TechTidBit - Tips and advice for small business computing - Tech Experts™ - Monroe Michigan

Brought to you by Tech Experts™

Replace Your PC Every 4 To 5 Years To Save Thousands Of Dollars

Chris Myers is a field service technician for Tech Experts.

When it comes to replacing computers, many consumers and businesses wait as long as possible before committing to an upgrade. However, those businesses would actually be better off in almost every way if they replaced their computers as part of a standard process based on the hardware age.

There are many drawbacks to using an old computer that aren’t immediately visible. All of these result in costs to the business, whether it is due to lost employee productivity, downtime, or lost data on failed drives.

If any of the above issues are visible to a client, they can also cause loss of business purely on the perception of inadequacy or unreliability.

A major difference overall is the gradually decreasing performance that every computer suffers from as time goes on. This is due to the actual mechanical parts wearing down as well as bloat from applications and files.

Additionally, with each new software update, there is more and more of a chance of business software no longer running on older hardware or operating systems.

Computers have many moving parts that have different expected lifetimes. Past four years, it is likely that different hardware components will start failing one by one every four or five months.

Each of these failures will result in a service call to diagnose the problem and replace the part, while the employee is not working.

Hard drive failures are almost always unrecoverable. If that employee does not have a backup in place, there is little anyone can do to restore the lost data.

However, if the upgrade is done while the PC is still functional, absolutely everything can be copied over to the new computer.

This includes files, but also things that aren’t usually backed up, such as applications and user specific settings in their commonly used programs.

On a four-year cycle, each new computer will be at least one major operating system version apart. Operating systems such as Windows 7 and Windows 10 are the framework of the computer and are therefore much harder to change on a computer already in use.

The service charge and software errors for such an installation would be as much or more than buying a new hardware component.

Each new operating system also contains hundreds, if not thousands, of patches to fix security vulnerabilities.

With each passing day, an old computer becomes more and more vulnerable as new holes are found in its programming. Many 5+ year-old operating systems no longer meet the requirements for mandates such as HIPAA.

The price of a new mid-range computer is usually the same as one or two of those service calls. And a new computer would avoid all of the other costs discussed above, usually resulting in savings more than double the price of the new PC.

Enacting a company-wide policy to replace PCs by hardware age also eliminates a great deal of hassle for users, clients, and your IT department.

Is Your Smart TV Spying On You? (Hint: It Is.)

Frank DeLuca is a field technician for Tech Experts.
There’s a good chance your smart TV is spying on you. Smart TVs often analyze the videos you’re watching and report back, whether you’re watching live TV, streaming videos on a service like Netflix, or playing local video files. Worse yet, this can be a security problem.

Smart TVs not only usually have bad interfaces, but they spy on what you’re watching even when you aren’t using their “smarts.”

Modern smart TVs often have “features” that inspect what you’re watching and report it back to some company’s servers.

This data can be sold to marketers or it could be tied to you somehow to create a better ad-targeting profile.

In reality, you are not getting anything out of this as the TV manufacturer just makes some more money on the side by collecting and selling this data.

Smart TVs also have questionable security protections.

For instance, Vizio TVs were discovered to be transmitting tracking data without any encryption, so other people could possibly snoop on the snoopers. They also connect to a server without checking if it’s a legitimate server, so a man-in-the-middle attack could send commands back to the TV.

Vizio says it has fixed this problem and TVs will automatically update to a new firmware.

But are those smart TVs even checking to ensure they’re downloading legitimate firmware files with correct digital signatures?

Based on TV manufacturers’ cavalier attitude towards security in general, I wouldn’t bet on it.

To make matters worse, many smart TVs have built-in cameras and microphones. If the security is so shoddy in general, it would theoretically be possible for an attacker to spy on you through your TV.

What can you do to stop your TV from spying on you?

Just don’t connect your smart TV to your home network and you’ll be protected from whatever built-in analysis features it has and any security vulnerabilities that could be exploited.

If the TV is not connected to the Internet, then it cannot transmit data out.

If you have connected it to the network, go into your smart TV’s settings and disconnect it from the Wi-Fi. Don’t connect it to the network with an Ethernet cable either.

If you’ve already connected to the Wi-Fi network, try to get your smart TV to forget the password. If you can’t, you may need to reset it to its factory default settings. When you set it up again, don’t give it the Wi-Fi password.

This will also prevent your smart TV from embedding extra advertisements into other things you watch — yes, some Samsung smart TVs actually do that!

