CK Computer Solutions » IT Services

Smart Phones – the Tools of the Trade

admin — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 09:00:03 +0000

The workplace is mobile today. Teleconferencing is an integral part of the lives of millions of employees in transit around the world; the advent of the smart phone combined with on-line collaboration services allows business to happen anywhere and everywhere.

The mobile workforce is growing in Europe. Mobile phone usage in Ireland is one of the largest per head of population. It is forecasted that 57pc of the workforce in Ireland will be mobile by 2016. Businesses have an important decision to make in this age of many choices. Should the company invest in iPhones or Androids? Vodaphone and O2 dominate 85pc of the marketplace in Ireland and offer models of both phones free with certain plans. Beyond price there is a more serious consideration, the compatibility issues between mobile phones. It is with this consideration that the iPhone ranks higher than the Android.

The Android phone runs Google’s Android mobile operating system. Google offers the Android software to many phone manufacturers such as HTC, Samsung and Motorola. Android phones can vary in size, features, quality and weight. This has lead to a fragmentation, the existence of multiple versions of the Android operating system across different models of phones. If employees choose Androids, a business may find that through the lack of quality control employees buy different models of the Android phone. This can become a problem when an on-line meeting or business app is used and some employees have trouble due to incompatibilities. These problems cause inefficiencies that translate to hidden costs. Apple, on the other hand, has a tighter control over the hardware and software of the iPhone. This standard has lead to more stability. As long as employees update their phones regularly through iTunes, the work force will remain synchronized.

Another consideration to be taken into account is the ease in which a user can configure the interface. Partly due to the flexibility of the Android, the phone is highly configurable. This may be advantageous to a regular user but in terms of business, the phone is the property of the company. Any phone should be able to be picked up and used by any employee. Your business phone is not your personal property. A colleague may need to borrow another colleague’s phone and if the interface has been configured to be extremely unique, time is wasted learning to do what can be done quickly on his or her own phone. The iPhone is not as configurable; its interface is more standard and tends toward the simple.

Another issue to be considered by a business is social networking. Tweeting, facebook and accessing YouTube can waste valuable work time. To prevent this behavior it is best to make it policy that a mobile phone does not have cell phone apps installed that are not business related.

The choice between iPhone and Android is different for personal use as compared to business use. For a number of considerations based on standardizations as well as the availability cheaper iPhone business apps, an iPhone is a better choice for business.

Reason for SPAM In Your Email

admin — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 09:00:18 +0000

There are many reasons why you might suffer from unsolicited commercial email, or SPAM, in your inbox. In some cases, you have no control over this — for example, some spam is sent by hackers who simply input any possible combination of letters associated with your domain name when they send out mailings. In this case, some of the spam will inevitably reach you. However, there are certain actions you can take to make sure that you receive only the minimum amount of spam.

1) Use Smaller Email Services: “Freemail” services like Hotmail and Yahoo are the most likely to receive unsolicited commercial messages. Hackers send out thousands and thousands of messages to random addresses in the hopes of getting a hit. Although the response rate to these messages is less than .001%, it still justifies the time and effort involved in sending them. Smaller email services make less tempting targets because, understood as a percentage, less potential profit is involved.

2) Be Cautious of Social Media and Forums: Putting your email address out on the Internet will inevitably lead to some spam. The most persistent spammers do not spam random email addresses, but instead “harvest” email addresses that they know are valid and active. To accomplish this harvesting, they go online to popular social media sites and to forums that do not encrypt email addresses. You should not list your email address in any forum profile. Only offer to share your address through a private message.

3) Use Email Associated With Your Domain: If you own a business or a blog with its own domain name, using an email address associated with that domain will cut down on spam. This goes back to the principles explained above — your business is likely not a huge target with millions of users, and therefore is not on most hackers’ radar screens. Be cautious of listing your email on your website, however, as this can lead to spam from “website development services” companies, often offshore.

4) If You Must List Your Email, Use an Image: Any text on the Internet can easily be crawled and indexed by bots used by the major search engines. On the other hand, images are indexed infrequently. If you need to share your email address, either on your own site or in your forum signature, use an image that lists the address. Bots cannot interpret the text in the image, although you will still be susceptible to a small minority of hackers who might be trawling a given website for leads.

