Big Sur Technologies Services Blog

Big Sur on Fox13 News Investigates Feature

noreply@blogger.com (Charles Love) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 13:09:00 +0000

Hi Everyone,

Big Sur was featured on a Fox 13 Spot last night on the 5:00 News. Below is a link to the article, and Video.

http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/investigates/111-facebook-monitoring-at-work

Companies monitor employees on Facebook

Published : Monday, 11 Jan 2010, 6:23 PM EST

TAMPA - Can't wait to message your friends? Maybe you should. The boss could be watching.

Companies these days are trying to squeeze out more productivity, and one way to do that is to limit the time employees are able to spend on social web sites.

“You're allowed to visit Facebook for 10 minutes out of the day. After 10 minutes, we're going to cut your time out,” said Charles Love, technical services manager of Big Sur Technologies in Tampa, speaking about one of the policies set by his clients.

Employers pay Big Sur Technologies to keep an eye on what employees are looking at online.

Charles Love is even able to set up the boss to track an employee’s internet surfing from an office on a completely different floor.

“Management can see the mouse moving, and they can see all the key strokes,” said Love.

“It's entirely legal,” said law professor Tim Kaye of Stetson University. “Whatever goes on during normal work hours with the employer’s equipment is a matter for the employer to control.”

Professor Kaye says this standard generally applies even when employees are using these sites to get their work done.

A recent survey shows there may be good reason for companies to worry about social networking sites. Of employees who have a Facebook page, 77 percent said they’re on it during work hours, but only 13 percent of that same group said they had a business reason to do so.

“Some companies encourage their employees to go on Twitter or Facebook to publicize the company. So while you're there, it rather depends on what you expect the employee to be doing,” Kaye said.

Kaye offered this advice for employees:

“I suspect the best defense for an employee is to be a productive employee. If you’re getting the job done, and everyone get on with me, then there will be less reason to start investigating you,” he said.

Email Archive Overview w/ Big Sur

noreply@blogger.com (Charles Love) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:58:00 +0000

Hi Everyone,

Email Archive has been a hot topic for our customers as of late, our email compliance and retention team has been hard at work doing implementations. I wanted to touch on what M+ Archive really is to everyone. A lot of our customers are calling us because they want to “trim the fat” out of their email systems. With the M+ Archive system, we are able to keep a secure copy of the entire mail system. M+ Archive works with both, Microsoft Exchange 2003/2007 and GroupWise 7/8 enviroments.

Here is how it works, M+ Archive uses an Archive Server. This is the server where the emails are stored. Every Night or Week (depending on schedule) we will do an update scan to refresh the archives; this update scan will collect items that the previous one did not get or items that may have come in between scans. How, when and what we scan is very flexible.

Once we have emails in the archive, we can now “trim the fat” in your email systems. We recently, had a customer who wanted to maintain all of the emails of their 15 year mail sever as a “Just in case” measure, but only really wanted the last 5 years in the live mail system. Their email size went from well over 200Gig’s down to about 70gig’s. As email users the question we need to ask ourselves is do we really need all that email, will you really look at a meeting request from 1999 taking about the Y2K Planning session, or how about Sally in accounting who’s cat just had kittens (back in 2003) – Do we need to keep that as a reference? Typically the answer is no, when the conversation of legality comes into play, then the answer is yes. But without a product like this, there is no way to keep a audit logged track of all the Y2K, Kitten, and hodgepodge of actual legitimate emails.

Another thing to do is to think of this as it relates to Onsite and offsite backup and restore. Depending on hardware, it could take hours to restore a 200G email system, for the customer I mentioned above the backup is now flying compared to what it did weeks ago. By taking the large quantity of mail out of the primary mail store, it also keeps your email server healthy. It makes everything faster as it relates to email. If it turns out that they ever need to go back more than the 5 years, then we can easily search the mailstore with the google-like search engine, or even the web interface.

If this is something you are interested in, please let me know and I can show you a Demo and talk more about it.

