The HelpDesk Company Blog

Golf Anyone? Have Fun While Helping a Local Non-Profit.

Jennifer — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:42:08 +0000

When I was just six years old, I lost my first sister to a congenital heart disease on her fourth day of life. It was a gut-wrenching loss that has impacted my family in more ways than you can imagine. We have been blessed that no other children in our family have had CHD since. Mended Little Hearts is an independently self-funded not-for-profit organization - 501(c)3 - for families with children in Central Virginia that live with heart defects and/or disease. MLH of CVA is a support network providing education, advocacy, awareness, and outreach. I was thrilled to learn of Mended Little Hearts of Central Virginia (MLH of CVA) when my daughter was a toddler and am always looking for ways to support the incredible work this volunteer-run organization does. I can only imagine how much their support would have meant to my family all those years ago.

Did you know?

1 out of every 100 infants born will have a congenital heart defect, leading to approximately 40,000 new heart babies every year
About 1,000,000 Americans born with a congenital cardiovascular defect are alive today
Cardiovascular disease is the second leading cause of death for children 15 and under

UVA Children’s Hospital and Fetal Department is sponsoring the 5th Annual MendedLittle Hearts Golf Tournament on August 9^th at Stonehenge Country Club. The event will be Captains choice with a 1pm shotgun start.

We are currently looking for:

Hole-in-One prizes
Hole Sponsors
Golf Teams / Players
Silent Auction Items

A substantial amount of our proceeds will go towards making and shipping care bags for families who have to be away from home in order for their child to get the life saving surgery they need (MLH sends on average 30-40 bags per month costing about $50/care bag). The rest will be used for monthly educational meetings and family fun events (ex. Lewis Ginter, Pumpkin Patch, etc).

If you have any questions regarding the tournament, please feel free to call me or please contact MLH at 804-399-9532 or 804-836-4960. Or you can e-mail centralva@mendedlittlehearts.org. For more information about MLH of CVA, please visit www.MLHRichmond.org .

Beware the Phishing Scam!

Jennifer — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 16:37:00 +0000

This time of year, lots of folks go fishing. Unfortunately, others go Phishing (and I’m not referring to the band). Phishing is an email scam where an email is sent to the unsuspecting person requesting personal information. It works more than it should because Phishers typically use a trusted name in their message. We periodically see this type of scam using bank and credit card company names.

Recently, we’ve seen an influx of these emails using a trusted brand - Amazon.com. It’s easy to get duped since Amazon does send legitimate messages. Hopefully, these tips will help you spot and avoid the Phishing scams…

Check the suspicious email against a legitimate one:

Logos the same? The Amazon scam adds a tag line
Email address formats the same? Do-Not-Reply@amazon.com vs. ship-confirm@amazon.com
Same language? “Help Pages” vs. “online Help Department”

Check out the links - WITHOUT clicking through:

Hover your cursor over any embedded link in the email
What URL appears? Is it the supposed senders (i.e., amazon.com) or is it something odd (i.e., sonda.co.kr)?

When in doubt, throw it out.

Subscribers to our MessageCare email filtering service have the majority of these Phishing scams blocked from their Inbox. Want to learn more? Give us a call at 282-2282 or drop us a line at Info@TheHelpDeskCompany.com.

Our Clients are Winning Awards!

Jennifer — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:34:51 +0000

Summer is here - with a vengeance! I heard on the radio this morning that they’re predicting this will be the hottest June on record. Hopefully, the heat is energizing you to turn up the heat on your business.

Congratulations to our clients who have recently been recognized for their accomplishments. This is a much better type of “hot” than the weather!

First Capital Bank - recently earned a 5-star rating from Bauer Financial
Fountainhead Properties, Inc. - Top Winner of the 2010 VMFA Muse Awards
Green Modern Kits.com - 2010 VMFA MUSE Award Winner - not a client, but had to give a shout-out for owner & childhood friend, Copeland Cassatti
Commonwealth Commercial Partners - Clean River Award from the City of Richmond
Titan Group - Named one of Virginia Chamber of Commerce’s 2010 Fantastic 50.

Boy, do we do business with some great folks, or what?!? Have you been in the news and I’ve missed it? Please let me know so I can share in an upcoming newsletter.

We would also like to welcome our newest client - Altadis, USA.

Know someone who’s been frustrated with their IT support? Looking for ways to stabilize their business/cash flow? We encourage you to share our name with them - we just might be able to help.

Stay cool!

Green Printing: Ink-Based Printers

Jennifer — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 15:00:49 +0000

Ink

Did you know there are two types of printer ink? Ink Jet and Solid Ink. Ink Jet printers still use cartridges, but they are much smaller than toner cartridges. Solid Ink is the newest technology and doesn’t use cartridges.

Ink Jet - these printers typically have the lowest page yield per cartridge and print quality is middle of the road. These printers are often the cheapest and you can get better print quality by spending more on the printer itself. As with Toner cartridges, you have a choice.

OEM (New) - more expensive. However, uses the ink the printer was designed to use. Very low defective rate.
Refilled - the cheaper option. Vendor refills the ink with “closely comparable” ink. There is a much higher probability of being defective.

Green Factor: Reduce, ReUse Smaller cartridges means less plastic. And the Refilled provide the same benefits as Toner Cartridges.

