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

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Time Awasting? It Could Be Worse Than You Know

The ‘work’ day is supposed to be about 8.5 hours, with either a half or a full hour for lunch. That’s the expectation. With any small business every hour of that day is key to business.

So what would you do if you discovered your small staff or employees were whittling away at least an hour or two hours doing something other than work?

One to two hours a day equals five to 10 hours a week–with a small staff that could translate to a full week of workable hours down the drain.

Yet that’s what’s happening in business today. According to a recent InformationWeek article, workers are still spending too much time on other things such as:

Using the Internet for personal reasons, socializing with co-workers, conducting personal business and running errands on company time.

Software now exists which can monitor employee usage of the Internet, and report on activity such as browsing personal sites, downloading inappropriate content, and using email or instant messenger services for personal use.

Check Out Our New Online Client Portal

You may have noticed recently that our field work order format has changed. This is because we recently implented a new Professional Services Automation software system to manage our work flow and service contract processes more efficiently.

This new system also offers enhanced communication features, keeping you informed when work orders are opened, ticket statuses change, or orders are closed.

You can also initiate service requests through a special client portal, which also gives you access to historical ticket information, recent invoices, and the ability to update open tickets.

Five Steps To Integrating Your Small Business’ Computer Systems

Your small business is growing fast. Your technology needs are changing just as rapidly. But starting over with a totally new system isn’t an option – who can afford the downtime? Sometimes it can feel like needing to change a tire, but not being able to afford to stop your car.

A better solution is to replace components you’ve outgrown – such as software or a lower-end printer – and add them to the existing computer system.

Tech Experts relies on a methodical approach to integrating new technology for our clients – a five-step process that any small business can follow when adding PCs or software:

1: Identify the problem 
When your business sees its customer satisfaction, efficiency and employee satisfaction levels plummeting, you know it is time to make a change.

But even if your company isn’t experiencing bottlenecks, there may still be opportunities to improve overall efficiency.

We suggest companies start by looking at whatever they do repeatedly for customers. Then, seek out technology that can help the business do that work faster or better. Remember, inefficiency is expensive!

2: Determine What You Need
Once you’ve zeroed in on things needing improvement, the next step is finding the best technology for the situation. In most cases, small business owners shouldn’t be making such choices themselves, but many still try to “cobble it together.”

Whether you hire our firm, or another technology expert, we strongly advocate hiring an tech consultant to recommend equipment and a plan for the future.

We also advise sticking with name-brand hardware and software to avoid most major problems. Ninety percent of a small business’s needs can be handled by off-the-shelf products, many of which are already seamlessly integrated. Basically, this means that they’ll “play nice with other equipment.”

3: Develop a plan 
After selecting (us) as your computer experts, the next step is creating a plan for getting from where you are to where you need to be tech-wise. A timeline, equipment list and critical steps should be part of that plan, including how employees will be brought into the loop.

One of the key things business owners overlook is their personnel. While many employees may be ahead of the curve in their familiarity with different technologies, don’t assume everyone is. Some may actually be tech-averse. Don’t jump too far ahead with the technology. Take incremental steps and everyone can use the new features and benefit from them, rather than being frustrated.

4: Install the Equipment
Likewise, the fewer systems the better. Sixty percent of enterprise software sits on a shelf unused. Only invest in computers and software that will improve your company’s performance. Don’t implement technology for technology’s sake – do it to make more money.

Training should also be a part of your roll-out plan, as well as access to consultants for post support and maintenance.

5: Keep It Maintained 
Contracting with a professional computer company like Tech Experts and keeping software and hardware up-to-date will assure that your technology and your business run smoothly – and continue to grow together.
Give us a call today at (734) 457-5000, or send us an email at: sales@expertsmi.com.

Thank you!

Tech Experts Ranked Among The Top Five Percent Of Microsoft Solution Providers In U.S.

The results are in! Thank you to all of our valued clients who took the time to complete our third-quarter Microsoft Customer Satisfaction Survey.

We had a record number of clients participate this quarter, and we’re pleased to announce that Tech Experts achieved a Net Satisfaction Index (NSAT) score of 195 out of a possible 200. This places us within the top five percent of Microsoft partners in the United States.

The NSAT score is how Microsoft and Tech Experts measure customer satisfaction based on  weighted responses to survey questions.

Microsoft has introduced a third-party worldwide system that allows solutions partners to survey their clients using industry-proven methodology to track customer satisfaction.