The best, most secure way to get “smart features” on your TV is by plugging in a streaming box like an Apple TV, Roku, Chromecast, Fire TV, video game console, or one of the many other devices that works better and should be more secure than your smart TV. In which case, that box can be connected to the Internet.

This is part of a larger problem with the “Internet of Things” that society is beginning to grapple with, which envisions modern appliances like your toaster, blender, microware, and fridge becoming “smart” and connecting to the network.

Most devices’ manufacturers don’t seem capable of (or are apathetic toward) creating software and continually updating it so it remains secure.

Smart appliances are great, but the reality of spying and security holes will be a serious problem.

What Can Companies Do To Prevent Privacy Violations?

Thomas Fox is president of Tech Experts, southeast Michigan’s leading small business computer support company.

Whether it’s physical, virtual, or in the cloud, discovering and blocking sophisticated threats in the network is at the forefront of every company’s mind.

However, businesses are finding that more and more data violations are taking place when network security centers on the edge of the network are not giving equal protection to the network itself.

Security at the perimeter of the network has received most of the attention from data protection companies.

What many internet service providers and businesses have neglected is protecting what lies within the network. What can your company do to solidify your network and protect you from hackers on the inside? [Read more…] about What Can Companies Do To Prevent Privacy Violations?

Windows Fall Update 2018: How To Prepare & Avoid Downtime

Jason Cooley is Support Services Manager for Tech Experts.

Here it comes again. Windows is coming back with another large feature update for Windows 10, named Redstone 5. As always, Microsoft is attempting to give people more of what they want and better the user experience.

The upgrades and changes slated to hit this fall vary greatly, from a dark theme for File Explorer to the new Windows 10 smartphone integration feature.

While there may be a little something for everyone, what can you expect your experience to be? We can start by examining the numerous changes coming our way this fall.

The first new feature is Clipboard history and sync. By pressing the Windows key and V, you can open up Clipboard history. Allowing all of those copy and pastes you’ve been doing to be easily recalled. This feature will be great for some users and some will never utilize the functionality.

For an IT professional like myself, I spend a lot of time copying and pasting different things in, not limited to passwords. This brings up many questions, including, “How secure will the sync between devices be?” and “Will any personal information be safe to copy and paste this way, when there is an obvious trail left?” This remains to be seen, but the potential for usefulness, if secure, is exciting.

Another new feature I mentioned earlier is the Dark Theme for File Explorer. This feature allows the color of File Explorer to be changed from white to black. Eyes rejoice! Many people find browsing files and even reading easier to do with a black background and white font. If the brightness is just too much for you to look at day in and day out, then this feature is for you! There is no downside or issue I can see with this feature, as it is purely cosmetic.

Everyone, welcome SwiftKey to Windows 10! Back in 2016, Microsoft purchased the SwiftKey keyboard. SwiftKey is a touch screen keyboard that allows for swipe styling typing. Not impressive on its own, the SwiftKeyboard boasts that it has more accurate autocorrect and predictions by learning your writing style. SwiftKey is intriguing, but a feature that, in reality, doesn’t change much for most people.

The final big feature, the Windows 10 smart phone integration, is equal parts exciting and scary. Any new sync system has the potential to be attacked, depending on the security in place.

The integration brings you the instant access to your photos from your phone to your PC. There are also plans to add sync notifications in the future. There is also the “Continue on PC” option that will allow you to access a link from your computer, picking up where you left off on your phone.

While there are no earth-shattering changes, the biggest concern is how these updates and changes to Windows 10 will affect you in the long run. As with updates in the past, there is a possibility that any of these new system changes will cause issues with different existing applications and processes. 2017’s Fall Creator’s update was the culprit behind numerous applications failing, even people having to do full system restores for no real reason.

While the update will be available in early fall, I would suggest avoiding installing the update until you have to. Especially in a business setting. You can try it at home first, but unless you are running the same applications, there is no way of telling how the changes will affect your system until others discover potential issues.

Researchers Turning To Algorithms To Combat Phishing

Chris Myers is a field service technician for Tech Experts.

Phishing is a type of social engineering attack used to steal user information such as login credentials, bank account information, or credit card numbers. The most commonly seen phishing attack is when an attacker, posing as a legitimate source, tricks a victim into clicking on a malicious link in an email. Once clicked, the link installs malware on the user’s computer and possibly gives the attacker access to other devices on the same network.

Often, the link opens a website owned by the attacker, specifically designed to look like a normal login or account validation page. However, when users enter their information into this website, all they are doing is giving that information directly to the attacker.

