IT Chaos Theary

February 9th, 2010

This morning I find myself reminiscing about the “old days” of IT, rushing along I-95 heading to a client’s office to save their server, feeling like I had the peddle of my car pushed through the floor, weaving through traffic while talking on the cell to a customer and having another on hold.  I remember the feeling of my heart beating in my chest, trying to find fast resolutions for my customers and wondering how I was going to get to everyone.

Life sure has changed.

In the beginning of my life as an IT geek, I worked for a company named EduTech (in truth, they had a few names including “The Beacon Institute for Learning” and a couple I can’t remember).  I was surrounded by great IT instructors and acted like a sponge – trying to absorb every ounce of knowledge from them.  I grew to managing their entire network…right down to the end when the Dot.com bubble burst and they closed their doors.  I also became a Microsoft Certified Instructor through EduTech, which led me down the road to many adjunct faculty positions, enterprise consulting engagements, and travel throughout the world.

My IT life started without much of the stresses which are encountered in the day-to-day operations of the traditional IT services company.  I found myself – after hurricane Wilma made large businesses in south Florida tighten their belts with IT consulting & training spending – in very unfamiliar territory.  EVERYTHING was reactive!

I stopped and thought “how can I bring enterprise level IT thinking to the SMB market” which I found myself servicing.

Proactive Care Managed Services at NTS was born!

Today I look around and realize that quality of life has returned.  We’re now working at full capacity handling more volume of service requests than I ever thought we’d see (over 1600/mth).  Our engineers can spend time with their families.  Our team can work a regular work week and enjoy their lives!

The best benefit though is the feedback I receive from customers.  Comments about increased productivity of staff, less “problems” with their systems, and how much our customers enjoy working with our staff (a direct result – I believe – of our work environment).

It’s a two-way street though.  We work best as partners with our customers.  When viewed as simply “vendors”, customers don’t realize the full benefits of our team.  Our goals are tightly aligned with the goals of our customers.  The greater the “win” for our customers, the greater the win for us.

This is where we are today.  It’s been a long road – and it certainly has had its ups and downs – but in reflecting this morning on where we’ve been and where we’re going, all I can say is “wow, I can’t wait to see what the future holds”!

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DID YOU KNOW???

April 6th, 2009

NTS is a certified Prometric testing center? My name is Jason and I am the Testing Administrator for Network Technology Solutions, and it’s time to get those certifications!! In a tough economy having the most current and up to date certifications can be the difference in gaining or retaining current employment. I know what you’re thinking, “I’d like to but the Certification exams are so expensive”, so the staff here at NTS has taken yet another step to help you along you certification path!

Below you will find a website that offers discount exam vouchers. I know, I know they still cost money and that’s hard to part with in these times, but a small investment to your future success and growth within a company is more than worth it! For Microsoft examinees these vouchers not only give you discounted prices, but also work as a second shot voucher. For those who do not know what the second shot is, basically Microsoft is offering a two for one deal!!! Should you take any Microsoft Certification exam with a valid second shot voucher, and fail, Microsoft will allow you to take the same exam a second time absolutely free.

The site for discounted vouchers is as follows: http://advanced-technology-group-atg.stores.yahoo.net/index.html

To use one of the vouchers purchased you may either go to http://www.2test.com and sign up or feel free to contact myself at 954-341-6000 x8009 and I will be able to get you a seat in our testing center using the voucher.

And always remember in hard economic times an up to date certification may be enough to show your employer that you truly are an ever growing and indispensable asset to a company.

For more information on Certification exams please visit www.prometric.com

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Training, Training, & More Training!

March 29th, 2009

Here at NTS we’re big on training. In fact all of our engineers are required to pass a certification exam at least once a quarter! They can take any exam as long as it applies to their current position. Everyone is required to obtain their A+ and N+ from CompTIA, and after that people are encouraged to take exams that interest them. Of course everyone is working toward their MCITP, but Watchguard, SonicWall, and other miscellaneous exams are a fun break from only studying for Microsoft exams.

Last night I was searching around on the Microsoft Learning Community blog and found that Microsoft is offering Free Certification Exam Preparation! They’re hosting live exam coaching sessions on several different products. You can read all about it here. Some of the exam preparations like 70-620 for Configuring Windows Vista have already passed, but they’re recorded. You can watch the recording of the Live Meeting session here (Silverlight is required).

For all of the developers, or just those looking for more information, Microsoft is have TechDays 2009 on April 1st. It’s a virtual conference, much like the Virtual Product Launch that Microsoft did for Office Communication Server 2007 R2. You can get all of the information here. For everyone that attends you’ll be given a promotional product code and special URL entitling you to 50% off the cost of your next Microsoft exam!

