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

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Choosing The Best Option To Back Up Your Data

by Michael Menor, Network Technician
We highly recommend that all computer users regularly back up their data in order to prevent losing information in the case of a disk failure.

We recommend at the very least backing up files that are frequently changed. A basic backup strategy involves copying important files to a location separate from your hard drive.

Having more than one copy of important data is insurance against the loss of that data in an event such as a hard drive or system failure.

To make your backup strategy more complete, you should try a trial restore of your backup so you will be comfortable enough with the process to use it before you experience the loss of data.

Flash drives that plug into a USB port are a convenient technology for backups. They do not generally require any extra software and are very portable and they can be reused many times.

Flash Drive
A flash drive can serve as an external repository for important data as a protection against an event such as the failure of your hard disk.

However, a single flash drive does not have the storage capacity to backup an entire hard disk or file system, and they tend be more expensive than other storage methods for the same amount of data.

Cloud Storage
You can access your data from any computer or mobile device with an Internet connection and you don’t have to keep track of any extra hardware or external storage media.

There are many providers that offer free online storage. A few popular ones are Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft SkyDrive.

Many of these are cross-platform applications that enable you to access whatever data you have stored as though it were stored in a folder on your computer’s hard drive.

CDs/DVDs/Blu-ray discs
CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs are also an option for backing up data if you have an internal or external drive that can write to one or all formats:

  • CDs: 750 MB
  • DVDs: 4.5 GB (single layer) or 8.7 GB (double layer)
  • Blu-ray: 25-100 GB

CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs are among your cheapest backup options (per gigabyte), and they are also among the most durable (no moving parts to wear out or metal parts to rust).

However, while it is technically possible to back up your entire system to CDs, DVDs, or Blu-ray discs by spanning multiple discs, it would be a time-consuming process that would require many discs.

External Hard Drives
An external hard drive is often the same type of hard drive as found inside most computers, only in a stand-alone enclosure with a USB or other data port that is powered by your computer or a separate wall adaptor.

As such, it is possible to purchase an external hard drive that is as large or larger than your computer’s internal hard drive, allowing you to backup your entire system to a drive that you can separate from your computer, carry with you to transfer your files, or set aside as a backup.

Most external hard drives have moving parts, however, making them more prone to wear and damage due to drops or vibration than some other backup options.

Also, some external hard drives do not operate cross-platform, which means that if your drive is formatted for use with Mac OS X, it may not be recognized by a Windows computer (or vice-versa).

External hard drives are available in sizes ranging from 100 gigabytes to many terabytes, and some are small enough to carry in a purse.

However, in whatever size you choose, external hard drives are the fastest and most versatile way to back up large amounts of data.

Outlook.com Tips And Tricks

Ever since Microsoft switched Hotmail to Outlook some users have had difficulty adjusting to the changes even though it is essentially still the same, and attaching photos and files is more simple than ever before.

There is however some simple tips for those who have found the changeover confusing.

The important thing to remember is that your email address has not changed and continues to end with hotmail.com. You can even add an alias account via http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/outlook/add-alias-account.

The alias makes use of the same contact list, settings and inbox as your primary email address.

Those who don’t like the default blue color scheme can also change it to suit simply by selecting the small ‘cog’ icon that can be found in the right hand corner of the Outlook window and selecting from the 18 available color schemes.

If you are writing an email that has turned out to be almost novel size but don’t have time to finish, just tap the button marked “Save Draft” on the colored Outlook menu bar.

This will save a copy to your Drafts folder and allow you to go back, finish and send it at a later time.

Blog Your Way To Success

Blogging is nothing new these days, but it’s still a powerful tool for promoting yourself, your ideas, and your personal brand.

Blogs are easy to set up, but good blogs can be challenging to maintain.

Keep these tips in mind to create a blog that will make a mark on the Internet:

Stick to a clear theme
Select a broad topic to concentrate on. If your blog seems too scattered, people won’t feel any compelling reason to read it regularly.

Know your audience
Think about who you’re trying to attract. What are they interested in? What are their problems? What do they need?

Address these questions and you’ll be able to create content that appeals to the readers you want.

Write powerful headlines
The first thing your readers will see when they visit your blog is the headline of your latest story. Give it some excitement and emphasis with action verbs and colorful language so they know what your item is about, and want to read it right away.