Again, Thanks for stopping by!

Charles J. Love Technical Services Manager
813-269-9145 x227
Big Sur Technologies, Inc.
http://www.bigsurtech.com/

Big Sur Has Moved!

noreply@blogger.com (Charles Love) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:03:00 +0000

Hi Everyone,

Just a note to let you know that Big Sur Technologies has moved to our new location. We are now located at the below address.

Big Sur Technologies
4631 Woodland Corporate Blvd.
Suite 110
Tampa, FL 33614

Novell Releases GroupWise 8 SP1!

noreply@blogger.com (Charles Love) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:04:00 +0000

Hello Everyone,

Just letting you know that Novell has officially released GroupWise 8 SP1, we have had lots of customers coming to us wanting to take their GroupWise environment to the latest and greatest version. There are lots of cool new features with GroupWise 8 that can be found here - http://www.novell.com/products/groupwise/productinfo/ If you are interested in having us help you upgrade your GroupWise environment to GroupWise 8, please let me know!

Again, Thanks for stopping by!
Charles J. Love Technical Services Manager
813-269-9145 x227
Big Sur Technologies, Inc.
http://www.bigsurtech.com/

Hey Tampa! Its Hurricane Season, Is your Accounting data safe?

noreply@blogger.com (Charles Love) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:47:00 +0000

Did you know that Big Sur Technologies offers "Big Sur Remote Backup" for as low as 9.95/Month?

What is Big Sur Remote Backup?

Big Sur Remote Backup is an automated data backup and restoration system providing powerful tools to protect important data. Unlike traditional data protection tools, Big Sur Remote Backup does not require any human assistance beyond the initial installation and setup. There is no media to install, remove, protect, or replace. Big Sur Remote Backup is highly secure and only the user has access to their stored and data.
Your valuable data is encrypted and stored at a Secure Data Center. Without your password, no one else can read or use your confidential information. Not even Big Sur Technologies’ Staff, It’s that secure!

Our easy-to-use system is flexible in how often to backup and how many previous versions of the data are kept. Because only the data changes (Deltas) are stored, very small amounts of storage are used to maintain versions. Big Sur Remote Backup can even help when data is destroyed by mistake because Big Sur Remote Backup maintains copies of deleted files for a period of time preventing accidental deletions. This valuable tool will come in very handy one day, guaranteed!

Your data is NOT Stored in the state of Florida

Call 813-269-9145 x236 for your Backup Assessment Today!

Also - Another question to ask yourself. How old are my tapes??? Did you know that most manufactures recommend you change them every 12 months?

Again, Thanks for stopping by!

Charles J. Love
Technical Services Manager
813-269-9145 x227
Big Sur Technologies, Inc.
http://www.bigsurtech.com/

Big Sur Launches New Web Site!

noreply@blogger.com (Charles Love) — Tue, 19 May 2009 20:05:00 +0000

Hi Everyone,

Be sure to check out the new Big Sur Web Site. We also have some cool interactive features.

http://www.bigsurtech.com/

Again, Thanks for stopping by!

Charles J. Love
Technical Services Manager
813-269-9145 x227
Big Sur Technologies, Inc.
http://www.bigsurtech.com/

Free Conficker Worm Detection & Removal Tool

noreply@blogger.com (Charles Love) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:39:00 +0000

In less than six months, the Conficker/Downadup worm has infected thousands of business networks--making it the most widespread worm infection since SQL Slammer in 2003.
If your computers are unpatched, they’re still at risk.

Download a free Conficker detection and removal tool from Sophos

Conficker uses advanced malware techniques to exploit vulnerable computers, weak passwords and USB storage devices. Learn more about how the Conficker worm works in a free 10-minute podcast with Paul Ducklin of Sophos.

Listen to the podcast about Conficker

Sophos is the prefered AntiVirus Solution for Big Sur Technologies!

Again, Thanks for stopping by!

