Get in touch with us to learn more, or check out this informative pdf.

What is a UPS? A UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) is basically a device that will temporarily power your computers, servers, phone systems and other important devices when power is lost. It will also protect you from spikes and surges (the function of a typical surge protector). In higher-end models, your equipment is also protected from brown outs and over-voltages, which will increase the life of your equipment if your electrical lines tend to fluctuate (think old buildings and rural areas).

You may come across a ton of jargon when researching UPS’s: Frequency rate, transfer time, pure sine wave, online, automatic voltage regulation, etc. After checking the specs of a UPS online you may feel a bit overwhelmed. If you are just looking to keep your equipment running and unsaved data safe during an unlikely outage, then what you need to consider is below.

Total Power of All Equipment Connected to it:  Just check the equipment you’re looking to protect, ie.  phone system, server, computer and monitors. Find out the wattage requirements for those devices and add them up. Make sure the “Output Watt Capacity” of the UPS is rated 20% or more of that total. Otherwise, the battery in the UPS may not be able to keep your equipment powered during an outage.

How much time do you need the equipment to run on battery during an outage: Where is your IT rep? Is he in the same office or will you need to call and have them walk you through powering down equipment during the outage? Or maybe your building is known for bad wiring and 5 minute outages happen all the time. Figure out the time you need the UPS to power your equipment during the outage and then compare it to the rated “Runtime” of the UPS. Runtime increases with a larger battery.

Form Factor: UPS’s come in various sizes and shapes. Most look like blocks with outlets, getting larger with the size of the battery and rated output. Many can stand like a tower and can lay flat. You can also get a UPS that is flat like a pizza box and mounts in a standard 19” data rack. If the UPS will be under a desk, then the standard will work. If you have a data rack and your equipment is in that rack, then of course shell out the extra bucks to cleanly store the UPS on the rack.

Number of Outlets: How many devices are connecting to the UPS?  Make sure you have enough outlets on the UPS.  Surprisingly on many UPS’s, not all the outlets are dedicated to backing up equipment.  Its common for some of the outlets to serve only as surge protectors.  If you find that to be the case, then you’ll need to get a power strip to connect more devices to one of the “right” outlets. Not the end of the world, but the installation won’t be as clean.

If you feel more confident after this quick guide, go to the below sites and play with the UPS calculators provided by the manufacturers.

http://www.apc.com/tools/ups_selector/index.cfm

http://www.tripplite.com/en/products/selectors/ups/index.cfm

• Have a thin and light design that meansures less than 22mm (0.83″) at its thickest point.
• Include ultra-fast start-up, which can include Intel Rapid Start Tech or third-party solutions.
• Go from hibernate to keyboard interaction in 7 seconds or less, waking up from sleep “much, much faster.”
• Offer between 5 and 8 hours of battery life, even in the sleekest form factor.
• Include features that help protect itself and its user, including Intel Anti-Theft Tech.

So, are Ultrabooks anything more than the PC world trying to catch up to the Macbook Air?  In a word, no.  But that’s okay.  Not every CES can be revolution, so we’ll settle for evolution.  And the Macbook Air alternatives are evolving in some interesting ways:

(*Note: These models are being released in 2012 so pricing is not available yet, but they should all fall between $800 and $1,500.)

The Acer Aspire S5

The Acer Aspire is a super skinny 0.68″ at its thickest point.  It weighs 3 pounds, has a 13.3″ screen, and a handsome magnesium alloy chassis.  For ports, it includes USB 3.0, HDMI, and the super fast Thunderbolt port Apple has made famous.  For sound, Dolby Home Theater audio.

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The Dell XPS 13

Dell’s first ultrabook yet was unveiled at a slightly thicker 0.71 inches thick, 2.99 pounds, and a 13″ screen. Dell bundles their ultrabook with 100GB of free cloud storage through Dell DataSafe (that’s in addition to the 128GB/256GB hard-disk space)

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The HP Envy 14 Spectre

0.78″, a 14″ screen, and weighing a relatively heavy 3.79 pounds.  The extra weight comes from a sleek edge-to-edge glass covering the screen, the lid and the palm rest. The Spectre also comes with near-field communication (NFC), letting you easily pass information from your ultrabook to an NFC-equipped smart phone just by tapping them together.  With near-field communication being one of the other buzz words at CES 2012, the Spectre may be the most future-proof of the line up.

