important information.

New Email Addresses

Along with the new web site address, our email addresses have changed. Dan can now be reached at dlessmann@datasystemsokc.com. Mike’s new address is mbowers@datasystemsokc.com.

A Friendly Reminder From the Good Doctor

It’s quiet out there ... Too quiet. (Sorry) We’re probably not to far from the next big virus scare and the time to make sure you’re keeping your virus definitions up to date is BEFORE the next scare hits.

Call us to check things out if you’re not sure you’re adequately protected. We can show you ways to make this an automatic process so you can scratch this one off the worry list.

As Always... Thank You!

As always, we want to take the opportunity to let you know just how much we appreciate your continued business. We had a great winter although Dan’s been grinching about not getting a ski trip wormed into the schedule. Ignore him. We do.

Also, as always, we appreciate your passing our name along to your friends and business associates. Word of mouth advertising is always the best and we promise to maintain our excellent quality of service to justify your recommendations.

Until next time...

The Data Systems Staff
support@datasystemsokc.com
www.datasystemsokc.com