5) Use a Spam Filter: Today’s spam filters have the capacity to be incredibly precise. For example, in more than five years of holding a Gmail account, one might only see two or three spam emails. Although hundreds of spam messages are sent, more than 99.9% end up in the Spam filter, where they will never trouble you. If you’re having difficulty with spam, explore your filtering options. There are free and commercial spam filters available.

The importance of backing up your files

admin — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 09:00:03 +0000

Having important files on your computer is certainly something that everyone does but it seems like people do not know how to take care of them. You will find that people will rarely back their computers up and then go through the pain and stress of losing all of their files. This is something that most people ignore yet they complain once it happens to them. There are several reasons why it is crucial to backup your files and to make sure that you always have a copy.

Why Backup?

• Emergencies

You must understand that you never know when your computer will simply give up. Whether you have a brand new Mac or an old PC, the computer can somehow crash. This is something that can happen at anytime and so you need to be aware of this. Backing up your files should become a habit that you do on a weekly or even daily basis, depending on how much work you do.

• Need Copies

Sometimes you might not have your computer with you but you need your files. This is why it is a good idea to always have an external hard drive. When you have an external hard drive, you practically have your computer with you at all times. This is certainly something that student or businessman would need to ensure that they have all of their files safe in one place.

• Less Stress

It can be quite stressful to have to think about your files and hoping that they don’t disappear. It is a hassle to have to find lost files and then hope that you can find them again. Remember that most people will just ignore having an external hard drive and this is something that you can’t do. You must focus on being able to find a hard drive that will fit your files and give you all the space that you need.

• Convenience

It is very convenient to have your whole computer on a single hard drive. You can find hard drives that are very affordable and you don’t have to buy one that is too big. Simply buy a hard drive that is enough for the files that you have but always make room for some extra files. Remember that video files can be very space consuming and so you should always keep this in mind when looking to buy an external hard drive.

The process of finding a good hard drive is really all about making sure that you have all the files that you need in one place. If you just need a 500GB hard drive, then that would be more than enough. As long as you know the importance, you will certainly benefit from an external hard drive.

What is IT Managed Services

admin — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 09:00:27 +0000

Introduction
IT managed services refers to the delegation of management duties to an IT specialist to improve the performance of an organization. Organizations can procure IT managed services to reduce operational costs and manage people and resources at work more effectively and conveniently. Companies that require managing their operations with accountability can get a comprehensive package with these services.

Advantage
There are many advantages of using IT managed services in place of the conventional management style. IT managed services can enable a business to enhance its networking capacity and reach a wider audience all over the world. Through the use of technology, one can maximize the utilization of their investments and reduce the risk of doing business, such as effects of industrial strikes, and the sudden change in the business environment.

Fear
There is no fear of another entity taking over the business when one decides to hire IT managed services. IT managed services also protect investments and intellectual property using scientific and time-proven techniques.
Some IT managed services offer a wide variety of services such as computer networking, Internet connections, management of IT infrastructure, operation and management of servers, and so on. Besides these, management of the company’s databases is also part of the process, of course, with the authorization of the company’s administration. If some information within the databases is classified, they can remain out of bounds

Security
In addition, most of the information of the organization that is highly sensitive and crucial to the daily operations of the business needs to be stored safely, and if possible, backed up in case they are destroyed. Accidents do happen in the workplace and a fire might occur, which might destroy all the documents. Likewise, a robbery could just happen and the robbers might decide to take away important documents away.

Selection
When searching for a good company for IT managed services, one must be careful to choose the best. For one, one must ensure the IT specialist is legally registered with the relevant authorities and ensure the laws governing such an arrangement is adhered to. The company must also have experience in dealing with many related issues and provide flexibility in their operations. To be certain, one should ask for recommendations from companies which have used the IT managed services in the past or they can do a private research on the companies offering to provide the services.

Quality
Since smart business entails proper use of available resources, one can look for a company that does not charge excessive fees. However, quality should never be compromised for the sake of saving costs. The best IT managed services provider is one that helps deal with the challenges, and not the cheapest service provider.