Engage with your readers
Don’t let comments sit there. Respond with a thank-you, more information, or to correct misinformation.

Avoid fights, but make your points clearly and respectfully so your audience knows you’re paying attention.

Keep at it
Many blogs start strong but then languish because their founders lose interest.

Remember that this is a long-term effort. If you’re not getting the response you want, try tweaking your blog, but don’t give up too soon.

Tech Support Calling? It’s Probably A Scam Or Hacker

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

For business computer users, the threat of a security breach is a constant worry. The thing is, many systems are secure enough from outside attacks, and many scammers know this.

As a result, scammers have switched tactics and have taken to pretending to be Windows technicians, hoping to get users to give up their credit card information.

This isn’t a new scam. Despite news reports and emailed reminders, some people still fall for the ruse.

Social engineering
These social engineering tricks generally follow the same formula: A person calls you pretending to be from the Windows technical team at Microsoft.

The scammer usually tells you that you need to renew your software protection licenses to keep your computer running.

Most of the time, these scammers spread the conversation out over a number of phone calls and emails, the goal being to gain the trust of the user.

Once trust is established, or the user seems interested enough, the crook will offer a seeming sweet deal: They offer a service that makes your computer run like new, usually for a reasonable price.

The scammer will then use remote PC support software to show you ‘problems’ your computer is having.

They will usually show you the Windows Event Viewer – a part of the OS that shows errors, usually harmless, that your computer has generated.

The scammer will then convince the user that these errors are harmful, and if you have paid, they will make it look like they are cleaning your computer.

If you give them your credit card number, you will likely see ridiculous charges, or even have people trying to access your accounts.

What’s being done?
Governments are aware of this increasingly common trick, and some organizations, like the FTC, have taken measures to shut down scammers.

What can we do?
While action is being taken, these scammers are working hard to steal your credit card and other personal information. To ensure you don’t fall prey to this trickery, these five tips should help you identify when an attempted scam is at play:

  • Microsoft doesn’t call people.
  • Windows Event Manager is a log of errors for ALL programs.
  • Microsoft employees will never ask for your passwords.
  • Most of these scammers operate out of call centers in India, but bill from the US.
  • Microsoft employees won’t usually ask you to install software that’s not made by Microsoft.

As a rule of thumb: If you get an unsolicited call about your computers and IT security, it’s likely not genuine. If these criminals provide you with a website, do a quick Google search to see if there have been any scam reports.

If you’re concerned your credit card or other information may have been compromised, please call us right away for a complimentary security assessment.

The Importance Of Planning Your Computer Upgrades

by Jeremy Miller, Technician
When considering upgrades to your computer or network, planning is a very important part of the process. Planning can save you a lot of wasted time and money.

When planning your upgrades you will want to think about what all is involved and attempt to address any issues prior to installation to prevent down time as much as possible.

First you will need to understand what you need to upgrade. Can you upgrade your current setup or will you have to purchase entirely new equipment to upgrade? There are many components of an upgrade that may not work together with older technology.

You can find this a lot if you upgrade to a new workstation and some of your software is not compatible with the new operating system on the computer.

You will also find that older hardware sometimes cannot be upgraded with new hardware without replacing the motherboards or the whole computer.

Hardware and software both have limits on how much other software and hardware that they support.

A good example of this is: If you bought a good computer about 8 years ago the maximum amount of RAM you could use was about 4 gigabytes. It is now common to have 4 gigabytes to be the minimum amount of RAM installed.

Some software out there will not even run well unless it is over 4 gigabytes of RAM. The old computer cannot be upgraded with more RAM so you would need to purchase a new computer in order to get more RAM.

If you were to buy the RAM to upgrade the computer you may have just wasted time and money. This is why planning is so important.

If the upgrade is for an organization or business you may have purchased RAM for many workstations. A lot of time the RAM would be incompatible with a newer computer as well.

When planning for any type of computer or network upgrade you will want to look at how long you have already had your existing setup.

You can expect to get about 5 years out of any device whether it is a desktop, laptop, printer or other device. If your equipment is that old or older it is usually better to replace the equipment.

There are many reasons for upgrading versus updating. The biggest reason is that it is time to replace. Usually five years after you purchase your computer there is software and hardware that will make it very easy to upgrade.

