From the heart of ancient Polynesia
A lesson for busy Americans - work and have fun too"
used with permission from Joel Weldon - Success Comes In Cans

A number of years ago, a United States Peace Corps volunteer, teaching English on one of the tiny, remote Tongan islands in Polynesia, learned a valuable lesson that you too might benefit from. His class was giving him fits—giggling and playing as usual, and, as far as he could see, refusing to do any serious work. He asked them to “stop the nonsense.” Threatening punishment, he ordered them to “get down to business.” He pleaded with them to “be responsible for once.”

Finally, in utter frustration, he turned his back on the class, walked to the door and stared out at the sea. “You’re so difficult to under-stand,” he mumbled to himself.

“No. Easy to understand,” came the unexpected response from one of the students. “We work and have fun too.”

Do you work and have fun too? Or are you so busy working hard that enjoyment just doesn’t seem possible?

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3 Reasons Online Services Save Money
by Heather Clancy
reprinted with permission from the Microsoft Small Business Center

It is almost unthinkable to run any business successfully without e-mail. Or, for that matter, without conference calls or instant messaging services that allow employees to share information more efficiently. The good news is that small-business owners can now opt for many of the same communications and collaboration tools much bigger companies have at their disposal-without having to shell out the on-premise technology investment once necessary for these applications.

How? By subscribing to online versions of these apps; that is, by joining the ranks of companies which have opted for software as a service.

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Lock Up Your Servers!
Jason Appel,
Security Practice Manager, Sage Computer

One aspect often overlooked when securing our information is physical security. The goal of physical security is to control who can walk up to the information and touch it. The idea is to prevent unwanted information disclosure, loss, or corruption, the same as when securing the information across the network or from the internet. The difference is that physical security deals with the “real world".

For most of us, this doesn't mean training your Chihuahua as an attack dog or outfitting your employees with dark shades, cheap suits and sleeve microphones; it simply means using some common sense.

Before we can take measures to physically secure our information, we need to know what type of information needs to be protected. There is no need to post armed guards around your product catalog after it's been published: it's meant to be seen by others. Before it's published could be a different story as you may not want your competition getting a sneak peek. In other words, we need to classify our information.

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But be mindful of pitfalls that can undermine these advantages. As companies large and small have learned the hard way, you can negate the cost-saving benefits of server virtualization by choosing an inefficient SAN storage solution that does not properly support the advanced requirements of virtualized environments.

What to watch out for
While you ride out this recession, you need to make the most of your virtualization investments. It literally pays to be aware of the right storage choices. Here are some things to keep in mind:

October 2009

Just for Laughs