FAQ's
Think Smart is committed to being your single source technology partner.We offer a wide array of services to support business customers of any size.The frequently asked questions below are categorized by product to allow you to quickly navigate to questions that pertain to your direct needs.
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Smart Managed Services (SMS)
 Why does my company need the services of Think Smart Inc.?
A:Every company faces daily computer support challenges. According to IDC research 45% of all computer problems go unsolved purely because of the expense of calling the computer support company. Employees are told "figure out another way to handle it" or "simply live with it". By using our Smart Managed Services we offer unlimited support with a fixed monthly fee. Your employees can get the support they need; and you can get a handle on the out of control computer support spending.
How much does it cost?
A: Smart Managed Service plans are priced based on the size of your network and the type of service you require. You won't find any complex pricing plans with Think Smart. You have a choice of unlimited support with onsite support included or unlimited support without on-site included. Because our prices are based on the size of your computer network you are not forced to pay huge monthly fees for services you don't need. Our Smart Managed Services is affordable for any company of any size. We have clients that range in size from a single office with 5 users to a multi-national company with many office locations and hundreds or thousands of users. There is never any obligation for us to give you a quote, just call the office and ask, we would be happy to give you any information you need.
How does it work?
A: It's all about the Support Sphere! We deploy a small sphere shaped icon in the system tray (where the time and date are in the bottom right hand corner of your screen) and that Support Sphere connects your computer to our Network Support Center and enables our support engineers to help you. But the Support Sphere does not just let us support you, it does a whole lot more: it makes a complete inventory of your hardware and software, automatically installs patches, fixes, and software upgrades, performs routine computer maintenance, and for servers it monitors orver 300 different statistics to ensure that if an error happens our support engineers know when, why and how. We support every employee in your company as well. By simply right-clicking on the Support Sphere you are presented with an option to enter a support ticket or chat with an engineer who can help them with their questions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
How do I know this is secure?
A: Any communication with Think Smart is completely secure. First, we do not store any of your data at our location. Your valuable data never leaves your site... EVER! No Think Smart Support Engineer can access anything on your computer network without you authorizing us to do so. Anytime a user requests our support, they are prompted on their screen to authorize us to do so. To further protect your vital information Think Smart's Smart Managed Service supports 3DES, AES, BlowFish, TwoFish either using a 128-bit or a 256-bit encryption key. Simply stated: your computer systems and vital data security is taken very seriously and is our utmost priority.
When your support engineers are supporting our system are they tracked or audited?
A: A support ticket is generated for every problem that our engieers handle even if it was not reported by a user. We have a detailed audit trail attached to every action that our support engineers perform. We keep that audit trail forever. It is our promise to keep your systems secure and safe from everyone.
My current computer support company claims to offer remote management, what makes you different?
A: Most computer support companies offer remote control and not Complete I.T. outsourcing. Beware of companies that don't have dedicated support engineers to answer your calls for routine support; this usually indicates that their support people are on-site with customers and they work on a call back basis or worse yet they have outsourced your users’ calls to an offshore help desk in places like India or China. Think Smart has trained support engineers that are ready to assist every employee at your company with any problem they might have right now, not when it’s convenient for us to call you back. Think Smart offers much more than remote control (although we do that as well). Think Smart’s engineers constantly monitor and manage your system to predict problems and correct them before they affect you. Today’s computer service companies react to a problem after it happens, often resulting in you waiting for long periods of time to have the problem fixed. Think Smart provides help to your employees quickly and efficiently, using many technologies, including remote control. Take a look at our "Secret" page to see how other computer companies make their money.
Are there any special requirements or things have to buy to use your service?
A: None. The only requirement is that your server be running a supported operating system (Windows or MAC OS). The Support Sphere is a very small application and will run on almost any machine, even computers that run Windows 95 or Mac OS 8. We have never had any issue with loading The Support Sphere on any computer.
HI iQ Backup & Recovery
Can it backup my MS Exchange data store?
A: Yes, HI iQ will backup your exchange message store and do it better than other backup products on the market .Every HI iQ comes with 100 users of Exchange Power Tools which allows you to not just recover the entire message store (which is what most backup programs do), and not just allow you to recover the mailboxes (which is how more expensive backup programs work) it allows you to recover the individual messages. You can actually restore a message from the last backup 15 minutes ago.
What about backing up SQL?
A: HI iQ is a block level backup device. What this means to you is that we are able to backup any type of data (Windows compatible only) from any source without the need for special agents or additional tools. We can backup databases like SQL and MS Exchange easily.
Does it work with VM ware?
A: Yes. We have no problem backing up, restoring, and virtualizing virtual servers in a VM Ware environment. We do not however backup VM Ware infrastructure itself.
How long does a typical restore take?
A: Restores are the bane of existence with regard to backup because they take so long to perform. HI iQ shatters that barrier with built in virtualization technology. Now when you have a failure and need to perform a full restore, you simply virtualize the server (exact duplicate of the down server) on the HI iQ device. This process can take up to 30 minutes total. Once virtualized your users will be able to use the server just like it was the real thing. Now you have time to repair or replace the downed server without worrying about your users being affected. Once the new server is ready to go, then we can perform the lengthy restore while we're still in virtualization mode without affecting the users. Once the restore is complete it's about a 15 minute transfer back to the new server.
iPass
What type of connection options do I have with an iPass account?
A: With an iPass account you're not limited to any one specific type of connection to the Internet or your corporate access requirements. Think Smart's iPass gives you access to Wi-Fi hot spots (including Starbuck's and McDonald's), high speed wired connections like those found in hotels, and even dial-up access when you’re in a country with no high speed access. Think Smart also offers Cellular access cards when you need to have access on the go.
Do I have to be a big company to get an iPass account?
