So, all of this being true why do you insist/allow having the most backward, crazy, dangerous electronic filing system ever devised by man kind??

On a more serious note, it still amazes me the number of clients we’ve supported over the years who have numerous copies of the same files or documents or everything saved in ‘My Documents’ or other obscure location on their hard drive where files cannot be found by colleagues or are not being backed up.
 
How many hours are lost simply looking for data files on computers, making it worse when your clients are waiting for information contained in those files?  As they say; “ Time is money”.

Now, that’s bad enough from a business point of view but from my point of view ( and yes I am being a bit selfish here ) it can be a nightmare.

Poor data control really comes to a head in the event of a virus attack, pc going down or any other scenario where data can be lost.  If you ever upgrade your network or pc’s, then once again the monster rears its ugly head because I keep getting asked where ‘ so and so’ file is.

Honestly, I don’t know.  I promise you I backed up and migrated everything I could find but you didn’t tell where everything was.

The most amazing part is, the number of companies I’ve been to where the electronic filing system defies any kind of logic know to humanity, yet they have the most amazing paper based systems since Alexander The Great decided to set up a branch library in Egypt.

You could literally blind fold members of staff and they could still find all of their documents, so why aren’t they doing it in their computerised versions?

So, we’re agreed then?  It’s time to sort your files out, I know it’s a pain of a job to-do, but I promise that life will be so much easier afterwards.  The best bit, no I.T expertise is required, well the planning bit anyway.

The way I approach it is to sketch it out on paper and draw a simple diagram of how you want the structure to look like.

Once you have a plan of action, implementing it on your computer systems can range from a very simple peer to peer network all the way up to a very complex server solution, all of which we can happily install and configure for you.

An Ideal solution for a small business ( 2-7 users) would be something along the lines of:

A Buffalo Linkstation NAS server: http://www.pcworldbusiness.co.uk/buy-rent/Buffalo+LinkStation+Pro+Duo+NAS+server/P111414P?from=category&heat=txt

Other vendors are availible.
This allows you to network your pc’s and Apple Mac’s to share file on your network
An installation time of about 2 - 4 hours ( excluding the usual problem solving ) and you have a cracking little networking solution.

You’d be amazed at how much of an improvement can be made in your systems by investing a modest setup but without breaking the bank.

Well, that’s enough for now but I do hope that’s given you some food for thought.

As always, we look forward to hearing from you if you need any I.T support, advice and just a general chat.

You are still using very obvious an simplistic passwords, so stop it now !

It’s amazing how you can really strengthen your passwords by using UppER and lOWer cASe in your passwords and chuck in a symbol or two ( and I don’t mean the crash bang variety ) and b0B’s y4 gR4ndm4 a rather secure password.

Why not pop over to: http://howsecureismypassword.net/ and test it. Now go and test your password, have a small panic attack and then go and think of something far better.

And remember, that site uses guesses based on a ‘standard pc’. If you were running something with a lot more horse power ( big server or computers linked together to create an ‘uber’ computer) your password will crack faster than a ice lolly on a hot day in Death Valley

To further add to this, I came across this article below which gives some thought to common passwords.

Any of yours in there ?

By Joe McKendrick

In spite of a constant drumbeat of news about hacking and cracking computer accounts, users still are employing extremely common and obvious phrases as passwords. A compilation of the most commonly used — and potentially most insecure — passwords seen over the past year was recently drawn up by Splashdata and reported in Mashable. Splashdata found that incredibly enough, the leading password in use today is the word “password.” Interestingly, number 4 on the list, the keyboard lineup of “qwerty,” is counterbalanced by item number 23, “qazwsx,” which is the first three rows of keys typed vertically.

 The list closely parallels that developed close to two years ago by Imperva, showing that these terms never go out of vogue.

Here is this year’s list:

1. password
2. 123456
3.12345678
4. qwerty
5. abc123
6. monkey
7. 1234567
8. letmein
9. trustno1
10. dragon
11. baseball
12. 111111
13. iloveyou
14. master
15. sunshine
16. ashley
17. bailey
18. passw0rd
19. shadow
20. 123123
21. 654321
22. superman
23. qazwsx
24. michael
25. football

SmartPlanet colleague Tuan C. Nguyen provides a surprisingly simple technique for deriving a strong password that makes it difficult for hacking programs to arrive at the right brute force combination — employing a symbol in combination with an upper-case and lower-case letter.