Solid Ink - these printers tend to be pricier. Their cost per page is higher and the page yield per ink block is middle of the road. However, the print quality is much higher - especially with color printing. Although there are no cartridges, there is still an option for OEM or non-OEM ink. Like Ink Jets, Solid Ink printers are designed to work specifically with the OEM Ink. Non-OEM ink is “closely comparable” and the print quality reflects it.Green Factor: Reduce Since there are no cartridges or parts, there is no plastic to discard, reuse or recycle. There is some waste as the Solid Ink is melted onto the page. However, it is minimal.

The Bottom Line

The best choice depends on your business needs and priorities. Many companies will use a variety of options. For example, we use a Xerox Solid Ink for our color printing (and are able to do the majority of our “printing” in-house), a Xerox multi-function toner-based printer as our office work horse, and HP Laser-Jets (Toner-based) at Todd’s and my desks.

Green Printing: Toner Based Printers

Jennifer — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 15:00:42 +0000

All printers use either Ink or Toner. Sounds simple…until you realize there are multiple choices for both. Following is an overview of not only Ink vs. Toner, but also the different Ink and Toner solutions. Thanks, Mason, for compiling this information!

Toner

Toner-based printers typically provide the lowest cost per page and higher page yields per cartridge. These ”work horse” printers tend to be middle of the road when it comes to pricing. However, the print quality is generally not as good as with Ink-based printers.

Toner is toner is toner. However, the cartridges it comes in have distinct differences. Cartridges are available as New (OEM), Refilled and Remanufactured. Which should you use?

New (often referred to as OEM)- the most expensive option. However, all parts are new and print quality is virtually never a problem.
Refilled - typically the cheapest option. No parts are repaired or replaced, only the toner is replaced (refilled). As a result, print quality is sacrificed.
Remanufactured - middle of the road on price. Not only is toner replaced, but so are parts. Print quality is good, but sometimes there are defective cartridges.

Green Factor: ReUse It’s all about the cartridge. This plastic container is typically not recyclable (definitely not around Richmond). New cartridges have no green factor - unless you donate them to companies who refill and/or remanufacture. An added green factor with Refilled and Remanufactured - their vendors typically will pick up the used cartridges when they deliver the “new” ones.

Going Green - Printer Options That Can Also Save You Money

Jennifer — Tue, 18 May 2010 12:55:41 +0000

Going Green is a hot topic these days. Did you know making a few easy changes to your printing habits can have a real impact - both on the environment and your wallet! There are obvious changes (only print out what you must, print on both sides of paper) and others are more subtle (narrow your margins, print in draft mode).

The IT department at University of Wisconsin, Green Bay identified an even easier solution - use a different font! By changing from the commonly used Arial font to Century Gothic, Green Bay’s nearly $100,000 annual toner costs were cut significantly simply by changing the default font on all their machines. Although Century Gothic is slightly wider than Arial, it’s thinner lines result in about 30% less ink.

Want to learn more about how you can Print Green? Keep an eye out here in the coming weeks as we discuss these tips and more - and teach you how to make these earth-friendly, money-saving changes your default settings.

Thank you, Jordan Amberston, for these great tips. Jordan has been a Support Specialist with The HelpDesk Company for nearly two years now. When not taking providing support, Jordan can be found researching the latest technologies and working with the rest of the team to determine which will best benefit our clients.

Core Values - KNOWLEDGE

Jennifer — Wed, 12 May 2010 12:50:04 +0000

As I hope you know, KNOWLEDGE is one of our company values. It’s critical that our clients, partners and prospects trust that we have the knowledge to competently address their business technology needs. We live this value daily. A few examples:

The support team holds “campfire” sessions to tackle tough technical issues together
The sales team attends various events to better understand our clients’ industries and the business challenges they face
Todd and I regularly attend industry events to improve our leadership and management skills and stay abreast of new technology and services.

Are you involved in an industry-specific organization? We’d love to learn about it. We want to understand what is important to you.

New Clients in April!

Jennifer — Wed, 05 May 2010 12:51:21 +0000

We are pleased to introduce our newest clients. Please help us welcome:

Windows 7, It’s a Good Thing

Jennifer — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 15:03:32 +0000

As we all know, Windows 7 - Microsoft’s newest desktop operating system - is here, and it’s here to stay. We’ve been testing Windows 7 for about a year now and have been quite pleased. It is faster and more secure than Windows XP. And, unlike Microsoft’s recent “flop”, it has a Compatibility Mode that allows users to still run their Windows XP applications.

Why is this good?

Organizations can now upgrade to Windows 7, even if some of their applications are not Windows 7 compliant. It also means that they can upgrade in phases.

Although it is a technical Best Practice to purchase all like-equipment on your network at the same time, it is not always a financial best practice to do so. So, if a large purchase or lease is not a viable option, purchasing in phases is the next best option.

Start With a Plan

All equipment upgrades are easiest when planned. If you anticipate replacing workstations this year, it’s a good idea to start testing Windows 7 in your environment now.

Suspect you’ll be replacing some of your equipment this year? Give us a call so we can talk about installing a single Windows 7 PC now. You can test all of your existing applications and plan for any workflow changes before you roll it out to the entire organization.

New Clients in March

Jennifer — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 21:03:31 +0000

I’m pleased to introduce you to our newest clients. We are honored to be working with them.