What does that mean for Alvaka’s IT support clients in Los Angeles County, Orange County and other geographies?
What should you do?
As of April 8, 2014 Microsoft will no longer offer the following services for Office 2003:
· Assisted support
· Online content updates
· Software updates from Microsoft Update
· Security updates to help protect your PC from harmful viruses, spyware, and other malicious software, which can steal your personal information.
Your Office 2003 will continue to run, but you will be at greater risk for malware, reduced hardware and software compatibility and other unforeseen problems. You should consider upgrading soon to a newer version of Office. This will allow you to keep getting support and updates that are so important to your security, compatibility with hardware and software, and in some cases regulatory compliance.
Note: If your organization uses Office 2003, go to the end of support page for Windows XP and Office 2003 for more information.
Please check your version of Office
To determine which version of Office you’re using, follow the steps in this article: “What version of Office am I using?”
If you have Office 2003 I suggest you upgrade. Alvaka does not sell hardware or software so there is no direct benefit in us suggesting you upgrade. Running old and unsupported software can be risky in many ways. For more information about the Support Lifecycle for these Office versions, visit the Microsoft Support lifecycle web page.
Alvaka Networks is available to for IT consulting and support services to our clients and prospective clients in southern California and elsewhere. Our consultants can be dispatched from Irvine, Long Beach, Orange, Tustin, Chatsworth, Pasadena, Lake Forest, Murrieta and many other cities. We can help you create a migration plan and budget that is based upon our standard methodology, but customized to fit your needs. Whether you need Network Monitoring, Backup and disaster recovery systems, IT service and support, penetration tests and vulnerability assessments, Alvaka Networks is ready to serve you 24x7x365.
Need help or some advice, e-mail toli@alvaka.net or give me a call at 949 428-5000 extension 213.
Smoke testing is a term used to describe the testing process for servers after patches are applied. 
Estimating an average time for patching servers and PCs can be a bit tricky. It can vary from one month to the next, depending upon the number and complexity of the patches released by your software vendors. You must consider all versions of operating systems and have a complete inventory of all your application software to do this job correctly. Our experience has shown that manual patching of systems takes on average of about 1.5 hours each.
This is a basic cost calculator for you to compute your typical monthly cost for patching your servers, PCs, laptops, tablets and associated application software. It also forms the basis for you to begin calculating your Return on Investment for software patching, or for comparison with alternatives to the manual process of patching operating systems and application software—such as Patch Management as a Service, also known as Vulnerability Management as a Service.