Not everyone thinks that strong passwords are the answer, however. In another study on passwords, a Microsoft researcher conducted a cost/benefit analysis of efforts to encourage stronger passwords, and questions whether the costs of strong password management outweighs the benefits.

Think about passwords that you could easily memorise and that you don’t have to write down or inadvertently give away by mistake!

Look for association but nothing too obvious.  Friends, family, pet names and all know Sci-fi programs are a big no no.

As an example I use the details of the first car my grandfarther owned.

For example: TriumphTR83.5V8 – HowSecureis My Password says: About 5 Trillion Years

Or try playing with uPPer and lOWEr case and try playing with hyphens and spaces too.

So we try: TriuMPh TR8 3.5-V8 that becomes: About 60 quintillion years

Remember I.D theft, password pinchin is VERY BIG business. Thieves don’t rob banks or Post Offices these days ( well, nowhere as much ), they take your identity and data, much more valuable.

I’m quite sure our friend Kennedy ( That Mind Reader Guy ) knows many a simple techniques designed to make you give up your password. He’s very very good if you ever get the chance to meet him or attend one of his events, just don’t mention Derren Brown! Shameless plug over now.

Well, that’s enough for now but I do hope that’s given you some food for thought.

It looks like Adobe have been playing around with their latest version of Flash Player, and this playing around has left our clients with something of a headache, especially if their software that relies on a particular version.

We came across just such an incident recently when an accountant client had automatically upgraded to the latest version of Adobe Flash ( nothing unusually there, it will nag you to do so ) and knocked out their version of the Inland Revenue’s PAYE software.

After much rummaging around and talking to HMRC we discovered that you have to un-install the latest version of Adobe Flash and pick one of the slightly older versions.

Now, so far we have only seen the problem with the software from the Tax Office but we suspect you could see similar problems with other bespoke software packages that rely on Adobe Flash.

 If you need help with Flash or any other related problems, call us today to see how we can get you back in business.

WordPress is something Harrison I.T Services have been chatting about and mentioned  in our presentations, so we thought we’d put together a little more information for you so maybe you can see why we love it so much.

WordPress was developed as a blogging tool and made as easy as possible so you can be on-line as quickly as possible. Basically, if you can use MS Word, you can use WordPress.  It was designed to be a powerful Content Management System( CMS ), which means you don’t need any programming skills to maintain and improve your website.

When you control your website it really becomes a valuable asset to the business.

So, some of the reasons I like it:

• Very easy to use, you can be up and running in about an hour. Honest.
• Used globally and growing everyday.
• Very customizable. There are thousands of plugins you can add to your website.
• It comes with good SEO as standard, but can easily be improved on. Those plugins again!
• There are many hosting packages that include W.P as standard.
• I think it has far greater flexibility than other template systems, including the free Google one.
• A massive selection of exciting designs and styles ( also known as ‘Themes’ )
• Build an on-line shop – free
• The biggie; its free!

I could keep going but I think you’re getting the idea.

There are a couple of points you need to remember.

1) You need to have a hosting package that supports it. Having said that, you can get a good hosting package from about £ 5.00 pcm. It’s not going to break the bank.

2) W.P can be customised to look exactly the way you want it. There is a huge range of free or low cost templates available. You could use a free one to get going, I’d strongly suggest that you pay for a professional template to be designed for you. A good design really helps your business.

Shop around, there are loads of people who can offer W.P themes and templates. Including us !

If you want to try W.P for free then you can head over to :www.dreamhostapps.com and open a basic account. Just follow the instructions, and Bob’s your Grandma! We use our free account quite a bit to test and develop new solutions.  It’s good practice to test your ideas, just in case you damage your main website.

If you would like to talk to us to see how you  can help you build your perfect W.P website for your business, contact us today for a free no obligation quotation.

In the present economic climate everyone is watching what they spend, small businesses are no different.

We have put together a list ( in no particular order ) of free software packages that we think think are ideal for any business but best of all will keep your accountant happy.

Note: H.I.T.S provide this information ‘as is’ and accept no liability for any damaged caused by third party software.  This list is aimed at MS Windows only.

Open Office: Open Office is a very powerful office suite that includes typing and spreadsheet functions.  Not quite the same but it does give Microsoft Office an excellent run for its money.  Great package if you are just starting out.