What is Server Virtualisation – Advantages, Disadvantages

Christian — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 09:00:44 +0000

While the use of virtual servers has gained a lot of popularity in the recent past, the concept is not as new as many people tend to assume. The history of server virtualisation can be traced as far back as the 1960s, when companies still used mini and mainframes. IBM wanted to run some simple processes that caused conflict when operated from one computer. At the same time, it was too expensive to have independent computers dedicated to the tasks. So they found a way of using software to partition one server to function as several independent servers.However, people gradually pushed the method to the background as technological advancements led to the production of smaller and cheaper computers.The use of many computers came with its own challenges though. The computers required an extensive cooling system, effectively pushing up the operating costs. On the other hand, the computers were greatly underutilised. People started taking server virtualisation seriously once more.Virtual servers provide several great benefits, including:CostServer virtualisation is significantly cheaper than using dedicated servers that are entirely meant for individual businesses. Several businesses share the same server but it is partitioned such that all users get hardware resources dedicated to their own uses. The method is especially ideal for business Web sites that attract five thousand or more views per day. Such businesses have too much demands for shared hosting to handle while using dedicated servers would be unnecessarily costly. Irrespective of how busy any day may be, the businesses are still assured of good performance.Flexibility

Businesses using virtual servers have the opportunity to choose their preferred operating systems as well as other programs.

They also have root access, which means they are not restricted to installing their server environments through their respective Web hosts. They fully control their own server environments and can install a wide variety of applications.

Better Availability

Server virtualisation allows live migration, whereby the virtual servers are moved to a different physical server to ensure continued availability during such things as maintenance. Therefore, businesses will not have their Web sites shut down, which interferes with their operations.

While server virtualisation undoubtedly has great benefits, it also has its own drawbacks.

Scalability

Businesses will create more demand on the virtual servers as they expand, leading them to use more resources at the expense of others. If the system is not designed with scalability in mind, the situation can be tricky. Businesses must consider this possibility in advance.

New Skills

Although having root access gives businesses more flexibility, it also has its own challenges. For example, the businesses will be responsible for their own setups, which requires relevant skills. However, server virtualisation is a good option for many businesses.

Avoiding IT Security Issues After Employee Leave or Termination

admin — Tue, 08 May 2012 09:00:37 +0000

Terminating an employee can be a challenging time for many businesses and organizations. While there are many potential reasons for employee termination, it’s often an emotionally-charged time for businesses and employees. Some employees who are leaving a workplace may do things that are counterproductive for a company. For employees who are not expecting a layoff or termination, a sense of resentment can often lead to company sabotage. The following guide provides simple tips for avoiding IT security issues after employee termination.

It’s important to make several arrangements before an employee is notified of his or her termination. While it’s important to immediately cease access to confidential information, it’s important to do it immediately before the termination. This will prevent the employee from having time to figure out what is happening.There are several things that a company should do to prevent a terminated employee from accessing critical information. It’s a good idea to block an employee’s email accounts and computer passwords several minutes before a termination. In addition, it’s important to immediately remove any access rights to other sources of information. This can include public access databases, customer resource management software, etc.In addition, it’s important to block an individual’s access to business-related social media profiles. There has been some controversy in recent months over employees who have claimed ownership of a social media profile they created while working for a business. While this social media profile may be branded with a business’s name, it also may have the employee’s name visible. In these situations, it’s important to find effective ways to gain access to these accounts.

There are several potential techniques for gaining access to an employee’s social media accounts. Most of these methods will require surveillance over the course of a few weeks. In addition, some methods of retrieving information may be illegal in some areas. It’s important to conduct proper research into local rules and regulations before taking control of social media profiles.

One of the easiest ways to gain access to an employee’s social media profiles is through the use of a keylogger on a company owned computer. A keylogger can be set up to automatically record the passwords for a variety of social media websites and email services. While it is inappropriate to take control of personal accounts, it’s often acceptable to take control of public social media profiles. This can be a great way for a company to manage its expensive assets and minimize loss.

In addition, a gag order may be appropriate for employees with a high visibility. This will prevent an employee from badmouthing a company after he or she has been asked to leave.