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The Samsung Series 9

A very impressive 0.64″ thick and only 2.5 pounds, the Series 9 boasts something called the “HD+ SuperBright Plus” screen, which goes up to 180% brighter than other laptops.  Great for bright sunlight.

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The Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga

0.67″ thick, 3.1 pounds, 13.1″ screen.  This one gets flexible, folding between an ultrabook and a tablet.  It won’t be released until Windows 8 is, though, so we’ll have to be patient for this one.

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Many business managers are faced with the daunting task of Internet Service Selection.  From Provider jargon to complicated sales methods, the idea of picking a provider can be complex.

Think of the plumbing throughout your home.  The pipes are wire, and the water running through them is data.  We understand that as the diameter of your pipe increases, the more data, or water, can freely flow through them.  Bandwidth is the rate of transfer of your water, the speed at which you connect to the internet.

We measure bandwidth in bits per second.  With the advancement of communication technologies over the past decade, Megabit (1 Million Bits) and Gigabit (1 Billion Bits) have become familiar terms.  The download speed of 1Mb/s would be interpreted as 1 Million Bits per second of data transfer.

In modern offices, there’s a host of internet connected devices – Desktops, Laptops, VoIP Phones, Cellphones, Security Cameras, Video Conferencing Equipment – the list is seemingly endless.  All of these devices are competing for priority of data, like siblings for hot water. Your ability to take a hot shower is dictated by the bandwidth allocated for you.  The bandwidth allocated for you is determined by your Service Provider – commonly referred to as your ISP (Internet Service Provider.)

Commercial Internet for your office is definitely not like your internet at home.  For residences, your download speed can fluctuate from blazing fast to crawling slow.  This is because, in most cases, you’re competing for Internet with your neighbors.  At peak times, when most people are sitting on their computer, you’re going to get a decrease in performance.

Commercial Internet is bound to the terms of an SLA, or Service Level Agreement.  Business critical services like Phone and Email rely on your Internet connection, and this SLA guarantees bandwidth for these devices.  Without an SLA, your business may wind up taking a cold shower.

Here’s a list of things to consider when discussing provider options with your sales representative.

• What kinds of devices will be used on our network?
• Will employees be accessing resources outside the office?
• How many users will we have?
• Is this scalable, can we increase performance as needed?

Armed with this information and the answers to these questions you’re ready to shop for an ISP.

• Size: Hard Drives typically come in two sizes, laptops carry 2.5” hard drives and desktops carry 3.5” hard drives. Make a note of what size hard drive your computer has, you’ll need it later.
• Interface: Hard Drives today come in two different interfaces, or connectors – think different type of USB cables for different MP3 players. The same idea applies to hard drives. These interfaces are SATA and IDE. Please refer to the picture below on how to identify the two; IDE is on the left with the wide cable and SATA is on the right with the much thinner cable.
• Capacity: Most hard drives come labeled with their capacity (500GB, 1TB, 2TB, etc.) However, if the one in question is not labeled, refer to the operating system installed on it to confirm.

Once all the information above is collected, we can now pick out a hard drive enclosure. A hard drive enclosure is a box that holds the internal hard drive previously used for a desktop or laptop and allows it to be used with a USB cable. It converts an internal drive into an external drive. One must pick up an enclosure that meets the same size, interface, and capacity requirements of the hard drive in question. A hard drive enclosure is available through many online retailers and can run between $10-$50. If you started reading this post with a 500GB internal hard drive, you can now turn that into a 500GB external USB drive for approximately $20!
If you’re interested in learning more, please leave a note in the comments below and we’ll answer your questions as soon as we can.

Interactive Whiteboards – Popular in education but growing in business, interactive whiteboards combine a computer image projected onto a white board, and a digital pen or stylus allowing you to interact with it.  It’s a powerful tool for collaboration, allowing collective notes and ideas to be printed or emailed to participants. You can even collaborate with other white boards in other locations, sharing ideas in real time.