Charles J. Love
Technical Services Manager
813-269-9145 x227
Big Sur Technologies, Inc.
http://www.bigsurtech.com/

Conficker Worm - Are you protected for 4/1/2009??

noreply@blogger.com (Charles Love) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 20:27:00 +0000

There is alot of data out there about the new Conficker Worm. Did you know the main date for this virus is 4/1/2009? We have had some customers already infected with 2 variants of the worm before the new launch date. As it so happens, these customers were NOT protected with our monitor, and did not follow a Windows Update Schedule methodology. Can you say that you are protected for sure?

Big Sur Technologies customers who run NetCare Monitor will be fully protected from this vulnerability, and future ones. One of the key features of our monitoring system is to push out various critical Windows Updates to the PC's and Servers that are covered.

By keeping your Servers, and PC's up to current patch levels, vulnerability such as Conficker, are a non-issue.

Interested in learning more about monitor? Let me know!

Thanks for stopping by!

Charles J. Love
Technical Services Manager
Big Sur Technologies, Inc.
http://www.bigsurtech.com/

Five PC power myths debunked

noreply@blogger.com (Charles Love) — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:26:00 +0000

I found a great article about PC power Myths - Read below, very informative -

Don't let misinformation prevent you from cashing in on PC power management

Turning off PCs during periods of inactivity can save companies a substantial sum. In fact, Energy Star estimates organizations can save from $25 to $75 per PC per year with PC power management. Those savings can add up quickly. According to a recent report by Forrester titled "How Much Money Are Your Idle PCs Wasting?" PC power management is helping General Electric and Dell boast savings of $2.5 million and $1.8 million per year, respectively. That also results in a substantial reduction in CO2 emissions.

[ For more on PC power management, please read "When PCs don't snooze, you lose." Read about 10 more power-saving myths. ]

So why is there hesitancy at some organizations to implement PC power management, given that the payback is easy to calculate? Perhaps some companies are being swayed by myths about PC power management. Forrester outlines five such myths in its report.

Myth No. 1: The power used turning my PC on negates any benefits of turning it off. Forrester debunks this myth as follows: The average desktop draws 89 watts per hour. If it's left on overnight for 16 hours, it consumes 1.42kW. It's impossible for the power surge that occurs when powering on a PC to rival that figure: "You would be drawing energy at a rate of 17 kWh -- the equivalent of 44 HP DL580 servers at 100 percent utilization. Moreover, the average US wall outlet can only provide 1.8 kW of draw, which is about one-tenth of what the power surge would require."

Myth No. 2: My screen saver is saving me energy. Though at times entertaining and whimsical, screen savers aren't power savers. As the report notes, "Certain graphics-intensive screen savers can cause the computer to burn twice as much energy," according to the EPA's Energy Star Program. A screen saver displaying moving images consumes just as much electricity as an active PC. A blank screen saver is slightly better, but most screen savers don't save energy unless they actually turn off the screen, or in the case of laptops, turn off the backlight. In short, it's better to place PCs in a lower power state than it is to run a screen saver.

Myth No. 3: Turning my PC on and off will reduce its performance and useful life. There may have been some truth to this once upon a time, the report notes, but today's new and improved modern hardware can handle it. The Forrester Report cites findings from the Rocky Mountain Institute: "Modern computers are designed to handle 40,000 on/off cycles before failure, and you're not likely to approach that number during the average computer's five to seven year life span. In fact, IBM and Hewlett Packard encourage their own employees to turn off idle computers, and some studies indicate it would require on/off cycling every five minutes to harm the hard drive."

The report goes on to say that "powering down your computer may actually extend its life cycle by reducing the intake of dust, which can cause fans to seize up or parts of circuit boards to overheat."

[ Powering up and down PCs is OK -- but find out why powering down servers is a calculated risk. ]

Myth No. 4: I can't run updates and patches for PCs in lower-power states. It's perfectly possible to rouse PCs from slumber for patches, updates, and backups. "This is most often achieved using WOL (Wake on LAN) technology -- an Ethernet networking standard that allows PCs to be 'woken up' from a lower power state after receiving a 'magic packet' network message. Alternatively, recent hardware improvements such as Intel vPro can offer similar functionality without relying on the WOL standard," according to the report.

