September 17, 2009
Really quick, this is some interesting news about where the Intuit personal software direction might go. As you know Quicken has been a real industry leader. Mint.com has put together over 1.5M users in only 3 years. I think there is something to be said there. This is something to watch. Dee Rudko, CEO AMRCON
Mint.com to Join the Intuit Family
We’ve got exciting news to share with you! Quicken and Mint.com are coming together to take personal finance to the next level. Intuit just announced our intent to purchase Mint.com. The acquisition is expected to close by the end of 2009.
Mint.com is a fast-growing provider of online personal finance solutions, providing more than 1.5 million users a fresh, easy and intelligent way to manage their money. Intuit and Mint.com share a common goal: to help you do more with your money through innovative, easy-to-use solutions.
Rest assured, we’ll continue to offer the easy-to-use Quicken Desktop software you know and trust. And you’ll get the same level of great service you have come to expect from Quicken.
In fact, you can look forward to new ways Quicken will help you spend smarter, save more and live richly.
If you have questions you can keep up-to-date on the latest by visiting the Quicken Blog.
Todd Stanley, Vice President & General Manager
Quicken
September 17, 2009
Sept. 8 (From Bloomberg) — U.S. regulators will need budget increases “orders-of-magnitude larger” than current levels to police trades in the $592 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market, according to Tabb Group analyst Kevin McPartland.
Congressional legislation now being considered mandates that repositories be established to record and monitor every swap trade entered into between banks, hedge funds and other users of the private market. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve are possible regulators.
The world’s largest banks will spend about $4.7 billion on risk-management technology systems this year, according to a report by McPartland to be published tomorrow by Tabb Group. The combined budgets of the CFTC and SEC amount to $1.3 billion in comparison. The CFTC’s technology spending was $26 million last year, he said.
“Investment banks spend more than three times that amount each month on technology,” McPartland writes in the report.
He suggests a transaction tax on OTC trades, increased fines at the CFTC and SEC or mandatory contributions from banks and investment firms as three ways to pay for the regulatory technology upgrade.
“The answer is not for Congress to allocate more money to regulators as the U.S. federal budget deficit is big enough already,” McPartland wrote. “Required up-front contributions would be higher as the new infrastructure was built from scratch, and later lowered as the system became more mature.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Matthew Leising in New York at mleising@bloomberg.net
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AMRCON’s engineering staff has extensive experience in compliance and regulatory IT planning and implementation. It seems to be a very difficult combination to find in an IT support provider. In fact our ODS managed services practice provides many native attributes that provide instant compliance solutions at little or no additional cost to you. Written compliance policy, virtual compliance officers, document archiving, email & IM archiving, backup and disaster recovery solution are just a few of AMRCON’s highly skilled areas of expertise.
This is especially important to see coming down the line from our legislation. If businesses wait it could cost more than they can afford, creating fines, excessive spending, and business failure.Dee Rudko, CEO AMRCON
September 3, 2009
AMRCON is embracing new ways to deliver pertinent information to customers. This post describes RSS and why this delivery method will be beneficial to you.
Hi all! My name is Mariano DiFabio, and Dee asked me to write the first guest post for his new blog newsletter. I was honored to do so.
I’ve been working with Dee now for about a year as part of the web development group, and he’s not only got a great team working with him, he knows how to effectively use his team to solve his customer’s problems. I’m happy I’m able to be a part of that.
What to write?
Today I’m writing to you about how you can subscribe to this new newsletter for AMRCON. It runs on an RSS feed that we’re tracking through Feedburner.
Now, before you go running in the other direction because I’m throwing tech jargon at you, don’t worry; this stuff isn’t hard to understand.
RSS
RSS is simply short for “Really Simple Syndication,” a standardized web feed format that is produced by regularly updated web sites such as blogs, and read by RSS readers, which could be integrated into your own email client. The feeds follow a certain set of rules in the way they’re constructed so that they can be universally interpreted by any feed reader and then displayed in the way you prefer. This site generates a few of these feeds, the most specific of which are the newsletter articles you’re reading today.
Feedburner
Feedburner is a service provided by Google which allows web site owners to track and more easily manage their feeds. It also integrates automated email alerts. Let’s say, for example, you have no idea what a feed reader is but you still want to be alerted whenever the content on the site changes. Feedburner gives us some code that allows us to display the “Subscription” box you see above on the top right side of the screen. Entering your email address there will allow us to send you an email whenever our site is updated.
So what are you waiting for?
