March 2012
In this issue:

HTS Referral Program

The highest compliment you can give us is the referral of a new client. If you know of anyone who could benefit from any of the services we provide your company, please keep us in mind.

Learn how you could earn a $100 American Express gift card in return for your referral!

Here's our lineup of upcoming seminars, webinars, and other events. Come join us!

The rising cost of gasoline over the past few months makes it necessary for us to apply a fuel surcharge for onsite visits by our engineers. This surcharge will help us offset a portion of the increased expense we face. The charge will be based on the round-trip mileage from our location to yours. The fee is 20 cents per mile based on a gasoline price of $3.75 - $4 per gallon. The fee will increase by 10 cents for each 50 cent increase in the price of gasoline. If/when gas prices drop below $3.50 we will discontinue the surcharge. This fee does NOT apply to clients covered under our Dynamic Care Managed Services or clients that have a WorryFree contract that provides complete coverage.

If you haven’t joined our many satisfied clients using our WorryFree IT service, now may be the time. Remote monitoring, management and remediation of your servers and PCs is faster and more cost-effective than our onsite reactive visits. Ask your salesperson today about the many advantages of being WorryFree.

Can your business afford to be down for several hours, let alone a few days? A backup and disaster recovery solution is more than just backing up and restoring files: its true value lies in business continuity. A properly configured and designed backup solution doesn’t just back up your files – it gets your entire organization back on its feet within an hour or less.

If you’ve thought about a business continuity solution, you might have thought "it’s too expensive" or "why can’t I just do my own backups?" We’ve had many conversations with clients about why they should invest in a backup and disaster recovery solution, and these conversations have convinced us more and more of the value of a proper backup solution.

Read on for an argument for backing up »

This past month I have been on the road around the world. There are a few common themes, no matter which continent I was on. And most of them revolve around one word—mobility.

First some facts, then some observations. Based on some of the latest research here is the forecast for what is coming. By 2020:

• 4 billion people online
• 31 billion devices
• 450 billion online connections
• 25 million apps

Those are not typos. There will be on average 7 devices for every person that will be online. The whole idea of a converged device is not going to happen. It was a nice dream but is not reality. I see that already; in fact, I do that already. I carry three or four things when I am on the road—phone, tablet, notebook, GPS, and sometimes a second notebook. Of course these are running different OS's and don't necessarily talk with each other. And on each I often have a number of connections in place—a half dozen web interactions to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, my blog, and a few other things—plus email and other synchronized services. There is a whole lot of connecting going on.

Read on for tools to go mobile »

Let's say you've created a table in Microsoft Excel. You don't want the table, but you want to keep the data or formatting. The solution is simple: convert the table back to a data range.

Note: For this to work, you need to have an already completed table. You can also watch the video version.

1. Click anywhere on the table. This displays the Design tab under Table Tools. A cell in the table must be selected for the Design tab to be visible.

2. On the Design tab, in the Tools group, click Convert to Range.

3. Click Yes. Now you have a date range without table options.

Year after year, springtime flooding is linked to seasonal rain and rapid snowmelt, but this year may be a different story. Unseasonably warm temperatures and the noticeable lack of snow this winter may bring variable weather conditions in the coming months.

Areas that have received little precipitation this winter may later experience drought like conditions that, when the rain does come, can lead to flash flooding. Likewise, residents in western states may face an increased risk of flooding and mudslides due to the recent wildfires that left the ground charred and unable to absorb excess water.

The reality is, floods are the most common and costly natural disaster. Between 2006 and 2010, the average individual flood insurance claim was nearly $34,000. All it takes is a few inches of water to cause thousands of dollars of damage. Click here for helpful preparedness tips from Ready.gov and start preparing today.

Just for Laughs

Quote of the Month

"Anyone who has lost track of time when using a computer knows the propensity to dream, the urge to make dreams come true and the tendency to miss lunch."

— Tim Berners-Lee

Want to know about all that HTS has to offer? 

Look through our virtual catalog.

We'd love to help you learn more about anything you see.