Myth No. 5: My PC users will not tolerate any downtime for power management. The Forrester report does acknowledge that end-users have very little patience for downtime. However, it suggests that "potential user complaints can be mitigated by communicating the positive financial and environmental benefits of PC power management."
The Forrester report "How Much Monday are Your Idle PCs Wasting?" is available for $279.

This article was posted @ http://weblog.infoworld.com/sustainableit/archives/2008/12/pc_power_manage_1.html

Thanks for stopping by!

Charles J. Love
Technical Services Manager
Big Sur Technologies, Inc.
http://www.bigsurtech.com/

Looking for your Administrator Login in Vista? (Tip by Dave Kahlbaugh)

noreply@blogger.com (Charles Love) — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:45:00 +0000

If you ever need to log on to Vista as an administrator, but the admin account doesn't appear anywhere, this should fix it where you can see the account.

HOW TO: Enable the build-in Administrator account in Windows Vista (applies to any other user)

MORE INFORMATION: To enable the build-in Administrator account, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, and then type cmd in the Start Search box.
2. In the search results list, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as Administrator.
3. When you are prompted by User Account Control, click Continue.
4. At the command prompt, type net user administrator /active:yes, and then press ENTER.
5. Type net user administrator , and then press ENTER.Note: Please replace the tag with your passwords which you want to set to administrator account.
6. Type exit, and then press ENTER.
7. Log off the current user account.

-- Dave Kahlbaugh

Systems Engineer

MCSE/A, CCNA,VCP, A+

Big Sur Technologies

http://www.bigsurtech.com/

Attention Current GroupWise Customers : GroupWise Security Updates 2/2009

noreply@blogger.com (Charles Love) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:08:00 +0000

In case you were not aware, Novell has recently released a Security Hot Patch for GroupWise 7 and GroupWise 8 that fixes some security vulnerabilities in GWIA and WebAccess. If you have not done so, please take the time to patch your system with the latest hot patches for GroupWise.

For GroupWise 7 the patch is called 703HP2, for GroupWise 8 the patch is 800HP1. More Information can be found here - http://www.gwcheck.com/wpml/?p=1211

If you have any questions or are in need of assistance installing the security updates, please feel free to contact Charles Love or myself at 813-269-9145 x235

Thank you,

Jim Trice
Big Sur Technologies, Inc.
Office 813.269.9145, ext. 235
Fax 813.849.1066

http://www.bigsurtech.com/

TIP: How to make Apache on NetWare 6.5 Target a Data Volume

noreply@blogger.com (Charles Love) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:19:00 +0000

In This example, we have a volume named VOL1, and we have a folder called “files” on that volume. What we are trying to do is keep the apache2 home folder on SYS and create a sub folder on another volume. The results would be http://NetWare1/ serves files from sys:apache2\htdocs\ and http://NetWare1/files serves files from vol1:files

You will need to edit your http.conf in sys:apache2/conf (backup your orig 1st – locate the section named “aliases” and add this line to the bottom

# This makes http://url/files pull from VOL1:Files
Alias /files "vol1:/files"
# This makes http://url/files pull from VOL1:Files

Now you can do an apwebdn and an apwebup – now http://NetWare1/files will be pulling data from the VOL1:

Now if you want to enable directory browsing, look at your httpd.conf and look for this section

# First, we configure the "default" to be a very restrictive set of
# features.
#
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
<<Directory>

Now Add this under this section

<Directory "vol1:/files">
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>

Now you can do an apwebdn and an apwebup, you shuld be able to browse your http://url/files on your website.

Again, Thanks for stopping by!

