By now you've heard about the cost savings and increased productivity that Microsoft's Office 365 cloud service brings.  Now through September 30 you can save even more when you either open or add to an existing Office 365 subscription for your company.

This new "Cloud Easy" promotion will reward you with a 15% savings off the regular annual subscription rate.

Click here to learn more. 

Bob here. Ok, Simplex-IT needs to hire an experienced Network Engineer (it's a full time position). You *must* have experience with Windows Server (preferably 2008 and 2003). Active Directory experience is a must, including Group Policy Management, Desktop support (Windows 7 and XP) absolutely. Network Monitoring? Yup. Exchange is a big plus (as is Office 365), and it would be nice to throw in some SQL and SharePoint as well. You know how to troubleshoot network performance and security issues. You could also install/configure a new AD domain, or upgrade an existing one.

In our environment, working on four projects for four different clients in a given day is called normal.

This is not an entry-level position.

Click here for more. 

The good news:  Monica recently got an employment offer she couldn't pass up.

The bad news:  It wasn't with us.  Don't get me wrong, we wish her well, and knowing the details of the new position, we don't blame her (take me with you!!).  But that puts us back in the position of looking for a new Office Manager for Simplex-IT.

This position will help coordinate technical resources to address customer needs and ensure speedy delivery of services. Will also assist with Social Media entries. Help with Sales processes, and various traditional office functions. Small but growing organization.

Click here for more. 

I'm at the xChange event in Dallas this week, and Sunday watched the keynote presented by Microsoft. Now keep in mind that I've got a long history of Microsoft presentations. I've probably owned over 100 t-shirts from Redmond, and have sat through thousands of PowerPoint slides. I've drank the Kool Aid enough times so that I look like a cross between Microsoft Bob and the Kool Aid guy (nope, not pretty).

So Sunday was just another one. In too many ways, it seems.

Spoiler alert: Their products are actually pretty darn good. That ain't the problem.

The Microsoft presentation was two-fold. Actually it was classic Microsoft. First we'll get a mid-level exec to get up and talk about what a big year it was (or will be), and how Microsoft's commitment is to increase/decrease the good/bad thing about the desktop/server environment.

Read more here.

As we announced at our July Lunchinar, Microsoft has made the beta of the new Office 2013 available for a trial download. And in keeping with our leadership role in the IT community, Simplex-IT has been reviewing this venerable suite of essential business applications and is ready to report our initial findings.

We'll discuss the new features, the tighter integration with Microsoft's SkyDrive cloud storage, the innovative subscription plans that will make Office 2013 more affordable than ever before and many, many more salient points of interest.

The next time you get a notification from Facebook that says a friend has tagged you in a picture, be careful. It could be a trap!

Normally, Facebook's email notifications tell you which friend has tagged you in a picture. In this particular case, you are prompted to view the photo in an attachment to the email. Don't do it! It's a ZIP file containing malware that allows hackers to gain your control over Windows-operated computers.

Get the whole story, including an image of the fake email, here. Forewarned is forearmed.

Be careful. It's a jungle out there!

Lazy Bob here.  I am all about letting someone else figure out the ins and outs of new software.  So I was glad to see that the HowTo-Outlook site written by Robert Sparnaaij now includes a fantastic article "29 Short questions and tips for Outlook 2013."  I immediately discovered several things about Outlook 2013, like how the default search configuration is to search the entire mailbox (it was driving me nuts).

A great article and a great site.  Check it out!

Steve here, I decided to setup a couple of servers here at Simplex World HQ with the new Microsoft Server 2012 OS. It comes available as both a Core Edition (no GUI) as well as the standard platform we're used to, I setup both. A nice feature of 2012 is that you can use the Standard edition to easily remote manage other servers. You can do things like add/remove roles, join a domain, use in-depth management tools, and other misc. tasks. There are still things however that need to be done the old fashion way, such as setting a static IP. 

What does this mean?  Click here to find out!

Bob here. As many of you know (especially if you pay attention to our Blog), Microsoft recently released their first Beta (whoops, customer Preview) of Office 2013.  Now, it stands to reason that part of the Office 2013 upgrade will involve integrating it with Office 365.

Click here to read more.