Internet Speed Enhancement

I hope that everyone has noticed an improvement in internet speed on their workstations in the office starting last week. As part of the move to the cloud for email services I was able to improve the internet speed for all DHCP clients from 3mbps to 25 mbps.

Enjoy workmates.

June Technology Class

I hope to schedule out next employee technology class for mid to late June 2011. The class will cover our new email cloud services in detail which will be a lot of fun. if anyone has any other topic ideas please post your ideas to me by commenting here.

Blogger Status Report

As everyone is aware this blog has been very quite lately. For all of my dedicated readers I apologize. These past several weeks (6-8 I believe) have found the majority of my attention with with Microsoft in an effort to migrate our mail services to their cloud. For the most part this transition has been accomplised, although I am still working on getting out "corporate compliate" archiving up and running.

I thank everyone for their patience during this process, especially my entire communication officer staff who continue to amaze me with their professional and independent work ethic!

I hope to make more regular blog entries from this point forward. Keep your fingers crossed!

Report from the Cloud

Ok it's been about 2 weeks now since the Borough of West Chester moved their email services from an on-premises exchange server to Microsoft's cloud with "Exchange Online". So far so good. During these first 2 weeks we have had everything. As we all know nothing is 100% perfect, except perhaps "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn" (I will explain this later). After migrating everyone over to the cloud and on the eve of heading to Disney World for a much needed break Microoft began experiencing what they call "service degregation". This meant that mail flow during the early hours on May 12, 2011 stopped. The good news was that I noticed this at about 5:50 AM and quickly contacted Microsoft Online Support. A technician reported that they were aware of the problem and working on it. A work-around was offered but before anyone arrived in the office the "cloud" was back in service.

New technology can be a little scary and no one really likes change. However I believe that today's world economic situation demands bold and visionary decisions in respect to keeping cost down while striving to offer the best that technology has to offer. The "cloud", I believe will be critical during the next several years, providing organizations with the ability to keep technology cost down while (at the same time) providing high end technological services.

As the "service incident" on May 12, 2011 demonstrates nothing is easy and we will need to learn to "roll with the punches" during these hard economic times if we are to move even more services to the cloud in the future.

We can do this! In the decades past, business was done without the internet and email services. If these services are down from time to time, pick the phone up, reach out and talk to eachother. I do not expect service interruptions to be normal, however we should always be prepared. Keeping cost down is mission critical in these times, and working together the Borough of West Chester will find success and efficent government.

The Borough of West Chester maintains an information technology cost (capitol & salary) that is only 1% of it's annual budget. That is something we can be very proud of. Migrating adapatable services to the cloud will help the borough to sustain such a small cost in this area which is something every taxpayer will be thankful for.

Borough E-Mail Moves to the Cloud Today!

Today might have seemed just like another rainy Wednesday to you. But it was a BIG day for me. After months of research, planning, preparation and living through "co-existence", today, May 4, 2011 the on-premises exchange (e-mail) server was shut down, hopefully for the final time. I crossed my fingers after shutting the server down and was elated to see mail flowing normally. After a tweak here and there other services that we have all come to rely on such as fax-scan-copy to email, unified messaging and help desk work orders were all up and in service as well.

The magic of the cloud is this. Without having to maintain a mail server and replacing it on average every 4 years at a cost of $20,000 the Borough now has more efficient mail services including enhanced security, superior data protection, liability protection and more ways than ever of connecting in to our email services.

Some of these enhancements include

• 14 days back-up of email is expanded to 10 year compliance archiving.

• As opposed to our email residing on one server at our facility, our email is written simultaneously to 6 "department of defense" certified data centers located at various locations across the United States.

• Enhanced liability protection because “open records” rules require local government to maintain files, including email for information and court requests. The compliance archiving will protect our government because these files will accessible upon request.

• Built-in spam filtering as opposed to having to pay a third party for this protection.

• Our partnership with Microsoft will keep the borough up to date with the highest standards of office productivity while controlling cost.

• The Borough has an information technology staff of one. Moving the e-mail service to Microsoft’s cloud will continue to support maintaining a minimal staff while providing effective technology services.

There are many more exciting things on the horizon in reference to our move to Microsoft’s Cloud like Microsoft 365.
Standby for more news from cloud and enjoy. Boy is it comfortable up here.

