Information Technology

No. Many of the PC’s that are currently in use throughout the company have sufficient resources to perform adequately. PC’s can have an active life span of anywhere from 3-5 years, longer in many cases. The life of your PC depends on many variables including the suite of applications that you use. We are committed to providing state-of-the-art computer equipment that provides efficient and effective performance. The IT department will utilize all current equipment in our inventory. At the discretion of the IT department we will re-issue valid equipment, which meets our past or current standards, for any employee requiring computer equipment. Equipment that is deployed below our current minimum configuration will be evaluated based on the set of applications that the individual will be accessing on a regular basis.

Laptops are provided solely for individuals that have a justified business need to work while out of the office. The decision to purchase and justify a desktop vs. a laptop is the responsibility of the department manager along with the IT department.

Today, most individuals that connect while out of the office on their company laptop, are connecting solely to get their company email. The procedure is to connect and replicate (or copy) your mail folder from the server located in the office to the mail file on your laptop. Disconnect, then read and reply to your email. Reconnect and replicate (or copy) once again to actually have that mail delivered. Please contact the IT department for specific procedures and training assistance. When you receive a laptop you will be given instructions for mail retrieval.

Data files that are located on the hard disk of your computer, drive "C", are not backed up. Any files that you keep on a network drive: H (HOME), or S (SHARED) are backed up on a daily basis and can be restored in the event that a file is deleted. Please be sure not to keep critical files on your C drive.

In order to protect you and our corporate electronic environment, we have taken precautions to prevent SPAM and other email threats. SPAM, can also contain computer viruses that once opened, could infect the integrity and accessibility of corporate data. We utilize a third party product, Sophos Spam Filter, to filter all of our incoming email from known electronic email threats.

We utilize a third party product, Sophos Web Filter, to protect us from the threats of harmful and inappropriate Internet content. This software will only allow access to web content that has been deemed appropriate for our business. It is also completely customizable so we can allow, or disallow access to web sites. Please refer to the Human Resource policy on Internet use in the office.

Each company desktop and laptop computer is installed with a current copy of Sophos Endpoint Security and Control software. This software is active on your PC. It will protect your workstation from current and previous virus threats. It is updated on a regular basis so that the threat of any new viruses can be detected and eliminated. This virus protection spans workstations and our corporate servers. In addition to Sophos Endpoint Security and Control, we also utilize a Firewall to protect our network. The firewall scans incoming and outgoing data for viruses, blocks unnecessary TCP/IP ports, and scans for and blocks well-known Spyware applications usually downloaded from web pages.

Any new software purchase requests, whether for an individual or an entire department, must be approved by both the director of that department and IT management. Please submit your purchase request to the helpdesk for review.

We do not have an excess of widescreen flat panel monitors. We only replace them if one is defective, or is damaged. It is an unnecessary cost to the company to replace monitors that are performing adequately. We can not fulfill your personal preference request.