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August Newsletter

August Newsletter

We now offer reliable Internet through T1 and Fiber connections

Internet access is a vital service for business. We used to make the case that Internet service should be as reliable as a phone line. Now, with Voice-over-IP it has to be more reliable than ever. MCS can offer your business an Internet connection with dedicated bandwidth and rock solid stability. Benefits include:

• Dedicated bandwidth to our data center
• Reliable enough to depend on it for critical applications such as VoIP.
• Our fiber multi-homed network increases speed and reliability
• Your Internet connection is handled by a local company with one-on-one support
• Connection speeds from 1.5 – 100 Mbps

Call us today for a quote!

Ryan Coultas
MCS
(217) 698-9900 x212
rcoultas@microcomps.com

Windows 7 is just around the corner.

Before you know it, Microsoft will be shipping Windows 7 to the public. The “current” release date is October 22nd 2009. I like to think of Windows 7 as Windows Vista – part 2. 7 is obviously based from Vista but has several minor changes. For instance, Windows Calendar, Windows Mail, Windows Movie Maker, and Windows Photo Gallery, will not be included in Windows 7 but will be available as add-ons. On the upside though, the new OS will boot faster, recognize handwriting, and may actually run faster due to improved multi core processing.

The release candidate looks to be an improved version of Vista, and I for the most part like Vista. When Vista was released, it was buggy and not widely supported and that caused a major stigma that has not gone away. Windows 7 should be able to hit the ground running since it is based off the now established Vista. There are still many organizations that will only use XP, but I think around early 2010 that will go away.

Our CEO accepts 40 under 40 award

On Tuesday, July 14th, 2009, at the Illinois State Library, Jesse Coultas accepted his 40 under 40 award given by the Springfield Business Journal. This award is meant to recognize business and community leaders in central Illinois.

Jesse was among those selected from a pool of 139. Illinois Secretary of State, Jesse White, was the keynote speaker and presented the awards. More about the 40 under 40 awards below: (from the Springfield Business Journal website)

Forty Under 40

The Springfield Business Journal proudly features 40 leaders who are under the age of 40 in the Springfield and neighboring business communities. These individuals are selected based on their contributions to our local business community and the community in which they have chosen to reside. They represent, in part, the future of business in our community and in central Illinois. They have the ability and dedication to change and to preserve the face of our community landscape.

The selectees’ career paths, educational background and community affiliations are varied. They represent the best and brightest from a wide range of occupations. You can expect to hear more from and about these leaders in the years ahead. The program was established and is able to continue due to the commitment of local businesses that realize the importance of acknowledging these 40 individuals and supporting community business programs.

June Newsletter

If you are currently hosting your web site with another company, MCS is offering one year free hosting if you switch to us. With our hosting service, you can depend on personal support, up to date servers, and great reliability. Our hosting package comeS with 15 email accounts and free tech support. We will even take care of moving you from you current host. All you need to do is say the word and we will take care of the work. There is no obligation to continue to host with us after your free year is up. You are getting the ultimate evaluation period!

• Over 99.9% Uptime
• Free tech support from web professionals
• 15 Zimbra corporate email accounts with calendar sharing
• 10GB disk space
• 25GB transfer / month
• Up to 3 MySQL databases
• Just $249 / year after your free year
• Offer good through 07/31/2009

Programming Services Better than Ever

Programming has always been a staple here at MCS. Over the past 6 years we have grown our programming services and we are able to handle almost any project out there. As much as possible, we try to program applications delivered through the web. This method has proved more cost efficient and expands user base.

Custom programming can be anything from a company database to a complete custom app engineered from the ground up. Even in this economy, demand has grown for this type of service and we have been expanding. Our new office building is getting good use, filling up with programmers fast. From the MCS staff, we would like to say thank you to our clients who have helped us grow so much!

Another Data Center Upgrade

As our clients’ needs for hosted solutions increase, so does our data center capacity. We have added a redundant provider and increased our total available bandwidth 3-fold. What this means for the end user is a more stable connection with even greater availability. If one of our providers has a problem, we are now able to maintain service through a redundant link. We would like to thank our clients for helping us grow the past few years and we look forward to many more!

K12 Signup for Free Netbook Evaluation

Acer has a great evaluation program and they are offering an Aspire One AOD150-1165 Netbook to try our free for 30 days.  These small netbooks are great for schools because they have exceptional battery life and are very affordable.  Thanks to the new Intel Atom processor, the performance to power consumption ratio looks better than ever before.

After the 30-day demo is over, the school can buy the netbook for just $199 or send it back on Acer’s dime. If a school decides to buy more, they are available for just $349 through MCS.

This program is a great way for schools to test drive a product before they buy. These netbooks seem to have exploded on the market in the past year or so. Like everything in technology, they have their pros and cons and they are not right for everyone. You loose a little in performance and features (like, no optical drive and a smaller keyboard) but they are wonderful for web browsing and other network enabled tasks.

If you are with a K12 school, click here for more details and to signup for the program.

New Job Opening

We have a new job opening available on our employment page. MCS is looking for a sales manager that can help to expand our client base. Please visit our employment page for more information or to submit your resume.

Data Center Triples Bandwidth with More Upgrades Planned

After a smooth transition, the MCS data center bandwidth capacity has more than tripled thanks to a brand new low latency fiber connection. This means that current clients have access to a faster connection for their hosted services and MCS will have room to expand offerings. MCS hosting services are growing at a fantastic rate as more organizations realize the cost benefits and mobility of hosted services. With this in mind, MCS is already building more infrastructure and plans to triple bandwidth again within 6 months.

MCS joins CWLP fiber ring

CWLP has completed their installation and we are now a member of the local Springfield Metropolitan area network.  This will allow us to provide high speed services such as Internet access, data backup, and remote site interconnect. This is another important step that will allow us to offer enterprise class service to our clients.