The "Usama bin Laden" Virus

Hackers, Spammers and Scammers all love a BIG story, and there certainly is no bigger news item now then the recent take down of Public Enemy Number 1, Usama bin Laden. These hackers and other bad eggs are using this news story to intice people into downloading a file in order to watch a video. This is a HOAX and if you follow the link, download a file from one of these messages you will infect your computer, or become a spamming machine. This hoax is especially active on Facebook at this time.

Be aware that the United States Government has not released any photos or video from their recent operation.

Often the message, either through an email or a social networking site such as Facebook will have a link to a website it wants to redirect you to. Often stating it's an "official source", such as CNN. This is a ploy. Ignore it.

Also be aware that even the best anti-virus software can not prevent a human being from clicking on and downloading an infected file.

Here is the official FBI news release in respect to this recent hoax.

Cloudy Skies Ahead

This was a big week for the borough as it relates to IT. This week brought the beginning of email cloud computing. After a couple of months of investigation and discussion we headed into the cloud earlier this week!

After migrating myself on Tuesday to "the cloud"" a few other were migrated as the week came to a close. The first "victims" included the Police Records clerks, Communication Officers Widmayer, Jones, Lt. Morris and finally Staci King. All were migrated into the Microsoft Cloud without incident. Next week I hope to move the Housing Office, Finance Office, Recreation Office, Borough Council, and a couple more communication officers into the cloud.

Many have asked me recently "why are we moving into the cloud"? Here are some quick answers to these questions:

Why Move Into the Cloud?
1. Less cost to the borough because of reduced hardware and licensing.
2. More efficent data protection.
3. Improved archiving (14 days to 10 years).
4. Ability to continue sustaining a strong ROI (return on investment) for IT.

As I go through this process I will meet with everyone to talk about this exciting change.

Exploring Cluster One

I realize that there is no information here that can really help you in a technical way but I found this video of Pink Floyd's "Cluster One" matched with some amazing images from the Hubble telescope. It is awe inspiring. Watch this, relax and remember that the universe is unbelievably and unknowingly mass and our problems are nothing in comparison. This piece of music is simply Gilmour's guitar and Rick Wright's keyboards. Genius.

Backing Up Your Files with MOZY

All this talk of the cloud has me revisiting cloud services for the home user. One of the most popular “cloud services” today is in the area of remote backups. As the earthquake and tsunami in Japan has sadly demonstrated, natural disasters do strike, usually without warning. If a natural disaster, fire or theft was to occur to you and your computer was unavailable or destroyed are your files safe?

Because our computers are becoming more and more critical remote backup service providers have been cropping up everywhere these past few years. The Borough of West Chester has been remotely backing up critical data files for years. Should you?

If you store financial files, tax documents, letters, family photos and video you probably should be backing up remotely. There are many providers with many price points. Be sure to check these providers out and protect your files today.

What about Mozy?
Mozy is a great backup service. This service lets you store files online and retrieve them remotely, which is all you really need from an online storage service.

The real reason that Mozy is attractive as an online storage solution is the price; this service’s subscription is practically unbeatable. Another advantage for using this service is the strong security features. Because it is designed to be a backup service, this service has a lot of security measures in place that other online storage services don’t have. If you want to make sure that your data is safe, this service is one of the best places to store it.

Regardless of what you call the service or what it was initially designed to be, this service is a spectacular choice. The combination of cheap storage space with useful features and strong security make this service the perfect place to store files, photos, videos, documents and anything you want to safely store outside of your home computer.

Another great ability of Mozy is that you can back up to 3 computers and remote (usb) drives. Many services such as Carbonite charge additions fees for devices and drives outside of the primary computer. This cost can add up.

Cost for Mozy's Services
2GB for free
125GB, up to 2 computers for $9.99 per month
You can learn more about Mozy at mozy.com.

Are We Cyborgs?

Are we all turning into Cyborgs? That is the question that Amber Case discussed recently on TED. If you take the time to look around as you go through the day (any day it doesn't matter) you surely can see this happening. It seems everyone has their attention on their smartphone, laptop or tablet, even while walking and driving. Our attention is drawn to these devices even while holding conversations with each other!