[img: http://timsstrategy.com/laid-off-fired-or-leaving-on-your-own/]

Windows Blue Screen of Death: Causes and Fixes

admin — Wed, 02 May 2012 09:00:00 +0000

The “Blue Screen of Death,” Microsoft Windows’ well-known error message, is more technically known as a “Stop error.” The BSoD has been around since the Windows 1.0 days, though it’s replaced in the upcoming Windows 8 with a friendlier version, complete with “sad face” emoticon. The stop error screen signifies that Windows has experienced an unrecoverable error and needs to restart. There are various reasons for the infamous BSoD. The top five are described here with their causes and possible solutions.

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

This is the most common Blue Screen error. It indicates a hardware-related problem, either with a buggy or corrupt driver or an actual hardware conflict. The best course of action with this Blue Screen of Death error is to reinstall drivers for any recently-added hardware or to uninstall the hardware itself. Running Windows update might result in newer, Microsoft-recommended drivers being installed as well. Another BSoD error along these lines is “KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED,” and similar troubleshooting steps should be taken.

INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE

This is the most self-explanatory of the BSoD errors. It means Windows can’t access the disk with the boot sector on it. To resolve this, first check the boot device selection in the BIOS to verify that nothing has changed. The next step is to check all hard drive cabling to make so nothing has come loose. If this problem persists, it could be indicative of a corrupted boot sector. This can possibly be repaired by booting to Windows Recovery Console and running the bootcfg and fixboot commands.

REGISTRY_ERROR

This error usually means the system registry is corrupt and unreadable. Before troubleshooting along these lines, though, it’s important to check cabling and disk access just in case this error is a “false positive” caused simply by an unreadable disk. For the most part, though, this error is unrecoverable and restoration from backups will be necessary.

NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM

NTFS, the file system used in Windows, is much more robust than FAT, the system it replaced. NTFS is not without its flaws, though, and it can become corrupted. The best choice here is to boot to a command prompt and run the chkdsk /f command to check and repair partitions. If this does not work, it may be possible to install Windows on a different partition and then edit the boot.ini file later.

BAD_POOL_HEADER

This error is as common as it is vague. It typically points to a memory error, but this memory error could be caused by almost any system component. The best course of action when this Blue Screen error happens is to roll back the most recent system change by uninstalling the latest program or piece of hardware.

There are many Blue Screen of Death error codes in Windows, but these five are the most common. They can be catastrophic or they can be fixed with simple tweaks. Like with any error, understanding the cause of a BSoD is the key to troubleshooting and ultimately fixing the problem.

Is Microsoft Security Essentials Right for Your Business?

admin — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 09:00:47 +0000

Microsoft Security Essentials is the spiritual successor of Windows Defender, the now old ad-ware and spyware blocker that came default on Windows based operating systems. They took what made Windows Defender good, which was basically the low resource usage and fairly high accuracy when scanning, and made it better. The best part about this is that it’s free to anyone who has a genuine Windows system.

For business use the most common way for a work computer to get a virus or ad-ware is through email. Email attachments are scanning upon receiving them and is completed before the user is allowed to do anything with the attachment. Thankfully this is very fast so you will never notice it scanning before you are allowed to open an attachment. One way a lot of viruses used to get through this scanning was by sending an archived file, Microsoft Security Essentials gets by this by decompressing then scanning before you decompress it yourself. This way if there is a virus hiding in there it will warn you before you let it loose in your computer.

One huge advantage for everyone that has Microsoft Security Essentials is its low resource usage and fast scanning. This means that you can multitask with the scan running with minimal to no slowdown on your computer. So your employees can continue to work while it is scanning or even let it scan over their break and it will be done by the time they get back. This leads to another feature that isn’t new to the anti-virus world and that is scheduled scanning. If setup properly you could have it scan while everyone is out to lunch and they wouldn’t even have to know it scanned their computer, unless of course something was found in which case they could call the IT guys over.

One of the biggest downfalls of Microsoft Security Essentials is that it lacks centralized management features. This means that your IT guys might take a little bit longer than usual making sure everything is running fine on everyone’s computers. This also means that they will not be alerted in real time of any potential threats to the network from their desk. This could pose some problems for some of the larger companies, but if you are a smaller company then this shouldn’t be too big of a deal breaker.

