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Bits-N-Bytes

Welcome to the IntegrIT Network Solutions "Bits-N-Bytes" newsletter with tips to help you keep your computers and network running. If you do not wish to receive this newsletter, manage and opt-out links are provided at the bottom of the newsletter. This will not impact your email alerts. 

We're here, ready to help you fully control and manage your IT systems so that you can focus on growing your business, increasing sales, and meeting your goals. It's easy to reach us!

1. Call us at (866) 578-6220

2. Send us an email

We will contact you within 24 hours. Happy Computing! 

IntegrIT Network Solutions, Inc., Bringing Integrity and IT Together™

The Four Benefits of Managed Services

Here's how...

The model works because IT issues are prevented before they become problems to be fixed. Because we charge a regular monthly fee to maintain computer health, rather than an hourly fee to fix machines that are broken, your costs are reduced when your network is healthy and strong.

Lower Total IT Costs: Through a regular monthly fee that covers all preventative and proactive maintenance for client machines, total IT costs are lowered. We monitor a number of key network health indicators and regularly make upgrades and provide fixes before users are impacted or notice a decline in performance.

Reduced Hidden Costs and Increased Staff Productivity: Because client PCs and servers are stable and secure, with fewer disruptions or breakdowns, your staff has more time to be productive. A stable and secure network environment also means your staff experiences fewer instances of data loss, instances that not only require your time to rebuild the data, but also impede short-term and long-term business growth.

Greater IT Cost Predictability: Even with the most robust IT support structure, most small-to-medium businesses struggle to determine how much should be set aside each month for IT support to deal with tricky desktop issues or server and network outages. With our fixed monthly fees that cover monitoring, preventative maintenance, and unlimited remote support, our clients know their exact IT costs per month, and they can budget and plan appropriately.

Stronger Alignment of IT with Business Goals: As a client you will have access to our business review with individuals who have worked with other small-to-medium-sized organizations to ensure that IT furthers company strategy. Through the business reviews, our consultant examines business goals and provides advice and support based on both available and future technology, looking for ways to make your networks not only stronger but also more efficient. All with the purpose of making sure current IT investments match the uniqueness and breadth of your vision.

The bonus: Because our services eliminate issues before they turn into problems, we can make "worry free" IT a reality and who can put a price on a good night of sleep? If our Rest Assured managed service plan is for, call us at 425-787-0193 or info@integrit-network.com to discuss how to move from "worry" to "worry free".

Happy Computing from IntegrIT Network Solutions, Inc.!

CLOUD COMPUTER SERIES - PART 3

As a continuation of our cloud computing series, I would like to focus this month’s article on a business critical application that most small business are currently using today in the cloud – Email. If you are curious about cloud computing and want to “test it out” before taking the plunge, switching your email to a Hosted Exchange can be your first step and along with it, provide your employees with a much more robust email experience. What I find most common in small businesses is POP3 email accounts (email accounts usually provided by their website hosting company as part of their hosting package), which most companies think is sufficient so why bother to move to Hosted Exchange? Let’s take a look.

Exchange vs. POP3 Email - Why swap to Exchange?

Not sure why you should take the plunge and migrate to our Microsoft Exchange Email hosting? As well as superior uptime, reliability, and functionality, here's why...

Our comprehensive Hosted Exchange email solution gives you greater functionality, reliability, and security over a traditional, consumer grade POP3 email methods. Get greater functionality, security, and reliability with Hosted Exchange compared with POP3 and other internet-based email accounts such as Gmail, Live Mail, and Hotmail. Check out the benefits below:

To find out more about the benefits of cloud computing and how the Hosted Exchange approach might make sense for your company, contact IntegrIT Network Solutions at 425-787-0193 or click HERE to send us an email now.

About the Author: Larry Owens is President and Chief Technologist at IntegrIT Network Solutions, Inc. For more information go to www.integrit-network.com. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

Client Spotlight: HP Properties

Every month we choose a customer to be our “Client of the Month.” It’s our way of acknowledging clients and thanking those who support us and our business with referrals and repeat business.

Doug Henrikson

This month’s featured client of the month is HP Properties. Located in Mountlake Terrace, Washington, HP Properties specializes in Real Estate, Property Management, and Development.

Here’s what Doug had to say about IntegrIT Network Solutions: "I don't have to worry about problems with our computers. Problems are corrected in a timely fashion!"

To learn more about HP Properties, give Doug a call at 425-776-9200.

Thank you for being our featured Client of The Month, we appreciate you! As a token of our appreciation we’re sending you a $25 gas gift card!

You might be my next Client Of The Month . . . Watch for your name and picture here!

IntegrIT Network Solutions Launches 24/7 Help-Desk

Market Leading Rest Assured™ IT Support Service Will Now Be Offered Around the Clock

Furthering its commitment to serve the IT support needs of Seattle area small and mid-size business (SMB) market, IntegrIT Network Solutions, Inc., announced Monday that its market-leading Rest Assured™ remote help desk service is now available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, offering affordable IT support.

Rest Assured™ IT support has been available to SMBs in the greater Seattle area since 2003 during regular business hours, with only emergency coverage after hours. ‘Rest Assured™ 24/7 Help Desk’ will continue to provide the same level of service features including remote control of client desktops, comprehensive call ticketing and reporting, and three levels of escalation to resolve problems effectively and instantaneously.

"Our clients are small businesses with employees who work after hours and on weekends," said Larry Owens, President of IntegrIT Network Solutions. "With our new 24/7 availability for Rest Assured™ IT support, we are able to address and resolve an organization's IT issues immediately, no matter what time of the day or night, whether they're working from home or at the office. Our 24/7 model is just one more way of ensuring optimum support for our customers."

