Hi everyone,

My daughter came home from kindergarten last year preaching, "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle."  As a result, our house is more eco-friendly.  Here at Network-IT...we make efforts to be green, too.  This newsletter covers all three R's.  Reduce Spam (okay, so that's a stretch), Reuse your server, and Recycle old equipment. Save the Earth, it's the only planet with chocolate. ;-)

                                                  ~Chris

It's Leap Day

Leap years are needed so that the calendar is in alignment with the earth rotation around the sun.  I'm sure you're all aware of this.  But were you aware that according to ancient lore, back in the 5th century, Irish St. Bridget convinced St. Patrick that women should be allowed to propose marriage at least once day a year. St. Patrick relented, but with a catch—he ordained that women would have the opportunity only every four years—on leap day.  The tradition continued, and in 1288 Scotland passed a law that gave women the legal right to propose on leap day. And if the man refused, he was fined.  Hope you enjoy your extra day!!

Be a Spam Super Hero!

It’s one thing to get spam from unknown professional spammers.  It's quite another to get it from friends and family.  You know who I’m talking about.  They send you emails on missing kids, on bogus virus's, and messages that promise good luck if you forward the message to 12 lucky people in the next 6 minutes.  (Gasp)  Wait!  Are you one of those people??  NO. Say it isn’t so!!

Do you forward them on to everyone in your address book? (sigh) Most people who forward chain letters believe they are doing something good. They think they are staying in touch and sending potentially useful information.

Here’s the scoop: most chain letters are hoaxes.  E-mail is not a trustworthy  mainstream media source because it lacks 3 important ingredients: reliability (the email cannot be trusted to be unchanged as it’s forwarded),  validity (the source is identified and qualified to provide the information) and accountability (the author takes responsibility for it and will answer to any criticism).

Even if the message is 100% true…..All chain letters pose a serious risk to your privacy, as your contact information could end up being forwarded around the globe.  The more times you put your e-mail address out there, the higher the chance a spammer will find it. Be a rebel!  Break the cycle!  Don’t forward any more of these messages!

The websites Snopes, Truthorfiction, and Breakthechain are all great sources to find out if the email is valid or not.  If you really feel someone you know could benefit from the email, first research the chain ldetter and secondly request that your email and contact info be removed before they pass it on.

Toby turns seven.  :-)

Retirement Planning

Servers have a limited life expectancy... generally between three and five years. When is the right time for your company to retire or redeploy its server?  You don't want to wait until it fails you, and your company comes to a standstill.  And you also don't want to replace a server that is healthy and performing well.  Read the following article to learn about the factors involved in making this decision so that you can plan ahead and budget for the cost of a new server.