Parallels Plesk Panel 10 is the newest version of the Plesk web server control panel.The Plesk panel has been an industry standard for years and this iteration continues the legacy. The updated, user-friendly interface makes website hosting more accessible to beginning web designers and easier for IT professionals. With a large assortment of new features it will take less time for our clients to deploy and manage their websites.

Connected Technologies is pleased to welcome Ryan Gordon. Ryan will be joining our technical support team, bringing with him multiple years of experience in the Customer Service & Support area from his previous position at a large multination hosting provider. We are excited to have Ryan join our team.

Connected Technologies leader William Shilson will share his industry knowledge and recommendations during a CCH sponsored educational seminar on December 2, 2011 where he will be attending as a Keynote speaker. This is the 9th in a series of timely seminars aimed at helping you become more effective and to grow your firm with the advantage of technology.

Connected Technologies is excited to attend this years CCH User Conference which takes place in San Antonio, Texas November 6-9, 2011. We hope to see many of our customers in attendance while we participate in this event which delivers the latest in industry trends, technologies and innovative products.

The benefits for cloud computing continues to be recognized by an increasing number of companies and when presented with the opportunity MBS Business Partners Ana & Harold Johnson quickly saw the benefits of this technology for their firm and decided to fully embrace the CTI Cloud. When combined our cloud infrastructure “CTI Cloud” with our accounting industry expertise, extensive CCH Software knowledge, and the industry leading IT management and supported services, a powerful cloud computing experience is delivered. Since migrating to the CTI Cloud MBS Business has taken advantage of the many benefits which empower them to work effectively from any geographical location with an office work experience free from limits and “slowness” – simply put there are many efficiencies in our being able to deliver what we do. Utilizing Connected Technologies IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) MBS Business is not required to maintain any onsite servers or supporting equipment leading to reclaiming of valuable floor space within their office and the pleasure of knowing their critical IT infrastructure is fully managed and monitored around the clock. MBS Business has transformed itself into a technologically driven power house. The adoption of cloud computing has delivered a solution which will allow their firm to flourish and become a leader within their expertise in the accounting industry. Harold Johnson comments “Anytime you switch systems there will be hiccups. We would be dreaming if we believed we could close the office on Friday and start up business in the “Cloud” Monday. CTI delivered on a smooth transition as promised, but more importantly, they were there providing dedicated support for the little things that require attention – everything from rerouting printers to fixes on any software glitches in the transfer”. “We felt that our needs and best interests were the highest priority to CTI. This attention and handholding through training, set up and management of the conversion really sets CTI apart” added Ana Johnson. The CTI Cloud is just another way we help our clients stay Connected!

Leading Toronto based Real Estate Brokerage RE/MAX Condos Plus is focused on further expanding their business service areas throughout the city. RE/MAX Condos which specializes in the explosive Toronto condominium market has always been at the forefront of technology and saw cloud computing as the next logical step in their evolution. Connected Technologies worked with RE/MAX Condos Plus to completely transition their physical onsite network including legacy systems at all locations to the CTI Cloud to deliver a centralized solution which is fully managed, monitored and supported. Jamie Johnston comments “I was anticipating a few glitches in the conversion to the Cloud. They were minimal.  The real benefits, both current and in the long term, are huge for companies looking to expand and grow their business from multiple and remote locations such as ours”. In addition to new possibilities for expansion without loss of network connectivity, RE/MAX Condos Plus also sees benefits from moving to the CTI Cloud in the areas of availability, scalability and cost effectiveness.

Businesses rely on Connected Technologies networks for data, communication, and backbone operations. Our network monitoring services provide a vital role in allowing our network administrators & support team to continuous monitor these systems and identify and resolve potential issues before they escalate. We are pleased to report the recent updates to our network monitoring systems are fully online. In addition to a number of enhancements a key new function with this upgrade is the ability for our customers to have real time access to the CTI Network Monitoring control panel which will deliver instant insight into their networking environment including comprehensive system, application, traffic & port status reporting. With this access clients can view the same information used to by our network operations center support team. We have always been focused on continuous improvement to better meet the needs of our customers, and this latest upgrade represents a huge leap forward for our network monitoring services while sharing vital information with our customers.

