Archives for January 2022

Happy Friday! What a week! We kicked it off with a snow day for many and are hopefully ending with a bit warmer weather. Do you have any big weekend plans? We’d love to hear about them!

In This Issue: Helping you Succeed | Webcam 1080p Full-HD | News to Start Your Day

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The CK Daily -Helping you Succeed

Happy Friday!

This week has flown by! It’s also the first week that has felt normal for me, so it’s exciting that things are starting to fall into place this year.

I want to continue the thread that Jason started yesterday. We are preparing a new website that will be coming soon. We really do want to hear from each of you as we do this! Our primary driver internally is to see our customers succeed with each technology project. With that in mind, is there something that would make your life easier or make your technology projects smoother?

Have a great weekend!

Chris

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Product Spotlights & Updates

Our 1080p HD webcam gives a realistic, crisp image and crystal-clear video. A specially designed camera that is optimized for professional-quality video streaming, this HD webcam is compatible with YouTube, Skype, Facetime, Zoom, and more! Perfect for online teaching, video calling, recording, and conferencing. On top of these features is a built-in noise reduction microphone that captures natural stereo audio and filters annoying background noises to give you clear conversations.

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Learning Center Article – How to Recycle IT Equipment and Why We Should

IT networking equipment can be a source of a lot of trouble. It’s expensive to purchase and sometimes challenging to set up. It requires constant maintenance and babysitting, and despite all of your effort and dedication, some of it can still have a short lifespan.

Here are some thoughts on recycling that are worth contemplating. Why should you recycle, really? Assuming you want to recycle, how can you actually do it? Who even takes old IT equipment for recycling? Read more here.

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Today’s News to Start Your Day:

• Google has announced they will be building an AR headset.
• Netflix has had an 18% fall in subscriber growth.
• Peloton is temporarily halting production of its connected fitness products as consumer demand wanes and the company looks to control costs.
• NASA just opened a challenge seeking ways to go to Mars and back with a minimum of wasted materials.

Happy Thursday! There’s no need to feel blue, throw a feta or act capriciously today. It’s a gouda day because we are one day closer to the weekend – also, it’s National Cheese Lover’s Day! There are over 1,800 types of cheeses in the world, what’s your favorite?

In This Issue: Changes are coming | Cisco 2960-X Series Switch | News to Start Your Day

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The CK Daily – Changes are coming

Happy Thursday!

This has been a fun week. Besides enjoying the leftover snow and hoping for another snowstorm to come through this week (we don’t get many of these in the South), I have been working on a good bit of optimizations for our site, but the really fun part has been working on the new website we have coming soon. Primarily, I have been working on the new category structure for us to be able to pull the products in to. It has still been exciting thinking through how the site will look, act, and how you might interact with it. Once we get on the new website, there will be a lot of enhancements, changes, upgrades, and a lot of other bells & whistles to make everyone’s experience so much better.

With that in mind, I am curious, what would YOU like to see on the new website? What changes to our current site would you make? How would you make it better? I am all ears. You can speak freely with me about it, and now is the time to do so. I want to hear your thoughts anywhere from layout, to design, to colors, to checkout, to products pages, to site search…to whatever.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or thoughts you have.

Have a great rest of the week and weekend!

Jason

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Product Spotlights & Updates

Cisco has always done an amazing job with catering to small and medium businesses. The Cisco 2960-X series is another generation to the already popular 2960 series that will enable the typical small to medium business to function at an enterprise level without the enterprise budget. The 2960-X series switches offer a fixed configuration of Ethernet switches that are not only Gigabit, but also stackable. The 2960-X was specifically designed for easy deployment and operational efficiency. These switches are also energy cautious and have a large range of IOS software features.

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Learning Center Article – Pandemic Proof Careers

No one can really predict to what extent the coronavirus pandemic will affect our nation’s economy. With the virus a constant threat and no sign of it disappearing any time soon, it may be time to turn towards a “pandemic proof” career. Statistics show that some jobs are more recession-proof than others and that we might be saying goodbye to some on the cusp of extinction.

Making the transition towards pandemic proof / recession proof jobs can be daunting, but in a world that faces uncertainty, it might be the best move for students. Read more about pandemic proof careers here.

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Today’s News to Start Your Day:

• Amazon has announced they are launching an apparel store, called Amazon Style.
• Verizon and AT&T have officially launched a new part of their 5G networks.
• Three former SpaceX engineers are designing self-powered electric freight train cars which will have the potential to make railroad transportation more targeted.
• SpaceX has launched its 2000th Starlink satellite.

