Before you entrust your sensitive data to a “cloud” service provider, make sure you weigh the risks with the benefits.

“Cloud computing,” largely synonymous with Internet-based computing, has become a hot topic of discussion among many in the business community, with its promise of radically simplifying the access to, and use of, computing resources on demand. It’s no wonder then that it’s been small businesses, often without full-time IT resources of their own, that have been the first to adopt the concept. As a business owner, however, before you start moving critical data to the “cloud,” you’ll do well to bear in mind the risks that come with the computing model.

First is security and privacy—ask how the service provider ensures the confidentiality and integrity of your data while in their care. Do they provide backups? Can you back up your data yourself? Are their security processes and procedures reviewed and vetted by a third party?

Next is availability. Do they guarantee the uptime of their services—7 days a week, 24 hours a day? Do they provide a service level guarantee? Do they have processes in place to handle exceptional circumstances that can disrupt services, such as a natural disaster? Is support readily available to help in case you encounter any issues?

Finally, there’s cost. While pay-as-you go can be attractive, the total cost over time can add up. It’s worth thinking two to three years out and considering the total cost versus alternatives.

Asking these basic questions can go a long way in giving you peace of mind before you entrust your valuable data and core business systems to the care of others. If you’d like some help sorting all this out and making the best decision for your unique needs, give us a call.

To see images the way they are intended to be seen, calibrate your monitor so that what you see is what you get. Here’s how.

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Making your business greener isn’t only good for the environment, but can also help your business become much more cost effective too.

There’s been a lot of buzz about environmental issues such as climate change, and with the effects reaching everyone around the world, we all need to do our part to help. The good news is that going green in your office or business can also help you become more cost effective. Here’s how:

• Shut down your system when it’s not being used. The principle behind this is pretty simple – you can save electricity and the bills you’ll have to pay with a simple system that can power down when it’s not being used.
• Downsize your infrastructure. You’ll save on bills and power consumption, as well as equipment. Determine the workstations that can be run on a skeletal system, with the heavy lifting done virtually or remotely. This is especially applicable to companies that have people frequently on the road or in the field. Also, if you let people work from home or remotely, there is little need to maintain a vast infrastructure at the home office.
• Go for a paperless office. Paper comes from the cutting down of thousands of trees, and buying it costs money. But these days with almost everything done electronically, paper use can be reduced to a minimum, if not eliminated completely.
• Turn your trash into gold. If you have old units you’re going to throw out but are still in working condition, consider donating them to charity and get a tax break. Or, try to recycle them. E-waste is becoming a big problem these days, so the less you throw away, the better.

If you’d like to know more about how to make your business more cost effective and environment friendly at the same time, we’d be happy to talk with you and draw up a plan that’s specifically suited to your needs.

With social media becoming a widely spread way of finding and connecting with customers, prospects and business partners, it’s about time someone came up with a way to pull all these contacts together in one spot.

     Xobni is an Outlook plug-in that pulls contact information from several sources including LinkedIn profiles, Facebook, Twitter, Salesforce, Hoovers and Yahoo mail. It also organizes your e-mails into threaded conversations and makes searching for documents and e-mails much easier.

     If there is a phone number, address or company name in an e-mail, that person’s information profile will be automatically populated. It’s the same thing if one of your contact’s e-mail addresses matches a profile on Facebook, Yahoo or LinkedIn. Company information is automatically pulled from Hoovers.

     Another cool feature is the contact statistics, which gives you a graph showing what times people tend to send you e-mail so you can quickly identify the most likely times you’ll be able to reach that person. Additionally, it ranks that person with regards to the number of e-mails exchanged and displays the balance between sent and received e-mails. Xobni Actions supplies you with quick templates for asking a contact for their phone number or to schedule a meeting. Icons for LinkedIn, Facebook, and Hoovers allow you to quickly pull information from these sites including Facebook updates.