Finally, I’m in love with Windows 7. I’ve been running it as my full time OS on my work PC. Microsoft is still in the process of putting together the exam for Windows 7 (70-680) but they’re already putting out short videos to get people started with the training. They’re calling them “Learning Snacks” and it’s about 5 minutes long. Really it’s just a teaser highlighting some of the new features in Windows 7. You can watch it here.
-Scott S.

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This is why I am in business…

March 14th, 2009

About a year ago I hired a great individual from ITT Technical Institute who had been working on obtaining his Associates degree in CS. He had never worked in IT before and had a 6 year old daughter that he wanted to better his life for. He showed himself to be more reliable than anyone I interviewed from ITT and had a strong desire to learn and grow as part of the team – so I hired him!

Since that time, he has obtained his A+ and he has worked very hard to “learn IT”. He no longer has his “deer in the headlights” look that we all start off with when we first get into IT and has become one of our foremost authorities with OCS. Next week he is graduating with his AS degree and yesterday he passed his N+ on the first try!

Today, he wrote me this email:
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Hey Buddy!

I feel really great that everything in my life is coming together. I was so motivated by my recent accomplishment on Friday. I’m ready to take on my next challenge in take the Microsoft Exam 70-638: Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2.

That being said I want to take the OCS R2 exam within two months. I’m going to need your help! I am going to need every study guide you can possibly give me that would help me achieve my goal. This would mean a lot to me if I could go into that exam room and pass the exam and not just for me, but for NTS. This is what I was talking about when I first met you at ITT-Tech during my interview process.

I want this like I want my heart to beat…

Conroy S.
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If this isn’t a good example of being a business owner and making a positive difference in people’s lives, I don’t know what is….

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Windows Live Writer

February 15th, 2009

In my playing with Windows 7, I found this interesting utility from Windows Live called “Windows Live Writer”.  It’s a nice graphical user interface (GUI) that allows you to connect to a blog site and remotely add/modify/view posts on the blog.

I’m still evaluating it, but so far, it seems simple enough.  If it’s useful, I’ll post more about it later.

Posted in Desktop Productivity, Windows Client | No Comments »

Windows 7…in a Virtual Install?

February 15th, 2009

This weekend I decided to install Windows 7 as suggested by Rene Alamo (Microsoft Employee) who presented this as an option for loading Windows 7 side-by-side with a Windows Vista installation. Rene presented along with James Cuomo at the quarterly Tech Night at the Microsoft offices in Fort Lauderdale about a week and a half ago. In that presentation, he demonstrated Windows 7 installed as a flat .VHD file located on his Windows Vista OS installation partition (his C:\ drive).

Of course, all of the team at NTS thought this was WAY cool. Spiewak has been using Windows 7 as his primary OS for almost a month now and likes it better than his Vista installation by far. So, in keeping up with the Scotts, I thought I’d “one up” him!

On Friday, Rolando stayed with me at the office and burned a copy of the Windows 7 x64 Beta from Microsoft. I was going to install it on Friday night, but since it was already past 9pm, I figured I’d wait a bit. Saturday morning started out with a trip into the office to work on paperwork, accounting, etc., but instead of sitting down at my desk with my laptop and triple monitor setup, I sat at Leslie’s desk with my laptop by my side. I followed the detailed instructions I found online (by searching Google for “Windows 7 VHD”) and loaded up the new OS.

Amazingly, not 1 single issue was found throughout the installation process. I booted to the install DVD, launched into the restore options, opened a command prompt, created the VHD file (virtual file), set it as a boot option, and installed Windows 7 into it. Windows 7 even found every single Dell driver for my Latitude D630 except for the add-in card I have for my AT&T 3G Wireless (an easy download from Dell)!

So far, I’ve been using this “virtual” installation of Windows 7 and the performance has been fantastic. Although few applications are installed, I don’t see any problems with the VHD installation at all.

Now, why might this be important?

First, creating a VHD file may allow for simpler backup and restore procedures, easier migrations, and simpler data management…just off the top of my head. It will be interesting to see if we use virtual environments more and more from an IT support perspective to reduce downtime and support costs! I, like the rest of the team, am REALLY EXCITED about the release of Windows 7 at the end of this year or beginning of next year (Q1 ’10 is the release date right now).

-Scott

Posted in Windows Client | 1 Comment »

The 1st Blog post from NTS!

February 8th, 2009

With the release of our new web site, the team at NTS felt that it would be important to create a blog for the benefit of our customers and friends.  With the great help from our friends at Web Management (thanks Matt!), we finally have this live!

Watch for more cool posts on daily happenings from our team and IT (or maybe some random thoughts from me)…

Scott Mallet – President/NTS

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