Phishing emails have been around since the dawn of the Internet, even having a paper and presentation discussing their use at the 1987 conference for the International HP Users Group, “Interex.”

While the basic premise hasn’t changed since then, attackers have had decades to improve their technique and automated delivery systems.

A New Defense
Jeremy Richards of the mobile device security company Lookout has been developing a novel solution to this problem. Lookout records the network traffic of over 60 million mobile applications and, as such, has a large amount of real-time data it can analyze.

After manually tracking phishing websites through this network, Richards discovered many telltale digital signs of phishing websites. He started creating tools to assist in this detection, but those quickly evolved into their own automated search engine.

The program now goes through several steps to algorithmically narrow down and positively identify malicious websites. For example, the program will check new domains (website addresses) for misspellings of technology or financial companies, or special characters used in place of normal lettering.

Once it spots a suspicious website, it will take a screenshot of the homepage and then automatically search for the logos of thousands of companies. Phishing websites almost always try to look official by using the actual logos from companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Google.

Once a site is confirmed to be malicious, Lookout can report them to the authorities, download the specific phishing code used by the attackers, then look for that code in future scans to find additional websites.

As phishing attacks occur with increasing frequency, these automated solutions will be necessary for us to stand any chance at stemming the tide of cybercrime.

How To Spot Phishing Emails
Here are some common characteristics of phishing emails that you can identify:

Poor grammar – Since most emails aren’t composed by native English speakers, they usually contain many grammar, spelling, and capitalization mistakes, along with unusual phrasing.

Generic or informal greetings – If a message doesn’t address you by name, it’s another sign that it is from an unknown attacker.

Sense of urgency – Most phishing emails want you to rush through the message and click on a link without looking at it too closely.

Hyperlinks – Hover over any links to make sure they go where they say they are going.

Attachments – Many phishing emails will include malware in attachments.

Unusual sender – If it’s from someone you don’t know, pay extra attention to the contents.

How Much RAM Does Your PC Really Need?

Frank DeLuca is a field technician for Tech Experts.

First off, note that how much RAM (along with the type and speed) that your system supports will depend on your motherboard.

Consult your PC/motherboard manual, or, if your PC was manufactured by an OEM, use a system checker such as the one found on Crucial.com to find out what RAM is compatible with your system.

Adding RAM to your computer is not a process that will magically make everything run faster. But it can aid your PC in multitasking and performing intensive-heavy tasks like loading 20+ browser tabs, content creation like editing videos or images, editing multiple productivity documents, and running more programs at one time.

Computers may experience significant slowdowns when running a large number of programs at once with low memory.

If all RAM space has been used when trying to open programs, the computer resorts to using virtual memory on the hard drive, which slows the computer down quite a bit.

Upgrading or adding additional memory can eliminate this problem as the computer doesn’t have to resort to using the hard drive for slower pagefile memory.

How much RAM you need in your computer depends heavily on what you use your PC for on a day-to-day basis and on how long you intend to keep the computer.

If you are thinking of investing in a new machine in the near future, waiting things out until your purchase might be the best bet.

If you already have a computer you love but want to shift gears into a different daily task that requires better performance, then upgrading your RAM as part of the process is a great idea and can breathe some extra life into your computer.

Productivity
If you use your Windows 10 computer for word processing, checking emails, browsing the Internet, and playing Solitaire, you should have no problem using 4GB of RAM. If you are performing all of these activities at once, however, you might experience a dip in performance.

Many budget PCs come with 4GB of RAM as a base option. If you plan on keeping your machine for several years, then opting for 8GB of RAM is the safer bet, even if you use it for light tasks.

Video and Photo Editing
This really depends on your workload. If you are editing quite a bit of HD video, go for 16GB or more. If you’re working mainly with photos and a bit of video thrown in, 8GB should get you through. Again, in this instance, it may behoove you to opt for 16GB to give yourself more future-proofing headroom as photo and video quality is only getting better with file sizes exponentially increasing and becoming more memory intensive. Editing will work on lower amounts of RAM, but you’ll become so frustrated with the poor performance that you’ll soon start yearning for an upgrade.

In a nutshell, here are some simple guidelines that apply to most PC devices:

  • 4GB: Entry level memory. Comes with budget notebooks. Fine for Windows.
  • 8GB: Excellent for Windows and Mac OS systems. We recommend this for most people.
  • 16GB: Ideal for professional work and the most demanding tasks.
  • 32GB and beyond: Enthusiasts and purpose-built workstations only.

Remember, buying more RAM than you need doesn’t net you any performance benefit. It’s effectively wasted money.

