George Mindling Column 4-21-2000 - Another Season

Another Season Approaches

There is another silly season on the way and I'm not talking about NASCAR or any other sports season.  The season of ''board it up" and "take it down again" will start as soon as Alberto - the first named storm of the season - appears on the evening news. Come June 1, which is only five weeks away, everyone in southwest Florida will tum their attention to the official hurricane season.

According to Dr. William M. Gray at the Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, we're set to have yet another above average activity is anticipated though less active than the recent The extended range forecast is at http://typhoon.atmos.colostate.ed/forecasts/2000/fcst2000.

The probability of a major storm (Category 3, 4 or 5) hitting the Florida peninsula in the year 2000 is 45 percent, up from the century average of 31%. Only a hard core gambler would laugh at those odds. Smart business people will hedge their bets and start making plans now.

You can start by attending the Hurricane Expo on May 6 at the Port Charlotte Town Center and the Hurricane Caravan on May 18. The expo will start at 10 am. and run until 2 pm. The caravan, presented by the Charlotte County Emergency Management and Disaster Preparedness Office, will begin at the Port Charlotte Cultural Center at 9 am., move to Lemon Bay High School and then to the Memorial Auditorium later in the day. We'll have a firm schedule soon, but contact the Emergency Management office at 743-1270 for exact details.

These planning sessions will increase everyone's education about the storms and their aftermath. Individual, family and business planning are important to do before the season is upon us.

Check your insurance policies, not only replacement and damage costs but or the loss of income while out of service. Business continuity planning is as important to the survival of a company surviving the storm itself. Make sure any reciprocal services or location usage agreements are still in place.

If your plan is in place, now is the perfect time to purchase those items on the disaster preparedness budget. Don't wait until the last minute to buy the storm shutters or the backup generator. Bottled water and other canned food may wait, but not too much longer. Decide now what is needed, not when the shelves are empty.

A friend of mine claims he will no longer secure his boat for future storm warnings because he is tired of going though all the preparations, and then nothing happens. Rather than being thankful we didn't get clobbered, he is upset with the time and effort he assumes is for nothing.

Unfortunately, many small businesses seem to have the same attitude. Businesses must contend with the summer doldrums, vacations and, of course the unwanted disruptions of the annual storms. Of all the things that need to be done, gambling on the weather is not one of them.

The work and cost involved may seem needless, but it is absolutely necessary should a storm turn our way. You can check the National Weather Service Hurricane 2000 Home Page at: (http://www.srh.noaa.gov/tlh/tropical/) for up to the minute information and maps.

George Mindling © 2000

George Mindling Column 3-17-2000 - Traffic Jam on the 'Net

Traffic Jam on the 'Net

Everyone in Port Charlotte knows when the snowbirds are in town. The number of cars and vans on Tamiami Trail skyrockets. Traffic moves slower, delays are longer, and collisions are much more frequent. However, I can tell when the season is in full swing without driving anywhere. I simply try to sign onto the Internet.

Unless I sign on my Internet Service Provider, or ISP, early in the day, I get a busy signal most of the time. I can count on slower line speeds and more "knockoffs" when I finally do access the Internet. What is happening? More traffic.

The snowbirds are bringing their PCs with them. What used to be a 10- minute long distance call to the kids is now an hour and a half of surfing the net and checking e-mail. How about the year round residents? Yes, they too have found the Internet. With the arrival in the last year or so of Office Depot and now Circuit City, to compete with the established Staples, the average walk in consumer has a myriad of selections and prices of PCs from which to choose.

There have always been many good, smaller PC computer shops and offices around, but they simply don't have the marketing clout of the big name retailers. The large retailers have been offering "almost free" (read the fine print) name brand PCs with I three-year obligations to a specific ISP. They have been selling like hot cakes.

As a result, the local concentrator sites for ISP access to the Internet are swamped. The telephone line that starts inside your house ends up in the local switching offices. When you pick up the receiver, you complete a basic circuit back to the office that says your telephone just went off hook, and you want to connect to somebody. The system connects your line to a dialing facility and gives you back a basic response that says "dial tone:' You are now ready to input the routing information by dialing the number. So far so good. If that number you dialed isn't already connected, then you get to connect to that port, and the phone you are calling rings. Of course. what really happens is far more technical than all that, and it all happens in microseconds.

