Computer Consultant (503) 650-9496, Portland, Oregon City

	Computer Help
	(503) 650-9496
	We'll set up your system so it works.

Computer Consultant Contact Information:
Voice	(503) 650-9496
eMail	info2@oregoncity.com

Computer Help provides expert setup of Internet and email for the whole business. We are Microsoft Certified, specializing in Microsoft BackOffice
Small Business Server Networks.

It's Your Business

Network Consultant Connects Inside People to Outside People Computer Help specializes in total office networking. We give you the infrastructure you need for connections to the internet, to the office from home, to email, to fax, to pager, and to information for everyone in your business. We are a Computer Consultant firm with experience. We can set up your system to connect everyone inside the office, with vendors, customers, remote workers, home workers, on desktop computers, laptops, palmtops, and mobile phones.

No matter how often you change modes from working at a desk, to working around the office, to working at home, to traveling on the road, Computer Help can keep you in touch with customers, vendors, and co-workers. Computer Help is one of the few computer consulting firms specializing in Microsoft Windows BackOffice Small Business Server. Their expertise with Microsoft Servers provide traditional File and Printer sharing, but also Exchange email server, VPN, Dial-out and Dial-in RAS Networking, Fax-in and Fax-out Server, Internet Proxy Server, Web Page Hosting Server, Web Page Publishing, SQL database server, Modem Sharing, SharePoint Team Services, and more.

We set up the tools you need for good communication between everyone inside and outside your office. Now you can send and receive faxes from your desk, from the road or share information and collaborate with others while traveling, or working at home.


Backup	Computer failures destroy business. That's why we require our clients to purchase a good backup system. Most business managers aren't aware of how crucial their computers have become, yet everyone acknowledges the amazing improvements computers have made to their business over the last few years. Here are the reasons a complete backup solution is necessary: All computers eventually fail. Computers are the target of theft. Computers are destroyed by fire. You could be hit by a virus. People accidentally erase files. Hackers maliciously destroy files. The only protection that always works is backup. Yet backup only works if you follow these three steps: 1. Get robust backup software. We recommend software which can reach across your network and backup all your computers. We recommend several important features like notifications, scheduling, open file handling and others. We recommend software which can backup your Exchange email and SQL Server databases. 2. Get a common tape drive. You need one, common enough, that you can borrow a loaner if fire or theft was the reason for losing your files. You need a tape drive that is reliable. You need one fast enough to complete a backup in reasonable time. We recommend a SCSI based, higher-end tape drive. 3. Rotate off-site. You need to rotate your tapes so that you can go back in time to find the good version of a file. You need to rotate some of your tapes to off-site storage so you can recover in event of fire or theft. Note: CD's are a bad backup solution. They're unreliable. A disk made in one drive often doesn't work in a different drive. Worst of all, they're too small to back up your system which means nobody is willing to sit and swap disks for enough hours to complete a full backup.
FAX Server	One of the truly useful features of Microsoft's Small Business Server is the Fax Server. It provides advantages for both sending and receiving faxes. By sending with the fax server we gain some very important advantages. The destination fax machine becomes the printer, with the result that faxes look like an original. Very tiny text remains readable. Straight lines remain straight. Graphics are rendered attractively rather than appearing as a black blob. Digital photos can go from your camera to your customer's fax machine without in-between steps that destroy quality. Any Windows program that can print, can fax. This means you no longer have to print-out your Word documents and feed them back into the fax machine. By receiving with the fax server we get the choice of receiving four different ways, or all four ways at once: Faxes can be sent directly to the plain paper printer. Faxes can be sent to any specified inbox to be read like email. Faxes can be sent to a public folder to provide direct access for anyone without leaving their desk. Faxes can be routed to multiple users via email. The Fax Server saves money. The computer's data phone line becomes the fax line too. Many businesses can eliminate a monthly phone bill. You don't have to print and then feed the print-out back into the fax machine. This saves both employee time and printing expenses. Computer modems don't have moving parts. Long-term maintenance is unnecessary. Failures are rare. To buy a plain paper fax machine that prints as well as a normal computer printer would be expensive. The Fax Server can manage up to four fax modems and four phone lines. This is much less expensive than purchasing four fax machines and manually trying to manage their rotation. Note: By adding a scanner to the system, ordinary paper documents can be faxed like a normal fax machine, with the advantage that photos can be scanned with much higher quality than ordinary fax machines.
Open License	We strongly recommend the Open License version of Microsoft Office and not the retail or OEM version. In past years the versions were the same. But with the introduction of Office XP, Microsoft began including something in the retail and OEM version called "Office Activation Wizard". This feature has the ability to disable your software when it is triggered by "suspicious activity". For example, if you upgrade your harddisk and reinstall Office XP, that would be considered suspicious activity. You can call an 800 number to learn how to reactivate your software after it has been disabled, but I suspect the hold times will become intolerable in the next few years when Office XP is no longer the hot new product that it was. If Microsoft's past history is our guide, you can expect the phone number to be disconnected someday. The only trouble with the Open License version is you can't buy it in single units or through retail stores. So, we've become a Microsoft Open License reseller.
Professional Computer Consulting	At Computer Help we have 30 years experience. We're a computer consulting firm with enough history to understand the future. As an experienced computer consultant we recognize the cost of replacing a system includes the cost of preparing a new one for its role in your business. By using our experience and pushing toward properly sized systems, we can try to reduce some of the cost and frequency of upgrading or replacing obsolete systems in the future. We'll push for an adequate backup solution. We'll push for network based installations of Office and other applications to reduce the cost of maintaining software. We're one of the few computer consultants who specialize in Microsoft's Small Business BackOffice Server. We can put it's many features to work for you, but more importantly, we can set you up to do your own computer maintenance through it's management console. This makes it easy to setup new users, email boxes, and more, and reduces your long-term costs.
This Server	This web page is hosted on a Microsoft BackOffice Small Business Server, "SBS". After paying for the server and the DSL connection, everything else is free. SBS provides the Exchange email server, giving us complete control of our own email services so we can set up an unlimited number of aliases and mail boxes. Disk space is only limited by the size of our server disk. SBS provides the Proxy web server, SQL database server, and IIS information server. The web server has access to the SQL database server so we can take advantage of local data. This is something that an ISP cannot do for you. Note: As you learn to use more features, your costs do not change. The monthly DSL charge remains the same.	Local Data Ok. I'm not a very good web page designer. But with the SBS infrastructure in place, you can hire a good web designer and provide them with all the features they need to build a high-end web site. With your server, on your premises, accessing your data, you can design a web site with many advantages over an off-site web site.

