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Resources
News & Events
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Monthly Tips, News and Views from Coyote Creek
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DECEMBER 2011
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Presidents Perspective
My Favorite iPad 2 Apps for the Enterprise
 Like many of you, I am the proud owner of a variety of devices, including an iPad 2. While the iPad 2 can be entertaining, I'm getting even more value by integrating it into my work life. Here are my favorite apps for helping me do so.
"Mail" and "Calendar" – These are the native email and calendaring applications that Apple provides with the iPad 2, and they're very well done. In fact, they're arguably easier to use than Outlook. What do I like most about these applications? The fact that they allow me to consolidate accounts.
With the calendar app, for example, I get one consolidated view of multiple calendars that are hosted on separate Exchange servers (for example, my calendar on Coyote Creek's server, and my calendar that's hosted on one of our client's servers). I could never do this with Outlook, which will not allow you to connect to two different Exchange servers and have them open in one application.
Likewise, the mail application allows me to combine my multiple accounts into one mail application with separate inboxes. Plus, the iPad 2 has a built-in VPN, which ensures that connections to my internal network are secure.
RDP Lite – This free RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) client essentially enables me to turn my iPad 2 into a traveling desktop computer. If I leave my laptop or PC running back at my office, RDP Lite lets me connect to that computer, get a screen on my iPad 2 that exactly mirrors that computer's screen, and then do all of the Windows things from the iPad 2 that I want (even if the Windows apps are hosted on a Windows server).
The only downside to this app is that the iPad 2 doesn't use a mouse. When I'm on the iPad 2 connected to my server I have to remember to use my fingers to do the scrolling or clicking – which is hard to do since the screen looks just like my screen back at the office. But then when I return to the office and sit down to use my desktop computer, I find myself tapping the screen in frustration, forgetting that I need to switch back over to the mouse!
QuickOffice – This paid application lets me open, read, and edit Microsoft Office documents on my iPad 2, whether they came in as email attachments, were downloaded from my file server via VPN, or were pulled down from my cloud-based storage.
Dropbox – Speaking of cloud-based storage, this is what I'm using. Dropbox provides a highly encrypted connection between any of my devices and the cloud. As a result, all of my documents can be easily and securely accessed and edited from any of my devices (including laptop, iPad 2 and Droid). When I save a file from one device, it's instantly synchronized to all of the other devices. I also find that Dropbox is great for sharing documents with others, as it allows me to give selected people specific and secure access to any of my folders. Dropbox is fast and easy to set up, simple to use, and elegant in its simplicity – and the 2GB of storage that's provided free is plenty for my needs.
SplashID – Are you having trouble keeping track of all of your passwords? I was. With over 50 different passwords – many of which need to be changed frequently – I was struggling. Now I'm using SplashID, a paid app that is a secure password manager for all of your devices.
SplashID works by installing an encrypted database on each of my devices. Then, as I change or update my passwords on one device, it synchronizes the changes to all of my other devices. Simple!
All in all, I'm thrilled with the way my iPad 2 is helping me improve my productivity, increasing my effectiveness when I'm out at client sites.
Mike Faster
President
Contract Services
Coyote Creek's Contract Services: The Best Way to Find IT Contractors
What do you do when you need a project manager for 5 months? Or when one of your Windows systems administrators quits, leaving your IT teams suddenly understaffed? In the past you may have called a recruiter and hoped for the best, knowing that very few recruiters have the technical knowledge necessary to determine if a candidate is actually qualified for the position. Now there's a better option.
Coyote Creek is excited to announce our latest service offering: Contract Services, for our clients who need interim talent to supplement their own IT teams to perform day-to-day IT infrastructure management tasks, or senior experts for projects that may not require a "scope and deliverable" type of engagement.
Leverage Our Expertise
Coyote Creek's new Contract Services are an extension of the project-based and managed services on which our reputation was built. In keeping with our other service offerings, our Contract Services will be focused on:
- IT Infrastructure Management
- Remote Monitoring and Management
- Project Management
- Systems Administration
- Network Administration
- Storage
- Virtualization
- Systems Architecture, Design and Implementation
This value-added service for recruiting, screening and managing high-quality IT talent is for everything from short- or long-term contract services to contract-to-hire engagements. From high-level architects, engineers and project managers to desktop support and day-to-day technical resources, Coyote Creek can help you find the technical talent that you need.
Get a Better End Result
Coyote Creek's Contract Services offer a number of advantages over traditional recruiting firms and staffing agencies, including:
Technical Expertise – Unlike a staffing company, Coyote Creek has been providing these types of technical project services in great depth and high quality for many years. We can help you determine the skills you need, and then use our internal engineering technical expertise to qualify and screen candidates to ensure that they have the necessary qualifications to meet your needs. As a result, the quality and consistency of resources you receive will be much higher than the "hit and miss" you typically get with employment agencies (or, unfortunately, your own HR department).