Unfortunately, there are only so many lines and numbers. When there are more requests for connections than there are facilities, the infamous fast busy signal is returned to your telephone. Wait a few moments and try again. Hopefully, someone will hang up and you can get in.

The snowbirds certainly aren't going to stop corning. After all, we spend huge sums of money to make sure they return year after year. The problem seems to be the conviction that the area isn't going to grow enough to sustain the expansion of facilities during the off season. There are alternatives to the telephone access to the Internet, such as cable modems and even special satellite dishes. which unfortunately still require a telephone connection. For the average consumer, POTS (plain 1 old telephone service) is the only workable solution. If the roads aren't upgraded, the traffic jams will get worse.

The same with your telephone. Our area is definitely growing and expanding. More and more of our seasonal visitors are here year-round. They are harder to spot because they just change license plates.

George Mindling © 2000

George Mindling Column 2-17-2000 - Web sites for Small Businesses

Web sites for Small Businesses

The recent Super Bowl commercials hammered home the importance of Internet home pages and online enterprise services. Even those who don't own PCs commented on the overwhelming "dot com" commercials, especially the E- Trade commercial that said "We just spent two million dollars, how do you want to spend your money?"

So, you don't have two million dollars to spend on TV commercials to get someone to look at your Web Site? You don't even have a Web Site? No problem. Having your own Web Site is easier today than ever. And cheaper, too.

First, decide why you want a Web site. Is it just to have a place for Web advertising, or are you looking to connect online ordering and inventory to your back office functions? If your Web site is just advertising, there is free Web site space available from many Internet Service Providers (ISP). You don't get to use your own name, however, as you co-reside on someone else's address. You get to add your identifying "address" as a series of slashes (/) behind an existing address.

Beyond the free Web sites, there are basically two charges for a small Internet Web site. One is for the rental space on a hard drive on a PC server directly connected to the Internet. If you want your own server to be connected, prepare to pay for a high speed, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (24/7) data link. The service is not cheap. That disk you rent is usually 20 or 30 Megabytes in size and comes with basic services, such as e-mail links and basic file maintenance. This site has nothing to do with your ISP link to the Internet.

The second charge is paid by everyone who has a presence on the Internet: $70 for the first two years, then $35.00 annually thereafter. That charge is for the name of your site, called the domain name, and it is paid to Network Solutions, Inc. To find out if the name you want to use is available for registration, check their site at: http://www.networksolutions.com

The ". com" sites are the most sought after, but anyone can have an ".org" or even a ".net" type page. The ".gov" and ".edu" sites -are obviously reserved for those types of organizations. When you reserve a domain name, you must tell Network Solutions where to assign it. Every server has an Internet address all its own, adding your domain name is like adding the name on a building directory. The service you rented the PC space from will be more than happy to assist you in getting on their server.

Now you have to decide what to put out there and how much to spend. Site design can be a simple, self-written page, or a complicated, multi-layered, multimedia extravaganza.

If you start now, you might be ready for next year's Super Bowl.

George Mindling © 2000

George Mindling Column 1-21-2000 - Networking For Small Businesses

Networking For Small Businesses

With the advent of Windows 95, networking for five or fewer computers became inexpensive and relatively simple. Sharing printers and files without expensive network operating software or a dedicated server PC became a favorite among many small businesses and home offices. With the release of Windows 98, Second Edition. networked PCs may also access the Internet through a single modem using a single ISP log on.

What is all this talk about networking? There are basically two types of networks systems that allow computers to talk to each other. The first is called a "Client/Server" system, which is the evolution of mainframe, real-time communications. This network requires a dedicated computer to be a "server," which can be a PC or a mainframe. The end users, usually desktop PCs, are the "clients." The clients usually have minimal software installed, as all the data collection and processing takes place at the server level of the network. If the server is down, so is the network.

Some client/server networks are small, such as the Novell networks found in most law offices. In the corporate world, the network is often huge, requiring a full-time staff to implement and maintain. 
 

