Office 2010 is now available and has many great improvements.  If you’re an Outlook user, you’ve got a lot to look forward to. 

Personally, my favorite feature is conversation view; much like Gmail emails are threaded together as conversations instead of individual messages. In addition, the Ribbon, which keeps all your commands in an easy to reach place; has now been added to Outlook and OneNote. (continue reading…)

A “patch” is a fix applied to known security flaw in a software program or operating system.  According to Symantec, a security vendor, in their 2009 security review, the biggest threat to computer security is the lack of applying new security patches when available. (continue reading…)

The 4 most important reasons a client chooses and maintains a relationship with a technology provider are:

1. Ease of doing business
2. On time delivery
3. Quality and function of the service
4. Relationships

We suggest the following as you evaluate who to choose to deliver technology services to your company:

• Call the references they give you. No one is perfect. Ask for the strengths and struggles of the partnership. If they cannot give you constructive ways the provider can improve, they are not a good reference.
• Ask for samples of their reporting. No service is valuable or manageable unless you can measure it. Review the service providers reports and their frequency to determine if they meet your needs.
• Review their contract. You want a documented agreement that clearly states what is covered, what is not covered and contingencies. You also want to make sure you have a way to terminate with and without cause.

The final step is to seriously ask and answer for your company these three questions:

1. Am I ready to make their outsource proposition a priority?
2. Is this solution provider the company I need to do business with?
3. How can I justify their services in my budget?

When you have all of the facts, the answers will just jump out at you.

I was reading the Wall Street Journal website recently, and came across an interesting article about online bank fraud. The article was about a a small business owner in California had over $100,000 stolen from his bank account.

He only recovered about $50,000 of it back. The other $50,000 went to a bank in Europe, where mules (someone who receives the stolen money) started to withdraw the money from the bank account.

How did this happen? The business owner had spyware on his computer that transferred his banking username and password to the hackers. I always shake my head when I read an article like this, because I know it could have been easily avoided.

Anti-virus and anti-spyware

The first step in protecting yourself is to make sure your computer has anti-virus and anti-spyware installed.

For your business, make sure that you’re using commercial quality protection – not something you download from the Internet for free.

The stronger your first layer of protection, the safer you are online.

We see computers every day that don’t have this simplest of protection installed; or, worse, the business owner has installed protection software, but then fails to keep it updated or renewed.

Unified threat management

The next step is to invest in a unified threat management (UTM) firewall. A UTM firewall is miles ahead of the simple DSL or cable routers you’d pick up at the office supply store.

They offer solid protection against viruses, hackers, spyware, and the host of other Internet dangers.

The device scans all Internet traffic in real time, and can protect you even before the anti-virus and antispyware vendors have updated their software for new attacks.

UTM firewalls can also implement web filtering and prevent the computer from reaching the intended attacker.

Web filtering can block access to websites that contain malware and spyware; it can also protect employees from going places they shouldn’t be.

A dedicated firewall and UTM appliance is very effective in helping prevent an attack such as this.

Block SPAM at the source

One of the sneakiest ways hackers can compromise your computer is through email, so you’ll want to look for a rock-solid spam filtering solution. Numerous cloud based (hosted) solutions exist that are very inexpensive. A good spam filter will keep viruses, phishing and other attacks from hitting your email.

With online banking, phishing attacks are very common. Someone creates an email that looks like your bank in an attempt to collect information, you click on the link, and next thing you know, the hackers have your login and password.

Personally, I never open emails from my bank. Most banks will not contact you for important account information with email.

Perform regular maintenance

The fourth step to keeping your computers safe is patch management. Microsoft releases security updates for Windows nearly very week. Having a trained computer professional ensure patches are applied correctly – and quickly – will protect you from any security holes in the software that you’re running.

Most small businesses should look at one of our managed service plans, which provides you with “whatever it takes” service at a low fixed monthly cost.

Pay attention

The final step is a matter of common sense. Most people will go to potentially hazardous websites or click on something they shouldn’t have. My suggestion is if you are doing Internet banking, it should be on a computer that is used the least.

If you are going to go to questionable websites, don’t do it on the computer where you do your banking.

Securing your network can be a very challenging task, especially without professional help. There is an overwhelming amount of information about network and data security. Four things that will help prevent hackers, viruses, and other potential threats are these:

1. Anti-spam filter
2. Anti-virus/Anti-malware/Anti-spyware software
3. Firewall
4. Data Backup

An anti-spam filter can ease a lot of headaches for both employees and management. Some individuals receive hundreds (sometimes thousands) of spam emails every day. This over-load of email messages slows down your internet, puts your network at risk of viruses. The issue with a poorly running anti-spam filter is not only that it does not filter out all spam and put your network at risk, but also that it sometimes blocks good email – which can result in angry customers and lost sales.

