MainBoss Newswire

 October 2006

 

Topics:

1.   Weekly On-Line Training

2.   Mirroring Your Disks

3.  Upcoming Tradeshows in Canada & USA

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1.  Weekly On-Line Training

MainBoss offers modular online courses on the use of specific MainBoss features. This is a great way to get training on MainBoss without ever leaving your office!

·        Courses will be offered on specific topics, every Wednesday at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

·        Each course will last about an hour.

·        Each course costs $250 per participant. Alternatively, customers who have paid for technical support incidents may exchange 2 incidents for participation in 1 regularly scheduled one-hour course.

·        Courses are limited to a maximum of 10 participants.

·        Participants will be connected by telephone conference-call (making it possible for you to ask questions as we go along). You'll also be connected to WebEx, a web facility that lets us demonstrate MainBoss operations on your own computer. It's like a personal teacher sitting with you at the computer. (However, we'll only be able to discuss issues pertaining to the specific course material, not to MainBoss questions in general.)

Schedule

The following courses are currently scheduled. Click on any course title below for a description of what the course covers.

 

Administration – Functional                          Oct 25, Jan 10

Administering MainBoss @Requests          Nov 1, Jan 17

Installing MainBoss                                      Nov 8, Jan 31

Corrective Maintenance                               Nov 15, Feb 7

Preventive Maintenance                               Nov 22, Feb 14

Units                                                               Nov 29, Feb 21

Inventory                                                        Dec 6, Feb 28

Purchasing and Receiving                             Dec 13, Mar 7

Reporting                                                       Dec 20, Mar 14

Administration – IT                                        Mar 21

 

Note: For course descriptions go to –  http://www.mainboss.com/english/services/coursedes.shtml

 


2.  Mirroring Your Disks

Computer problems can cause major headaches for your maintenance department. One of the worse is a disk crash: a hardware malfunction which kills the disk that holds all your MainBoss data. Regular back-ups give insurance against disk crashes, but there's an additional way to protect yourself: mirroring your disks. This means buying a second disk to serve as a mirror (a twin) for the disk that holds your MainBoss data.

When one disk mirrors another, Windows writes the same data to both disks simultaneously. That way, if one disk dies from hardware failure, the other disk is an exact duplicate. It's like having a perfect back-up copy that's always up-to-date.

Mirroring can be done in two ways: with hardware or with software. If you have Windows Server 2000 or Server 2003, Windows itself can automatically perform mirroring. For more information, click the usual Windows Start button, select Help and Support and specify the help topic Mirror. (If you choose to mirror your disks through Windows software, you still have to buy a second disk drive to mirror your original.)

If you don't have a Server version of Windows, you need special hardware to do mirroring. Buying a special add-on card can be pricey, but if you're buying a new computer, getting one with a mirror disk and appropriate mirroring hardware only costs about $150 more than doing without ($100 for the extra disk, $50 extra for a motherboard that supports hardware mirroring). When you're buying this type of system, it is often called RAID 1.

When you consider how much time it takes to restore the contents of an unmirrored disk if something goes wrong, $150 is an extremely good investment. Here at Thinkage, we mirror all disks on every computer we own.

Note: Back-ups are still important, even if you mirror your disks. For example, if you get infected by a computer virus, mirror disks won't help (since both disks get infected simultaneously).

You are also welcome to contact the MainBoss Support staff with any questions by emailing support@mainboss.com or calling 1-800-563-0894.

 

3. Upcoming Tradeshows

 

Thinkage will be attending the following tradeshows to demonstrate MainBoss:

91st International Hotel/Motel & Restaurant at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, New York, NY from November 12-14, 2006

We will be in Booth 3175

 

PM Expo 2006 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, South Building, Toronto, ON from November 29 - December 1, 2006

Save $50 compliments of Thinkage Ltd. Register at (www.pmexpo.com/attendee/home) for your free admission to PM Expo 2006. Be sure to drop by and see us at Booth 1643.

 

NFM & T Expo 2007 (National Facilities Management and Technology) at the Baltimore Convention Center, Baltimore, MD from March 20-22, 2007

We will be in Booth 1075

 

The TFM Show 2007 at the Navy Pier, Chicago, IL from April 17-19, 2007

We will be in Booth 629

 

ICSC Spring Convention Trade Exposition at the Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, NV  from May 20-22, 2007

Booth to be announced

 

BOMA The Office Building Show 2007 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, New York, NY from July 22-24, 2007

We will be in Booth 109