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

Brought to you by Tech Experts™

Stay Productive (And Sane) While Working From Home

More and more, working from home has become the norm for many people. Whether you’re freelancing or telecommuting from a full-time job, you really can be just as productive, if not more, than a cubicle dweller. Just remember this advice for succeeding on the home front:

• Start your day off right. You may not have to work a rigid 9-to-5 schedule when working at home, but take your job seriously: “Report” to your desk, wherever it is, at an appropriate time ready to work. Some experts recommend showering and dressing as if you’re going to the office to get into the right frame of mind.

• Understand what your organization needs. Working from home means you won’t get as much direct feedback and instruction from your boss throughout the day. Get clear expectations from your manager so you’ll be working on the right tasks and the right schedule. Set short-term and long-range goals that align with your organization’s objectives.

• Establish firm boundaries. Family members and friends should know when you’re working and realize that you can’t be interrupted for trivial reasons. Keep your door closed (if you have one), and let the answering machine pick up the phone if your spouse or child doesn’t get to it. You’ll find out about emergencies soon enough; don’t get distracted by irrelevant chitchat.

• Stay connected with people. Don’t let them forget you back at HQ. Check in frequently with emails and phone calls to let people know you’re on top of things. Visit the office when you can, and maintain your friendships with co-workers. You want to be thought of as a full member of the team, wherever you are.

• Take breaks when you need to. Don’t work yourself to exhaustion trying to prove you’re just as productive at home as you would be in a cubicle. Although you shouldn’t start a home renovation project in the middle of writing a report, there’s nothing wrong with spending a few minutes emptying the dishwasher or putting laundry away to clear your mind and relax a little.

• Evaluate your progress regularly. Keep track of your workload and your goals so you can review how much you’re getting done and whether you need to make any adjustments. As your own supervisor, you’ll need to keep an eye on what you’re accomplishing so you don’t fall behind.

Open Your Mind To Solve Problems Creatively

Everyday problems usually respond to tried-and-true solutions. But sometimes you need to go beyond the obvious. Try these tactics when you need to take a more creative approach to problem-solving:

• Do some extra research. Don’t assume you have all the facts you need. Before trying to solve the problem, dig deep into the background and the issues surrounding it. You may uncover something new that will lead to a fresh approach when nothing else has worked.

• Set up the problem correctly. In your rush to find a solution, you might treat the symptoms and not the underlying cause. Seek perspectives from other people, and keep an open mind about what’s really going on.

• Consider the impact. Who else does the problem affect? You may gain valuable insight by including others in your analysis and solution. You’ll also build support for your solution by drawing in your co-workers and other interested parties to help you implement it.

• Try a lot of solutions. Instead of zeroing in on one approach and hoping it works, experiment with as many different options as you can. Keep track of what you’re doing so you can identify what worked or combine promising aspects of different attempts.

Staying Connected When You Travel

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

Summertime is vacation time for a lot of business owners, and keeping in touch with the office can be a challenge while you’re on the road. Here are some tips to stay in touch and connected – but only if you want to!

Cellular and mobile broadband
The single biggest change in mobile technology is the ubiquity of relatively high speed data service. Coverage has increased significantly, and speeds rival that of low-end landline connections.

Phones themselves have evolved – many are now small, powerful computers that are constantly connected to the Internet.

Tethering
Tethering is the act of connecting your phone to your computer so the computer can use the phone’s Internet connection. Sometimes inaccurately described as a “modem” in these situations, the phone simply acts as a gateway connecting your PC to the mobile data network.

Not all phones or providers support tethering. When available, it usually uses a USB cable to connect the computer to the mobile phone.

An option that’s becoming more popular recently is the ability of some phones to act as a Wifi hotspot. When enabled, the phone itself becomes a Wifi access point, and laptops and other Wifi-enabled devices can connect to the Internet just as they would via any other hotspot.

Cellular Hardware
If you don’t have a phone capable of sharing its Internet connection, another option are devices dedicated to providing Internet connectivity to your computer.

