Westech has a zero landfill policy, and even audits all of their downstream to ensure they are also fully compliant with the zero landfill policy. Depending on the age and state of the equipment, they may put it in their store for parts (if your equipment is relatively modern they'll even take it on consignment), or they may disassemble it and recycle it piece by piece. Their standard for hard drives is to erase all data either via a triple overwrite using a hard drive erasing machine (if the hard drive you send them is operational) or using a degaussing machine (big magnet) if the hard drive is inoperable. That means you don't have to worry about cleaning out your hard drives before sending it to them. If you are REALLY worried about your data, for a small extra fee they will even perform hard drive destruction that meets DOD standards - seven overwrites followed by drilling a half-inch hole through the drive followed by shredding it. If you choose that service, they will even provide you with documentation to certify the destruction of the drive for your records.

After seeing this presentation I was really excited about this new option we have for customers that need to dispose of older equipment. I was especially impressed by their zero landfill policy which includes auditing of their downstream providers to ensure compliance. You can be certain that from this point forward, we'll be recommending Westech for all of our customer's disposal needs.

Have a great month!

Social networking: Is your identity at risk?
reprinted with permission from HP

Unfortunately, many of the aspects that make Facebook and other social networking sites so popular also make them a prime hunting ground for identity thieves, online scam artists and criminals. However, there are a few measures you can and should take to protect yourself.

Read more

The 2009 Recovery Plan:
What It Means For Your Business
reprinted with permission from HP

When the going gets tough, the tough have a smart game plan. And with over 2 million jobs lost in 2008, the situation is definitely getting tough.

Fortunately, the US has relieved our 26 million small businesses-those which gross $15 million or less in profits annually[1]- in more ways than one with its 2009 Recovery Plan.

The new plan not only gives small businesses tax breaks and credits, it also plans to give your customers more money by providing them jobs. In the meantime, though, one of the best ways you can take advantage of the plan is by carefully investing in the future with updated technology and energy efficient solutions.

Even for larger businesses that don't directly benefit from the recovery plan, making these types of changes while business is slower can prepare you for when the economy picks up.

The government's plan
This plan provides you with a myriad of opportunities to help your business.

The new plan:

System Engineering Corner Notes from the Network Engineering Department: Note to readers: As our network engineers work with all of you across our entire customer base, they observe trends and issues that many people have in common, or that many customers will find helpful to know about. This section is designed to give them a mechanism to communicate those issues to you, with the hope that YOU might benefit from.

Is your server running out of hard drive space?

Are you out of space on one of your drives, but still have breathing room on a different drive? If you find yourself with no budget to purchase another server or larger drives, we have a fix that we have implemented across many of our customer servers and some of our older servers to keep these systems running until new hardware can be purchased.

Thanks to our membership in the HTG2 peer group we now have the tools to fix this problem!

We are able to move some Windows hidden files to another drive on your server but fool the Operating System into thinking those files are still in the same place. This allows us to free up space on the drive that is full by moving some of the 'unmovable' files to another drive with more space.

If you are interested in this option for your server's please let us know and we will be glad to help!

July 2009
In this issue

 □  Welcome
 □  Social Networking
 □  The 2009 Recovery Plan
 □  Engineering Corner
 □  Referral Program
 □  Do You Know Office Secrets?

itSynergy Referral Program

Can we buy you dinner and send you to the movies? How about make a donation to your favorite charity in your name? Earn rewards for referring new customers to itSynergy. For more details, please visit here.

Do You Know Office Secrets?
By Alan R. Earls
Reprinted with permission from
Microsoft Small Business Center

Microsoft Office 2007 has a wealth of features that you may have overlooked that could help your business. Here are four you may want to learn about.

In Summary:

• Microsoft Office 2007 is chock-full of useful
• Read these tips on using SmartArt, the Outlook To-Do Bar, Document Inspector, and ScreenTips.

At the core of every business are the fundamental office productivity applications that support nearly every business function. The Microsoft Office suite of applications is so familiar that many managers probably assume they know everything they need to know about its capabilities.

Read more

Quote of the month

"Freedom is never free."

-- Author Unknown

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