Have you ever had one of those days when you head into the office looking forward to a “calm everything is as it should be day.” …and then your network crashes and your stress level goes through the roof? If so then you know how this unsuspecting used car salesman feels on a surprise test drive with NASCAR star Jeff Gordon.Give us a call we will make sure you network is as reliable as your Grand Dads’ old Buick.
Pragmatic Business Technology - When Your Technology Isn't Working, Your Business Isn't Either
All posts in Tech Tips
10
Apr- A
dd More Memory. An effective and inexpensive way to improve your computer’s performance is to install more memory (RAM). Unlike your hard drive which you store all of your data, adding more computer memory will speed up your computer programs, allow you to run more applications at the same time, and improve responsiveness. - Perform Regular Maintenance on your Computers. It sounds cliché, but like your cards, your desktops, laptops and servers need regular maintenance to perform at top speed and reliability. If you have a standard hard drive (not a newer solid state drive), defragmenting your hard drive will greatly improve performance on loading applications and files. Also you should periodically scan your hard drive for errors.
- Keep your Operating System and Software Up to Date. Running your Windows Update or Mac OS-X System Update will make sure you are running the latest version. This will make sure that any known vulnerabilities are plugged up and that any known performance related bugs are fixed.
- Run a Spyware Scan once a week. Although you may already have Antivirus software running, you should also install an additional Spyware/Malware scanner to clean up any thing not picked up or left behind by your web-surfing. Spyware does suck up system resources to do its dirty work, ultimately slowing your computer down and causing it to crash. And on top of that, they frequently steal data!
- Remove unnecessary programs from running in the background. Many computer manufacturers will load all sorts of tools and utilities and over the course of time of trying out programs, they will leave things running in the background even after reboots. Each of these processes saps a little bit of performance from your computer. Add them up together and you are taking up a large chunk of your resources. Uninstall programs you no longer need and disable those that don’t need to run in the background.
Although these recommendations will certainly help speed up your systems, it’s not a silver bullet. If your computer network is seriously out of date or constantly crashes or is painfully slow, find an IT support provider. Then it’s time to “Keep Calm and Call Triada Networks.”
02
AprMost small businesses and startups try to go it themselves when it comes to computer support. Many companies will pick the partner that is the most tech savvy or has a younger family member to help bridge the technology generation gap; heck they set up your home wireless network, right? Depending on your sophistication, you may be able to get away with it. However, here are some signs that may show that you are ready to look for outsourced IT support.
- The Computer Support designee at your company is doing more technology work than his or her “day job.” This is probably the most common thing we come across when we meet with new companies. Their office manager is doing more tech work than managing the office, or their nephew has gotten a full time job after college and can no longer help you out.
- Computers are running slower than they did when you first got them. Like your car, your computer is a fine tuned machine. It needs regular maintenance to keep it running properly and at optimal performance. Your outsourced IT support company can implement a proactive maintenance schedule that will get your computers back up to peak performance. This allows you to keep your computers for longer and get more productivity out of them.
- Pop-Ups, Spyware, and Internet searches going to places you shouldn’t be going to! With monitoring, scanning and education, these can be prevented. keep the barbarians at the gate and don’t let them in. Computer viruses, spyware, and other mal-ware have multiple ways in infiltrate your computer network: e-mail, bad websites, USB sticks, and CDs. A proper security plan will ultimately reduce risk, keep your data safe, and even save you money.
- Employees are spending more time surfing Facebook, YouTube and ESPN than working. We know you don’t want to be the Internet police and you would like to give your team the tools to do their jobs. However, your outsourced IT support company can help put together the proper filters including more freedom at certain times of day (lunch time, after work) to get their shopping or social networking done. But, don’t get too heavy handed. Unless you are in a regulated industry that prevents it, you may want to still allow employees access to their social networks; ultimately it can help you grow your business if it’s done right.
- Where is that spreadsheet I worked on last week? You’ve lost a critical file, presentation, or proposal. Your computer crashed and corrupted some important documents. Data loss has hit everyone at some time or another. It is a fact of life. But are you confident you can get back what you lost? What if your office is hit by a hurricane and your computers are flooded? Your backup tapes sitting on top of your server isn’t going to be much use and the copies you brought home last week are grossly outdated. Tape drives have an average failure rate of 100%- that’s right, all tape drives will fail at some point, usually without warning and when you need it the most. You could use an online backup provider that advertises on the radio (and for home users or for less-time sensitive data, it may be fine) but you’ll have to wait up to a week or more to get your files back. How did your business work during that time?