When recently asked to attend the CCH Building Intelligent Business Tour stop in our own backyard we eagerly took advantage of the opportunity to participate in this event. After an insightful day packed with plenty of technology goodness, accounting industry information and a few plugs for Connected Technologies this event was a tremendous success. Keynote speaker Roman Kepczyk provided a refreshing view of current technology trends while touching on key points such as Cloud based services and knowledge management. Dave Straughan from MacGillivray Partners provided details on his experiences as he transformed MacGillivray into one of the leading technological driven accounting firms in Canada with the help of Connected Technologies and CCH Products. We look forward to the next event.

You may have heard the term cloud computing or 'the Cloud,' but could do you really know what ‘the Cloud’ is? There are so many definitions flying around that you wouldn't be alone if you struggled to define it. Cloud computing is simply a set of pooled computing resources and services delivered over the web.

Cloud servers connect and share information based on the level of activity and demand for resources across the entire network. Connected Technologies powered Cloud computing (CTI Cloud) is provided "as a service" over the Internet, in the form of infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), or software as a service (SaaS).

CTI Cloud customers don't have to raise the capital to purchase, manage, maintain, and scale the physical infrastructure required to handle drastic traffic and resource utilization fluctuations. Instead of having to invest time and money to keep their infrastructure & applications operating at optimal levels, CTI Cloud computing customers simply pay for the resources they use, as they use them.

The CTI Cloud is rapidly revolutionizing the way our customer work and do business. We are thrilled to see customers taking advantage of this technology with incredible results.

Today Connected Technologies made available one of our most powerful technology services with the launch the CTI Cloud. Canada's most sophisticated cloud platform Powered by VMware®, Cisco® and NetApp®, the CTI Cloud platform is designed for security and reliability.

The CTI cloud will offer customers, security, privacy and flexibility to scale their server's capacity up or down on a fully managed service model.

Our line of cloud computing services ranges from single cloud servers to completely secure hosted private clouds with resources dedicated to you. Combine our hosted private cloud service with our private networking services for the most secure and reliable cloud computing solution available in Canada.

For additional information on our Managed Cloud Services click here

Connected Technologies Online Backup version 6 has been released with several enhancements including support for Microsoft Exchange 2010 and Microsoft SQL 2008 R2, new System State backup module for Windows 2008, virtual machine backup and server-side delta merging.

For additional information on CTI Online Backup please visit http://www.connectedgear.com/services/online_backup.php.

We are pleased to announce the successful launch of the new CDP backup network based in our Toronto Data Center. The CDP Backup network provides a high-performance disk-to-disk server backup solution for Linux & Windows Servers, featuring a central management and data repository. After completing one initial replica of all desired data on a Server, CDP can complete virtual full server backups in just minutes. Your data is protected at the block-level and unique disk blocks are only stored once across all recovery points, increasing storage efficiency.

Industry-leading control panel Parallels Plesk Panel 10 is now available on our wide range of hosted solutions. Parallels Plesk Panel 10 is the newest version of the Plesk server control panel. The Plesk panel has been an industry standard for years and this iteration continues the legacy. The updated, user-friendly interface makes website hosting more accessible to beginning web designers and easier for IT professionals. With the new features it takes less time to deploy and manage websites. Clients can easily add over 200 apps and it includes Google Tools access. These updated features save time and reduce costs. Some of the highlights of Plesk Panel 10: Staging websites Simplify publishing a website in production from a staging copy with the help of 3 tools: put a website on hold while maintaining, make a copy of a production site for further changes, and publish the changed site back into production.< Migration from cPanel Migrate from cPanel and see you websites structure fitting perfectly the new Plesk 10 subscription/webspace model altogether with mail. Customization & Branding Ability to change Branding for Admin & Reseller. A custom branded look-and-feel theme can be developed and deployed on Plesk 10 by Admin or Reseller for their customers. Brand-new SiteBuilder The brand-new SiteBuilder, rebuilt from the ground up, enables instant Web site creation. It includes point-and-click and drag-and-drop capabilities, plus over 60 prebuilt templates, complete with content appropriate for different small business types and personal interests. For additional information on our Plesk Panel 10 powered solutions please contact us.