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Smart Glass – Glass walls are a popular choice for modern conference rooms because they provide a clean, open feel.  Of course the sacrifice with glass is privacy.  Smart glass uses electricity to change the properties of the glass, so that at a push of a button the glass can change from transparent to opaque.

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HD Conferencing – Businesses with the most basic of video conferencing needs can get away with using a desktop computer, a basic mic, and Skype.  For the rest of us, a professional video and audio conferencing solution is a hugely valuable tool. (Check out our Polycom vs Skype article.) Video conferencing equipment has advanced tremendously over the past few years.  In terms of quality and ease of use, comparing 5-year-old models to today’s is like comparing a 2005 cell phone’s camera to an iPhone 4S’s.  Audio conferencing has advanced as well, trending away from center-of-the-table star phones, and towards strategically placed mics that pick up sound from every corner of the room.  The ultimate goal is to feel like you’re all in the same room, and the technology is closer than ever.

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Automation – Office automation allows you to program complex commands into the push of a single button.  The first benefit of this is a shrinking learning curve on how to use it, so that meetings no longer get held up while everyone waits for the IT guy to come set everything up.  Another big benefit is the ability to quickly change the feel of the room.  Why can’t the same conference room serve as a centrally-focused instructional facility and a high-energy idea factory.  With automation technology and some creative lighting and shade integration, you can make the atmosphere of your conference room switch back and forth with ease.  (tip: LED lighting strips are an affordable way to add a modern look to your room.  Strips can change colors by remote, they let off very little heat and use very little energy).

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iPad integration –  This is a low-cost addition that can bring big benefits to any conference room.  If iPads are popular among your employees, adding an Apple TV to your conference room will allow everyone to display their iPad on the conference room TV or projector wirelessly.  A great tool for easily sharing ideas.

How to set up your Voipstream phone at home:

How to set up voicemail for a new employee:

There are 3 types of forwards with your Voipstream phone:

There are 3 ways to transfer calls with your Voipstream phone:

All about making conference calls with your Voipstream phone:

What else would you like a video tutorial on?  Let us know by commenting below, and we’ll try our best to get a video up in the near future.

Single number reach -Tired of leaving messages like this?: “Call me at my office…  Unless it’s after 2, then call me on my cell.”  With single number reach, calling one phone number rings your desk phone and your smartphone.  For many, the benefits of single number reach seems superfluous, until they get used to it.  Fewer missed calls, less phone tag, and more flexibility ensue.  With a similar feature called Find Me Follow Me, decide on a set number of rings to your desk phone before it tries you on your home of smart phone number.

Plug & play – For those who travel, plug & play is essential for making any room with an Ethernet jack your “second office.”  Plug into any Ethernet jack in the world and you keep your extension, caller ID, everything.  Extension-to-extension calling works as if you were in the office.  When you use your Voip phone in another country to call back to New York, and it will even bill as a local call.

Voicemail-to-email – Most offices would never go back after getting used to this convenient feature.  With voicemail-to-email, an audio file of every voicemail left on your desk phone is emailed to you.  This allows you to check your office voicemails from your smart phone.  Perhaps more importantly, it makes delegating voicemails as easy as can be, trading transcribing a whole email, to forwarding an audio file.

Custom call forwarding – Dealing with a constant spam number? Forward only that number to the BBB.  Going on vacation?  Let everyone go to your voicemail except a select few, who can forward to your personal cell phone.  Custom call forwarding helps you find a middle ground between always available or completely unplugged.

Web interface – Today’s cutting edge phone systems offer some sort of web interface where passwords can be reset, caller IDs can be renamed, and forwards can be turned on and off.  This is a powerful tool to give your office phone system administrator, and is the most efficient way to make many of the common changes needed on a phone system.

One more thing to consider when looking at phone systems in 2012 is HD.  Standard Voip phones clip the frequency range of the human voice.  HD phones carry the whole range, providing more clarity and communicating subtlety not possible with older phone systems.  Some may think this is superfluous, but some wondered why VHS was being replaced by DVD.  Watched a VHS tape lately?  Once you get used to HD in your office phone, you’ll never go back.