The other type of network is the one included in Windows 95 and 98. It is called "Peer to Peer" networking, in which no dedicated server is needed. Lantastic, created by Artisoft, pioneered the Peer to Peer implementation of networking, but Windows 95/98 eliminated the need for a separate network operating system.  Each computer can be authorized to "share" certain resources, such as the hard drive or any attached printer. This is a really efficient way for several PCs to access a color printer or a data file.

Networking for small businesses is flourishing as new technologies allow PCs to be networked with a minimum of training and effort. New USB (Universal Serial Bus) interfaces allow .you to attach a PC to an Ethernet network without the hassle of removing the computer's plastic cover. With just two PCs, a "crossover" cable is used to connect the machines instead of a hub. The USB connectors are found on most new PCs. but if you have older units with the USB ports, networking is still fairly easy and inexpensive.

There are "starter" kits available at most office supply and computer stores that supply the traditional Network Interface Cards (NICs) and a small Ethernet hub, along with attaching cables. These kits usually are priced under $90.00 and include any software drivers that may not be included in the Windows operating system. The cards are available in both PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) and ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) format. Just make sure your PCs have the required open slots to add the cards.

While the equipment is locally available and reasonably priced. the set up can be beyond the scope of the casual PC user. If you don't know how to modify your Windows settings or how to download drivers, you should leave the installation and setup to someone who does.

If you are comfortable with configuring and modifying your PCs, then happy networking.

George Mindling © 2000

George Mindling Column 12-17-1999 - Timing is everything

Timing is everything

Is 2000 really Y2K? Computers don't count in the decimal system people use. 2K, in the computer language of binary, means 2048. Coining the phrase "Y2K" is a perfect example of how the Year 2000 bug came about in the first place.

Y2K is a quick, glib and not necessarily accurate way of describing the "millennium" or the Year 2000 bug. Go take a look at all the corporate Web sites on the Internet. Only a few refer to the potential problem as Y2K; most use the standard "Year 2000 problem" name.

The problem, as everyone this side of Mars knows, is that your old programs and some older computers won't know which century it is after Dec. 31. It's a mistake shared by some of our politicians.

If you haven't received the "free Y2K checker" from an online buddy by now, you may have been spared one of the few feeble attempts at humor about the impending date change. Watching your PC computer screen go through what appears to be a thorough check of your system, then start changing every letter "Y" it finds to the letter "K", is a heart stopper. January becomes Januark; February changes to Februark, and so on. Of course it doesn't really corrupt your data, it only displays the joke on your screen. At first, I didn't laugh either.

The dilemma is real, of course, and I'll finally have to upgrade my trusty and well-worn version of Quicken to a "Y2K compliant" version. There are other programs that will need to be replaced as they can't be upgraded to new versions.

Several of the spreadsheet programs and even my word processor won't know what the date is if I have to compute a moon landing or a solution to world famine.

There is no alternative but to replace them. The data can be exported from the old programs and imported into the new ones. Most programs update existing databases automatically. My old PCs will have to be manually reset after the Dec. 31, 1999 rollover, but that will take about 30 seconds each. I already have the default short date (in Windows 95 & 98) set to the four-digit size field, rather than the two-digit size that got us all into this mess.

All my business records are backed up on tape and on diskette. Maybe I'll break down and buy a CD/RW, a CD unit that allows me to save single copies of massive data quickly. I have the same standard plan for the Year 2000 problem as I do for any unseen occurrence that might knock out my computers. So I have taken all the necessary safeguards but perhaps not all the ones available, though. We're not moving to an underground bunker, nor are we taking everything we own to the mountains (though we would for a Category 5 hurricane).

And I'm not going to stand here New Year's Night with the power on watching PC screens. I just might spill something on these marvelous, time-saving devices. Oh yes, I bought a new calendar, too.

George Mindling © 1999

George Mindling Column 11-19-1999 - You Make the Call

You Make the Call

After waiting all afternoon for a scheduled appearance from a contractor who never showed or called, I called the contractor's office. After being put on hold for a few moments, I was told the contractor was on the road. She would beep him to call me. Twenty minutes later he called. He offered no explanation for missing the appointment and only said it was too late today; he'd try to make it tomorrow. Too bad, but I won't be here tomorrow.

He had a cell phone and my telephone number. If he had called earlier to inform me there would be a delay or change in plans, I could have changed my plans too. Waiting all afternoon for a no-show used all my time.