We are excited and pleased to announce that we have completed the upgrade to our Support & Helpdesk site which is accessible at https://support.connectedgear.com.

Our new Support site features an intuitive and clear user interface that empowers customers to easily obtain support services from a qualified support representative. In addition to the new feature rich interface customers can acquire instant answers through the new and improved knowledgebase suggestions function.

The evolution of our support services doesn't stop here. We have all sorts of ideas and concepts in the pipeline - new apps, expanding our services and a raft of new features that will become available to all of our valued customers in the near future.

Connected Technologies is now a CCH Scan certified technology provider. As part of our relentless commitment to providing quality Managed IT Services to the growing number of Accounting Firms which rely on our expertise we are pleased to have achieved this level of recognition and compliance by CCH a premier software provider for the Accounting industry.

CCH Scan is a part of the CCH Accountants' Suite. CCH Scan is a paperless software solution that effortlessly and electronically takes the proverbial shoebox of unsorted client information, determines what each item is, and outputs the organized documents to a single, organized, and bookmarked PDF file.

Despite our best efforts, Connected Technologies networks don't yet build or manage themselves. So we're looking for some tech-savvy guys and gals to help build and maintain these expanding networks and technological infrastructure while delivering the exceptional customer service levels we are synonymous with.

While we're looking for independent thinkers and innovators, team members should be able to follow technological direction well. This will be an exceptional learning experience: you will be working with a highly skilled team and get the opportunity of a lifetime to gain expertise in innovative IT solutions and services.

We are currently seeking Junior & Senior Network Administrators / IT Consultants, and a Sale Representative to further expand our dynamic team.

Do those activities or opportunities sound oddly satisfying to you? If so, please email employment@connectedgear.com with a brief description of yourself and your relevant work experience including resume.

Brampton, ON - August 23, 2010 - Connected Technologies Inc. a leading Managed Service provider is pleased to announce the availability of Hosted Exchange 2010 services with unlimited mailbox storage.

Exchange 2010 Hosting allows employees anywhere access to e-mail, calendaring, and more, while providing integrated antivirus, anti-spam and anti-phishing technologies to stop the latest threats before they impact an organization. Exchange 2010 also makes it easy to encrypt, control, and moderate communications.

Hosted Exchange 2010 includes an enhanced conversation view that automatically arranges messages into threads, regardless of their location in the inbox, and MailTips that inform users about details that could result in unnecessary or undeliverable e-mail messages, before they click send. It also offers time-saving inbox management tools that help a business users more easily organize and prioritize communications they receive each day.

For more information and a complete list of Hosted Exchange features please visit http://www.connectedgear.com/hosting/hostedexchange.php

There's big news in Connected Technologies World. We've moved to snazzy new digs! It's pretty exciting and we all love the new space located on the top floor of the extensively renovated Old Shoe Factory in downtown Brampton.

Our new office address is below and our phone numbers will remain unchanged.

57 Mill Street North, Suite 304
Brampton, ON L6X 1S9

If you're in the Brampton area, why not drop in for a chat and say Hi. We'd love to see you.

Georgetown, ON - Jan 25, 2009 - Connected Technologies Inc, a leading Managed Service provider, has launched CTI NetMonitor, a full suite of advanced monitoring solutions now available for its managed hosting/IT customers. Utilizing the platform of partner, ManageEngine, CTI NetMonitor provides in-depth data and analysis to better anticipate IT needs for business success. This offering, which will be expanded to all product lines later this year, represents strategic momentum in working together with best-of-breed companies to provide Connected Technologies customers a valuable range of products and services.