Rigorous Screening – All candidates will undergo the same rigorous screening and interview process that Coyote Creek uses when hiring our internal engineers. After our recruiting team has determined that a person has the soft skills, job history and relevant experience for which we are looking, our senior-level engineers will step in to complete an in-depth assessment of the candidate's technical skills. This series of technical interviews measures a candidate's knowledge, problem solving capabilities and ability to learn. Coyote Creek uses a technical rating and ranking process that gives us a consistent way to communicate about a potential employee or contractor's competence level.
Back-End Support and Management – Because Coyote Creek is offering Contract Services as an extension of our other offerings, the service comes with a full back-end infrastructure of both technical and professional support. Through regularly scheduled one-on-ones, meetings, performance reviews and social events, our Engagement Manager (a long-time Coyote Creek engineer) will be proactively managing a relationship with each of our contractors. This is a big advantage over staffing agencies, which typically have little involvement with their consultants once they're out in the field – and absolutely no ability to provide technical support as needed, especially in emergency situations.
Dedicated Staff – In addition to our Engagement Manager, we have a full-time Recruiter who is focused solely on recruiting for our Contract Services engagements. And, of course, Coyote Creek's Sales Team is already experienced in delivering these kinds of IT services.
Extensive Network – The majority of Coyote Creek's subcontractors will come from our expanded network in the engineering community; many are direct referrals from current employees or from someone they know.
Call for More Information
Want to learn more about how Coyote Creek's Contract Services can help you? Contact Terri Carney at tcarney@coyotecrk.com
Terri Carney
Director of Sales
Coyote Creek RMM
Are Frustrations with Exchange Driving You to the Cloud?
Microsoft Exchange is the lifeblood system for many organizations, but it has become increasingly complex to operate. As a result, a lot of people are so frustrated with Exchange that they're considering switching to hosted Exchange or other cloud-based solutions from Microsoft and others.
What we see out in the field is that these thoughts typically begin after an organization experiences an Exchange-related "event." Perhaps there's a problem with on-going outages and failures. Maybe people aren't getting their email or they're having calendar issues. And so forth. If the problems don't seem to be going away, it's easy to think that getting rid of Exchange and letting somebody else run it would be a great idea.
Other times organizations are tempted to switch to the cloud because they think it will save money. After all, the price usually looks attractive at the start. But when you run the numbers you quickly find that although the "starter" price is great, the price tag quickly grows as you add necessary functionality.
The bottom line is the cloud is not for everybody. The two main reasons for this are:
- Interconnectivity – Most organizations have other systems interconnected with their Exchange server, such as their voice mail, telephone system and email archiving. These things either don't work or don't work well in the cloud.
- Security – If you have concerns about your intellectual property, and much of your intellectual property is contained in your email system, having all of this off-premise – and potentially co-mingled with other company's data – is probably not a great idea.
But there is another solution. Coyote Creek hosted a webinar for IT decision makers, CIOs and CFOs about alternatives to moving to the cloud. You can get the best of both worlds: keep your Exchange system in-house so that you have complete ownership and control over your environment, but also get enterprise-class help in operating it.
Mike Faster
President
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The Coyote Creek team wants to wish all of our customers Happy Holidays and all the best for 2012. We truly appreciate your support and we never forget that customers are the cornerstone of our business.
Hold The Date!
"Bring Your Own Device" Wednesday, March 7th, 2012
Coyote Creek will be hosting our first event of 2012 for IT Leaders at Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos on Wednesday, March 7th, 2012. The event is entitled, "Bring Your Own Device" and focuses on the security and management issues associated with the use of private and company owned smart phones and mobile devices on corporate email and messaging networks.
If you are interested to attend and hear from experts as well as peers from leading Bay Area companies about how they are dealing with the invasion of these mobile devices, please contact us.
By the way, for those of you who haven't been to the Hiller, it traces the history of a truly unique Bay Area tech/aviation company and lets you experience some extremely cool flight simulators.
Contact Us
Your primary contact with Coyote Creek is your Account Manager but you are welcome to contact our management team at any time. Please contact Terri Carney our Director of Sales, and she will get you talking to the right people at Coyote Creek.
About Coyote Creek
Founded in 1998 by a team of former corporate IT professionals, Coyote Creek understands the issues and complexities that are part of large-scale and high-growth IT environments. Pragmatic and vendor neutral, Coyote Creek brings deep expertise to help customers manage technology and project risk, inspiring confidence and creating peace of mind. For more information, please visit www.coyotecrk.com.
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