The case for whether to archive emails or not isn’t a new one. It has concerned business ever since email became a primary source of communication. Many organizations ignored the need until the matter was taken out of their hands by the government.

Ever since Enron, and other cases where email formed part of the evidence, the government has sought to make it easier to access stored information for evidence. The introduction of a series of legislation made it a legal requirement for organizations of all kinds to archive emails so they could be used as evidence, should the need arise.

Entities like the SEC and FINRA introduced legislation that compels businesses to retain email information for between 3 and 6 years. This is so it can be used as part of an audit trail, or as evidence during legal proceedings.Shortly afterward,  The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) were introduced, which compelled business to retain email to aid court procedures. By ensuring a paper trail is left by every company, it was thought that investigations into businesses would be made much simpler.

Once archived, emails should be stored securely. Somewhere they can remain in their original form, free from tampering and damage. Other legislations strengthened the requirement to archive emailuntil it became the duty of almost every business in the country to store their email correspondence.

It isn’t all about the law though. While it’s a compelling reason to archive emails, it isn’t the whole story. With the best will in the world, things go wrong. Buildings flood, burn, get burgled and sometimes, technology lets us down. It’s inevitable, and it’s only then that we fully realize our dependency on systems.

To handle these kinds of situations, disaster recovery plans were introduced. This is where IT managers designed and built an alternative site, off-site storage, or home working infrastructures so that a company could still be productive if any of the above situations befell them. It’s also where archiving email pays off.

Having an off-site archive of business emails helps significantly in a disaster recovery situation. The amount of business we conduct over the medium means that living without it will significantly impact productivity. Having a secure, accessible backup of all that will keep the wheels rolling, even when disaster strikes.

So the reason to archive emails is compelling even if legislation is discounted. While it’s certainly a good enough reason to develop an email archive, it isn’t the only one. It may need investment to introduce and maintain, but it will recoup that investment if anything happens to that business.

At Task is the 800 LB gorilla of hosted project management systems, in part because, well – it’s not simply a project management system. It’s more of a complete, software as a service based, run-your-business application.

Nearly everything you need to run the core of your business is on @Task. How big is it? Well… here’s a sample of some of their clients:

• Apple
• Adobe
• CBS
• HBO

Unfortunately, @Task has a matching price tag (and feature list). Here’s a list of the major features:

Features:

• Project Management – much like many others in our list of apps, At Task, allows you to manage projects, assign tasks/todos. But, it also includes a nice Gantt Chart for birds-eye views of projects (perfect for larger, multi-step projects).
• Resource Management – What resources do you have available at your company? How can you best utilize them? What resources are under utilized, or who/what department is being stressed to its limits. Not only can managers see this information, but so can executives.
• Help Desk - Again, differentiating At Task, from the herds of other PM software out there is their help desk functionality. Although other software can handle these kinds of requests, At Task specifically targets this group, helping your support team track, manage, fix your customers and clients’ problems.
• Reports & Dashboards – Fancy reports can be found in @task, helping you reveal and uncover actionable information about your business and the way you do business.
• Much More…

I personally researched @task quite a few years ago although heading an Web promoting department at a national marketing and advertising agency. What interested us in specific was the assist desk management – we have been fielding a lot of calls/questions, and so on. and tracking it is affects on the company was a nightmare. Clearly we had been losing funds, however it was difficult to tell just how a lot we required to enhance our costs, or charge for service. Sadly, I didn’t stay on lengthy sufficient to see @Task implemented, even though I know it was – and it is use has since spread throughout the organization. It is now employed as a tool for the entire organization.

@Task from what I recall is cost prohibitive. Sad to say, as of this writing, they STILL don’t publish pricing info on their internet site (a pet-peeve). Nonetheless, if your enterprise is running okay, making lots of income, @Task may be a substantial resource. But remember… project management system must constantly be evaluated by time (time to implement, time saved, and so forth) and not just on value alone.

Why I Hate AtTask

Okay… i don’t REALLY hate At Task (@task), but I do have some major problems with their site, and the way they do business online… although, with offices all over the world, it doesn’t seem to have affected or slowed their business much. Here’s the list:

• no online pricing – It’s about to be 2011, ANY company that doesn’t put pricing on their website rings the caution bell of their potential customers.
• I’m Roger, I represent Business

  what is the product? – as more than the casual surfer (remember, I design websites as my day job) I’ve looked at this site in depth – for this review, as well as in evaluating the software in the past. My gripe is… what is your product @task. It’s two things: ONLINE SOFTWARE & CONSULTING! They sell subscriptions to their online software, and they consult with your business on it’s use, and ways to better your business. Both valuable, but horribly presented on the site. It seems each is an after thought to 1) getting your contact information 2) showing you pictures of random “business man.”