Many mobile providers offer USB devices that act as dedicated interfaces to the Internet using the mobile network.

Drawbacks of mobile broadband
There are two primary drawbacks to mobile broadband: Coverage, speed and cost. While decent voice service is nearly universal in all but the most remote locations in the US, good data coverage is a gamble.

It isn’t uncommon for one carrier to have “four bars” of coverage in an area, and another to have barely any, so if you travel much, particularly to more rural or remote areas, coverage matters. You can easily try out different carriers by purchasing “reloadable” service on that carrier – if the service doesn’t work, simply cancel without penalty.

Cost is another limiting factor to mobile connectivity. Most smartphones include some kind of base connectivity charge in their monthly fee, adding $20, $30, or more per month to the basic cost of the phone.

Free Wifi hotspots
At the other end of the cost spectrum are the networks of free open Wifi hotspots that you can find across the country.

Be it Starbucks, McDonald’s, local coffee houses, restaurants, bookstores, and more, many retail businesses provide Wifi as perk of doing business with them.

If your travels take you along routes populated with these types of establishments, you can travel from one to the other, taking advantage of their connectivity as you go. While technically free, the assumption is that you’re a customer – so at least buy a cup of coffee.

The drawbacks here include security and possibly speed. Depending on how heavily used the location is, your speed of access may depend on how many other users you’re sharing the connection with.

Server Maintenance: Why We Do What We Do

By Tech Experts Staff
Most small businesses have onsite servers, which is a change from years past when small businesses didn’t see the benefit of having a server in place and instead depended on sharing within a workgroup.

With the great benefits of having a server in-place comes some additional costs to make sure your investment continues to be beneficial.

Many businesses that put a server in place are always defensive about having server maintenances done within a month after putting a server in place.

The number one phrase we hear after putting a new server in is “Are you sure that needs done, we just put that server in?”

The problem with taking this approach with your new server is that you already put a substantial investment in your new hardware and want it to run great for a long time.

Neglecting the server, even if it is for a short period of time, or even if it was “just put in,” is dangerous.There are items that can go bad or cause problems if not addressed, even on a new server.

The first item and most arguably one of the most important are the server updates. Servers have to be kept up to date especially since they physically host your important data.

Allowing a server to become outdated is highly risky and potentially allows hackers access to your server via security exploits in the operating system, Internet Explorer, Adobe, etc. If these items go without their security updates you run risk of data breach.

The second item that is one of the most important items that we check is the health of your RAID disks.

Most servers (at least the ones we install) have a RAID configuration of some sort configured to help protect your server in the event of a hard disk failure.

Hard disk failure is not a matter of if it will happen but rather when it will happen.

Since this is the case we generally set our clients up on a RAID 5 configuration which allows up to two RAID disks to fail at different times.

The redundancy provided by RAID 5 configurations allows for a large amount of protection from data loss but does not guarantee it. If a business’s server was not having regular maintenances done it is very possible to have the RAID disks fail and lose all the data because it was not caught.

We have had clients bring in computers that are brand new with failed hard drives so it can and does happen at any time, even when they are brand new.

During our maintenance we also go through the logs on the system carefully combing over the entries looking for any instances that could potentially indicate a problem or an upcoming problem if let go.

If this is not done your server could be showing that it is starting to have problems but you would never know it until it is too late.

One of the logs, the Security Log, allows us the ability to see whether or not your server has had unauthorized attempts to login to it. Yes, we mean hackers trying to get in your sever and to your private data.

These are just three of the numerous areas we check with the server maintenances to ensure that your server, whether new or old, is running properly and continues to do so for years to come.

If a server is not properly maintained, it can degrade quickly into an almost useless piece of equipment and the investment you put into becomes a waste as well – not to mention the potential data loss.

Don’t waste your company’s hard earned money! Invest in systems maintenances, every month. This is the only way to prevent major issues with your server and avoid data loss or compromise.

Mobile Devices: BYOD Deserves Special Consideration

by Jeremy Miller,Technician
A good majority of people now bring a device of their own to work and many even use their own device at work. There are many reasons that this could be good or bad or down right terrible.