GIMP:  A title that often rises a smile.  It is an an excellent free graphics and drawing tool.  In fact, we think it comes close to Adobe Photo shop.  It might not be the easiest tool to pick up, but if you stick with it you can produce some amazing results.  We also suggest that you search on-line for tutorials ( there are thousands ) for more amazing free advice.

Paint.Net: An alternative Paint / photo editing software.  Once again another very powerful tool, but you need to spend a bit of time with it and read some tutorials.  Well worth it.

Defraggler: A handy useful tool that defrags your hard drive.  We think it’s much better than the one included in Windows.

ToDo Backup: An excellent backup tool.  No more excuses for not backing up your data.

CutePDF: A brilliant little tool that allows you to convert just about any document into PDF files.  A must. 

TweetDeck:  Keep all of your social media in once place with Tweetdeck.

MailChimp: We absolutly love this !  A great way of staying in touch with your customesrs

Many small business use laptops or mobile devices in their day to day use but do they take any care with the data stored on it? Your data is the lifeblood of your business.  Think of the time it would take if you had to re-enter all of your work.  Could you?

Many people do back up their data, but it could still be much better. We are constantly meeting new clients who have the most basic data backup systems in place.  Often as not it’s not been tested, until it’s too late.

The idea of data security was brought sharply into focus a little while ago when we were assisting a new client. The client sold services that often carry sensative information, so you can imagine the type of data that was stored on their laptop.  While we were chatting and working on the main task, we casually enquired about what kind of data security they were using.

“ I use a password on Windows” was the answer.

Anyone with even a basic knowledge of I.T systems will tell you that an M.S Windows password is incredibly easy to bypass. In fact, we use software designed to recover Windows passwords when clients have locked themselves out or forgotten their passwords.

For someone carrying sensative information the threat to them and their business cannot be understated.  If that laptop had been lost or stolen ( and thousands do go missing in the U.K each year ) the damage to that business in lost revenue and more importantly the damage to their reputation.

There’s also the risk of legal ramifications. The U.K’s Data Registrar takes a very dim view on data loss and can levy large fines against organisations that loose data.

There could also be a risk of civil action against an organisation.

The overriding question would be; ‘What steps have you taken to protect your company’s data?’

In this particular instance we installed a free piece of encryption software called Trucrypt (http://www.truecrypt.org/).  This allows the client to carry their data from A to B, safe in the knowledge that the data is encrypted to a very strong level.  This encryption not only works with laptops but many portable devices, including USB pen drives.

How many people carry sensitive information unprotected USB devices ?

If the laptop were lost or stolen, it would take an expert with some very powerful computing ability and a very long time to break the encryption, if at all. In fact, under U.K law it is an offence to refuse to hand over a password to Police or other law enforcement.

Now, it’s at this point that you are probably thinking that none of this applies to me or my business.

We have worked with many businesses over the years and it’s amazing at the type of data they do carry. Let’s put it another way; would you discuss your business details and those of your clients in the middle of Oxford Street in London? ( Northumberland Street in Newcastleor any other public place ? ).

Now is the time to really look at what data you do have and how it’s stored, it might be something of an eye opener.

It was with some interest that we read May 2011 edition of Which Magazine.

This edition they were testing a number of anti-virus software packages and supplringlsy both Norton and McAaffe anti-virus packages came out top.  We were supprised because for a number of years we ( and other colleagues in the computer trade ) have avoided both of those products, mainly because they have often caused more problems than they solve and usually cause your computer to run slowly.

There are some good free anti-virus packages out there, including:

• Microsoft Security Essentials
• Avast anti-virus
• Avira anti-virus

You might also want to consider some anti-malware  software:

• Malwarebytes
• Spybot Search & Destroy

When it comes to protecting your business no matter how big or small we would always recommend that you opt for a fully commercial ( paid for ) anti-virus package.

To try and use a free anti-virus package for your business is simply a false economy, it’s also more than likely a breach of the software license.

We had a case recently where a client had been using free anti-virus who manged to infect their small network.  The costs involved in cleaning all of their computers far out-stripped the cost of purchasing decent anti-virus software.

Choosing the best antivirus software for your business can be something of a moving a target but as a starting point  have a look at the following link: A review of business anti-virus software.  It’s a U.S based site but it does give you enough information to help choose a software solution.

The one thing we would say is:  No matter which product you choose make sure you invest in a decent business anti-virus software package.

You owe it to your business.