December 2014

Seasons Greetings,

Our apologies to all. While we've been focussing on other parts of the business we've neglected one of our most useful tools to keep schools informed about Smart-Net and other related IT annoucements. 

Many things have changed over the past ten months since our last newsletter and as we head towards the end of the school year, this is an opportune time for us to let you know about some of our up and coming developments as well as new products and solutions we have available for schools.

Many of you may not know who we are... We are the company who developed the Smart-Net server product you use in your school which provides many features including a local Intranet, networking services, antivirus protection, remote access availability and backup solutions for your school data. While we can't escape occasional hardware failures, reliability of your server's operating system is very important to us. In fact, many school's may not even be aware they have a Smart-Net server in place as it operates silently in the background of their school network without issue. While this is great for our product, it means we don't always get the opportunity to let you know who we are. As well as being an IT firm with a great focus on computing in education, Smart Computer Systems also offer a wide range of consulting services covering all aspects of network installations (e.g. SNUP), wireless solutions including BYOD, Google Apps for Education, servers and cloud backup services. If you are investigating or in the process of changing your school's IT infrastructure, whether it be cabling, technical support or purchasing of computer equipment, we are happy to help and can support you with any of your IT needs.

In this newsletter we're covering BYOD solutions for schools, Online Backup, Google Apps for Education, Network booting and Server vs Cloud computing.

Please also remember to visit out Facebook group and register your interest to join. 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/smartnet.forums/

We encourage you all to have a look at the solutions we have to offer, plus there's useful tips and tricks inside as well. Please have a read and do let us know if you have any questions about any items in this newsletter. As an incentive we're giving away prizes to the first 2 schools who send an email to promos@smartcom.co.nz with feedback on this month's newsletter.

Thank you for your support in 2014. We look forward to communicating with you again in 2015.

Best regards and have a safe Christmas,

Clinton Pasfield

General Manager
Smart Computer Systems Ltd

  • Useful Tips and Tricks from the experts... Read more
  • BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) can greatly enhance learning, but it also presents new challenges for those responsible for school IT systems. Linewize gives your organisation full visibility and control of user and device Internet usage. Read more
  • Many people realize way too late when they have no usable backup of their key files. No knowledge of the whereabouts of backups. No records of modifications made to critical files. Just downtime, lost opportunities and the need to recreate hours of work at a very high price. Read more
  • Have you ever needed to troubleshoot or diagnose a problematic computer or backup and restore images to a computer?
    In the event of hardware or software failure, a computer can be booted into the PXE environment to allow a technician to diagnose and perhaps fix the problem or to restore a good image to the machine. Read more
  • To date, Smart Computer Systems have migrated across 257 schools to the new Network for Learning fibre infrastructure. Make sure when you sign up with Network for Learning that you nominate "Smartcom" as your ICT provider to ensure a smooth and complete transition to Network for Learning. Read more
  • Is your server getting old? Have you pushed it to the end of its lifespan? Have you reached that stage where it’s time to do something about it? Join the crowd. You’re now at that decision point that so many other schools are finding themselves in. Read more