With CTI NetMonitor, Connected Technologies customers can choose the services and features, from basic to highly complex, that are most vital to their business success. These services are available through CTI NetMonitor's on-demand platform interface, which provides anyone in the organization, from CEO to system engineer, understandable, information on how application and system components are working together. This real-time data gives insight into potential issues so they can be proactively addressed in the most efficient and timely way.

The CTI NetMonitor suite offers a range of service levels along with additional features to choose from. The service levels are each comprised of a combination of full OS monitoring, application/database instance monitoring, URL monitoring, and TCP-port monitoring, tracking pre-determined and customized metrics for a given instance determined by the user. These services are completely automated and send instant alerts when a set threshold is exceeded or an event is detected.

Using the CTI NetMonitor platform interface, these services and features can be configured on-demand for individual servers. CTI NetMonitor provides a comprehensive library of metric "templates", providing full control over the instrumentation and data collection of performance metrics. This allows users to gain deep visibility into operating system and application variables and proactively pinpoint issues and minimize downtime.

At Connected Technologies we strive to assure that all of our external communications to your company's network resources are managed using the latest and most effective security methods available today. It is through this initiative that we are improving the way that we connect to your vital resources through the use of the latest remote support technology powered by Bomgar.

With Bomgar as our remote support partner, Connected Technologies will deliver secure and consistent remote support based on one of the strongest remote support security technology available today. As an added security measure; with the included connection logging feature, your company will now be able to review who and when connections have been made to your servers and workstations from anywhere in the world while having access to video recordings of all of our support sessions.

The choice to upgrade our method of Secure Server Remote Support has been based on a number of key factors namely security, reliability, consistency, and flexibility. In our research upon choosing Bomgar we found a balance between these factors and a foundation to extend our services to support your company's servers, workstations and connected devices utilizing industry leading 256 bit encryption!

It is at this time we are pleased to announce that this deployment of the Bomgar technology and equipment has been fully completed in our Toronto Data Center and on all of our support systems. To start a remote support session please click here or open a support ticket.

Despite our best efforts, Connected Technologies networks don't yet build or manage themselves. So we're looking for some tech-savvy guys and gals to help build and maintain these expanding networks and technological infrastructure while delivering the exceptional customer service levels we are synonymous with.

While we're looking for independent thinkers and innovators, team members should be able to follow technological direction well. This will be an exceptional learning experience: you will be working with a highly skilled team and get the opportunity of a lifetime to gain expertise in innovative IT solutions and services.

Do those activities sound oddly satisfying to you? If so, please email employment@connectedgear.com with a brief description of yourself and your relevant work experience including resume.

Connected Technologies is pleased to announced the availability of an advanced, near-continuous data protection (CDP) service that enables dedicated server and enterprise customers to protect their critical data from anywhere on the Internet. The new CDP service offers automated, secure backup and Web-based data recovery, ensuring that online businesses and corporations can quickly recover key information in the event of hardware failure, data corruption or a host of unforeseen circumstances.

We have partnered with R1Soft to deliver a complete portfolio of cost effective, customizable backup solutions. Services range from managed backup and recovery to a high-performance, dedicated CDP Center capable of protecting large numbers of servers with customer administered policies and Web-based recovery.

All the solutions provide the ability to: schedule restore points on an ongoing basis, selective file or folder recovery, and true bare metal restore capability to quickly recover an entire server after a system disaster.

The new data protection and recovery services are the latest in a portfolio of enterprise- class infrastructure and management solutions available to enhance the availability, security and performance of online and corporate IT applications based on our state-of-the-art network and Data Center.

Connected Technologies is pleased to announce the release of CTI Post 5.6. This latest version is immediately available to all customers with active CTI Post accounts.

