This time of year many of us spend a lot of time on the internet for work, play and shopping. Even though I have written several articles about the “FAKE AV” Virus every week I hear about another customer who has gotten the virus. Here are my top ten tips to avoid viruses and malware. […]
Considering the success of geolocation-enabled social network platforms such as Foursquare, putting yourself on the geolocation map might just be more than worth your while. There’s a boom in geolocation platforms these days. Geolocation is a means through which people can track various locations through their mobile phone devices. Experts see a continued rise in the relevance and effects of geolocation, especially for small and medium-sized businesses who are looking for good but cost-effective ways to put themselves on the proverbial map. “When you’ve expanded the ability to track geolocation data from the 200 to 1,000 large businesses that could previously afford it to 26 million small businesses, you’re bound to see a bunch of creative experiences built around that data,” says Yan-David Erlich, CEO of Morpho, a new geolocation firm. The potential is vast, and there is little to lose. Especially considering the success of geolocation-enabled social network platforms such as Foursquare, putting yourself on the geolocation map might just be more than worth your while. Here are a few tips to get you started: Be a direct part of the community. Create an account, participate, and make yourself (or at least someone to represent your online presence) regularly felt. Customization is always key. Share something unique about your business – don’t make your profile generic and ordinary. You have to stand out, so choose a particular trait of your business you are particularly proud of, or something that sets you apart from the rest. Make sure to utilize as many keywords possible – but only within the bounds of practicality. And don’t forget links to your own website. Know what the competition is up to. There’s nothing wrong with checking out what competitors are doing to establish themselves in the geolocation map. Who knows, you might even learn a thing or two, and then be able to apply improvements and adjustments to your own strategies. Read the whole article at: https://technology.inc.com/telecom/articles/201007/geolocation.html?partner=newsletter_Technology If you are looking at taking some concrete steps to establishing yourself and making your presence much more significant, please don’t hesitate to contact us and we’ll be happy to sit down and develop a customized geolocation strategy that works for you.
Don’t be Left Behind – Let People Find You Through Geolocation Read More »
When a disaster strikes, man-made or otherwise, it’s impossible to continue business operation normally without implementing a disaster recovery plan. That’s why it’s very important to determine your crisis recovery strategies to prevent data loss, production interruption, and business failure. Simply put, organizations that suffer data losses generally fail as a consequence. In fact, that statement is based on study by the Department of Trade and Industry, which discovered that 70% of small businesses that experience a major data loss eventually go out of business within 18 months. This statistics shows that a majority of small businesses have failed to protect themselves against a number of problems. According to Ontrack, data loss is due to the following: Human error – 44% of the time System or hardware breakdown – 32% of the time Software malfunction – 14% of the time Computer virus – 7% of the time Site disaster – 3% of the time Data loss is very catastrophic — because your data is critical to your business. To illustrate this, just imagine the outcome if you lost access to your IT systems, including: Client databases Supplier information Financial reports and documents — from invoices to tax records Product catalogs Marketing materials Emails and correspondences Document templates Employee records Like insurance to your business assets, the same idea is applicable to your data. Regardless of its location, your data needs to be constantly protected from every potential danger. The good news is that with a strong disaster recovery plan and an efficient backup solution, you can easily resume business in just minutes or a few hours in most instances. With these crucial things in mind, it’s best to protect your data to secure your business. Ask us how today.
Disaster Recovery Plan: Why Your Business Won’t Survive Without One Read More »
Is your money safely sitting in your bank? Think again! According to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, online criminals have been getting away with what they estimate to be over $100 million in bank fraud – mostly at the expense of small to midsized businesses. Typically, hackers plant malicious programs known as Trojans into the networks of target companies, which then steal passwords to various online services such as online banking and fund management. Having gained access to these services, these hackers then commit something called ACH or Automatic Clearing House Network Fraud. Typically, they wire money out of their victim’s accounts and into the accounts of money “mules” who help them launder the money for a cut. These funds are then transmitted to the criminal masterminds – who are often located in countries outside the reach of American law enforcement, such as China and Russia. Small and midsized businesses have become a favored target by hackers lately because they often lack the time and resources to put stringent security controls in place. A survey conducted by security vendor Panda Security reveals that of the 1,400 businesses questioned, around 52 percent employed no basic security measures such as Web filtering, while 29 percent lacked anti-spam protection. How can you protect yourself and your business? Make sure you educate employees about the threat and train them in basic security awareness, such as avoiding opening emails and attachments coming from suspicious senders or with suspicious content. Consider beefing up your network security measures – including installing and using updated antivirus software, network firewalls, and web and mail filtering solutions. Too busy? Don’t know how to start? Then perhaps this is a good time to seek out the services of a professional. Call us today to see how we can help protect your business.