Charles J. Love
Technical Services Manager
Big Sur Technologies, Inc.
http://www.bigsurtech.com/

Big Sur Technologies & Saint Pauls School - Infrastructure Consolidation Assessment

noreply@blogger.com (Charles Love) — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:49:00 +0000

The Big Sur Technologies Service Team recently finished off a VMWare Project for a private school in Clearwater, Florida - Below is some detail about that project. I wanted to share it with everyone.

Reason for project: To provide an in-depth analysis of the IT environment, ensuring client is utilizing all IT resources efficiently.

What was found, and how we responded:
To determine the infrastructure needs and requirements and to document the environment - Big Sur Technologies performed a complete Infrastructure Consolidation Assessment. During the extensive data-gathering process we found many servers running on improper hardware and configured in such a way that resources were underpowered. In one specific case, an aging desktop machine with 256mb’s of memory was running a key component of the infrastructure, something that almost every student uses. When put in place, this server was able to meet the needs as required by the students, but as the demand grew, it simply underperformed due to its physical limitations. This was the case with multiple systems that were found in full production. The resulting project plan encompassed the migration of 6 key systems running multiple applications to new hardware. Big Sur engineers recommended an HP & VMware Solution to answer the needs of the environment, with Saint Paul’s Schools’ Green efforts—this solution fit right in. This solution would consolidate all of the servers into a virtual environment, running on a single NEW HP server. This allowed Saint Paul’s to cut down on the number of physical servers needed, which reduced the space required, cooling, power, cabling, and more. This also answered many of their Disaster recovery plan requirements.

For Saint Paul’s School, the alternative to this new, virtual environment, was to deploy 6 additional physical servers. The cost saving of the 6 additional servers is estimated at about $40,000. Adopting a virtual environment is a key concern for the environment at time where energy costs are rising. The power and cooling requirements for servers is extensive, and VMware has brought very measurable, ongoing reduction of resources to Saint Paul’s School. The return on investment for Saint Paul’s was immediately realized.

With the new solution in place, we were able to give all of the servers the resources that they needed, and if required upgrade them on the fly. In the case of the 256mb SQL Server, now upon boot, it immediately takes up 2GB’s of memory and now the application is over 4 times faster than before. The users were able to notice the difference immediately.

With the agile datacenter that is now in place, we are able to deploy servers within about an hour vs. the typical 2 week delay while we wait for hardware to be shipped. VMware has given Saint Paul’s School, the ability to do more with less without effecting performance or stability.

About Saint Paul’s School: Saint Paul’s School is an independent, co-educational elementary through middle school located in mid-Pinellas County in Clearwater, Florida for children in grades Pre-Kindergarten 3 through Eighth grade. For more than forty years, Saint Paul’s has maintained a nationally recognized reputation for providing a challenging academic foundation with small class sizes in a safe, nurturing environment. Exceptional programs in the fine arts, athletics and technology add to the broad-based curriculum, offering students the opportunity to learn and grow in an atmosphere that stresses leadership, values, honor and self-discipline.

About Big Sur Technologies: Big Sur Technologies offers unique technical skills for Messaging & Collaboration, Server and Storage Optimization, Virtualization, Messaging & Information Archive, Power & Cooling Solutions and Network Design & Deployment. We have an impressive success story that spans SMB to large Commercial, Government, Education and Healthcare accounts.

Big Sur offers a unique network Infrastructure Assessment that allows clients to accelerate their awareness of the technology needs in their environment, while ensuring the maximum return on investment. Through our NetCare Services solution, we provide proactive monitoring and support, management and strategic guidance in three areas: PC Management, Server Management and Network Management. We design a technology support plan that will meet our client’s specific needs.

Again, Thanks for stopping by!

Charles J. Love
Technical Services Manager
Big Sur Technologies, Inc.
http://www.bigsurtech.com/

Some Novell GroupWise Updates from the Director, GroupWise Engineering

noreply@blogger.com (Charles Love) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:06:00 +0000

Some Highlights...

