Q: How do I access my office e-mail remotely?

A: Depends on how your e-mail is set up. If you have an in-house mail server, such as one that was set up by CCS using a Windows 2000 or 2003 Server, you can usually access your mail by going to the following web site: http://mail.(your-domain)/exchange, where (your-domain) is your internet domain (for example, http://mail.microsoft.com/exchange). If your mail is being hosted somewhere outside of your office, then the address to use would depend on your hosting company, and you would need to contact them for the details.

Q: What is this "Remote Web Workplace" thingy? How can it benefit me?

A: Remote Web Workplace is a powerful feature of Windows 2003 Small Business Server. Aside from being able to access your e-mail remotely, it also allows you to remote-control your office PC and work at it as if you were sitting in front of it (it it's running Windows XP Professional), access documents on your server, and much more. To use it, you would point your web browser at http://mail.(your-domain)/remote, enter your username and password when prompted, and then click on the appropriate link when presented with the menu. From there, it's pretty self-explanatory, but if you need help, a CCS engineer will be glad to help out via phone or in person.

Q: My system is getting slower and slower. What is causing this?

A: The most common cause of system slowdown aside from spyware/adware infection is simply having too much software loading at startup and continuing to run in the background. If a background process has a memory leak or starts taking up all of the CPU's cycles the computer will slow to a crawl until the offending software is either removed or updated. Be sure to take stock of what is installed and running on your PC every few months and remove what you're no longer using. Spyware infections can have the same effect so it's important to run complete system scans with Ad Aware or Microsoft AntiSpyware at least once a month.

Q: What is the best virus protection for my office network?

A: Any virus scanner that has automatic scanning and updating will go a long way towards keeping your network virus free. CCS uses and recommends Symantec AntiVirus for servers and clients in a corporate setting and Norton Antivirus on home machines. Keeping these products up to date is of the utmost importance as their effectiveness is greatly reduced if they are not kept up to date.

Q: Is there an effective spam filter available anywhere?

A: CCS has deployed GFI MailEssentials for all clients that have requested company-wide spam filtering. This product uses several intelligent filters to determine if a message is spam and redirects it to a subfolder under Outlook's Inbox. We've observed an immediate and drastic reduction for clients with a high volume of spam which turns into a permanent change as the filter learns the e-mail habits of employees and filters more effectively. Training does take some time and effort but the payoff is quite substantial. For home or single users we've had success with a product called IHateSpam from Sunbelt Software. This filter places buttons in an Outlook toolbar that are used to classify messages or to correct a false positive. SpamPal has also proven to be effective but is significantly more difficult to configure.