	SBS On-Site Server	ISP Off-Site Server
Advantage	Much Lower Monthly Cost. Unlimited email aliases and inboxes. Unlimited data storage. Unlimited off-site access. Host multiple web sites for the same cost. SharePoint Team Services for off-site and on-site users. Web pages can use proprietary local data. Keep proprietary data in-house and more secure. Important Advantage: With an in-house internet server, you can access internal information from on the road. With SBS, you can access email, fax services, company documents, and many other resources from home or from a remote laptop by using the security features of SBS Server. The SBS server provides "Outlook Web Access" so you can use any computer that has a web browser to access your internal information. SBS provides access for remote users, SharePoint Team services, Exchange Server, and Outlook Web Access.	If you're building a high-volume web site and need more capacity than DSL can provide, it would be less expensive to pay a good quality ISP instead of paying the phone company for your own high-capacity connection. If income is lost as the result of down-time, the higher-end ISPs maintain technical staff, 24 hours a day, to put servers back on-line in minutes instead of hours. Note: SBS lets you begin with an On-Site Server. Then, if you discover you need more bandwidth capacity, or better recovery time, some services such as Web or email can be moved to the ISP's Server as needed. If this is a consideration for your web site, you may need to give up the advantage of designing a web site that uses local proprietary data. You'll also want to begin with two domain structures so you can easily move one of them off-site without losing the in-house server advantage for remote users, SharePoint Team services, and Outlook Web Access.

SBS On-Site Server

ISP Off-Site Server

Advantage

Much Lower Monthly Cost.
Unlimited email aliases and inboxes.
Unlimited data storage.
Unlimited off-site access.
Host multiple web sites for the same cost.
SharePoint Team Services for off-site and on-site users.
Web pages can use proprietary local data.
Keep proprietary data in-house and more secure.

Important Advantage: With an in-house internet server, you can access internal information from on the road. With SBS, you can access email, fax services, company documents, and many other resources from home or from a remote laptop by using the security features of SBS Server. The SBS server provides "Outlook Web Access" so you can use any computer that has a web browser to access your internal information. SBS provides access for remote users, SharePoint Team services, Exchange Server, and Outlook Web Access.

If you're building a high-volume web site and need more capacity than DSL can provide, it would be less expensive to pay a good quality ISP instead of paying the phone company for your own high-capacity connection.
If income is lost as the result of down-time, the higher-end ISPs maintain technical staff, 24 hours a day, to put servers back on-line in minutes instead of hours.

Note: SBS lets you begin with an On-Site Server. Then, if you discover you need more bandwidth capacity, or better recovery time, some services such as Web or email can be moved to the ISP's Server as needed.
If this is a consideration for your web site, you may need to give up the advantage of designing a web site that uses local proprietary data. You'll also want to begin with two domain structures so you can easily move one of them off-site without losing the in-house server advantage for remote users, SharePoint Team services, and Outlook Web Access.

By the way, did you notice? This web site doesn't require a WWW.
That's because we specialize in Microsoft's Small Business Server and can show you several tricks for using it as your your web server.