EVAD Tech Tips

Have you completed a cost analysis on your in-house printing? If you haven’t you could be in for an expensive surprise. Completing a cost analysis can save you time, money and productivity. It is really a very simple process that is well worth your time investment. Follow the steps below to find out your monthly printing costs.

The first step to finding out your true cost per page is acquiring your data. You will need the cost of your paper, cost of tuner cartridges, the cost of the actual printers, the duty cycle for the actual printers and toner cartridges and the number of pages you print per month. Once you have these numbers it is fairly simple to figure out your monthly cost per page. Remember your true cost calculation will only be as good as the time and effort you put into acquiring the accurate data. Acquiring these numbers over two to three months and taking the averages will give you the best cost analysis.

For this illustration we will use an office with a volume of 6,000 images a month. Generally laser office printers tend to get a better ROI than Inkjet type printers. We will only be talking about black and white images. Color imaging will be a blog entry for another day. We chose a common business office printer (HP LaserJet M3027 $1599.00) with a monthly duty cycle of 75,000. It has a recommended monthly duty cycle of 2,000-6,000. At 6,000 images per month this printer would last no more than 2 years if you are lucky with some maintenance costs.   Toner cartridges for this printer cost $143.00 and yield 6500 images. Cartridges are based on an ISO/IEC 19752 standard which states average image coverage is 5%. I feel this is very low and believe that an average image is closer to 15% coverage minimal. This toner cartridge will be pressing to reach 3500 images in normal office production.  To be honest it would be more like 2500-3000. But for the sake of arguing we will go with 3500. To find the true number, keep track of how many you go through over a 3 month period.

Now that you have the data let’s start breaking down the numbers. The paper cost is pretty static. This number will generally stay the same unless you are a high volume office. Obviously if you buy paper in bulk you will get it at a lower price. In either case this price will stay the same in any example. Let’s put it in our illustration so we get the total picture of our cost analysis. One case of average paper purchased from Office Depot (5,000 sheets case) is $36.00 at the time of this article. Let’s take 6,000 images and times it by 12 months. This gives us 72,000 images a year. 72,000 images divided by 5,000 (1 case of paper) tells us we use 14.4 cases of paper a year. 14.4 cases of paper divided by 12 tells us we use 1.2 cases of paper a month. Our cost of paper ($36.00 x 1.2) is $43.20 per month for paper.
 
Let’s take the cost of the printer and see what our cost per month calculates too. The HP LaserJet M3027 costs $1599 to purchase. With the monthly volume we are using for this example, this printer will last no more than two years in our opinion. Without any maintenance costs I feel this is very generous to the HP basic office printer products. Printers and copiers are very high maintenance pieces of machinery. The paper dust, toner dust and all the moving parts make this equipment prone to failure. If we take the $1599.00 and divide it by 24 we come up with $66.00 per month on printer costs.

Next we need to look at the toner costs per month. If we take our yearly image production of 72,000 and divide it by 3500 which tells us we use 20.58 cartridges a year. 20.58 cartridges divided by 12 gives us 1.71 cartridges per month. 1.71 cartridges times $143.00 tells us our monthly toner cost is $245.14.

If we add up all our monthly costs we will have our total monthly printing costs. .
Paper $43.20/mth
Printer Cost $66.00/mth
Toner Costs $245.14.00/mth
Total Monthly Costs = $354.34

To find out your price per image divide the total monthly images per month by your total monthly printing costs.
6000/$354.34 =   $.06 per image.

This is a general illustration of a small office scenario and the costs they acquire per month on printing. Again these numbers are only as good as the information we put into the scenario. In this scenario we are of the opinion these numbers are on the minimal side of error.

There are many options when it comes to in-house printing. You can take the route of this scenario and purchase the equipment yourself and maintain it.  You can also look at a more industrial solution by partnering with an office equipment provider to lease the equipment and purchase a maintenance contract that includes unlimited toner. There is also print management solutions were a vendor will supply paper, equipment, toner and maintenance for all you’re imaging needs.
 
There are pros and cons to all these solutions and generally it comes down to cost justification. We find once an office gets over the 3000-5000 images per month mark it is more productive and cost effective to go with an office equipment provider or a vendor that will supply a total print management solution.
 
Don’t guess on what your printing costs are. Take the time to break down your numbers and see what your options are. $354 a month can obtain a very productive office printer that scans, copies, prints and faxes with a maintenance contract that includes all your toner. You never have to worry about replacing parts and purchasing toner again. Plus you will gain many features on industrial type printers that you won’t get with standard office printers you purchase from retailers.
 