Small Business Bank Accounts being Cleaned Out by Online Robbers Read More »
For any business, information is as precious as currency – but it can be easily lost, hacked, or destroyed. That’s why it’s important to assess your backup solution and find ways to improve it, to avoid impending disasters and prevent any business interruption. It’s impossible to have a disaster recovery plan without first having an efficient backup solution. So, the question is: Is your backup solution truly efficient – or just good enough? Traditionally, backup processes use a tape storage method. But unfortunately, tape has many limitations. Tape-based backup systems involve high costs. This is especially true with large capacity backups. Additional problems include complicated upgrades, degradation over time, and sluggish backup and restoration. Traditional backup procedures only capture a single snapshot of your information each day. This means that if your backup is programmed to occur at 12 midnight, you jeopardize losing the entire next day’s work if disaster strikes. Backing up traditionally requires rigorous manual labor . Someone has to make sure that the proper media is in the drive. Someone has to evaluate the backup results to ensure completeness, as well as periodically execute data restorations. Once the backup is complete, someone has to take it offsite for security purposes. Although some companies are equipped to perform all of these backup-related tasks, most aren’t—and many are unsure whether their backups will be available when needed. However, during the last three to five years, the standard backup method has shifted to digital solutions that provide greater capacity and quicker backup and restoration. Here are some ways that you can improve your backup system: Ensure that every bit of your data is backed up several times per day. Remove the human factor from the backup equation. (This reduces the possibility of error as well as operating costs.) Choose a restoration process that is fast yet flexible, so you can easily re-instate your entire data set or any part of it if needed. Ensure that your system has very little impact on your business operations. It should be transparent to you and your employees that the backups are even taking place (that is, until you need them, of course!). Don’t hesitate to contact us for more details. We can help you put together and manage an efficient backup solution that’s ideal for your specific requirements.
Backup Solution Assessment: How to Improve Your Backup System Read More »
So, you have opted to purchase Managed Services annually for the past few years, and you have been enjoying the benefits that Managed Services offers to your business. But as your company and market evolves, your Managed Services subscription may require an upgrade as well. Having only one IT consultant may no longer be enough, if your business has grown considerably, and your company’s network may now extend beyond the limitations of a single IT consultant. New problems may also plague your now larger and possibly more complex network. If so, you should probably start to consider upgrading your Managed Services contract. Here are a few ways optimized Managed Services may help you: No unplanned expenses – Fixing IT problems will cost you, and more often than not, that cost can be prohibitive. You’ll be forced to shell out money unexpectedly so that you can address the problem as soon as possible, so the effect on your work is minimal. With the appropriate Managed services, you can allocate your budget accordingly. Lower staffing costs – Filling-in IT staff positions is often much more expensive, not to mention more tedious, when put side by side with Managed Services. You have to train them as well. Managed Services provide you with trained personnel who specialize in managing your network for a much lower cost. With the right number of experienced IT personnel, network disruptions would be largely minimized. Increased operations efficiency – When network problems are eliminated, the efficiency of your operations would noticeably increase. You could do more and serve more. Your customers would be happier and your employees would be free from frustration. All of this of course leads to higher revenues.
Three Reasons You Might Want to Upgrade Your Managed Services Subscription Read More »
Cleaning a dirty workstation not only helps prevent getting infections and sicknesses, it also helps make your workspace – and all that’s in it – more efficient to use. And since cleaning materials don’t cost much and cleaning itself isn’t all that time consuming, there’s little reason to put them off. Did you know that an average office keyboard and mouse can contain as much as 400 times more germs and bacteria than a toilet seat? That’s pretty disgusting, especially when you start to imagine opening a bag of chips and eating from it – after using your keyboard. Ingesting such dangerous bacteria can cause any number of ailments and illnesses, ranging from mild to seriously life threatening. The good news is that preventing these kinds of health incidents is pretty easy. The solution: regularly cleaning your workspace, especially your keyboard and mouse. Cleaning your workspace and workstation also has the added benefit of making your computer work more efficiently. Dust, dirt, and grime stuck in your keyboard and mouse make them sticky and uncomfortable to use, while de-dusting and cleaning the inside of your CPU enables better ventilation that increases its life span and performance. Cleaning materials don’t cost much (especially when you consider the cost of hospital and medicine bills), and cleaning isn’t all that time consuming – so there’s little reason to put it off. Disinfectant wipes – which can kill about 95 percent of existing bacteria – are available at any grocery store, and you can buy compressed air at most office supply stores to clean the spaces between and under the keys of your keyboard. It takes less than 5 minutes of your time each day. So why risk the chance of infection and sickness when you can simply take a few minutes each day to disinfect and clean your workspace? It might be terribly trite, but the saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” still holds true.