All in all Microsoft Security Essentials is a very good piece of software, but doesn’t come with all the features most business’s require. If you talk with your IT guys and they can work around the downfall of no centralized management and you use Windows on your PC’s then this is a completely free option. Since antivirus’s cost quite a bit for big business this might be the answer to saving a couple of bucks while still providing rock solid protection to your work computers.

Online Backups For Business

Christian — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 09:00:14 +0000

Online Backups For Business and what to look for…

There are many online backup services, but most of them focus on individual users and not businesses. While some individual account can be converted to business use, businesses typically require higher accessibility and memory than an individual. Points to look for when choosing an online backup service should include the number of computers and users that can work simultaneously, the memory amount and the longevity of archives.Most businesses, even very small ones, rarely run on just one computer. There are typically tens or hundreds of computers running simultaneously, and each one has information that needs to be backed up. The business backup service has to include a feature that allows one account to backup all those computers at once. If not, then there are some severe disadvantages. For one, the business must create a separate account for each computer, which costs a lot of money. Another disadvantage is each computer has to be backed up separately, which takes a lot of time. It may be hours before all the computers even start archiving data.

Number of computers:

Along with an account with multiple computers, have a large account that can be accessed by more than one person will also be useful. Upper management, administrators and the technology staff should have access to this account, but each one should have different login information. That way, if anyone messes up or tries to steal data, records will show who is responsible. Another reason to give many people access to the backup account is this allows multiple backups to be made per day.

Space:

Individual backup services typically store around 50 to 100 GB of memory. This may be a good starting point for a business, but this storage threshold will be quickly eaten up, even by a small business. Professional backup services for business should offer at least 500 GB, or they should impose no limit. If no limit is imposed, then the service normally charges per GB, but the business is allowed to save as much data as it wants. This is usually more convenient, and allows the business to grow without fear of bumping into data thresholds.

Archives:

If the business is stagnant, or if data is not accessed or backed up constantly, then a viable worry is the longevity of archives. Some backup services, if data is not accessed or changed within several months, will erase the archive from its servers. If the user does not have that data stored locally, this can be a major problem. Before choosing any service, see how long they keep archives, and be sure to either save a local copy before the time runs out, or change the data, even slightly, to keep it from getting erased.

Viruses, Malware and Spyware: What To Watch Out For

admin — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 09:00:59 +0000

Viruses, malware and spyware can cripple a computer or a network of computers and bring a business to a grinding halt. Malicious software can render a computer unusable as well as destroy vital data. Understanding what to do to prevent this necessitates first understanding exactly what viruses, malware and spyware are. Viruses:
Viruses, also known as worms or Trojans, are designed to damage a computer’s operating system, wipe out data, or both. Some viruses, upon infecting a system, open fake warning popups to try and induce the computer user to click on the popup and ultimately pay money to the creator of the virus to remove it. Other viruses change the computer’s home page or open hundreds of popup ads so that it is impossible to use the computer. The worst viruses attack the computer’s operating system and registry and can only be completely removed by reformatting the computer, causing the loss of any data not protected by a current backup.

Malware:
Malware can be as innocuous as a tracking cookie that delivers targeted advertising to the computer’s user, or as malicious as a keylogger. Keyloggers record every keystroke typed on a computer and can steal passwords, banking information and other private information. Malware is of particular concern to business owners working with sensitive information, such as financial information or medical records. Spyware is another term for malware but is usually applied to tracking cookies and is considered the less severe end of the malware spectrum.

What to watch out for:
What business owners and employees need to watch out for in order to avoid viruses, malware and spyware are email attachments, including commonly used business file formats such as .PDF, software downloads, music and video downloads and clicking on unfamiliar links. One must be particularly cautious on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter because shared games and links can allow malicious software to infect a computer or network of computers. Gamers may click a link thinking they are going to receive some special item for their game and have their account hijacked and their computer infected. Any software downloaded from the Internet should first be verified through a good paid antivirus software which offers a link-checking feature and scans downloads for viruses and malware.All computer users should have current backups of their vital data, including business files, photographs, documents and music. Business owners in particular should invest in a purchased antivirus program which can be installed on multiple computers and help safeguard the entire network. Finally, if a virus or malware does make it past the antivirus software, a business owner may find it worth the money to call for professional help in order to ensure complete removal of the malicious software and protection and recovery of important files.