Buy what you need, and spend what’s left of your budget on more important components such as the CPU or faster storage space like a solid state hard drive (SSD) which can be 10 times faster than a conventional hard drive.

Are IT Issues Ruining Your Workplace Productivity?

Thomas Fox is president of Tech Experts, southeast Michigan’s leading small business computer support company.

Studies conducted by CareerBuilder Harris Poll in the US showed that at least 22 minutes a day are wasted by an average worker dealing with IT-related issues.

According to the poll, the leading cause of time wasted in the workplace is related to cell phone use, which ranked the highest at 50%, gossip which followed at 42%, and closely behind was internet use at 39%. This article will briefly outline how companies can work through IT issues so that they can save on time. And time is money.

How Much Time Is 22 Minutes Really?
Going by the average time in a 40-hour workweek, 22 minutes a day is close to two hours of work time lost each week. Imagine what that equals for a full year or 52 weeks. It comes out to be over 95 hours per year. When translated into days, that is close to two weeks spent dealing with IT-related problems. [Read more…] about Are IT Issues Ruining Your Workplace Productivity?

RAM And You: How Much Memory Do You Need?

Jason Cooley is Support Services Manager for Tech Experts.

Is there anything as frustrating as experiencing issues with your computer? There are many different performance issues that can affect your experience as a user.

If your computer is running slower than normal (or slower than it should), there are so many things that can factor in. One of the more common causes is system memory being over utilized.

First, we have to understand the different types of “slow” your computer expresses.

If Internet pages are slow to load but programs like Microsoft Word are quick and responsive, your speed issue is Internet related.

If programs are slow, lag out, or won’t respond, you are dealing with a system issue.

In these cases, a restart can be your best friend. If a restart doesn’t help your system, take a look at your resource usage. The task manager will show in real time the usage of your CPU and memory (RAM).

Let’s say your RAM usage is high, even after a restart. This is a problem and you just don’t have enough system memory to support your daily tasks.

How does this affect your system? What can you do about it? How much is enough?

A shortage of RAM on your computer wreaks havoc on the system performance. It not only limits the work that the RAM is capable of handling, but it also affects the CPU and the hard drive performance.

When applications need more than the available RAM, they use virtual memory from the hard drive. The amount of virtual RAM can be increased in your system by increasing the size of your paging file.

While this may help to run your programs, your system performance will suffer greatly.

The virtual RAM your system will use is much slower than physical RAM, causing a bottleneck where you are now reliant on the speed of your virtual memory. This limits the speed of data traveling between the CPU and RAM as well.

We know the RAM is limiting our performance. While the paging file allows you to run the programs you need to work, your system performance will make multi-tasking nearly impossible.

The best thing at this point is to upgrade to more physical memory.

There are some limitations to upgrading your RAM. Operating systems have a maximum supported amount of RAM. This varies from operating system versions, from year to year, as well as 32-bit versus 64-bit.

Your motherboard and CPU could also have a maximum amount of RAM.

RAM sticks come in different memory quantities as well and each slot in your computer may have a maximum, as well as an overall system maximum as well. A single stick of RAM can be 512mb or 8gb and anywhere in between.

RAM also comes in many types that can vary based on your specific motherboard. Upgrading your RAM can make your system run better, but there are many things to factor in when you upgrade your RAM.

So how much RAM do you need? It varies for everyone, but the more programs you use, the more RAM you need.

If you are buying a new computer for modern business, a minimum, of 8gb is strongly recommended and 16gb is even better. If you run many programs, especially things like graphic and video editing software, you may want more. If you are upgrading your current system RAM, similar rules apply.

Your tasks and usage dictate your needs; don’t be afraid to give yourself one of the best performance upgrades out there by adding more memory to your system.

What Is The Difference Between Backups And Redundancy?

Chris Myers is a field service technician for Tech Experts.

Modern businesses can generate massive amounts of data in a short period of time. As such, a vital topic of research are ways to project that data.

There are two main categories of data protection: redundancy and backups. These two types of data protection are both very important, but they are not interchangeable.

Both must be understood so that you are not caught unprepared when catastrophe strikes.

What Is Redundancy?
On a single hard drive, data is saved just one time. If that hard drive fails, then that data is lost. In order to prevent this from happening, multiple hard drives are used to store multiple copies of each piece of data.

This setup is called a “RAID,” which stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks.

When a single hard drive fails in a properly set up RAID, the other drives change how they operate and continue saving files with very little interruption and no loss of data. In a business such as a doctor’s office where appointments are booked out three months in advance, redundancy can be the difference between a service call with less than thirty minutes of downtime and a multiple day outage affecting hundreds of patients and staff.