Anti-virus/malware/spyware software can help weed out the things that leak in through surfing the web. Think of running an anti-virus scan as the same as an oil change for your car – it just keeps everything running smoothly.

A firewall helps prevent hackers and malicious activity more than anything. A firewall blocks unauthorized access and communication to your network and protects your data. It is a dedicated appliance running on a computer that inspects network traffic and denies or allows passage based on a set of rules. It ensures that no private data goes and nothing malicious comes in. It regulates the flow of traffic between computer networks of different security levels.

Data backup ensures that even in the event of a disaster such as a flood, theft, hardware or software failure your data is safe and recoverable. Only 6% of businesses survive a major data disaster. Backing up data keeps it safe and secure no matter what.

With few IT resources and even fewer security skills, mom-and-pop shops increasingly look like juicy targets for the bad guys. (continue reading…)

There is a powerful force driving all businesses to deliver superior products and services faster and on tighter margins–technology. Every business, from small mom-and-pop stores to large enterprises, is developing a dependence on technology. Whether it’s e-mail, websites, databases, accounting software, or social media, there are very few businesses that don’t have some level of dependence on their computer network and the various applications and data it stores.

The upside of technological advances is tremendous. When applied correctly, technology can provide your business significant competitive advantages in faster production, increased productivity, improved customer service, and up-to-the-minute reporting for strategic planning and decision making.

Downside of Technology

The downside of this vast dependence on technology is that, when it doesn’t work, it can become a tremendous source of frustration, putting a major strain on production, sales, and fulfillment. No business is immune from computer problems and failures. Without proper network maintenance, the average business can end up with spyware, viruses, and system crashes that can easily turn into major network outages.  An that’s not including the daily computer “glitches” and problems that frustrate you and your employees.

Then there is the complexity of it all. Installing and supporting even a small network requires specialized knowledge and skills that small business owners simple don’t have in-house, and the margin for error is greatly reduced in a small business. If a large corporation makes a $50,000 technology mistake, it’s certainly not a good thing, but it only represents a minor blip in their overall information technology budget. If a small business makes a $20,000, or even a $10,000, technology mistake, it significantly impacts their profitability and cash flow!

If you’re like most business owners, you probably shy away from things technical in nature because you don’t understand how they work, why they work, or how to operate them. After all, what you want are business solutions to drive sales and profit, not whiz bang gadgets and budget-busting non solutions that break and make your life more complicated. Yet the technology that runs your business is too important and too expensive to ignore.

Web security and the vexing problem of malicious software made headlines again last week when computer antivirus software maker McAfee sent out a botched update that crashed thousands of computers around the world. (continue reading…)

You know how important it is to use strong passwords, here is the simplest way to do so.

You’re constantly told how easy it would be to hack your weak passwords, but complicated passwords just aren’t something our brains get excited about memorizing. Reader calculusrunner offers a brilliant tip that turns weak passwords into something much, much better.

His clever solution: Stick with your weak, dictionary password if you must; just move your fingers over a space on the keyboard.

If you want a secure password without having to remember anything complex, try shifting your fingers one set of keys to the right. It will make your password look like gibberish, will often add in punctuation marks, and is quick and simple.

When John Pozadzides showed us how he’d hack our weak passwords, he listed his top 10 choices for getting started hacking away at your weak passwords. Let’s take a look at how a few of those popular passwords fare when run through calculusrunner’s method:

• password => [sddeptf
• letmein => ;ry,rom
• money => .pmru
• love => ;pbr

Something longer but still really lame, like, say, “topsecretpassword”, becomes “yp[drvtry[sddeptf”. These may not be perfect compared to secure password generators, but they’re likely orders of magnitude better than a lot of people’s go-to passwords.

Original Post at http://lifehacker.com/5516188/shift-your-fingers-one-key-to-the-right-for-easy+to+remember-but-awesome-passwords/

One of the ways I’m differentiating our company from the competition and other consultants is with our focus on security. Many people and businesses are falling behind and suffering because of a lack of security for their technology systems. Yet most consultants are refusing to educate and implement best practice security measures.

For instance, I get frequent calls from local businesses that are having trouble with email. Their vendors and customers are not receiving their emails or they receive bounce back notices for SPAM. One prevalent issue with unsecured business email is that you can become “blacklisted”. This happens typically when a PC in your organization becomes infected with a virus which then sends out SPAM email. Blacklists identify organizations and IP addresses (internet “phone numbers”) as spammers and help organizations and security products block SPAM. Being “blacklisted” can do serious damage to your business, preventing your email from flowing to your prospects, customers and vendors.

As these threats become more rampant and complex, security needs to be one of the first areas of discussion for your technology needs. As a best practice, we implement core security measures for all our clients and build upon that with layers of security solutions.