If you wait much longer then your existing equipment will not be easily upgraded to the newer computers.

When you plan to upgrade your computers you can save money by getting deals or specials. This is because when you plan, you know what you will need and you can wait for sales or promotions.

If you do not plan then more than likely you will be upgrading when your computers start causing issues. This is not a good practice. You will end up having more down time due to low-performing computers and the time it will take to get the faulty computers fixed or replaced can easily end up costing more than the cost of replacing your workstations regularly.

We are always consulting clients and helping with upgrades and migrations, if you have any questions feel free to contact us. We are more than happy to help you with any sort of computer or network upgrades.

Why Third-Party Monitoring And Managed Services?

As technology advance and organizations face increasing demands for efficiency in their business, their IT infrastructures have become increasingly complex. Applications are far more interdependent than ever before, and their business tools, whether hardware or software, are making up a diverse web of systems from a wide range of vendors.

The challenges of dealing with this complexity are something that businesses have to deal with on a daily basis. In a recent study, nearly 50% of global business leaders have called “increased reliance on technology” the No. 1 risk to their organizations. Another 37% said the “business complexity of the organization” is their top risk.

All the same, businesses need to deliver high performance and high availability, typically without accompanying increase in budgets
to accomplish these goals.

So how can companies cope with the dual challenges of managing an increasingly complex infrastructure, while remaining focused on achieving business goals and delivering high quality products and services to their clients?

Organizations are increasingly turning to third party providers that delivers advanced monitoring and resolution services for your IT assets.

If you work with a knowledgeable vendor —one that is familiar with your infrastructure — there are big advantages to taking this approach, including:

  • Lower total cost of ownership
  • Higher availability of applications
  • Reduced downtime, (planned or unplanned)
  • Reduced workload on your own people to deal with IT issues
  • Improved application performance
  • Ability to proactively monitor and thereby mitigating issues as they arise, as opposed to after it’s too late

An advanced monitoring and resolution service should consist of 24/7 secure remote monitoring and resolution delivered by skilled engineers using proven practices.

The service should offer rigorous security certifications to ensure remote experts safely deliver proactive monitoring and administration of internal applications and hardware systems.

Don’t think of it simply as an outsourcing solution. Rather, think of it as a team of experts supplementing your own team, providing a number of products and solutions that it would be next to impossible to maintain in-house.

Because of the complexity of today’s systems, it is often difficult to identify exactly where and why systems fail. This can result in dissatisfied customers and less productive workers.

These problems can be severe enough to put the organization at risk. With proactive monitoring and advanced support, however, the organization will be made aware when (and why) vulnerabilities occur.

An advanced monitoring service means looking after performance or availability of all your critical systems and applications. This monitoring can extend through your entire infrastructure — applications, databases, servers, storage, networks and backup. Problems, can be addressed using best practices for incident, change and problem management.

As a client, you can choose to deploy the services according to your own needs, from full remote services to full onsite solutions or some combination.

The process of monitoring and remediating problems within your IT, you will learn a lot about your risks and vulnerabilities. Are there peak usage times that are impacting application slowing down the performance of mission-critical applications? The key is to continuously improve performance and availability.

You should meet regularly with your professional services team to review processes and set strategies for continual performance improvement. You should also have a plan that includes regular hardware and software health checks.

Your company gets the revenue as well as interacts with your customers through your applications. When performance slows down, the entire business suffers and is put at risk for lost revenues, lost profits, lost customers and general damage to your brand.

Advanced monitoring and resolution services lets you keep track of application performance at all times. Monitoring agents create alerts when systems or applications are under-performing, so you can fix issues before they impact the company further.

End-user monitoring takes the service a step further, whereby you can collect, process and present details — even going so far as to track user requests and follow them through to resolutions.

You can collect information on the length of time it takes to complete a business transaction and the length of time it takes to search, select and pay for a specific product. You can easily see how you can improve revenue and profits.

Predictive incident management diagnostics lets your vendor partner identify issues with configurations and performance before they become full-scale problems.

For example, advanced monitoring lets a service provider leverage complex algorithmic models and thereby identify potential issues with individual transactions within the database.

Advanced monitoring and resolution delivers significant improvements in IT support. You can measure the performance in meeting service requests, including trends on how long it takes for repairs to be performed, response by incident type, and reporting and measure performance against standards on all systems, including backup, emergency storage and system uptime.