There are always inherent risks when employers allow employees to use a personal device at work especially if the device attaches to the network or has confidential data stored on the device.

Allowing employees to bring their own device can be very beneficial to your organization.

If you choose to allow devices you must understand the risk and create rules that keep the device from being used maliciously.

It is best practice to create an Acceptable Use Policy for Devices. This will cover a variety of things including:
• Proper use during and after-hours.
• What types of apps are allowed to be installed?
• Which type of data will the device be allowed to use.
• How to prevent abuse.

A good AUP will allow a business to allow users to bring in their own devices and use them to increase their productivity without letting the employees abuse the privilege of being allowed to use a personal device at work.

Allowing employees to bring their own device can: increase productivity at a low-cost to the business, make employees happier, and allow users to be reached at any time.

Allowing employees to bring in their own device can be bad as well. The first reason is employees’ abuse devices all the time.

In every workplace there are employees that will use their devices in a matter that is not related to work such as checking Facebook or texting when it is not necessary.

Then there are employees that will want to use their device at work and at home, but will not want to follow the Companies Acceptable Use Policy.

This is not only disobedience but risky, because many of the stipulations in the AUP are to protect the Company’s business flow. Allowing employees to bring in a device that connects to email will sometimes require an IT person to help get the email to sync with the device.

If you do not have onsite IT this can cost you money every time there is an issue with the email not syncing. The ugly part of allowing users to bring their own device is the lack of control and security.

With the lack of standardization each device is at least a little different. On top of that each app installed is a potential risk, especially the free apps that include advertising.

Risks emerge every day, this means that in order to be sure that the device is secure you will have to continuously assess the risk for each device in use.

There is always a risk that your employees could fall victim to social engineering.This is when they either knowingly or unknowingly give away confidential information to a party that is not allowed this information.

This can be mitigated by educating users on a continuous basis, a good way to do this is a lunch and learn style of meeting. All employees with a personal device being used for work should be restricted to which applications they are allowed to download.

This is because each app has its own code and permissions that are required to run it. If the permissions for the application can compromise any data at any point it should be reviewed and then allowed or disallowed.

In conclusion many companies already allow the use of a personal device for work. Trying to implement a plan after allowing the devices is much trickier because you are further limiting a user on their own device.

A plan is absolutely necessary to protect you from legal implications, and to be up front and informative of the consequences for breaking any rules outlined in the Acceptable Use Policy for Devices.

Letting your employees know what is expected will reduce the legal and liability risk that a company may face.

Social Media Management: Think Local

Marketers seem to be hearing three words a lot more these days: “social,” “local” and “mobile.”

With more and more users relying on cell phones and tablets and the geo-location technology that accompanies them, more and more businesses are realizing they need to think locally.

One good way to use social media to appeal to a local audience is to develop a blog. Blog posts are excellent places to write about things specific to your local area – events, people, places and restaurants, for example.

When writing blog posts, make sure you optimize the post by using tags that demonstrate the local nature of your business so you will benefit from your local search strategy and will be indexed in the correct manner by search engines.

Another way to better optimize your social search is to submit your profile data to local directories such as Yellow Pages and SuperPages.

Business To Business Marketing Tips

Marketing is the life blood of any business. Staying in touch with customers, prospects, and vendors is critical to the growth of your business. Here are some tips to use the technical resources available to you to promote your business.

Business Blogging
Many B2B businesses, from the manufacturers of GPS devices for vehicle tracking to the providers of credit card processing services, are blogging today for a very good reason: blogging represents real power.

When done properly, it allows B2B businesses to generate leads, brand awareness, brand loyalty and greater interest in general. And B2B blogging is not all that difficult to get right, so long as a few simple tips are followed.

Knowing your audience is a very simple but effective tip. Make sure you have done research on your target audience, either on your own or with the assistance of an Internet marketing company, and then write appropriate content to best reach those individuals.

Another simple tip is just to have a plan. It is always important to actually plan ahead when it comes to being able to offer the best content.