We’re just popping in today to say, Happy National Popcorn Day! This time-honored snack can be sweet or savory, caramelized, buttered or plain, molded into a candied ball, or tossed with nuts and chocolate. What’s your favorite version to enjoy?

In This Issue: Meet Shiara! | OM4 40G 50/125 Multimode Duplex Fiber Patch Cable | News to Start Your Day

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The CK Daily – Meet Shiara!

Good morning and Happy Wednesday to each of you!

I wanted to take the time to introduce you to a new team member of our Customer Solutions Team, Shiara! She brings over 7 years of customer service experience from a number of well-known companies that you and I might have dealt with in the past.

Some pretty cool things I’ve gotten to know about Shiara is that she speaks multiple languages, and she has a love of creating process documents, which y’all know warm my heart. In my opinion, process documents make the work world go around!

As you might have read a few months ago, I am on the mission to ensure the solutions team is able to assist every single person who contacts us, so having Shiara on the team is a step towards us getting to our goal.

If you happen to talk to Shiara, be sure to give her a welcome!

Shanyce

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Product Spotlights & Updates

OM4 patch cables take all the benefits of OM3 fiber and increase the transmission bandwidth up to 40gbs, and in some cases 100gbs. OM4, like, OM3, is laser-optimized to give optimum performance and reliability. Unlike other old fiber types, OM4 has a higher attenuation that helps create lower losses over greater distances.

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Learning Center Article – What is the difference between LSZH and OFNR?

With the many types of fiber cables and then the components that make each of them up, it can be very confusing to know what fiber cable is the best overall for your business. One of the biggest questions we get is “What is the difference between OFNR fiber cables and LSZH fiber cables?”

While they seem like the same thing, they are really two very different. Read more about the difference here.

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Today’s News to Start Your Day:

• Free COVID test kits are now available to order via USPS.
• In 2016, YouTube made a big push into producing original content, but after more than six years and several major setbacks, “YouTube Originals” is being shut down in favor of pursuing different investment opportunities.
• Major international airlines are modifying or canceling flights to the United States amid uncertainty about potential interference between new 5G cell phone services and critical airplane technologies.
• The Biden administration will make 400 million highly protective N95 masks available to Americans for free.

Happy Tuesday! What a week it has been with lots of snow all around. Do you spend time playing in the snow – sledding, building a snowman, shoveling lots of snow? We’d love to see some photos!

In This Issue: The Training Continues | HP ML350 Generation 8 | News to Start Your Day

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The CK Daily – The Training Continues

Good Morning and Happy Tuesday! Last week I mentioned that I was going to be running a marathon on Sunday, but you know what they say about the best laid plans! Unfortunately, I got sick on Tuesday and my friend who was supposed to run with me got sick mid-week as well! We were fairly certain we’d have to bag the race, but the decision was ultimately made for us as the marathon ended up getting canceled due to weather. Needless to say, it was more than a little defeating to realize that we put in months of work for a race that wasn’t going to happen.

That said, there’s no sense in dwelling on the negative or throwing a pity party so we pretty quickly turned our attention to trying to find a backup race! Finding one that worked for both of our schedules proved to be a challenge, but I think we have found a solution. So while we may have to extend the misery of training for a few more weeks, with any luck we’ll both have some sweet medals in the near future! I hope you are all having a great week and staying well!

Rebecca

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Product Spotlights & Updates

The ML350 G8 server is an up-gradable, performance-based, dual processor tower that delivers superior performance and expand-ability. The sixth iteration of the ML350 now has more memory capacity and hard drive compatibility than previous generations. The ML350 G6 has: (2) Intel Xeon E5-2609 (2.40GHz/4-Core/10MB/80W) processors, (9) expansion slots, and (24) DIMM slots. The ML350 G8 sever has a maximum memory of 768GB of ram.

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Learning Center Article – How to Choose the Right Fiber Connector: PC vs UPC vs APC

When joining fiber optic cables, connectors are everything. These highly sensitive networks live or die by how cleanly and efficiently the cables join inside of the connector. Because of that, there are many different connector designs, each catering to different uses and design philosophies.

If you are trying to determine which is best for your system, here is a quick comparison can help with your selection.

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Today’s News to Start Your Day:

• Ralph Lauren brand is chasing money-making opportunities in the metaverse.
• Microsoft will buy video game giant Activision Blizzard in a $68.7 billion all-cash deal.
• Google recently released a feature that allows users to quickly send data, like photos or documents, to a nearby person with a Chromebook or Android device.
• You can watch live as a humongous asteroid flies safely past our planet today.