This is not surprising to Case and after you watch her 8 minute lecture on the topic you might agree that yes, we are indeed turning into cyborgs. Is this a good or bad thing that is happening to us? The conclusion is not as clear as you might think.

The Physics of the Future

The technology of the future is on my mind these days. This is because I am currently reading Michio Kaku's fascinating new book, "The Physics of the Future". Take a few moments, open your mind and watch this 10 minute video and just perhaps you may want to learn more.



There has been a wasteland in bringing science to the masses since Dr. Carl Sagan's tragic and early passing in 1999. However with minds like Kaku and Neil DeGrasse Tyson there is new hope for all of us who want to learn more about ourselves and the cosmos.

To learn more about the book click here.

To learn more about Michio Kaku check out his official website here.

The Borough of West Chester Enters The "Cloud"

During the past several years cloud computing has taken off in the technology industry. In fact the concept of cloud computing is quite old.

As far back as 1961 cloud computing was being described by the likes of Professor John McCarthy (pictured right in 2006). McCarthy described his vision of computer programs being distributed to the community in the same manner as a utility with customers simply paying for what they use. This vision of McCarthy's was actually quite popular and accepted in the 1960's. However by the mid 1970's it was clear that hardware and software companies were simply not ready to provide such a service.

Beginning in the early 2000's the idea of cloud computing had resurfaced and with each passing year the surge to cloud computing continued to increase. This move towards cloud computing is driven by many factors, with perhaps the most crucial justification being cost savings. Computer hardware (servers) and licensing costs can seriously challenge an organization's budget. For example, a server capable of running Microsoft's Exchange (email) service can cost between $10,000 and $15,000. The cost does stop there however. The organization must also purchase Microsoft's Exchange (email) operating system as well as Microsoft's server (operating system) software. These costs can tack another $5,000 onto the mail server. We are not done yet! Microsoft licensing fees must also be purchased. These are what are known as CALs (not Cows!). CAL is the abbreviation for "Client Access License". The organization must also pay a license fee for each and every user who has an email account. The current government cost is about $54.00 each (and this is discounted). In the case of the Borough of West Chester who has 150 email users another $8,000 is added to the cost of running a mail server.

Now that the server is purchased it has to be installed, updated and maintained. In addition email accounts need to be backed up and archived daily. All of this is very critical because email has become a crucial part of how we communicate. Maintaining this service can be very taxing on an IT department.

All of these factors plus countless others are inspiring organizations and companies to explore the possibility of cloud computing in respect to email services.

The Borough of West Chester has an information technology staff of one (1). This includes managing 8 primary servers, 6 secondary servers, 80+ workstations, 150 users, telecommunications, wireless services and police communications. So you can see why cloud computing for email services is appealing to the borough. The smaller the IT staff, the smaller the cost to the organization and in the case of government, the taxpayers. Small is good. However maintaining small IT staffing can only be possible by streamlining, when possible networking services.


So what is cloud computing exactly? I believe you can simply define cloud computing as anytime your data is stored offsite at a data center. The contractual agreement between the organization (West Chester) who owns the data and the cloud provider (Microsoft) will usually include data management, backup, archiving and data security through the use of secure and multiple data centers. This reduces hardware cost for the organization and allows the organization to free up and possibly reduce information technology staff while continuing to provide efficient service to it's users. Maintaining offsite data is especially critical keeping in mind the possibility of natural disasters and terrorism.

The Borough of West Chester in an effort to continue controlling its information technology cost is moving it's email to the cloud with Microsoft as it's cloud provider this spring. Users will continue to use Microsoft Outlook to access their email so there will be no interruption in work or a need to learn a new system. However by moving email to the cloud the borough will be able to continue maintaining a low information technology cost, which is about 1% of the entire budget.

With the expected success of the email migration to the cloud other cloud solutions will continue to be explored in the future in an effort to continue providing the best service while simultaneously controlling cost.

Perhaps our future is really in the cloud just like John McCarthy first visioned 50 years ago.

Zite for IPAD

As the tablets wars heat up I fall in love with ZITE. What is ZITE you ask? just the coolest way to customize your news sources in one magazine type enviornment. Learn more here.

Training Day Thank You

Thank You to everyone who turned out for today's technology training which covered email, social media and cloud computing. The next training session will be held in June. If anyone has any training ideas please post them here.

Here is the power point from today's class.