Only Microsoft Certified and Gold Certified Partners are invited to participate in the survey, which is conducted quarterly by Palo Alto, California based TNS Prognostics.

If you have questions about the Customer Satisfaction Survey, or would be willing to participate in the fourth quarter survey, please call our office at (734) 457-5000, or send an email to info@expertsmi.com. Thank you again to all of our clients who participated! Watch for our next survey announcement, next quarter.

Lock Your Most Used Programs On The Windows Start Menu

The left panel of the Start menu consists of a divided list of programs that Windows XP thinks you’ll find handy: The pinned items list above the separator line, and the frequently used programs, displayed below the line.

By default, Windows XP places links to your Internet browser and e-mail in the pinned items list and will place as many as 30 shortcuts to the programs that you’ve recently used in the most frequently used programs list.

In order to really take advantage of the Start menu as a launching area for all the programs you use most often, you can configure the entire left panel as a pinned items list. Here’s how:

  1. Right-click the Start button and select the Properties command to display the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box.
  2. Click the Customize button adjacent to the Start Menu radio button to display the Customize Start Menu dialog box.
  3. In the Programs panel, use the Spin button to set the Number Of Programs On The Start Menu setting to 0. Click the Clear List button.
  4. In the Show On Start Menu panel, you can clear the Internet check box because the Internet Explorer icon already appears in the Quick Launch menu by default, and maybe even the e-mail check box, depending on how you launch your e-mail application.
  5. Click OK twice—once to close the Customize Start Menu dialog box and once to close the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog boxes.
  6. Click the Start button and access the All Programs submenu.
  7. Locate and right-click on a shortcut to a program you use most often and select the Pin To Start Menu command.

You can pin up to 30 of your most-used programs to the Start menu, depending on your screen resolution setting. With your favorite programs on the pinned items list, you can really take advantage of the Start menu.

Please, Back Up Your Data!

All too often, we see clients who rarely, if ever, back up their critical data. And in all the years we’ve been repairing computers, we’ve never seen one break at a convenenient time. More often than not, your hard drive will fail at precisely the time you can least-afford to lose your data.

If all you use your computer for is occasional email or web browsing, a hard drive failure may not be too critical. But we’ll often go into a new client’s office and find their critical files aren’t being backed up, either locally on workstations, or on their server.

Even worse are those network installs we’ve encountered that don’t even include backup devices.

A recent issue of PC Magazine had an article on the nuts and bolts of data backup. It contained a lot of the same concepts that we’ve been preaching for eons and the highlights are worth repeating here.

  • Identify what you absolutely can’t afford to lose – photographs, financial information, address book, downloaded music, etc. – and ensure that they get backed up regularly.
  • For local computer and workstations, backup to compact disks if at all possible. They’re cheap, fast, safe and easy. If you have more data than will fit on a CD, go to DVD (which holds about 6 times more than a CD).  • If your files won’t fit on a DVD… think about a more professional backup system such as a REV drive from Iomega. If you have that much data, it is worth the investment in a professional backup solution to protect it.
  • Determine your optimal backup schedule by asking yourself how much data would be a hardship to reproduce if it were lost. Those who can’t afford to lose even one day’s work should back up every day. If recreating a week’s worth is no problem, then a weekly backup may do the trick. Either way, take the time to do the backup – recreating the data will take you much longer!
  • Store one copy of your data off-site. If your home or office burns down, backup disks that are sitting next to the computer won’t help you much.
  • Collect the installation CDs for all of your programs and store them together. Make copies of those disks that are critical to your business and keep them off-site.
  • Don’t be too quick to trash or overwrite older backups. If you encounter file troubles (data corruption or virus infection, for example), the most recent backup of that file may have the same problem.
  • Multiple solutions, such as daily back-ups on CD or DVD and weekly backups on a REV drive or tape system, give you more effective recovery and better protection.
  • Most consumer programs won’t copy files that are in use. Be sure to close all files before you run a backup. This is particularly important to note on server-based systems: You must invest in an open-file backup option for your backup system.
  • Check backups often to make sure they’re current (open the disk and verify the date of a recently used file). All too often, we hear horror stories from people who were convinced that they were backing up properly, only to find that nothing was actually being written to the disk or tape.

Backing up your important files can be painless. The same cannot be said of losing them. Give us a call and we’ll show how to make it quick and easy.