 
If you would like help analyzing your printing cost in your office environment please give us a call (937-684-8245) or fill out our free network assessment form.

Every business operates with certain flows and procedures to be successful. Without these flows and procedures our businesses would fail. Choosing a program to automate or keep our flows on track is one of the most important decisions of a productive office. The following are some tips that we think will help you when choosing a line of business application for your business:

1. Choosing the Right Vendor

Choosing a well established vendor over a new start up vendor is important. A new start vendor is more likely to go out of business than an established vendor with a proven market share. Securing an application with the “best” features that appears to also be the most attractive deal can be a big mistake if the company does not offer support of the product.
 
In my experience, I have dealt with many software application vendors. Some of these provide a maintenance contract and offer unlimited support, some vendors who offer maintenance contracts for application upgrades will then charge for support and other vendors offer no maintenance at all.
 
Support is a very important role when choosing your application. If you are in the middle of an important project and your system has an issue, you want to be in contact with the vendor right away to resolve your issue. A good vendor has the staff that will support you during your business hours- not 1-2 days later.

2. Reliability and Usability

The application must be scalable to your business needs. Picking a solution and finding out that you are out-growing it two or three years later is a costly mistake. Research the application to see how it has evolved over the past five years. An important deciding factor should be if the solution has changed as your market changes?

Usability is critical to keeping your staff productive. If the application is not user friendly it will be difficult to get your staff to buy into the system and become fluent in using the product. Change is difficult to implement into a working office environment, but the right software application can make a world of difference.

3. Implementation

Implementing the application into the office environment must be well planned. Will the vendor support the implementation and assist in training in the beginning stages? How much downtime will occur when implementing the new solution? Will you implement the complete solution or will it be put into practice in stages and run along your current system?

These are all questions that need to be considered when selecting a new line of business application. Many vendors will spend the first week or so with your staff during your business hours to help in the transition. It is a good idea to negotiate these terms when signing on with a vendor.

During the implementation process it is important to have your IT provider on hand to help with the installation and integration process as they will be most familiar with your network systems

4. Hardware Specifications

Have your IT Provider research the specification of the applications. Does the application utilize the newest software operating systems? Will your current network configurations support the new software and hardware solutions?

Make sure when selecting your solution you choose a vendor that stays up to date and supports the most current operating systems. One of the biggest mistakes made is picking a solution and then running the solution on 5-10 year old operating systems. Your business can optimize the new application most successfully by working to ensure that your hardware and operating systems are compatible to the new application.

Many times the network is updated when installing a new application. It is very inefficient to install new hardware such as a server and network equipment when running out dated software.

5. Hosted Solution or In-House

There are many benefits to choosing a hosted solution. If there is an immediate cash flow need it is normally economical in the short term to go with a hosted solution. Most hosted solutions charge a monthly fee instead of a large upfront cost. These solutions commonly come with unlimited support. The vendor is accountable for the backup disaster and recovery of the data. If your staff works off site the application is available from anywhere there is an internet connection.

There are however some risks to utilizing a hosted solution. The vendor must be trusted with your critical information. Security of your clients and your company’s data is held on the vendor’s network. You are at the mercy of the vendor for providing backups and disaster recovery protection.  Ask yourself what you would do if you choose to implement another solution in the future and how you would receive your data from the host vendor? Realize that  once you stop paying your monthly fees, your access to your data will have ended. Also realize that your weakest link to retrieving your data through a hosted situation is your internet connection. If your internet connection fails you have lost access to your critical data.
 
It is very important to do your due diligence when researching a hosted solution. Vendor selection is most likely the most important decision when choosing a hosted application.

6. Selling Your Staff on Your Decision

It is very important to get your staff to buy in on the decision of your new application. If the staff buys into the decision and realizes in the long run the solution will make their daily tasks easier and more productive, your solution will be successful. Change is always a huge deterrent when implementing a new solution. If the learning curve is too great the new solution has a better chance of failing.

Many times businesses will implement a new system and never take the time to learn the system and all of it’s benefits. In the long run they spend more money and are less productive utilizing a system they don’t understand. Take the time necessary to train and use your new system to its fullest potential. Make a commitment before purchasing to learn the application.

If you are in the process of implementing a business application in your office and would like consultation give us a call (937-684-8245) or fill out our free network assessment form.

Does your company have a REAL data recovery plan? Can you answer this question with a 100% certainty?

 
Wharton School of Business completed a survey that stated 10% of small businesses that experience data loss go out of business. That number jumps to 50% when the data is lost for more than 10 days. Could your company be in this category?
 