A third-party supplier will have access to tools, methodologies and best practices your organization may not even be aware of.

Advanced monitoring and resolution is what they do every day, so your organization is always taking advantage of the experience the vendor has gained from working with other businesses, as well as the latest in diagnostic and recovery tools.

They often employ thorough diagnostic tool sets that cover all your systems. By using these tools, they are able to identify and qualify new incidents, automatically compare new incidents with a knowledge base of past incidents, and use the past experiences as the basis to quickly and effectively resolve issues.

Clearly you will want advanced monitoring and resolution to deliver 24/7 support for all your systems, databases and mission-critical applications. But some vendors can also offer more specialized services, such as end-user monitoring; firewall and VPN management; continuous risk assessment application management; and intrusion detection systems to mention but a few.

Because IT has grown in complexity, it is difficult and costly to hire and retain all the in-house expertise required to manage everything.

The other problem comes with internal politics, often resulting in finger-pointing than actual problem solving. An outside vendor gives you not only access to a team of service professionals with deep expertise. They are focused on fixing your problems, and not assigning blame.

Enhance Your B2B Digital Strategy

The word digital is still a bit of a taboo in the B2B world with most companies still having not fully integrated digital strategies into their marketing efforts.

Many B2B executives remain unconvinced that digital marketing will really assist them to take their company to new levels. They believe their services or products are too niche to work on social media, yet this notion fails to hold water when the efforts of similar entities are taken into account.

One good tip for B2B companies that have yet or are just starting to enter the digital age is to embrace inbound marketing.

Search engines are used by around 93% of all B2B buyers when they start the process of purchasing. This makes search engine advertising a potentially huge tool, allowing the customer to discover the company on their own without the need for cold calling, direct mail or TV and radio ads.

Showing that you are a trusted advisor is the key to making this technique work. Once the prospect contacts you, it is crucial to talk to a client in the manner of a normal conversation rather than a hard sell.

Time Spent Blogging Will Boost Your Online Profile

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

You‘ve no doubt noticed the thousands of blogs online from big businesses, mom-and-pop stores, consultants, and individuals.

Some of the information is interesting, some of it is boring, and a lot of it is just an outlet for folks to vent.

However, if you are not blogging, you may be missing out.

Why blog?
If you are a business owner or manager, blogging has many benefits:

It boosts online awareness about your company. By including search engine optimization (SEO) keywords in your blog titles, links and copy throughout your blog postings, you’ll significantly increase your search rankings and boost online awareness about your company, services and products.

These keywords are simply the words or phrases potential customers are using to search for your products and services online.

By including SEO keywords in your entries and writing weekly blogs that are 300 words or more, you will see a difference in website traffic.

Blogging builds customer relationships. Blogs also offer a way for you to share information, interact and build customer relationships.

If people can comment on your posts and like what you have to say, they will share the information with others and build word-of-mouth for your business.

But how do you discover what is valuable to your customers?

Check your Google Analytics. The key is knowing what pages your site visitors are looking at most and what keywords they are currently using to find your website.

This information will give you clues about what your clients want and help you create great blog entries.

If you’re still not sure, you can always post a quick, online survey and ask your customers what they want to see.

A blog lets you beat the competition by providing unique content. Blogs can help you stand out from the competition by providing valuable information that your customers cannot find anywhere else. And how do you do that?

In your blogs, share your personal insights pertinent to your expertise, background, likes/dislikes, hobbies, etc. Your blog should be as unique as you are.

Blog for business growth!
If you haven’t looked at blogging as part of your marketing strategy, it’s time to review it again.

Blogs provide a great way to boost your rankings on the search engines and build client relationships with unique and valuable information.

However, blogs need to be written with the appropriate SEO content and posted on a regular schedule – there’s nothing worse than a stale site.

If you don’t have the time or writing skills for this, hire a content strategist who does. It will be well worth it when you see your site visitors and sales increase!

Improve Your Business With Tech Expert’s Email

By Tech Experts Staff
With the many different types of email offerings out there what type of email should you be using for your business and why?

At Tech Experts we offer several different email plans for your business needs that are reliable, secure, and offer many features you don’t find just anywhere.

Many people today make the mistake of trying to use free email services for their business. The main problem with free email services is that they are a huge security risk.