- We plan to release 7.0.3 HP2 within the next 60-90 days.
- We plan to release 8.0.0 HP1 within the next 60-90 days, if necessary.
- We plan to release 8.0.1 in the first half of 2009
- We plan to release 7.0.4 during the second half of 2009 and we will release another 7.0.3 HP, if necessary.

We are currently hoping that 7.0.4 can be the final support pack for GroupWise 7, but that is still to be determined. Product life cycles indicate that it might.

We are also working on a mobility solution, a 3rd Party integration solution (which may include the mobility solution), Exchange Gateway update, Exchange Migration Utility and GMS 3.0 and we are working on the next major releases of GroupWise - code named Windermere and Monterrey.

- We are also working on Teaming + Conferencing deliverables

- Novell is also engaged in a few ‘Research and Development’ projects that deal with new ‘user interaction’ metaphors, new deployment metaphors and new collaboration markets. These projects have the potential of influencing and enabling some of our own evolutionary steps with GroupWise and Teaming + Conferencing and may provide opportunities for additional collaboration products, components or ideas.

More Info : http://www.novell.com/communities/node/6492/groupwise-next-what-we-are-working

GroupWIse 8 is OUT! and Big Sur is Running it!!

noreply@blogger.com (Charles Love) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 21:01:00 +0000

HI All,

Novell GroupWise 8 has been released. If you want to see it, let me know. So far we are finding all of the new features pretty useful. We will be making a list so that we can show them off to anyone who wants to see it. We already have 2 migrations scheduled for December.

Some good links:
http://www.novell.com/products/groupwise/compare.html
http://www.novell.com/documentation/gw8/
http://tinyurl.com/5avzqy

-Thanks for stopping by!

Charles J. Love
Technical Services Manager
813-269-9145 x227
Big Sur Technologies, Inc.
http://www.bigsurtech.com/

Looking at Novell Teaming or Microsoft Sharepoint?

noreply@blogger.com (Charles Love) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:22:00 +0000

Take a look @ this article - This article focuses on Novell's Take on the differences between the two products.

http://tinyurl.com/6x225v

The Dangers of NOT having UPS Protection – True Story!

noreply@blogger.com (Charles Love) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:18:00 +0000

So I have been working with a customer for a few years now. In the past year or so I have strongly recommended that they replace all of their dead UPS’s, Surge Strips, and yes the PC’s and Devices that are in the wall directly with new warranty based battery backup solutions. Be it financial reasons or other, it was not done.

Well for those of you not in Tampa Bay, we are back in our heavy storm season where as almost every day we get nasty storms and lightning. This week, this customer took a direct hit from a lightning strike – and when I say direct, I mean full on direct. I am told they saw Fire come out of the phone pbx box mounted on the wall. What makes this even scarier is that the PBX was 3 feet away from the server and backup tapes.

Now in this customers defense, they are moving to a new location where as all of these issues will be resolved – but it had not happened yet. The team and I were able to get onsite that afternoon – we were shocked what what we found. The following were damaged beyond repair.

A BrightHouse Cable Modem
Linksys RVS400 Router
4 PC’s Motherboard Network Cards
1 PC – (3 Months Old)– Totally fried – Very important data on C:\ (not on server)
1 – 8 Port Network Switch
1 – 5 Port Network Switch
1 – 24 Port Network Switch (Picture below)
1 – Very expensive Printer/Scanner/Fax

It took my team about 6 Hours combined to troubleshoot all of the failures, and get them up and running with “Big Sur Loaner Gear”. This customer will now need to buy new network cards, switches, routers, etc.

I am in the process of helping them with the new building where as everything will be on UPS.

Now, how can this be prevented?

Make sure ALL of your digital equipment is on a suitable UPS with the Network Jack Protection. The above issue I just spoke about was because lightning traveled through the network cables. I am still surprised today how many people spend upwards of $1500.00 on a fancy new computer, and 1000’s more on network gear and plug it directly into the wall or directly into their cube. I even come across people who later tell me that when the power blips, the pc just shuts off even with a battery. (Just so you know - This is for 1 of 3 reasons, 1 – Your battery is DEAD – replace it asap, 2 – your PC is plugged into the surge side of the battery backup, not the battery, or 3 you do not have a battery backup) IF this customer had the UPS’s in place with network protection, we would not have had such a large scale failure if anything at all.