Most businesses backup or believe they are backing up their critical data but never complete a test verification that this data is securely backed up. Unfortunately, we have experienced customers who thought they had a good backup system in place but found out that they were sadly mistaken. After a hardware failure we were called in and we asked for their backups only to find out that the backup jobs were not actually being completed or not properly configured to backup critical data. Hard drives not configured in a RAID environment failed and backups were not even being completed regularly. Floods that wiped out the server and backup media as the other backup media was not taken off-site regularly.
 
All these situations cause real hardship and financial disasters for small businesses. What would happen if you lost your line of business applications and their data? Could you survive starting over? Why gamble when there are sound solutions that can protect your company’s data from disaster. 

Over 50% of small businesses surveyed stated they do not have a written documented disaster and recovery plan. Is your company part of this 50%? More than 20% of small businesses that backup their critical data do not change their media regularly or remove their media off-site.

EVAD Technologies has a solution for all types of small businesses and their data protection needs. We can backup your data onsite with daily and weekly verifications. You can then remove the data offsite manually or we can automatically move your data offsite to secure remote data facilities daily. We have solutions that protect you from downtime in the event your server becomes halted.  In the event you had a hardware failure we can have your server backup and running within an hour. If there is a disaster such as fire, flood damage or some other critical disaster we can have new hardware delivered and installed in 24-48 hours.
 
Don’t be one of the statistics we discussed above. Plan today to save the financial hardship and disaster that could be lurking in your future. To schedule an assessment of your disaster recovery plan call us today for an appointment.

937-684-8245

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I have tried many directory oriented apps and so far Yeerp has been the best one I have discovered. After trying yellow book, yellow pages and others, Yeerp almost always comes up with the result I was looking for.

Yeerp Search for iPhone and iPod Touch makes it fast and easy to find people and businesses just around the corner or on the other side of the world.

You will be surprised on how accurate Yeerp Search is in giving you information and contact details of the place you are looking for, or even distances and directions to reach it.

Wherever you are and whenever you need it, the information you are looking for is just 3 clicks away from you.

Yeerp Search unfolds the power of the web, giving you the best search experience available for your iPhone.

Yeerp Search is the iPhone must-have application and is your day-to-day perfect search assistant.

Main features are:

• Location-based search (search for people and/or businesses near or far from you)
• Open search (search for anything you want! “London night clubs”, “Empire state Building”, “Pizzeria Bella Napoli”, etc.)
• Contact details (postal address, telephone, website address, distance from your position)
• Click and call
• Map and website embedded preview
• Send results to a friend via email
• Integration with Safari and Maps on your iPhone

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THIS FREE APP NOW!

You must have an itunes store account to download the app.

No Spam

This malware piece started reaching our spam traps in June of this year. If you are not utilizing our spam filtering services you may have seen this e-mail popping up in your inbox frequently this month.

According to our spam trap reports this bugger was the top spam piece caught for the month. Here is what the e-mail would have looked like in your inbox.

Sublect Line – Critical Update for Microsoft Outlook

Update for Microsoft Outlook / Outlook Express (KB910721)

Brief Description
Microsoft has released an update for Microsoft Outlook / Outlook Express. This update is critical and provides you with the latest version of the Microsoft Outlook / Outlook Express and offers the highest levels of stability and security.

Instructions
* Install Update for Microsoft Outlook / Outlook Express (KB910721). To do this, follow these steps:
1. Run attached file officexp-KB910721-FullFile-ENU.exe
2. Restart Microsoft Outlook / Outlook Express

Quick Details
* File Name: officexp-KB910721-FullFile-ENU.exe
* Version: 1.4
* Date Published: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:03:27 +0300
* Language: English
* File Size: 81 KB

System Requirements
* Supported Operating Systems: Windows 2000; Windows 98; Windows ME; Windows NT; Windows Server 2003; Windows XP; Windows Vista
* This update applies to the following product: Microsoft Outlook / Outlook Express

The original e-mail had an active link embedded in the e-mail which would direct you to download a backdoor banking Trojan which allows a remote user to access and steal sensitive data and provides an intruder with remote access to the compromised system.

It does seem to come across as a believeable message. The grammar and spelling is written very well for a malware message. You should always be carefull opening attachments or clicking on links embbeded in e-mail messages. NEVER NEVER NEVER! open attachemnts or links if you do not know who they are from.

Sophos detects this threat as Troj/Spy-CU.

We can help protect you from these attacks by utilizing our spam filtering services, upate and patch management services and anti-virus security protection services.

Call us today to get more information on these servicves or click here.

937-684-8245