IntegrIT Network Solutions' Rest Assured™ IT service is specifically tailored to the SMB market, with the company having been founded by a small business owner and former IT professional. One client of the service, Bering Industrial, Inc., a Seattle Construction firm with 5 users and a Rest Assured™ IT support client since 2006, notes that Rest Assured™ service has improved business efficiency.

“In our business, network reliability is critical. Because IntegrIT Network Solutions, Inc. is constantly monitoring, maintaining, and updating our systems, network issues rarely arise, and when they do, they can be dealt with remotely - usually within minutes,” said John Marker, Owner of Bering Industrial, Inc. Using IntegrIT Network Solutions' Rest Assured™ service plan has not only eliminated any downtime, but has given us the peace of mind we need to carry on our business with confidence.

"Small business owners have told us that when computer problems arise, it can be overwhelming and, at times, can put their business at a stand-still," said Julie Rice, Vice President, IntegrIT Network Solutions Business Development. "Our ‘Rest Assured™ 24/7 Help Desk’ is designed to help SMBs overcome issues on-demand, without waiting, so they can keep employees productive and business systems running with little or no interruption."

"This innovative service provides customers with a team of highly trained technicians ready to resolve issues, on-demand, at a fraction of the cost of bringing technicians in-house or wasting time trying to fix problems themselves. Now SMBs have the same flexibility that large companies have to use the latest technology, while being ready for any computer challenge around the clock."

Trained professionals troubleshoot computer hardware and software problems by remotely connecting to and accessing customer computers, diagnosing the problem and taking corrective action. However, the service supports more than just PCs, offering small businesses a single point of contact for help with a variety of standard business software applications, numerous printers, Wi-Fi routers, network and Internet connectivity, as well as providing basic PDA and BlackBerry® support.

Seattle area SMBs can order services by visiting www.integrit-network.com/quote.php or contacting an IntegrIT Network Solutions small business sales representative at 1-866-578-6220 or info@integrit-network.com.

Computer Tip of the Month

Top 10 keyboard secrets of MS Windows

Think the mouse is the best way to navigate your PC? No way! Having to constantly reach for the mouse not only puts unnecessary strain on your neck and shoulder, it also severely decreases your productivity time. Learning to use your keyboard effectively and efficiently can absolutely transform your PC experience -- and that's why we wrote this special report. So, stop clicking and start using your keyboard the way it was meant to be used!

Below is a list of 10 keyboard shortcuts for use with any version of the Microsoft Windows Operating System. Each keyboard shortcut is designed to increase user productivity by eliminating the need to reach for the mouse. This is done by executing a combination of keys on the keyboard instead of clicking to perform the same function. With that said, let's get on with some shortcuts!

1. Quick Help: Pressing F1 in almost any program will bring up the Help Menu.

2. Switching Between Tasks: ALT + TAB will bring up a Window with a list of icons representing programs which are currently running on your computer. While holding the ALT key, press and depress the TAB button to cycle between each icon task.

3. Cycle To The Next Task:  ALT + ESC will switch to next task running on your computer. Hold down the ALT key, press and depress the ESC key to cycle to the next task.

4. Kick Out Programs That Crash:  CTRL + ALT + DELETE will bring up Task Manager and allow you to End a Process (terminate a program) if it has crashed or has stopped responding. Select the process which has stopped responding, and then press "END PROCESS" to terminate it.

5. Bring Up The Start Menu:  CTRL + ESC will bring up the Start Menu. On some of the newer keyboard, there is a key that has the Microsoft logo: this will do the same thing as pressing CTRL + ESC. Once the Start Menu is opened, you can use your Arrow Keys on the keyboard to navigate through the list of installed programs. Press ENTER to execute the program.

6. Cycling Buttons On A Window:  Pressing TAB while a window is open on your Desktop will cycle the cursor to the next button position in the window. The TAB key also works when cycling between text fields when filling out forms on the Internet.

7. Copy Text Quick:  After highlighting text with your mouse, press CTRL + INSERT to copy it to your clipboard.

8. Paste Text Quick:  Pressing SHIFT + INSERT will paste any text that is in your clipboard. Your cursor must also be placed in an area that will accept keyboard input for this to work.

9. Highlight Text To The Top Of The Page:  Click on a line of text anywhere in a document, and press CTRL + SHIFT + HOME to select all text above this area to the top of the page.

10. Highlight Text To The Bottom Of The Page:  Click on a line of text anywhere in a document, and press CTRL + SHIFT + END to select all text below this area to the bottom of the page.

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Check Out What’s New at IntegrIT Network Solutions, Inc.

How to backup Facebook Photos

Backup your Facebook photos to your computer or create a PDF file containing your pictures using the Pick&Zip service. This is a fantastic free service to quickly backup your images or any of your friends pictures to your hard disk drive or into your own personalized PDF file. To use this service follow the below steps.

1. Visit the Pick&Zip site http://www.picknzip.com

2. Allow the service to access your Facebook account.

3. Once logged in, you should see all your friends listed on the left. If you're only looking for photos of you or photos you've been tagged in click the find my pictures button at the bottom of the friends list.

4. Once you see pictures to add or download, move your mouse over the picture. Click the + symbol to add the picture to the group of images to download or if you just wish to download that single image click the down arrow. If you want to get all photos, click the select all button. Note: if you have multiple pages of photos you'll have to go through each page and select all if you want every photo.

5. Finally, if you've selected images to download and are done selecting click the Review & Download link and then the Download button to start the download.

Alternate solution

If you're using Mozilla Firefox as your browser another great way to backup your Facebook photos is by using the facePAD add-on https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8442/. Once installed and Firefox has been restarted simply right-click on any photo album and select the option "Download Album with FacePAD" to download each of the photos into your downloads directory.

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