Battery Backup’s cost about $40-$60 for the low end models, compare that to the $1500 you spend on the hardware, and the $300-$600 – you will need to pay a engineer to fix your problem. Also add the cost of the lost productivity that that person can not work.

As you can see, the $40-$60 is a much smarter move. If you would like a quote on new batterys, or would like our team to assess your network for this type of issue, please let me know and I will be happy to help. Rember - IF you have a UPS, and fill out the warranty card - Most UPS/Battery Backup Vendors will cover your failed equipment! but only IF you keep the reciept, and register the unit.

Again, Thanks for stopping by!

Charles J. Love
Technical Services Manager
813-269-9145 x227
Big Sur Technologies, Inc.
http://www.bigsurtech.com/

Updated NetWare - Cool Tool

noreply@blogger.com (Charles Love) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:42:00 +0000

Hi Everyone,

Our friends over at Caledonia Network's have released the new version of BlokFile - The must have NetWare Tool.

This tool allows you to block various types of files from being saved to your NetWare servers.

This new version of BlokFile (1.5) not only blocks the saving (or retrieval if the files already exist on the server) of files like MP3s, AVI's, MPG's, WAV's - any and all unwanted, un-needed files, it also serves as an auditing tool of which users are saving or accessing these files. BlokFile 1.5 can also send alerts via email. As an auditing tool, BlokFile 1.5 can be used in place of Novell's Auditing for file systems, with a much smaller overhead and more flexibility than Novell's own solution.

If you are intrested in learning more, let me know. Good news is the tool is about $200.00 and if you buy more then 1 server you can get volume discounts!

Again, Thanks for stopping by!

Charles J. Love
Technical Services Manager
813-269-9145 x227
Big Sur Technologies, Inc.
http://www.bigsurtech.com/

What is POE Anyway? - Good Article

noreply@blogger.com (Charles Love) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 12:01:00 +0000

Found a good article today from the Petri Folks. Take a look at this if you are intrested to know more about what POE is..

http://www.petri.co.il/what-is-power-over-ethernet.htm

Again, Thanks for stopping by!

Charles J. Love
Technical Services Manager
Big Sur Technologies, Inc.
http://www.bigsurtech.com/

iPhone 2.0 Supoprts Exchange & GroupWise (with addon)

noreply@blogger.com (Charles Love) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:54:00 +0000

The iPhone now supports Exchange Active Sync out of the box. For those of you who have Novell GroupWise, never fear - we have a partnership with NotifyLink where for a nonimal fee per year we can setup calendar, email, and contact sync on your new iPhone - If you want more info about that let me know..

The below link is from the Exchange Blog - http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2008/07/11/449196.aspx

Novell to Open up GroupWise (a bit)

noreply@blogger.com (Charles Love) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:52:00 +0000

This should lead to some interesting things..

Read this interesting post in the NGW List by Dean Lythgoe, director of GroupWise engineering:

(this is a reply to a question on GroupWise API’s)

We realize that there are GroupWise APIs that have lagged far behind. The Client APIs (object api, C3POs and Tokens) and the Admin APIs have not kept up with the features and other functionalities that continue to be developed and exposed in our GroupWise Clients and interfaces.

Bonsai makes some updates to the object API, C3POs and Tokens, but very little to the Admin API. We have been building, as stated several times, a new Admin API. This will be a Web Service and may provide other bindings. However, the Admin API is not scheduled to be released as part of Bonsai. We will be using some of this API in the new Install - the System Creation part begins to utilize this new API.