Although this is a minor update, it includes quite a few new and exciting features:

An image manager which is separate from the WYSIWYG editor. The image manager makes it easy to manage all of your images in the one place. You can batch upload multiple images at once, edit, rename and delete, etc. The slick upload interface can easily handle hundreds of images at once.

32 new email professionally developed and designed templates.

The bounce processing wizard has been redesigned to be a LOT easier to use. It's now a clear, step-by-step wizard and mail server settings can be auto detected.

A new WYSIWYG editor which includes functions such as unlimited undo/redo and copy/paste.

There's a new dashboard with useful metrics (such as overall list activity and per-campaign reports), campaigns filtered by status.

Your subscribers can confirm their unsubscribe request when they click an unsubscribe link in an email instead of being removed straight away.

Connected Technologies is pleased to announce the expansion of our 151 Front Street data center.

With this latest expansion completed we have increased our Toronto data center footprint and capacity by 75%. The Toronto data center is designed to deliver enterprise and corporate level managed hosting services including Hosting, Dedicated Servers, Virtual Servers, Network, Storage, Backup and System Monitoring.

This expansion is fuelled by consistent demand from our customers resulting in the rapid growth in the Toronto data center we have experienced over the past year.

We believe this expansion will position us to attract additional enterprise and corporate customers who are looking for Toronto based data center services with the best combination of facility, security and service for their money.

After 12 months of development and testing Connected Technologies is pleased to announce the immediate availability of CTI Post 5.5. This new version includes a number of advanced features such as split testing, triggers and automatic event logging and was designed to give customers all the tools they need to automate email marketing efforts and newsletter distribution.

This is a major upgrade which includes many advanced features, all designed to make managing your email campaigns and mailing lists more simple while reducing the workload associated with becoming a better email marketer. New features include:

Split Testing
Choose 2 or more emails to send to a sample of your list. The winning email (based on open rate or click rate, your choice) is sent to the rest of your list automatically after a predetermined period of time.

Triggers
Create recurring birthday emails, move/remove contacts to/from multiple lists based on if they've opened your email or clicked on a specific link and lots more.

Event Logging
Manually log events such as phone calls and meetings. Automatic event logging creates an event for a contact when they receive an email/autoresponder, open an email or click a link so you or your team have full visibility into their actions at all times, making you a more informed salesperson.

Recent Activity Log
Your recently accessed items (contacts, lists, campaigns, etc) are always available across the top of the screen making it easier to get back to where you left off.

Contact List Grouping
Use folders and drag-and-drop to sort and organize your contact lists into manageable groups. Ideal for email marketers with dozens or hundreds of lists.

20 New Built-In Email Templates
There are 20 new email templates which work in all popular email clients including Outlook, Yahoo, GMail and Hotmail.

All existing CTI Post subscribers will automatically have access to this latest version without the need to make any changes or updates demonstrating the power and flexibility of our Managed Services.

For additional information and a complete list of CTI Post features please visit http://www.connectedgear.com/services/mailing_list_manager.php.

Connected Technologies is delighted to make immediately available managed hosting servers running the latest version of Parallels award winning control panel software Plesk 9 and Adobes premier development platform ColdFusion 8. This new managed hosting solution has been specifically developed to meet the evolving needs of our clients, partners, and resellers.

Running on a proven Linux platform which delivers flexible, reliable and high performance capabilities this latest hosting option is sure to be a home run with ColdFusion developers and companies which require ColdFusion services.

For more information on our managed hosting plans please visit http://www.connectedgear.com/hosting/webhosting.php.

Connected Technologies has teamed up with Sugar, the market leading commercial open source CRM application which delivers a feature-rich set of business processes that enhance marketing effectiveness, drive sales performance, improve customer satisfaction and provide executive insight into business performance. Supported by deep collaboration and administration capabilities that adapt to how your company operates, our SugarCRM enabled servers are sure to delight customers of all sizes across a broad range of industries.

Connected Technologies can rapidly deploy and managed a customized VPS or Dedicated Server with SugarCRM Community Edition at no extra cost! Our state-of-the-art data center delivers a secure, fully scalable and affordable hosting environment so you can go on with your business and leave the rest to us.