I know Dee is really excited to be providing some quality content for his customers, and you should be too! If you are ready to subscribe and you have an RSS reader, click on the “Feed” link from the main navigation menu. If you want a more traditional delivery method, enter your email on the top right of the page and click “subscribe” (a new window will open asking you to verify that you’re sure you want to subscribe). Regardless of what you choose, it’s never been so easy to get all your managed services and technical support information from one source: AMRCON.
Resources
September 3, 2009
Don’t keep it a secret. As a premier partner AMRCON has been using all of the current Dell specials to benefit our clients. It might be a good idea to do now what you would normally put off till tomorrow. We have access to some really good benefits and perks through Dell right now for the month of September. Including the latest line of Dell Servers that were just released. We urge anyone looking, thinking or on the fence with when to upgrade or purchase, to think sooner than later. The current promotions will not last much longer since Dell usually has their big number push the last quarter of the year, that will mean less of a deal.
AMRCON is a certified Microsoft shop and certified for Small Business Server or SBS. We’ve been deploying some pretty rewarding solutions to our clients in the past few months with the new Small Business Server 2008 and the new line of Dell Servers. We’ve been able to reduce the normal cost of the hardware and guarantee a fixed cost for the implementation since we’re very versed with the technical intricacies. This means you receive the latest in technology at a great savings.
What are the benefits besides cost? What are the real benefits of Small Business Server 2008 and AMRCON providing the professional services to implement. First let me start by saying AMRCON has a documented track record of providing leading edge technology solutions across the board. In the last few years we’ve paid specific attention to SBS installations. The benefits are many. Lets start with the global view and provide you with a few additional links for further information.
Key benefits most important to our clients that do not have an SBS server
- Integrated Exchange Server to host your own email internally – Comprehensive all-in-one server solution
- Stay connected to your customers, vendors, and suppliers through PDA access as well as web access
- Store your data centrally, more efficiently
- Stay safe with Anti-spam & antivirus integration
- Integrated technologies such as faxing from your PC
Key Benefits we’ve found most important to our clients that already have an SBS server
- SBS 2008 now allows a 2nd server to act as a Backup Active Directory Replication Server
- Easier migration from older versions of SBS
- More end user capacity, better multi site integration
- Better management console, better integration of remote admin tools
Add this solid solution to your business and see immediate benefits to your bottom line, efficiency, and productivity. Allow AMRCON to provide an ODS solution for on going maintenance/support and keep it running at maximum efficiency. Your end users, clients and vendors will wonder how you’ve made such improvements to your operations so quickly. Give AMRCON a call to find out more or for a free consultation.
Resources
September 3, 2009
Doesn’t it seem like clock work that the days have turned nice and the evenings nice and cool. The next thing you know the buses are picking up kids for the first day of school. Then the next thing it’s Labor Day. I’m still waiting for my summer schedule! Before you know it the leaves are going to change and we’ll be planning for the holiday’s, unless you’re like my wife who has already started. It just seems so unfair, we should probably open an office in Florida. So speaking of speeding through time, how about this picture of my son Santino already driving at 3? He did pretty well. He was so excited that he couldn’t concentrate on keeping his foot on the gas. Luckily the nice guy who ran the carts helped him out, thanks!
Okay so in all fairness I know I owe a picture of little Andrij, who we all call Deeko. I figured I would provide some history now that we have so many new newsletter followers. And by the way thank you for all of your support. The little guy will be 9 months soon. I can’t believe it myself. I’ll bet most of you can remember when he was born as though it were yesterday. Well here he is already playing and very comfortable standing. My wife Sunny tells me he crawled up 8 steps the other day. The picture to the left is Deeko playing at the indoor playground just outside of Lake George, NY. My wife and family finally got the chance to get back up there to the family getaway spot.
So Santino pretty much runs the show when we’re away, so we had to hit some amusement parks and rides. The shot to the right is out on a train ride. 
Can you believe that, Santino wanted to go on a train ride. Surprising huh? Santino of course is the biggest Thomas the Tank Engine fan, in case you were unsure. Well that’s it for now. I want to personally thank everyone for checking out our new blog site platform. Be sure to subscribe above to get our monthly newsletter if you haven’t already. Also for those of you on FaceBook search for Dee Rudko and the AMRCON group.
Dee Rudko
Create Your Badge
September 3, 2009
As many of our clients may know AMRCON has several ways of initiating a service call or trouble ticket. If you are an ODS client please be sure to use our ticketing system by double clicking the AMRCON logo on the bottom right of your desktop. If you need assistance please let us know and we will be more than happy to show you how to use this feature. Trouble tickets from our system are viewed in real-time by all AMRCON technical staff. If you don’t have access to the ODS system you have 2 options that are checked on the hour. 1) Call our support line and if required you may need to leave a message. At times we may receive more calls than usual, which means a longer response time, but still guaranteed within our stated agreement SLA 2) you can always send an email to support@amrcon.com. Again this method is viewed by all AMRCON technical staff but may still require some time to respond depending on our ticket volume. An emergency call can always be initiated by pressing “9” during our phone announcements. The on-call tech will pickup.