Dell Pharos smart phones are beautifully designed and these are available in two designs. Dell pharos traveler 117 and 127 are beautifully designed with neat control panel.  The appearance of the dell pharos is very appealing and is similar to Blackberry.

Customer who takes a look at Dell pharos will definitely be willing to purchase it because of its perfect design and appealing look apart from efficient working. Although there are many models of mobiles in the market, each model has its own unique features and facilities apart from price variation. Therefore in this pattern, if one analyses about Dell pharos, both the models are very professional in design and also very appealing to the customer to purchase it.

With its huge features of camera, talk time and GPS system, apart from Mbps and QWERTY keyboard that is similar to blackberry design.

This will surely create lot of interest among dell customers to pick Dell pharos traveler because of it outstanding and useful features. Although there are many brands in the market, each mobile phone model is different and has many advantages to its end and therefore, it is expected that dell pharos will definitely yield profitable sales and will help many of its customers to take maximum advantage from the Dell pharos.

Dell being a very reputed and established multinational company having huge reputation in the international platform, it is expected that Dell company mobiles will definitely tap the market with its portion of sales in mobile phones. Apart from this, there is good scope and opportunity for Dell Company to create its position in the mobile market so that more and more new models of dell mobile phones can be developed.

Technology on a fast pace is truly changing the mobile market and with this benefit, Dell can bring about sleek models that another advanced technology that can be more efficient and more long time working for the customers.

It is expected with assurance that Dell pharos traveler will definitely earn the confidence of the customers and will certainly create its own market in mobile phones. Once customers review the product about its working, there is lot of market that has already created by the Dell by its selling of PCs and laptops.

Therefore, it can be stated here that Dell will definitely be successful in selling Dell pharos traveler in the international market and will earn good profits.

Routers are an ideal way of managing internet access and bandwidth in households with multiple computers. They also add an extra physical barrier to intrusion over the internet too.

The most popular home router is the Linksys WRT54GS. It has been on the market for a number of years and has improved steadily. The installed firmware is efficient and pretty robust making it an ideal starter router for the budding amateur. As well as the standard firmware, there are third party, Unix based firmware which add considerably to the features of this innocuous blue box.

The router will work straight out of the box with the default configuration but none of the security features work. It will be our job to enable them straight away in order to secure your home network as much as possible.

The installation order should be, internet to modem, modem to input socket of router via network cable. The computers then connect to the four network ports on the back. Configuration is pretty straightforward, via a web interface. Access it by putting http://192.168.1.1 into your browser. The default username and password is admin.

The first screen in the overview of the network settings. We don’t need to change anything here to get things moving, as long as there is an IP address found it’s all good. If you have a wireless connection, choose the wireless tab next. If you don’t, disable the wireless and skip the next section. Just remember when you make any changes on a particular page to save them before moving on. Each will need to be saved individually or the changes will be lost.

The wireless settings are pretty straightforward, change the Wireless Network Name or SSID to something you recognize. Then set the wireless channel, ensuring you also set any devices you want to connect to with the same channel. Next comes Wireless Security where we will lock down the network. Set the Security Mode to WPA2 if your devices support it and set the Encryption to 128 bit. You can either generate a passphrase, or provide your own. Whatever you do, remember it as you will also need to add this to the wireless devices you want to use the network.

The most important of these changes is to enable the firewall. Choose the Security, then the Firewall tab and enable all of the options. Next we change the default username and password. Select the Administration tab and set it to something complicated but memorable, then disable remote management.

By following these simple steps, a user of any skill level can quickly secure their network from attack. The router can do so much more, but you are now safe enough to explore all the options you have. Despite having a hardware firewall on the router, ensure that each device connecting to the network also has a software one too, you can’t be too careful!

Here are the specs for those who care:

• ASUS M4A78T-E AM3 DDR3 AMD 790GX ATX AMD Motherboard
• DVD BURNER LITE-ON
• WD Raptor for C Drive & windows OS
• CORSAIR DDR3 4GB (8GB total)
  
• CORSAIR DDR3 4GB (8GB total)
  
• Radeon HD 4850 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 (crossfire)
  
• Radeon HD 4850 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 (crossfire)
• CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W
• AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core
• ASUS M4A78T-E AM3 DDR3 AMD 790GX ATX AMD Motherboard

They didn’t send me a crossfire bridge for my graphics cards which is crap. I went ahead and ordered one from NewEgg which I shouldn’t have had to do IMO, but whatever. I went to the ByteShop in Naples and borrowed one from them until Tuesday when my other one should be here.