As we move away from ConsoleOne, we will be using, documenting and exposing this Admin API to 3rd parties. We will do this as soon as possible. We did focus resources in Bonsai in several different areas in the Window, Linux and WebAccess Clients. We also dedicated a lot of time to further developing our SOAP on the POA. We also pushed the Admin API much further during the Bonsai time frame, but we have not been able to finish the Q/A and documentation on the parts that have been developed. We will continue this process during Bonsai SP1, but we have not solidified our plans on when to release the API.

We realize this is not the best position for all of our partners and integrators. We are committed to our API direction and believe that we will deliver a comprehensive API set to cover all of our partners - including the Linux/Mac Client.

We appreciate and recognize the tremendous efforts of our partners who have filled many of these gaps in the mean time. I encourage you to consider these products and expect them to greatly improve as they receive better and better GroupWise API support.

Regards,

Dean

Dean Lythgoe
Director, GroupWise Engineering

Big Sur Technologies Introduces Internet Based Backup Offering

noreply@blogger.com (Charles Love) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:04:00 +0000

Hi Everyone,

Big Sur Technologies now offers Internet Based Backup. With Big Sur Remote Backup you can now target specific data in your business that is Important to you. With the basic plan, you can be sure that that "Key Data" is replicated somewhere else other than its primary location.

Big Sur is starting to install Big Sur Remote Backup for those customers who have Critical Data on Laptops where we expect users to do their own backups (but they don’t), and for data that is on servers such as Finical Spreadsheets, ACS Accounting Data, or Quickbooks.

Bottom line, with Big Sur Remote Backup, you can be sure your data is always replicated out of the state of Florida to a Tier 3 Datacenter. Can you say that for your Tapes?

Plans for Big Sur Remote Backup start as low as 9.95 a month for 5 GIG’s of storage. If you want to know more information about this or any other offering please call into Big Sur @ 877-7BIGSUR.

Again, Thanks for stopping by!

Charles J. Love
Technical Services Manager
Big Sur Technologies, Inc.
http://www.bigsurtech.com/

Doing things with GroupWise Easier then Outlook - (Article)

noreply@blogger.com (Charles Love) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:42:00 +0000

Hi Everyone,

You often hear people saying that Microsoft Outlook/Exchange can do this and that, how come GroupWise Cant? - Here is a nice list of things that GroupWise can do that outlook cant :)

http://www.novell.com/communities/node/2651/what-groupwise-has-outlook-doesnt

Again, Thanks for stopping by!

Charles J. Love
Technical Services Manager
Big Sur Technologies, Inc.
http://www.bigsurtech.com/

Novell's Brainshare on Tour Event

noreply@blogger.com (Charles Love) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:26:00 +0000

HI Everyone,

Thanks to everyone who came out to support us at the Novell Best of Brainshare Event - It was great to see alot of you again.

If you would like to view the slide decks we used, please visit
http://www.novell.com/promo/brainshare.html

Again, Thanks for stopping by!

Charles J. Love
Technical Services Manager
Big Sur Technologies, Inc.
http://www.bigsurtech.com/

Announcing the Big Sur Technologies and Document Advantage Corporation Partnership

noreply@blogger.com (Charles Love) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:50:00 +0000

Hi Everyone,

Last week Big Sur made a big announcement - so far the response has been great to this partnership.

What is DocuVantage? Here is a brief overview :

DocuVantage OnDemand™ is an electronic document management application that provides document capture, text search, business process automation and records management compliance. "Electronic Document management is a key need for many of our customers in our medical and local government accounts. DocuVantage is a leader in the document management solution space and presents a great option for organizations who are trying to reduce costs, improve efficiency and remain competitive in a tightening economy", said Sam Sandusky, president and CEO of Big Sur. "We're excited to offer another solution for our clients that continue to round out our managed services offering and help them continue to grow." As a reciprocating benefit, Big Sur will provide the professional services for DocuVantage and receive all network support leads generated from their day to day activities.

More information can be found here - http://www.bigsurtech.com/about/news/062008-DocuVantage.html

Again, Thanks for stopping by!

Charles J. Love
Technical Services Manager
Big Sur Technologies, Inc.
http://www.bigsurtech.com/