ODS Clients:
Look for this logo in the bottom right hand corner of your screen 
Please note the easiest and most efficient way of requesting support is through our ticketing system. Since even a phone call must begin with a ticket to receive support services, it’s much easier for both parties to double click the ODS icon that looks like the icon above. This will initiate a web browser to open and automatically log into our systems with your desktop credentials. From here it’s quite easy, simply click on the New Ticket button in the left navigation toolbar. In this window you will notice there are many other options depending on your security clearance. Clients can also manage projects, invoices, proposals, additional users and many other features. If you would like to find out more information about becoming an ODS client contact our main office.
Break/Fix & Project Clients:
Fortunately our process for even non-agreement or break/fix and Project clients is very similar. Although we can not offer a guaranteed SLA , we do use the ticketing system for all support related responses. You will need to call our support desk directly at 732-705-5057 and select option 2 for the next available techician. Even these break/fix or project tickets are tracked and reported back to the end use of their status. There will be several options that will not be available unless you are an ODS client, however you will find great benefit over any other service provider by allowing us to introduce you to our advanced systems.
Not an ODS client yet?
Ask us about a free trial and network audit by calling Brenda 732-705-5057 and select option 3 to speak with Brenda, or you can email bpoyssick@amrcon.com.
September 2, 2009
Welcome to AMRCON’s new Newsletter and content website. We’ve been working pretty hard to get this out and convert our monthly newsletter from paper, to email, to this. We have 1000′s of followers that we need to make sure sign up at the top right to subscribe to the monthly newsletter. We will be sending the courtesy email as usual for the next few months just as a reminder, but after that you will need to be signed up here to receive it. We would love for you to continue receiving our news. Soon we will also be introducing the RSS feed for those of you looking to receive your news in that method, along with integration into FaceBook and other media sites. Be sure to search for Dee Rudko and the group AMRCON on FB to follow us closer. Thank you for your continued support.
So here is a little tidbit I’d like to share with you, that you might be able to use in your own business. This will tell you a bit about where our newsletter started and why we’re here now. I think you’ll find it informative and you might just start thinking about how you want to use digital media, content and social networking to promote your business.
We started our monthly newsletter in January of 2007 in printed form. We began by just sending to our existing clients and current prospects. All of the same categories have survived since the beginning, including the Personal note. Believe it or not 30% of our feedback comes from sharing a little about myself and my family. Each month it became quite a task and expense to produce and deliver the newsletter, but we kept on going. The responses as well as comments from prospect clients was tremendous. Over the last few years we’ve gone through various changes as a company and it’s been reflective in the newsletter. Most of the same content writers are still in place, Adam and myself included.
In the meantime we developed several versions of our corporate website. It seemed each year we made such changes that we were redeveloping the entire site for a feature here and there. I realized through my endeavors of working with SEO/SEM (Search Engine Optimizations & Search Engine Marketing) efforts that we need a living breathing website to really stay in touch and be successful with our campaigns. So the idea to implement a blog based site began but where do we start. Well the next natural thought was we needed content to stay fresh in order to place better in the search engines. But where were we going to get content and who was going to update it? Of course the job inevitably would fall in my lap by default, but the thought crossed my mind. Why don’t we really hit the ball out of the park and maintain the content through our already popular newsletter? We can integrate all of the product aspects of the old site but bring new life through changing content and interaction with our clients at the same time. It just seemed like a win win. So we hit the paper with our development staff and sales group to start discussing this project.
It all fell together quite well. In fact the new site helped our process become more automated and easier to publish. Our sales staff could edit content prior to publishing or making publicly available. Now get this, even after our time and project expenses, the site will pay for itself in 4 months in savings. Some of the other added benefits include searchable content for historical information as well as search engines, which will help us rank better. So here we are in the infancy stages again of something that started back in 2007. I know we’re all very excited to see the growth not only in our business but also this newsletter. Soon we will have the rest of the pieces from our old corporate website integrated, but the nice thing is it will be interactive and constantly changing. Bringing you the updated content you need about products and services.
So don’t forget to join us by subscribing at the top right of this page, look for our RSS feed coming soon and be sure to search for Dee Rudko on FaceBook as well as the AMRCON group. We look forward to serving our valuable followers. Thank you!
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