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Mar 14 |
Opportunities and News
Posted by amy on 14 March 2013 10:13 AM
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This is a reoccurring blog post where I share news and opportunities that comes my way. Third Tier is offering a free 12 month subscription to the Enterprise Solutions for SMB project as a give-away to a usergroup member. If you run a usergroup contact amy@thirdtier.net Third Tier is having a SMBKItchen Crew chat. Come chat with our author group for the above project on March 18th at 6pm eastern this event is open to the public. https://meet.lync.com/harborcomputerservices/amy/GCV4LF0D Windows 8 / Windows Server 2012 Group Policy Templates ( ADMX ) now Downloadable – http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36991 Security in Office 365 Whitepaper – http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=26552 IE10 – Now Enabled with Flash by Default. This is an important security change. Previously IE10 blocked flash until you white listed the site. Now it will not block flash unless you blacklist the site. See our blog post on making IE better through the use Tracking Protection as means to keep your browser secure and fast too. http://www.thirdtier.net/2013/02/faster-browsing-and-more-security-with-internet-explorer-tracking-protection-list/ Office 365 for Students – Free for 3-months – https://www.officeforstudents.com/ Lync 2013 App for Windows Phone 8 – http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/lync-2013/d85d8a57-0f61-4ff3-a0f4-444e131d8491 Lync 2013 App for iPhone and iPad also available – https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-lync-2013-for-iphone/id605841731?mt=8 Windows 8 Trade-up to Touch – Up to $400 trade-in for old netbook or notebook – https://tradeuptotouch.com/tablet/ —– Read more » | |
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Jan 4 |
MVP Awards at Third Tier
Posted by amy on 04 January 2013 09:50 AM
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Third Tier is made up of some amazing people that give a lot to the community. They do so out of their passion for IT and compassion for others. Each person is awarded for a year for the work that they did on behalf of the IT community in the previous year. Nominations are made by other MVPs, peers and Microsoft employees. After the nomination each MVP is asked to submit a list of all of the community work they did in the past year. As you can imagine this is not an easy task. By virtue of being MVP material, the community things you do are just part of your being and generally not something that you keep a dally of. I wanted to congratulate all of Third Tier’s MVP, whether they were awarded this quarter or another. So congratulations to: Dave, Steve, Cliff, Lee, Edwin and Jeremy. It is quite an accomplishment to be named one of the worlds elite by one of the worlds top software companies. I also wanted to share the letter that MVPs receive. This one happens to be about me, but every MVP gets one just like it. MVPs tend to be a humble lot so you’ve probably not seen this letter before.
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Dec 20 |
Happy Holidays to All
Posted by amy on 20 December 2012 11:54 AM
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This holiday season I find myself reflecting on the past year. It has been a year of huge mostly stressful change both personally and professionally. Through it all Third Tier continues to thrive. We experienced a little over 20% growth this year. We hired our first W-2 employees. Our Independent contractor pool both grew and shrunk as they tend to do. Third Tier’s staff continued to shine individually receiving awards for their generous work for the community. We held another Brain Explosion. We brought you a Datto partnership that delivers free Third Tier support hours all the while maintaining Datto partner pricing for all of your purchases. We added My Third Tier, which is a way to add super skilled staff to your business in small fractions. Last January Eriq Neale, my co-founder and one of my life’s best friends left the company due to terminal illness and in June he left this world. He leaves a big void both personally and professionally. We all continue to miss him. I personally miss his “Howdy” when I called him and “Hey Boss” when he called me. I also miss my ice cream eating buddy, my vacation and travel companion, my webinar partner and oh so many other things. But hard as it sometimes is, those of us still here need to look forward and keep moving and so we do. Third Tier did also see directly the paralysis that the announcement of the end of Small Business Server has caused of lot of IT firms around the world. It truly was a shock to the system for many IT firms and continues to be for millions of small businesses. I’ve had a lot of discussions around this topic and so Third Tier has an exciting project starting in early 2013 called Enterprise Solutions for Small Business. It will include “chapters”, webinars and how-to videos, written and delivered by a group of 7 MVPs. We’re joining together to help everyone train up on core technologies that your former SBS customers and other advanced small businesses need. We’re going to be covering a wide range of technical topics to bring everyone up to speed on how to consult, license, install, configure and manage core components that these businesses need today. This will be available by subscription only through the Third Tier helpdesk site. Watch our blog for an announcement on how to sign up soon. I hope that you all have a wonderful holiday season and that next year your hopes and dreams come alive! Amy Babinchak, Third Tier Read more » | |
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Nov 2 |
Introducing Chris Matthews
Posted by amy on 02 November 2012 02:25 PM
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We’d like to announce that Chris Matthews is now a Third Tier consultant. Chris has been working with Third Tier for several weeks now and we’ve kept him busy with incoming tickets. Chris has a background that has allowed him to develop deep knowledge in the underpinnings of great networking, moving from NT, Novell, SCO Unix forward to Hyper-V virtualization and Sharepoint. He’s also a small business specialist with long term experience at supporting Small Business Server. You can count on Chris to help you get through projects and resolve issues quickly. Learn more about Chris here: https://www.thirdtier.net/who/chris-matthews/
_____ Need some more help? That’s what we do. We help IT pros all over the world. Read more » | |
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Oct 1 |
Jeremy Anderson is now a Microsoft MVP
Posted by amy on 01 October 2012 03:52 PM
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Third Tier is pleased to announce that Jeremy Anderson has been awarded the Microsoft MVP. Microsoft awards a small group of outstanding community leaders each year from the vast pool of IT talent around the world. Jeremy’s work posting to this blog, answering questions in forums, assisting with his local usergroup, his technet wiki and other speaking engagements led his peers to nominate him and Microsoft to sit up and take notice. Jeremy joins a fine group of MVP’s at Third Tier and around the world. Because of this designation he will have opportunities to train at a deeper level and influence future product features at Microsoft. Congratulations Jeremy! _____ Need some more help? That’s what we do. We help IT pros all over the world. Read more » | |
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Sep 18 |
To-Do List too long? Small Budget? Hire Us
Posted by amy on 18 September 2012 10:42 AM
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Most IT firms have a very limited number of highly skilled staff and a larger number of less skilled staff. It’s an efficient way to run a business. The best staff can resolve a problem in a quarter of the time it takes your average staff member. Sometimes your best most highly skilled staff person is you but of course you wear many hats and technical problems can’t have your undivided attention. This means that you find yourself juggling or relying on less skilled staff to solve problems. In either case, it takes about four times as long as it should to get the problem resolved and that’s not good for business. If you’ve found yourself in this situation then your thoughts have probably turned to hiring. But hiring a full time employee that is highly skilled is a very expensive solution. Instead you should hire Third Tier by joining our micro-staffing program. This program allows you to add one of our staff to your business, in a small affordable way. Our highly skilled staff can complete in 10 hours what an average skilled person would spend 40 solving and it won’t cost you anywhere near what a full-time employee would cost. Learn more about our micro-staffing program, My Third Tier, on our website. — Read more » | |