Plan out ideas for blog topics for at least one month in advance, and make sure that you have a backlog of post ideas so you can fill in any gaps.

Creating Compelling Email Copy
Email marketing has evolved in a big way over the last few years, and yet the fact remains that übe-designed emails with lots of “bells and whistles” are meaningless without well-written content. The good news is that in the end, writing a great marketing email all comes down to just a few simple copywriting best practices.

Writing a genuinely compelling email subject line is one such practice. The message itself might be a work of literary genius, but no one will ever read it if the subject line does not inspire the receiver to open the message and read it in the first place. Use actionable language that makes it very clear what the reader can do with the information contained in the email message and why he or she should read it.

Wherever possible, personalized emails also work well. That means more than just including the recipient’s name; it means also knowing personal information about the person to whom you are sending your messages, including what he or she is likely to be interested in.

Social Media Strategies Are Different For Every Business

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

“One size fits all” doesn’t work as a strategy for managing your company’s social media presence.

Social media – the big three, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn – has become an increasingly more complex space the last few years.

Constant change
There’s a lot of activity and change across all three sites. Keeping up with the changes in policies and process, while at the same time updating your site and status, can be overwhelming.

The right way to use social media for your business depends on a number of variables, including the size of your company, the type of business you’re in, your target audience, and whether you’re a B2B (business to business) or B2C (business to consumer) company.

Many business owners don’t understand this. They think that you need to use every possible social media tactic and tool that’s available, but usually that leads to confusion and distraction with little measureable result.

Choose carefully
Not every social media promotion method works for every company.

Some businesses are successful using social media to hold contests and encourage check-ins by fans and followers.

It’s a great way to raise awareness and engage prospects and clients for a local B2C business, but probably doesn’t make sense for a B2B professional services firm.

Just because other businesses are doing it and finding success, it doesn’t mean that the tactic will work for your company.

Have a plan
Many business owners make the mistake of jumping into social media without a solid strategy, figuring it out as they go.

Just as you need a business plan, you also need a social media plan. Failure to strategize leads to poor decisions, wasted time, and confused clients and prospects.

The plan doesn’t need to be complex – one page that outlines your goals and the steps you need to take to get there will work. Once your plan is outlined, it’s time to execute!

Who’s responsible
The most important decision you’ll make when it comes to your company’s social media strategy is who will be responsible for managing it.

For smaller companies, this usually will be the owner. But for even the smallest business, a well thought out plan can be delegated to a staff member. Make sure you hold them accountable, and that you measure your results.

Not just for sales
Strategic posts on your company’s social media sites can help with customer service and public relations, too. Don’t narrow your social media focus just to sales and marketing.

Your end goal with social media should be to get clients and prospects to take an action: Visit your website or blog, ask for more information, or promote your company and brand to their friends and followers. Tracking the results of your social media strategy is the only way you’ll know what’s working, and what needs changed.

Diagnosing And Resolving Strange Network Issues

By Tech Experts Staff
Everyone’s had them, you know those weird issues where one of your computers can get online or to your server but your workstation can’t. Or, when one building can get to the Internet or other network resources and your other building can’t.

Networking issues can be a real headache as they can be very difficult to track down. Without the proper equipment and knowledge, they can plague you forever. Fortunately we have solutions to those network gremlins that we see all too often.

This month we are going to touch on the common network issues we see and how we go about getting them corrected for you so that your network runs as it should.

Starting from your workstation and heading out to your Internet Service Providers (ISP) modem, we’ll work our way through some of the commonly seen issues.

Can’t reach the Internet.
This one we see frequently. When your workstation can’t get to the Internet (and other workstations on your network can), there are actually numerous issues that can cause this problem.

Some of the items your tech would (or should) be checking are:

Does the computer have a virus?
Viruses can cause all kinds of havoc when it comes to how your computer functions. Viruses can change the way that Windows networking acts and what it does.

If some of the aspects of your computer’s operating system (OS) are changed by a virus, it’s possible you may not be able to get online.