5 Simple Ways To Avoid Getting An Avalanche Of Spam

As you probably already know from firsthand experience, once you’re on a spammer’s list, it’s next to impossible to get off. And changing your e-mail address can be a major inconvenience especially if you rely on it to stay in touch with important business and personal contacts.

To reduce the chances of your e-mail address getting spammed, here are 5 simple preventive measures you can take that will go a long way in keeping not-so-delicious spam out of your in-box.

Use a disposable e-mail address
If you buy products online or occasionally subscribe to websites that interest you, chances are you’re going to get spammed.

To avoid your main e-mail address from ending up on their broadcast list, set up a free Internet e-mail address with Hotmail or Juno and use it when buying or opting in to online newsletters. You can also use a throwaway e-mail address when making purchases or subscribing to newsletters.

Pay attention to check boxes that automatically opt you in
Whenever you subscribe to a website or make a purchase online, be very watchful of small, pre-checked boxes that say, “Yes! I want to receive offers from third party companies.”

If you do not un-check the box to opt-out, your e-mail address can (and will) be sold to every online advertiser.  To avoid this from happening, simply take a closer look at every online form you fill out.

Don’t use your main e-mail address on your website or forums
Spammers have special programs that can glean e-mail addresses from websites without your permission. If you are posting to a web forum or newsgroup, use your disposable e-mail address instead of your main e-mail address.

If you want to post an e-mail address on your home page, use “info@” and have all replies forwarded to a folder in your in-box that won’t interfere with your main address.

Create throwaway e-mail accounts
If you own a web domain, all mail going to an address at your domain is probably set up to come directly to you by default.  For example, an e-mail addressed to anything@yourdomain will be delivered to your in-box.

This is a great way to fight spam without missing out on important e-mails you want to get. The next time you sign up for a newsletter, use the title of the website in your e-mail address. For example, if the website is titled “successsecrets.com,” enter “successsecrets@yourdomain.com” as your e-mail address. If you get spammed, look at what address the spam was sent to.

If successsecrets shows up as the original recipient, you know the source since that e-mail address was unique to that web site. Now you can easily stop the spam by making any e-mail sent to that address bounce back to the sender.

Don’t open, reply to or try to opt-out of obvious spam e-mails
Opening, replying to, or even clicking a bogus opt-out link in an obvious spam e-mail signals that your e-mail address is active, and more spam will follow.

The only time it is safe to click on the opt-out link or reply to the e-mail is when the message was sent from a company you know or do business with (for example, a company that you purchase from or a newsletter you subscribed to).

Malicious Software Is Spreading Through Multiple Operating Systems

“A new worm is being distributed within malicious OpenOffice documents. The worm can infect Windows, Linux and Mac OS X systems,” according to a Symantec Security Response advisory. “Be cautious when handling OpenOffice files from unknown sources.”

Apple’s Mac OS is not a virus-free platform, said Jan Hruska, who co-founded antivirus firm Sophos.

“Viruses on the Mac are here and now. They are available, and they are moving around. It is not as though the Mac is in some miraculous way a virus-free environment,” Hruska said. “The number of viruses coming out for non-Mac platforms is higher. It gives a false impression that somehow, Apple Macs are all virus-free.”

Once opened, the OpenOffice file, called badbunny.odg, launches a macro that behaves in several different ways, depending on the user’s operating system.

On Windows systems, it drops a file called drop.bad, which is moved to the system.ini file in the user’s mIRC folder. It also executes the JavaScript virus badbunny.js, which replicates to other files in the folder. On Apple Mac systems, the worm drops one of two Ruby script viruses in files respectively called badbunny.rb and badbunnya.rb.

Net Security Purr-Fected: Pictures Of Kittens Are The Unlikely New Weapon Against Online Fraud And Spam

There’s a new way to combat internet fraud, prevent spam and keep online shopping secure. But your first impressions may be that it’s not exactly high tech. It takes the form of a simple question: From a gallery of fluffy-animal snaps, can you tell which are cats and which are dogs?

Your answer is enough to find out whether you are human or an automated spam program, designed to send unwanted email.

The dog/cat question is the latest example of a security device called a Captcha, a simple puzzle that usually takes the form of a string of distorted letters and numbers.

Captcha stands for Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart.

The idea behind a Captcha is that users have to perform a task that is simple for a human but incredibly difficult for a computer. Distorting random letters and numbers makes them confusing to a computer but readable to the human eye.