I was in the service business twice, so to speak. I spent eight years as a technician in the Air Force, where quality control insured the work ethic, in case you didn't have one to start with.

I then worked for many years with one of the best service organizations in the world. Not surprisingly, our first concern was customer satisfaction. We sent annual satisfaction surveys to all our customers) and any less than-satisfactory response required a management visit to find out why. Invariably, the prime complaint was lack of communication. We worked under a two-hour response time to our customers. A return phone call to a customer as soon as the service call came in was one of the prime performance appraisal items. A change in plans meant we would call the waiting customer again. Plans change continuously. It isn't surprising for a new part to be defective or to discover problems deeper than first encountered. Even accidents and weather will interfere with a service schedule; anyone who has ever been in business will testify to this.

Most customers understand the service environment and will work with problems affecting service, especially if the call isn't urgent. But if service is impaired because someone is trying to print the payroll, that's a different matter. Customers expect the response to a service call to reflect the urgency of their problem.

If you get diverted by a priority call, you still need to call the customers you have committed to and tell them there is a change in schedule. If you can't call them all, have someone else make the calls.

Don't let customers hang. It will ruin your business, even if you are the only one in town today that knows how to fix whatever is broken. Somebody will pick up the excess, and if they give better service than you, they will take away your business.

It takes communication to work, and in this day where everyone has a cell phone and a pager, not calling your customer is a sign of poor, unacceptable service. If you fail to call, you will have an irate customer, instead of a loyal one. It is such an easy problem to fix.

George Mindling © 1999

George Mindling Column 10-15-1999 - Bitten by the Monkey!

Bitten by the Monkey!

I had read many articles about computer viruses, and, quite frankly, I paid no serious attention to any of them. The vulnerability of my company's PCs was not an issue as far as I was concerned. After all. I used only "shrink-wrapped" software. Everything I loaded was purchased from software companies and only in sealed boxes. Pirated software is known to be one of the prime source of viruses, and I don't use any of it.

Besides, running the virus programs had never found anything anyway, and they simply took too much time. I backed up my data regularly and wasn't too concerned about the threat of a virus. Not until the day I tried to boot the 486 PC with all my company's financial records from the “A” drive, the floppy diskette drive, and got the message 'Invalid Drive Specification" instead of my customary "C>" when I tried to switch to the hard drive.

Out of curiosity. I ran the virus checker. "Monkey-2 virus has been detected" was the response. As the realization sank. in, my initial reaction boiled over to outright anger! I had the virus checker available but had never enabled it. What was this Monkey virus going to do to my data? I had never even heard of the Monkey virus. I had to determine what damage had been done and remove the virus as quickly and as intelligently as possible.

I had been told improper removal of an active virus can destroy the FAT, or File Allocation Table. That in itself will make data impossible to recover. I ran the virus program several times on both of my company PCs with always the same result. Both PCs were infected with the Monkey-2 virus. I purchased a new version of McAfee's Virus Scan from among several available virus detection and protection programs. After loading Virus Scan, it was confirmed again, both computers had "Monkey-B", as McAfee calls it. Again, the virus couldn't be removed!

I called McAfee's technical support desk. After being switched four times in less than two minutes, I had the right desk. and the bright young woman on the phone had the right answers. "The Monkey virus has been around since 1992." she said as she keyed her PC's keyboard in the background, "I believe that one is from Eastern Europe, maybe Bulgaria ... "

Thirty minutes later with the help of Norton Utilities, both machines were clean. How did I get the virus? It came from a diskette that accompanied an external modem I purchased at my computer store. The virus was found on a "factory", write-protected diskette. The modem company guaranteed me their diskettes are shipped "clean". They suggested someone had purchased one of their modems which. included the software diskette, contaminated the diskette, then returned the modem with I its software diskette to the store for a refund. I called the store and asked their pol­icy on returned components. If a unit is returned new for other than defective reasons, the contents of the box are checked for completeness. and the box is shrink wrapped again and returned to the shelf. I now run the PC virus detection programs on every boot on both PCs. I scan the boot records and changed files. I scan both systems completely on a weekly basis. A little paranoid? Perhaps, but once bitten...

George Mindling © 1999