For example, say you use a free email provider such as Yahoo for your business email, anyone else can create email accounts in the same fashion as your company.

An example of this is that if your employees use email accounts like TJ.mycompanyname@yahoo.com for their email address, anyone that uses Yahoo for email could make a similar email address and act as if they are an employee of your company.

So what are the other kinds of email that Tech Experts hosts if you should not use free email services for your business?

We offer three main plans and another type of email called Hosted Exchange.

The first “Basic Plan” we offer allows you to have your own domain name which will increase your company’s security by not allowing hackers to use email addresses on your company’s domain.

This plan also offers the option of enhanced spam filtering, unlimited mail aliases, a basic website, and a maximum of 5 mailboxes.

This is our best “starter” plan allowing companies to get into email that’s secure without costing an arm and a leg.

Our second plan, the “Plus Plan”, offers all of the features of the basic plan but allows users to have 5 email accounts with enhanced spam filtering, still unlimited aliases, an enhanced website, unlimited mailing lists, and a maximum of 25 included mailboxes.

This plan is designed more for medium sized businesses that are already fairly well established but still haven’t taken the step to have their own domain or email services.

Our third plan, the “Advanced Plan”, offers an enhanced website still but with much more storage space, 10 email accounts with enhanced spam filtering services included, again unlimited aliases, unlimited mailing lists, and an unlimited number of mailboxes (up to 10 GB of storage space included).

This is our package for larger companies that have over 25 employees. Increased storage space can always be added as well as needed.

The final service we offer is called Hosted Exchange email. Hosted Exchange email takes security up a notch and improves on features and performance greatly.

Hosted Exchange email requires usernames and passwords just as the previous email offerings do but they can have other features enabled such as encrypted emails and archiving if your business is the type of business where you really need to be able to access other employees emails or if you need to keep them for a period of time for compliance reasons.

One major benefit to Hosted Exchange email is that it syncs across all of your devices. For example, if you send an email from your phone, that same email will show up in the sent items on your computer and on the Online Web Access.

Just the same, if an email is sent to you and you get it on one of your devices it will also show up on the other devices you have email setup on.

What’s really nice is that not only do the emails show up across all of your devices the statuses update as well. So if you read an email on your phone it shows as read on your PC as well.

So with all the email choices out there what works best for your company?

If you’re not sure the answer to that question, give us a call and we can work with you to determine this.

Why An Organized Cabling Plan Is Good For Business

by Jeremy Miller, Technician
When you need to begin to cable a building for a business it is a good idea to plan ahead to prevent many issues that you can encounter.

Cabling can be different for every organization. Some organizations move into a new building and need to cable the entire building. Other business may only need to add to the existing cabling.

It would be best to look and see how the cables can all be run throughout the building. Most commercial buildings have drop ceilings that make it easier to run cable.

You will want to check which directions you can run cable. There may be walls or boundaries that are not able to have cable ran through them.

You will also want to develop a standard wiring scheme or convention. This will make everything easier in the long run.

Most organizations have adopted the wiring standard T-586B. If you continue to wire all cable with the same standard then it will make the job easier for you and anyone who needs to add an additional cable after your installation.

There are some things to keep in mind while running the cable. It is best to leave about a foot of extra cable in a single loop above your drop.

This will ensure you have enough cable if you make a punch down error, or want to upgrade in the future. Don’t create a coil of cables as this will cause a magnetic field that will disrupt the data.

With all of this in mind you will need to determine exactly how many data and voice drops you will need to install.

Make a document detailing which room needs what cables and where they need to be placed on the walls.

It is best to color coordinate the cable, for example you would use blue cable for data, white cable for voice, and another color if you need to run other cable such as Ethernet cable for a security system. This will let you easily detect which type of cable you are working with.

If you are installing phones you will want to punch down the same pairs of wires in the same order. This will allow you to terminate the phone systems in your telecomm room more efficiently. Efficiency is essential when undergoing a time-consuming project.

Cable management is important regardless of how many cables you have ran. Your telecomm room can easily start to get out of control with all of the different cables coming into a single location.

There are many ways of organizing your cable, but it is best to plan this before you begin to run any cable. This will also make sure that all of your cables will be long enough to reach the punch-down panel in your telecomm room.

If your business needs help with a cabling project or if you have any questions about cabling give us a call.