Is the connection from the computer to the router in good working order?
Sometimes people think that the answer to this question is as simple as “is the Ethernet cable plugged in tight,” and in most cases it is.

Sometimes the cables you may have been using for years might begin to cause connectivity problems. Cables that are constantly moved can have the wires within the cable ends worked loose. Ethernet cables used with notebooks and laptops are especially prone to this.

Once the right cables work themselves loose you are likely to either see sporadic connection problems or you may not have any connection at all.

These types of issues while not as common as virus or operating system issues tend to be more difficult to track down.

While a tech could go through all of the cables on your network when you have a connection problem, doing so can take a lot of time.

This isn’t normally the first course of action unless they specifically see symptoms that indicate this type of issue.

Some of the other issues that can cause a workstation to lose connectivity are faulty routers, switches or modems.

In the case of any of these pieces of network equipment, if the ports on them begin to fail users may have a lot of issues, from dropped packets resulting in slow Internet performance, to no Internet connection at all and everywhere in between.

The last possible place for connection issues is your ISP’s modem. Generally a tech can roughly troubleshoot this piece of equipment, but because your ISP manages it, there is only so much a tech can do to correct problems on this type of equipment. We can usually isolate the trouble to the modem, but after that, the ISP takes over.

If a tech finds an issue with your modem you would need to have your ISP’s techs come out and look into the issues with their modem.

No matter what issues your workstation is having we can trace them back to the root of their cause.

Give us a call and we’ll get you back up and running ASAP.

Taking Your Business Online Can Increase Profits

by Jeremy Miller, Technician
Most if not all businesses can benefit from having an online-presence. Going on-line for a business can be a low-cost marketing solution.

Your online presence can help give customer’s quick access to information about you and your business, all the way to having automated inventory alerts that let clients know about new products and stock levels.

When getting started online, you’ll want to get a domain that represents your business. You’ll want to pick something that’s easy to remember, and easy to spell and type.

You don’t want a domain name that you have to spell out for clients – that makes it very hard to use in advertising.

There are many domain registrars to choose from, including Tech Experts.

After you have your domain name, you’ll need website hosting services. Most web hosts, including Tech Experts, include company email with the service.

Most hosting plans are very affordable. Our basic hosting plan starts at $9.99 per month.

If you want to take it a step further, you can set up an online store. There are a lot of options, depending on how involved you want the store to be.

Accepting credit cards online can be a hassle, especially with the new security and compliance regulations. If you expect to do a large volume of business in your store, it makes sense to set up a secure site and contract for the credit card processing services.

For smaller web stores, PayPal offers a checkout service that is fully PCI DSS compliant. Their basic service is free (less the processing costs).

Setting up a website is not enough to make your business drastically improve. You have to find a way to get customers to your website.

There are many ways to do this. An inexpensive and effective way to get your website noticed is to start a blog.

Blogs will show a human side to the business and search engines crawl blogs easily. Easy places to do this are popular websites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus.

This helps improve your ranking in a search on search engines. There are other ways to improve your ranking as well. In fact there is a periodic table guide to Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

By looking at the periodic table, you can see exactly on a point scale what increases and decreases your SEO ranking.

There are companies that specialize in SEO Optimization. The fees range from very reasonable to exorbitant. SEO is as much black art as science, and it pays to have professional help.

There are tools that track how users are using your website. Google Analytics tracks how much time is spent on your website, and where visitors are going.

This can be useful for you to optimize your site for ease-of-use. You want to make it easy for your users to find what they are looking for and browse easily as well.

Another tool that can be useful is Google AdSense, which places targeted ads on your site – and everytime someone clicks on ad, Google will pay you a small amount.

The last thing to think about is the mobile version of your site. More users browse the Internet than ever before with their smart phones and tablets, so you’ll want to have a mobile site for these visitors.

This can be a little more tedious due to the fact that this technology is still emerging.

A lot of web sites require a mouse for them to function; an example of this would be a site with a menu bar at the top with a “mouse over” function to see the drop-down menu.

So having a site that detects the type of device and browser that the user is using and directs them to the correct site is important.