Connected Technologies will immediately offer and install SugarCRM on all of our managed VPS and Dedicated Servers at the time of setup. Already a client and want SugarCRM on your VPS or Dedicated Server? Please contact us today and a knowledgeable member of our support team will assist you.

Connected Technologies is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Plesk 9 on our VPS & Dedicated Servers.

There are many new features in Plesk Panel 9 such as enhanced interface for efficient navigation and the addition of a Reseller mode which will enable Resellers to better manage their VPS and Dedicated Servers to more efficiently organize their offerings.

Pleask 9 also offers integration with services such as the Application Packaging Standard (APS) Catalog and Plesk Billing 6.0. The APS Catalog gives our clients access to hundreds of pre-packaged applications. The integration of Plesk Billing offers Connected Technologies Resellers a fully featured web hosting automation solution.

The new version of Plesk shows changed style that adopts a Windows Vista alike interface. It makes task management very simple. It is available from a drop-down menu on the applications home page. Plesk 9 also offers an improved ability for our VPS & Dedicated Server customers to monitor statistics and other information about the resources they use.

Plesk 9 also enables you at every access level to obtain a full or partial backup within the scope of your visibility. The backup can contain just the control panel configuration or services content, and can be stored on the local server or on a server outside your VPS or Dedicated Server.

We're pleased to announce the launch of our new Customer Support Center. With this new system, we're able to better serve your needs, respond to your requests, and allow you to take better advantage of all of the resources we have to offer.

Although we're very proud of our reputation and have received great feedback from clients over the years about the high quality of our customer service, we're confident that our new system will allow us to serve you even better!

Our new Customer Support Center has the following great new features:

Knowledge Base

With our new system, you're able to create a support request ticket yourself online in seconds. Using an intelligent matching feature, our system will try to match your help request with a relevant article from our Knowledge Base to help you resolve your issue instantly. While the Connected Technologies Support Team will be standing by to serve you as always, our Knowledge Base allows you to get solutions with zero delay to many common problems you may face.

Ticketing System

The new Support Center ticketing system allows you to do much more than in the past. The ability to post code and even file attachments are just a few enhancements. Creating a ticket is simple. Visit the Support Center and click the Submit a Ticket icon. Choose the department you need to contact then fill out the simple form and then BAM! You've created a new ticket and request.

Stay Informed with News Bulletins

Our support staff can now keep you in-the-know with the latest news from Connected Technologies. You'll find updates on new Connected Technologies services, features, server upgrades, and sales promotions.This information will be available 24x7x365.

You can access the Support Center under the support tab on our website or by visiting https://support.connectedgear.com.

After several months of development, our redesigned website is now available. Overall it's lighter, brighter, and more approachable. Our new site was designed purely with functionality and ease of use in mind, which is an effort to further contribute to a pleasant customer experience.

We've had a number of developers working on the site for the past months, but this is the first phase release of our new web presence. Of course, we're looking forward to further development on some new online features which will be available soon!

With the release of our new site we will also be launching a new version our "Communications" email/newsletter feature which will be immediately available to existing clients and subscribers.

If you have any questions or comments relating our new website please contact us.

CTI Online Backup version 5.5 is released. We have spent great effort in re-designing the user interface of our software. In version 5.5, all the client-side software will come with clean, sleek and streamlined interface. It is easy-to-use while delivering powerful features with just a few clicks.

With Continuous Data Protection, together with our In-File Delta incremental / differential backup technology, whenever a file is saved, the changed part will be backed up to our Backup Servers. Therefore, the backed up data is synchronized with the live data. All versions of changes are kept on the backup server and ready to be restored at any time. It is an ideal feature for businesses that have frequent changes to their critical data, e.g. financial institutions, design and architectural firms, etc.

We are certain version 5.5 will provide clients with increased backup functions and features while provide the reliability they have been accustomed too.