What Are Backups?
There are many other ways in which data can be lost, including file corruption, accidental deletion, fire, theft, malware, and more.

Redundancy can protect against hard drive failure, but in cases such as these, it is of no help. For example, if the user accidentally deletes a file, all redundant copies of that file will be deleted.

This is where backups come in. Backups copy your data onto a completely separate storage device.

The most secure backup systems are called offsite backups, because the data is copied to another geographic location entirely. If a user accidentally deletes a file that is backed up, that file can be restored using the backup copy.

However, restoring files from an offsite backup can take quite a long time depending on the amount of data and available network bandwidth. Due to this, many businesses keep another backup on a different device in the same building.

This is referred to as a local backup. Since restoring from a local backups only involve sending the data over the internal network, or even directly copying onto another drive, they can greatly reduce downtime.

So, Which Solution Should You Have?
None of these data protection methods are mutually exclusive and each of these methods has strengths and weaknesses.

With that in mind, most businesses will get the most benefit by having all of them in place because each one fills a gap in coverage left by another.

Redundancy will save data if a single drive is lost to mechanical failure, with very little downtime. However, it can’t protect against almost all other types of data loss.

A local backup will protect against all types of data loss except when both the default and backup locations are lost at the same time. Restoring takes longer than a redundant drive, but is still quite fast.

An offsite backup takes the longest to restore from, but protects against almost all scenarios.

So, the next time you want to impress your coworkers and possibly save the company, ask whether your server or network-attached storage has both backups and redundancy in place.

Nine Useful Windows 10 Features You Probably Never Use

Frank DeLuca is a field technician for Tech Experts.

Microsoft’s operating system runs on nearly half a billion PCs and laptops worldwide. It’s so commonplace that most of us don’t pay attention to the ways it can make our lives easier.

These are not secret features that Microsoft doesn’t want us to know about by any means. We may have just forgotten that these powerful tools exist.

Disk Cleanup
Disk Cleanup is a simple way to delete files you no longer need and to ensure your recycle bin is cleared out.

On Windows 10, type “disk cleanup” into your taskbar where it says, “Type here to search.” Then, click on the Disk Cleanup app.

Click on any of the entries in the list to see a description of what the files are and how much space can be reclaimed by removing them. Place a check mark in the box next to each entry you want deleted, such as temporary files.

Malware Removal
It’s more important than ever to have a multilayered approach to cybersecurity. Windows Defender is a security tool that can be set up to block malware attacks in real time or you can perform a scan when you need it.

To make sure Windows Defender is running, type “Windows Defender” into your taskbar. Select Windows Defender app.

Make sure it is set to real-time protection and that virus and spyware definitions are up to date.

Quick Assist
We all have that tech-challenged family member, but did you know that you can remotely manage a friend or family member’s computer (or vice-versa) so you can help fix their tech-related problems?

This handy feature is called Quick Assist and it can really be a lifesaver when offering IT assistance.

In Windows 10, type “Quick Assist” into your taskbar. Select Get Assistance or Give Assistance and then follow the onscreen instructions. You’ll thank me later.

Video Streaming
Windows 10 comes with its own built-in DLNA video and media streaming protocol. All you need is a DLNA-compatible device to stream to, like an Xbox One or Roku.

Type “Media Streaming” into the Windows 10 taskbar. Select Media Streaming Options and follow the instructions.

Task Scheduler
Task Scheduler helps you schedule tasks on your computer, like turning your PC off at a specific time each day. Type “task scheduler” into your taskbar to get started.

Virtual Desktop
The little rectangular box to the right of your “Type here” taskbar will change to display all windows you have open. Or you can click on New Desktop to create a new workspace without closing the windows you have open.

Find Missing Files
The command prompt can help you find files that your Windows operating system needs to work properly. It can also help you fix problems.

Type “cmd” into the taskbar. Right click on Command Prompt and select Run As Administrator. To find missing files, type “sfc /scannow.” To check for system problems, type “chkdsk /f.”

Print PDF
PDF is a print format that is compatible across multiple operating systems and software programs. You may not know that you can print in PDF format from any program running on Windows 10.

To do this, just go through the steps to print that you normally would. When you see the option to choose a specific printer, select the one that says, “Microsoft Print to PDF.”

Record Screen Activity
Did you know you can record videos on Windows 10? Just click the Windows key and the letter ‘G’ at the same time – then follow the prompts to record.