When your technology isn’t working, your business isn’t either. This isn’t just a motto or a throw away marketing line. We know this is true about our customers which is why we take making sure your computer networks are running optimally and available, very seriously.
If you are interested in a FREE Network Report Card, give us a call at 201-297-7778 or visit http://triadanet.com/free and fill out the form. We will come to you and provide a no-obligations assessment of where your computer network stands and hand you a report card.
21
Mar
Passwords are the least expensive way to keep people out of systems they should not have access to. Unfortunately most companies to not properly set password policies to prevent the use of weak passwords: such as dictionary words or information about the person that can be simply found by doing a couple of Internet searches or looking at social networking sites.
The flip side of the password issue is that if you force employees to select very complex passwords that are difficult to remember, they will write them down on those yellow sticky notes and stick them to their monitor or under their keyboards. Security professionals that do security assessments and penetration testing, call these “yellow gold.” By checking dumpsters or waste baskets for these sticky notes, an attacker will gain knowledge to your password patterns.
Ok, so if you can’t select weak passwords and you shouldn’t select complex passwords because employees will write them down, what should you do? What is a good password? Armstrong and Simonson state the obvious: “a good password is easy to remember, but hard to guess.” (Armstrong, 1996) One effective method would be to use a pass phrase. Perhaps a line from your favorite movie: “I made him an offer he can’t refuse.” If your systems or application cannot support long passwords, use the first letter of each word: “Imhaohcr” You can make this further complex by replacing certain letters with similarly looking symbols or numerals: “!mh@0hcr” This makes it something easy to remember, but hard to guess. A website that I like to use for generating easy to remember passwords is actually one meant for kids, called dinopass.
Alternatives to Passwords
But because passwords are cheap, they are also inexpensive to break into. Attackers have many tools at their disposals to crack passwords. A password is a one factor authentication system in that it uses something you know, your password. A two factor authentication system adds a second factor to reduce your exposure. A second factor can be something you have like a token that generates one time passwords or something you are like a fingerprint, iris or retina scan, face recognition, etc. You must decide as a business owner if the additional expense of adding such a system to protect your assets. But if it can prevent a loss of customer data, it may well be worth the expense.
Managing Multiple Accounts
One difficulty we all face is the multiple accounts we need to maintain. People have used several methods to cope. Using the same password on multiple accounts common but is not great idea. A less than secure website for example that gets compromised could reveal your account information for a more secure system, like your bank. An alternative way to this is to use separate passwords for your important and sensitive systems vs. ones that are less so. This minimizes the impact for a breach, but it still will leave multiple systems vulnerable. Adding a known password along with a pattern related to the system that you are accessing, such as an abbreviation of a website name.
A better solution would be to use a password manager. A password manager can generate random passwords for each system or website that you need and is protected with a single password. The key to this is of course the strength of that “master password.” Replacing the master password with a two-factor solution as described would provide an additional layer. One such password management system is LastPass, another is 1Password, which up until recently, was only available on the Mac platform.
That’s Great for Individuals but What about Businesses?
Businesses have a similar and yet more complex concern. But more on that later…
06
MarE-Mail drives us all nuts. No sooner you delete one, five more replace it in your inbox. If you are finding it hard to answer every e-mail you receive, you’re obviously not alone. E-Mail bankruptcy has been a common way of people dealing with it- dumping all of their email and starting over- but that’s more like putting your head in the sand, and doesn’t help deal with the volume of new ones coming in.
- Get a Good Spam Filter Even if it just saves you a couple minutes a day, that adds up to many hours a year.
- Cancel Subscriptions of Unwanted Mailing Lists and Legitimate E-Mail Newsletters Be cautious here, if you don’t already have a good spam filter in place, the emails that come into your mailbox may not be from legitimate sources. You may think you are opting out, but you are just giving them the knowledge that you have a working e-mail box that they can further spam. As you purchase goods online, uncheck the “subscribe” box usually at the end, unless you really want to read their latest specials.
- Ask your family and friends to remove you from joke lists and chain letters We all have that friend or loved one that sends us every joke they receive and medical urgency they get forwarded. Ask them politely and tell them your situation.
