February 19th, 2010
After my recent nasty divorce from ITControl Suite (don’t get me started) I’ve been looking for an affordable tool that allows me to manage more computers & servers with less effort. That’s the whole idea behind RMM software isn’t it? (For those who may not know RMM=Remote Monitoring and Management)
I’ve been doing some testing and can’t decide what to do.
Hound Dog is now GFI Max - I had high hopes for it, but it hasn’t grown much in the last couple of years. Not a lot of capabilities, but their claim is they have 90% of what the big boys offer at 10% of the cost. Yep, they’re cheap and easy to get started with, but I had trouble interpreting the icons on the screen and the reports were pretty basic. Not a bad product, but not very inspiring either.
Packet Trap looks very promising, but I had some troubles there, too. It’s kind of like Kaseya light. It’s a sizable investment (but a fraction of the price of Kaseya) and does some really cool stuff that Kaseya doesn’t appear to do, but their community forum is a ghost town, the Tips & Tricks section doesn’t exist yet, the documentation is a little sparse and it makes my spidey sense tingle. After my problems with ITControl Suite, I don’t think I’m ready to deal with another young company. I really like the product, though - it’s not perfect but it has potential to rival the king of the jungle, Kaseya. There’s something to be said for jumping in now and getting grandfathered in and maybe even win preferred customer status as they grow. I feel like a fish…. They’re trying really hard to get me to bite and I want to, but there’s something just not quite right about that morsel and I’m still sizing it up.
Like I said… I can’t make up my mind. I loved the ITControl Suite product, but just couldn’t handle all of the billing mistakes. In the past I’ve been an N-Able customer (when they were brand new) and LPI (the problems I had with them were probably my fault because I hosted it myself). What’s a computer consultant to do?
I just ran across Apps4rent.com and they do a hosted Kaseya for $5.95 per seat and it gets cheaper after 250 seats. I’m signing up for that trial tomorrow. That may well be the answer. Cadillac tools at Toyota prices. (Yeah, I know… it costs more in the long run, but right now renting 2o seats at $6 per month that I can cancel any time sounds better than committing to $8-15 thousand).
To be continued at a later date….
Posted in Computer Business | 3 Comments »
February 9th, 2010
This is so embarrassing - I promised to be more active on the social networks and my blogs several months ago then just promptly disappeared again.
Hello world - do you think I should start over or just pick up where I left off on these blogs?
Posted in Tech Talk | No Comments »
April 2nd, 2009
bad picture - good day
Robin as Sgt. Sellmore
Posted in Tech Talk | No Comments »
April 2nd, 2009
I’ve been in Nashville for just over 24 hours now. I arrived yesterday for Robin Robins’ Business Building Bootcamp.
We started out kind of slow. This morning I felt like I was having a nightmare that I couldn’t wake up from. It was like one endless stream of infomercials. Had I bought everything that people tried to sell me today I would have spent several thousand dollars. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Tech Talk | 4 Comments »
February 14th, 2009
I attended Robin Robin’s “recession proof your business” teleseminar yesterday. I went back and listened to the recording a second time because there were so many good ideas that my 3 pages of notes didn’t quite cover it.
I just now registered for the 3 day event. I decided I couldn’t deal with the dissappointment if it sold out before I registered!
Here are a couple of definitions I heard on the teleseminar:
A TECH business is:
Tedious
Exhausting
Chaotic (and)
Hard
Whereas a REAL business is:
Rewarding
Easy
Attractive (and)
Lucrative
Ha! I want to turn my TECH business into a REAL business, and that’s why I decided to register. If you want to listen to the recorded teleseminar CLICK HERE, but please - if you decide to buy Robin’s Toolkit, either write “Technoid” as your referral source or use this link to buy.
Posted in Tech Talk | No Comments »
January 31st, 2009
Having a hard time figuring out how to put this in my blogroll….
Posted in Tech Talk | 2 Comments »
January 20th, 2009
So we have a new president. I’m hopeful, inspired and proud to be an American. I spent the last 20 minutes or so looking over the new White House site (www.whitehouse.gov).
Here’s a snippet from the Agenda section about technology:
President Obama and Vice President Biden understand the immense transformative power of technology and innovation and how they can improve the lives of Americans. They will work to ensure the full and free exchange of information through an open Internet and use technology to create a more transparent and connected democracy.
Overall, I’m impressed with the site. There’s even a blog! Take a look around - it’s refreshing.
Posted in Politics | No Comments »
January 18th, 2009
I’ve just started testing Windows 7 on an AMD Athlon system with 4 gigs of RAM. The video is a bit underpowered, but everything else seems fine.
Posted in Tech Talk | 1 Comment »
January 9th, 2009
Holy Cow! How time flies. I’ve been saying to myself lately that I need to get the blog rolling again 
OK… New Years Resolution #1 - update this blog at least once a week in 2009
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
August 28th, 2008
If you’re a computer consultant who needs more clients you owe it to yourself to check out this “Red Ticket” offer to get Robin Robins’ Technology Marketing Toolkit. This stuff works! If you order before September 19, 2007, you get over an iPod nano packed with 72 hours of audio training on attracting new clients, Google marketing secrets, newsletter marketing and much more. How cool is that?!
Red Ticket Offer
If you happen to be in northwest suburban Chicago, I’d appreciate it if you don’t buy this kit.
Tags: marketing, special offer
Posted in Business, Marketing, training & education | No Comments »