Happy MLK Day! Today we honor activist and Civil Rights Movement leader, Martin Luther King Jr. Today, we will leave you with this quote, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

In This Issue: Change of Scenery | Cisco 8841 Five line Color Display IP Phone | News to Start Your Day

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The CK Daily – Change of Scenery

Happy Monday! And Happy MLK Day! This weekend we experienced a once in a year event in the part of Georgia where I live… snow! We had a pretty nice couple of inches of powdery snowfall in our neck of the woods. My family was very fortunate that we didn’t lose power or have any downed trees nearby, which is always something of concern during these rare events. My children had fun building snowmen, throwing snowballs, and eating snow. We also did a lot of bird watching out of our living room window. Our feeder had lots of different visitors from chickadees, bluebirds, cardinals, and even a woodpecker (A Yellow-bellied sapsucker).

I am grateful for the change of scenery and grateful for time spent together with my family. If you had snow over the weekend, I hope you enjoyed it, especially if you are in the South where snow isn’t too common. I’m sure our Northern readers who’ve had snow all winter are probably over it by now haha! Anyways, I hope you have a great day and a great week!

Cris

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Product Spotlights & Updates

The Cisco 8841 IP desk phone was designed to meet the needs of small and large businesses alike. This business-class phone is an attractive, ergonomic, and highly functional phone. It uses wideband audio which means you hear voice communication with clarity. It also includes a 5-inch high-resolution widescreen VGA backlit color display, 5 programmable line keys, and it supports a built-in Gigabit Ethernet switch for PC connections.

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Learning Center Article – What does 5G mean for business networks?

There is a lot of technology generating excitement for more applications than we could hope to name. One central theme to virtually all of that technology is an increased demand for data and a need of higher bandwidth for connectivity. More devices than ever are actively communicating, and they are placing massive burdens on existing infrastructure.

Copper networks and 4G wireless have a shelf life. Within the next couple of years, they will no longer be able to service standard demands — much less cutting-edge applications. Ultimately, we all need a network that is built for the new age of connectivity. That network will run on 5G.

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Today’s News to Start Your Day:

• You can watch an NBA game courtside – in the metaverse!
• An underwater volcano near Tonga has erupted for the third time in four days, threatening the ability of surveillance flights to assess the damage to the Pacific island nation.
• You’ve probably heard this playground legend: Daddy longlegs are the most venomous spiders in the world, but their fangs are too short to bite you. Is this really true?
• Walmart appears to be venturing into the metaverse with plans to create its own cryptocurrency and collection of NFTs.

Happy Friday! We hope you had a wonderful week and are looking forward to the weekend. Do you have any weekend plans? For some of us, we’re grabbing the salt and sled, and crossing our fingers we actually get some snow!!

In This Issue: Snow ❄️ | Cisco 3850 Series PoE+ 48 Port Switch | News to Start Your Day

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The CK Daily – Snow ❄️

It’s Friday! I hope that each of you had a fantastic week! Here in Northeast Georgia, we’re preparing for the possibility of some winter weather. I’m generally not a fan of cold weather except when it snows. This typically happens no more than once each winter, which I’m ok with. We take the opportunity to make memories of playing in the snow. Now, after the snow melts, I’m ready for the warm weather and longer days of daylight to return!

How do you enjoy the snow? Sledding? Or building a snowman?

Chris

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Product Spotlights & Updates

The Cisco 3850 Series of switches is an industry-leading, enterprise-class series of access switches that offers superior performance, scalability, and reliability. The Catalyst 3850 Series is the first to feature a built-in wireless controller with up to 40 Gbps of capacity on 48-port models. Further, it supports up to 100 access points and 2,000 wireless clients per switching entity (or stack). These switches are stackable up to 9 members and come equipped with Cisco’s popular StackPower technology.

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Learning Center Article – Best Practices for Cable Management in Data Centers

Every network administrator in the world has a horror story about cable management. In data centers, those horror stories grow into genuine nightmares. If enough people work on a system for a long enough period of time, the cables will eventually turn into some type of Ethernet vine monster.

Only strict adherence to cable management practices can prevent this disaster. The best practices in this Learning Center article are aimed to help you avoid subtler missteps that occur frequently in modern data centers.

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Today’s News to Start Your Day:

• The Supreme Court blocked the Biden administration from enforcing its vaccine-or-test requirements for large private companies.
• “Baby Shark” has become the first YouTube video to surpass 10 billion views.
• More than 350,000 people will get small payouts and 66,000 people will have their student loan debt canceled as part of a settlement between student loan company Navient.
• A forgotten well oil in West Texas has birthed a 100-Foot geyser.