A: No! Think Smart offers iPass accounts to all size companies we even have plans that are designed for individuals.
How much does iPass cost?
A: We have many different iPass accounts that fit any budget. Individual Plans can be as low as $8.95 a month. We have corporate plans that offer unlimited usage for every user or a subset of users you choose. We also offer both domestic and international plans to meet every requirement.
Do you offer Mobile Data Cards (Cellular Cards)?
A: Yes! We offer mobile broadband cards for your laptop computers in North America by Verizon and Sprint, and worldwide cards are available for the predominant local cellular carrier in that region of the world. We can also bundle our Internet and corporate access with your broadband access card which will give you both off network (Cellular) and on network access.
What are some of the major access points I can use?
A: There are over 150,000 hot spots for you to access and more are added each day. iPass has access agreements with several highly visible providers like: Starbucks, McDonald's, T-Mobile, Barnes & Noble, and many more. We are also in over 90% of the top 400 Airports worldwide. Simply put if you need access you can get it with iPass, but don't take our word for it, take a look at the online hot spot locator and search for hotspots anywhere in the world.
Can I access my companies VPN with iPass?
A: With the iPass connection manager we can script your companies VPN to automatically launch and provide access. In fact you can script just about anything with the connection manager client.
Are there any speed or port restrictions?
A: Because you're a Think Smart iPass client there are no speed restrictions or security restrictions. iPass agreements with access points require that all speed and access restrictions be lifted when you’re connecting to a hot spot using iPass. While others are surfing at bandwidth limiting speeds and cannot access their corporate e-mail or VPN, you will enjoy unrestricted speed and access.
Smart Spam Filter
How long will it take to see a reduction in SPAM?
A: One of the best things about Smart Spam is that you will start seeing results almost immediately after installation. Smart Spam analyzes every piece of e-mail (up to 1000 a second) and determines if it is SPAM. This analysis is done BEFORE the mail ever gets into your network and this gives us the ability to start showing results within minutes.
Do you ever catch good mail and record it as SPAM?
A: Sometimes a piece of mail comes through our system and is incorrectly marked as SPAM.This is what we call a false positive. Current statistics show our false positive rate is 1 in 250,000 pieces of mail. When we dive further into those statistics they get even better because most of the time we have a false positive we were correct in identifying the suspect mail as SPAM, however it was SPAM that you wanted and thus did not want it flagged. If you remove these types of false positives from the statistics it increases our false positive rate to 1 in 750,000 pieces of mail. So as you can see, your odds of getting false positives are rare.
Can I get mail that was flagged as SPAM back?
A: Yes. All mail that is flagged as SPAM is automatically put into our SPAM repository and held there for 10 days. Any user can get into that repository anytime they want and simply click on a single button to bring the message directly into the user's mailbox.
Can I get reports and statistics?
A: There are two automatic reports that can be sent out as often as every day or even weekly. The first is a digest report. The digest report is a list of all the mail that was flagged as SPAM. Each message is displayed with the sender's name, subject, and a couple of lines from the e-mail. If the user wishes to retrieve that message to their inbox there is a retrieve button contained at the beginning of each message. The user can simply click that button and instantly the message will show up in their mailbox. The other report is a mail statistics report. This report shows how much SPAM is being received by this user. Each message is displayed with the sender's name, subject, and a couple of lines from the e-mail. If the user wishes to retrieve that message to their inbox there is a retrieve button contained at the beginning of each message. The user can simply click that button and instantly the message will show up in their mailbox. The other report is a mail statistics report. This report shows how much SPAM is being received by this user.
Do I have anyway to enhance my Spam protection?
A: You can enhance your SPAM protection by using our whitelist and blacklist features. There is a whitelist and blacklist for each user as well as one for the entire domain. If an e-mail address or domain is put into the white list then any mail from that user or domain will be allowed through regardless of content. The blacklist is the exact opposite; no mail will be allowed from any user or domain that is on the blacklist.
Server Safe
What kind of Internet access can I get?
A: No need to worry about Internet Bandwidth,Think Smart has you covered.Think Smart can deliver Internet bandwidth up to 100 Megabits per second on an all fiber network.Think Smart is a carrier neutral facility with access to every carrier and loyalty to none.
Is my equipment secure?
A: All of your equipment is housed in data class storage racks inside our secure facility. Our Server Safe facility is a "community" data center which allows us to keep our pricing affordable for everyone. A community data center means that you will share data class server racks with other customers that have similar needs. Each customer has 24 hour access to our facility so getting to your equipment is never a problem.
Can I bring my own data circuits?
A: Absolutely. Think Smart will bring your data circuits into our secure Network Operations Center and cross connect the circuits any way you want right into your storage rack. Many clients choose the option of providing their own data circuits to keep their co-located equipment securely attached to their corporate network.
My equipment uses 220/240 Volts can I still use it?
A: Every rack inside our Server Safe facility has dedicated power (up to 60 amps). We can setup the power inside your rack for 110/120 or 220/240.
What if my equipment fails, can I call for help?
A: Think Smart offers an optional service called "remote hands". With remote hands you can call into our Network Operations Center and one of our engineers will assist you by being your "remote hands". We can reboot systems, read you status lights, move cables, or install new temporary cables. Even when you're not there, we're there for you.
Technically speaking how is the facility?
A: Think Smart's Server Safe is a niche facility that offers a great alternative to high priced data centers with similar features you would find in a much more expensive data center like: dedicated environmental conditioning. The Server Safe facility is kept at 68 degrees and we only allow that temperature to fluctuate 2 degrees. Every server rack has dedicated power up to 60 amps and is backed up with a 45KVA diesel generator which gives us unlimited power runtime in the event of a long term power failure.
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