- Don’t publish your e-mail address on your website (or anywhere else for that matter). Spammers use automated tools called bots to scour websites for e-mail addresses that they can target.
- Don’t respond to every e-mail you get. Seems silly but I’m guessing most of your emails you receive are meant for one-way communications. Unless it’s requested, no need to answer “OK” or some other acknowledgment. By doing so, you are contributing to the noise. Use Reply-To-All sparingly.
- Be succinct. Don’t write long and drawn out emails. They either will not get read or they will be misinterpreted. Pick up the phone or find another way to communicate with them one on one. Keep your lists short or use blind copies so that Reply’s to All don’t flood everyone’s mailboxes
- Subject Lines are your friend. Take advantage. Put your question there. So someone can easily read your message and respond to it without opening up the whole thing. Your good habits will rub off on others. Use small codes to draw attention to important messages or to just inform the recipient.
- Schedule e-Mail time. This is probably the most difficult to do. Schedule your e-mail response times. Some people even make known when they will be responding to emails in an automated response or an email footer. By batching your email responses together your get more done with less distraction. Also, it gives you an opportunity to think more thoroughly and absorb all of the messages you may have received from that sender and response more appropriately. If you feel distracted easily, than turn off your email program for 30 minutes at a time and see how much more you will get done. As a side note, the best time to read your e-mails is not first thing in the morning. Don’t use up your morning energy that way!
- OHIO- Only Handle It OnceUnless the message has a follow up that cannot be acted upon right away, either delete the message or respond to it right away. Touching the same message multiple times is just a time waster. create folders for things you need to do later or put them in your calendar. A great resource for this is http://www.43folders.com/topics/inbox-zero by Merlin Mann. It’s based on techniques from David Allen’s Getting Things Done (http://davidco.com)
As much as you want to keep your inbox down, you should do your best to help out others as well.
- Be courteous when you are forwarding e-mails. Summarize the thread if you can and put it on top like an Executive Summary. Spare your recipient from having to read the whole thing.
- Don’t copy someone on a message unless it is necessary. And explain in the message why are copying them. This way they don’t have to guess what your intentions are: Do they need to act on something? Are you just sending it for their knowledge or keeping them in the loop? Tell them!
Happy E-Mailing!
19
JanSince getting the Mac bug a few years back, I’ve flipped back and forth between both Windows and Mac (and occasionally Ubuntu Linux). Because many of my applications require Windows or Internet Explorer (which only runs on Windows) I find myself finding ways to work around it using various tools like remote desktops to Windows machines and virtual computers that allow you to run a copy of Windows on top of your Mac.
Although Office 2011 for the Mac has narrowed the gap, particularly with Outlook 2011, in terms of functionality with its Windows cousin, there are some things that are frustrations. In my effort to learn more about Outlook 2011 for my own use as well as customers, I came across the following post on Office for Mac Blog by Microsoft.
Here are some of those shortcuts:
| COMMAND+R | Reply to Message |
| COMMAND+SHIFT+R | Reply All to Message |
| COMMAND+J | Forward Message |
| COMMAND+[RETURN] | Send Message your are composing |
| COMMAND+OPTION+N | Compose a New Message |
| COMMAND+[LEFT ARROW] | Previous Calendar Period |
| COMMAND+[RIGHT ARROW] | Next Calendar Period |
| COMMAND+0 (ZERO) | Contacts Search Pane |
| COMMAND+` | Switch between open windows in the same application (this is across all apps on the Mac) |
| COMMAND+F | Find (based on what window you have open) |
| COMMAND+OPTION+F | Search All |
| COMMAND+[UP ARROW]+O (letter O) | Toggle between Unread Messages/Clear Filter |
| COMMAND+R | Reply to Message |
| COMMAND+[PLUS] | Increase text size while reading |
| COMMAND+[MINUS] | Decrease text size while reading |
| SpaceBar | Quick scroll message/goto next message |
| COMMAND+SHIFT+[UP] | Go to the top of the List (i.e. Messages) |
| COMMAND+SHIFT+[DOWN] | Go to the bottom of the List |
| COMMAND+1 | Go to Mail |
| COMMAND+2 | Go to Calendar |
| COMMAND+R | Go to Contacts |
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