Regular web users will be familiar with Captchas, as they are ubiquitous on shopping, email and networking sites; during initial registration and sometimes log-in, Captchas are used as an additional gateway to passwords.

Although a number of computer researchers have claimed that they invented the Captcha, it’s generally acknowledged that Carnegie Mellon University led the charge after being asked by Yahoo in 2000 to create a security tool to stop spammers using computer programs to set email accounts and then use these accounts to send millions of spam messages.

According to Luis von Ahn, a member of the original Carnegie Mellon team, “Captchas are still the best defence against many types of automated attacks, and I believe they will be used for the foreseeable future. The only ones that can be broken are the extremely primitive ones that use a constant font, and apply no distortion to the characters other than thin lines that are easy to remove automatically.”

But as programs are written that can read heavily distorted codes, the distortions become even more extreme. And as they do so, some of the Captchas are becoming too tricky for many humans to decipher at first attempt. More and more users are finding that they need two or three attempts before they can confirm their shopping orders or set up their new email account. So, creators of Captchas are exploring new avenues.

Von Ahn is the executive producer of a new project, Recaptcha.net, which uses old tomes to create new Captchas. While digitally scanning books to make them available online, character recognition software often fails to recognise a word, because of smudges or damaged paper. If von Ahn’s software can’t read it, he’s assuming that other computers will also struggle. “The words in my Captchas come directly from old books that were recently scanned, and we are using people’s answers to decipher what the words are.”

Picture recognition is an increasingly popular alternative. People are asked to look at a grid of images and pick the ones that have something in common – straightforward for humans but impossible for computers, as it’s difficult for computers to accurately classify images.

Pix Captcha (www.captcha.net), a Carnegie Mellon project, displays pictures of certain things – worms, babies and so on – and then asks people to select the corresponding noun from a drop-down menu.

Most altruistic is a Microsoft research project called Asirra (research.microsoft.com/asirra) – Animal Species Recognition for Restricting Access – that uses pictures of rescue-home dogs and cats from Petfinder.com. It asks you to click on the cats, rather than the shots of aardvarks, bears and dogs thrown in to baffle the computers.

It also helps find homes for domestic animals – each image has a tag reading “adopt me” on it.

Although still in the “beta” testing stage, Asirra has a database of over two million images with which it can create Captchas. It has the potential to change the way we stay secure online – and give animal lovers everywhere a dose of cuteness.

Adapted from The London Independent.

Tech Experts Keeps Complete Packaging’s Network Running Problem-Free

No one knows better than Sue Brey, Complete Packaging Inc.’s controller, how important it is to have a problem-free computer network. Complete Packaging specializes in just in time inventory and production of specialized, “total-solution” packaging products, primarily for the automotive industry.

Complete Packaging is an ISO-9001 and Q9001-2000 certified supplier. “We manufacture wood pallets, crates, boxes, and coil cradles,” said Sue, “and we are a distributor for corrugated shipping containers and set up boxes. Our customers rely on Complete Packaging to provide the right product, at the right price, on time.”

To handle their orders and customer service, Complete relies on a Windows Server 2003 network installed by Technology Experts, using an IBM server, and various IBM workstation computers.

The company has a high-speed T1 Internet connection, facilitating online order entry and email service for the company’s employees. A nearby warehouse facility is connected by a private, secure wireless network to the main office building, allowing computers at both locations access to the Internet service and data stored on the file server.

“We rely on our computers for accounting and manufacturing planning,” continued Sue. “Tech Experts also developed a specialized program we use to prepare the shipping paperwork we use to deliver our products to our customers.”

Complete uses Quickbooks for accounting, payroll and payables. “One of the recent projects Tech Experts did for us was upgrading our Quickbooks,” said Sue. “I was really happy the upgrade process went smoothly.”

Network downtime is costly for any business, but even more so for a company like Complete Packaging that relies so heavily on its computer systems.

That’s why Sue and Complete have invested in a support agreement with Tech Experts.

“One of the most strategic advantages we’ve found working with Tech Experts is that they’re a local company. The support agreement we have gives me peace of mind, knowing they’ll be here right away when I need them,” said Sue.

Sue summed it up best: “Wow! That is all I can say about the team at Tech Experts. It’s so nice  to know that my entire network is handled so I can focus on running the business. I’ve worked with other computer consultants in the past and no one can touch their level of service or expertise.”