Keeping Workplaces and Workstations Clean Read More »
Besides the obvious loss of your hardware and inconvenience that brings, experts cite a much more important concern: the information you have inside, such as saved passwords and sensitive business and personal information. In the wrong hands, a stolen laptop can compromise your personal security and the security of your business. A study by security vendor Symantec cites that in the United States alone, someone’s laptop gets stolen every 53 seconds. And of that number, 97 percent of those are never recovered. Besides the obvious loss of your hardware and the inconvenience that brings, experts cite a much more important concern with stolen laptops: the loss of the information you have inside. Saved passwords, sensitive business and personal information – in the wrong hands, a stolen laptop can compromise your personal security and the security of your business, not to mention the actual loss of the data itself. Symantec and the Ponemon Institute, an independent data, information, and security research firm, pegs the average loss from a stolen business laptop to about a whopping $10 million. This is why it’s paramount that you guard yourself against laptop theft and put measures in place to guard your data in the event that your laptop gets stolen. Fortunately, there are several options you can choose from, such as installing a tracking program on your laptop and regularly backing up your data. You can also use more sophisticated passwords and encryption for your computer, making it harder to crack. Some trace programs also include an option to remotely wipe the data on your laptop in case of theft. Both your laptop and the data on it are important business tools, which is why you might want to consider upgrading your security measures to help prevent losses from theft. Please give us a call and we’ll be happy to provide a blueprint of security policy that works for you.
Keeping Your Information Safe: Solutions for Stolen Laptops Read More »
These days, 140 characters can mean a lot. But the value of what you put in Twitter depends largely on how you manage your Twitter-ing. Here are a few tips to help you start on the right path. It’s common knowledge these days that social networking websites such as the hugely popular Twitter can be used not only as an online socializing medium, but also as a powerful business tool. However, not everyone becomes as successful as they want to. Here are a few tips experts recommend you follow when using Twitter: Pick who you follow. Many people think that Twitter is all about getting as many followers as possible and following as many people as possible. However, while it’s true that Twitter numbers can be powerful, it’s also important to remember that the quality of the Tweets you follow also counts for a lot. Plan ahead. Make things short and sweet. If you make it a habit of Tweeting at exactly 140 characters, you might want to rethink that. In case some of your followers decide to re-Tweet you, characters at the end of the Tweet will be lopped off to make room for “RT (insert Twitter username here)”. So if you have valuable information at the end of Tweet – like a link – for example, it becomes incomplete. Tweet at peak times. Try to determine the time when you have the biggest number of people viewing you. That way, you can get your message across much more effectively to as much people as possible. If you want to know more about maximizing your Twitter account for your business, please contact us and we’ll be happy to assist you.
Tips on Successful Twitter-ing for Business Read More »
These days, businesses are driven by a need to save on costs while maintaining a high level of productivity. So when it comes to printing requirements in the office, it helps to have a multi-use device that keeps expenses at a minimum and doesn’t compromise efficiency and productivity. These days, printers have become more than just, well, printers. There are many additional features and factors to consider for your purchase, as well as its use, to be as cost effective as possible. Multi-functionality is one of the most important factors you should consider when buying a printer. With technology moving in leaps and bounds, having a device that just prints out paper won’t cut it anymore. Today’s printers have multiple functions, which make them more versatile. Look for features such as a built in scanner (preferably capable of multiple page scanning), as well as fax and copy options. It’s much more convenient to have everything in a single device, and it saves space too. Another factor to consider is how economical your printer will be to use. One feature that helps reduce costs is called duplex printing, which allows you to print on both sides of the page – saving on paper costs and making your operations much more environment friendly. Make sure that your printer has the option of setting duplex printing as its default mode. Another way to save is by determining which type of printer you need – laser or inkjet. Inkjet printers print slower, but are cheaper to purchase and use. Laser printers print faster and offer better quality output, but are much more expensive to purchase, and the ink cartridges cost a lot more, too. So before buying a printer, it’s essential to determine how you’ll use it first. Also make sure that your printer has the option to print draft and black-only copies for not-so-important documents. When you don’t need professional quality or color prints you should have the option to enable lower quality printing, which will save on ink costs. You should also look into network printing, which lets multiple users print from a single printer. This enables you to monitor ink and paper usage better, and also eliminates the need for multiple printers in the office, saving on purchase, operation, and maintenance costs. An LCD on your printer will also help you diagnose and troubleshoot problems, as well as preview documents that are printing or in the cue. If you are looking for help in buying a new printer for your office, or want to organize your existing printing system to save on costs, please feel free to give us a call so we can discuss options that will meet your particular needs.
Things Your Printer Should Be Read More »
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