     While there is a free version you can download, the paid version only costs $30 and gives you advanced search capabilities.

Scanners are the critical link between the non-digital and the digital world. Any picture or document can be turned into a digital format with a scanner. When looking for a scanner, you want to get one good enough to do what you need it to do, but avoid overpaying for features you will not use. The first thing to look at is resolution.

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Despite the clear trend towards greater adoption of mobile devices by businesses and consumers, a new study finds that many businesses are not taking full advantage of the opportunities created by this trend—especially in sales and marketing.

Global smartphone shipments continue to rise, driven by operator subsidies, lower barriers to adoption with the introduction of lower-cost models, and greater choices afforded by vigorous competition from companies such as Apple, RIM, Microsoft, and Google. Not far behind is the rising interest and adoption of other mobile devices, such as tablets with the success of Apple’s iPad.

Despite this trend, a new study by eROI, an online marketing agency, finds that many businesses are not taking full advantage of the opportunities it creates—especially in sales and marketing. The company surveyed 500 businesses, and the majority cited lack of resources and little understanding of what needs to be done as the major barriers to capitalizing on the trend. This, despite findings which show 91 percent of the population use mobile devices, with 23 percent using smartphones that make extensive use of online services.

Companies would benefit from looking at how these trends can be leveraged for building a strategy toward reaching new customers, engaging current customers, and creating rich experiences for both. Some examples from early pioneers in this area: building versions of their website that can be viewed comfortably on mobile devices, using services that make extensive use of social networks and location-based services such as Facebook and FourSquare that work well with mobile devices, and even building custom applications to provide a new channel for reaching and serving customers.

Companies can start small with pilot projects then work from there to see which work best for their businesses.

The continued exploit of many vulnerable applications that have been fixed by vendors for over a year highlight the need to keep software updated with the latest versions and patches.

A new report released by security firm M86 Security reveals a trend toward more sophisticated forms of malware in taking advantage of vulnerabilities in common software applications and developing techniques to avoid detection.

In M86’s report, among the applications commonly exploited are Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Adobe Reader. Another vector for malware that hackers have been using recently is Java and Adobe’s Flash—which are installed on many PCs, often as plug-ins to most browsers.

Although the vulnerabilities in these applications have been identified and patched for over a year, failure to keep up with the latest updates have made many systems still vulnerable to attack. Our customers taking advantage of our Managed Security need not worry, since we make sure our customers’ systems are patched as soon as updates become available. Find out more about our Security Offerings today.

The 2010 hurricane season is upon us!  It is a good time to look at whether or not your business has a plan in place, to make sure you are covered in the event of a storm or a disaster.
Even if your business is not in an area that is prone to hurricanes, these tips are still for you. Floods, earthquakes, ice storms, fires, and even oil spills can dramatically affect your business operations by causing rain damage, electrical surges and power outages. 

What You Can Do To Prepare: 40% of small businesses never reopen after a major disaster due to lack of planning, according to a study by the American Red Cross. Small business need to make sure that they develop a disaster recovery strategy that outlines what programs and data are crucial to their day to day operations. Your data files represent many hours of work, and this effort should be protected against loss. Confirm that your procedures are sufficient to protect your data files. In addition, a monthly verification process should be in place, to make sure that the data you are backing up is everything you need. If you don’t have access to a file server or network, some form of scheduled desktop data backup should be performed. There are several inexpensive options such as external hard drives, flash drives, and CD rewritable disks. Businesses should back up the information in a timely manner and store the data in a safe, secure and dependable facility.

1. Backup Data Files.

2.UPS.  Due to the frequency of summer electrical storms, protecting computer equipment with an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) that provides both over and under voltage protection is recommended. These devices contain a battery that will provide electrical current to a computer for a short period (usually 4 – 15 minutes), even when the power is out.

3. Ensure an Uninterrupted Power Supply. Consider purchasing a backup generator, but at the very least make sure you have plenty of batteries on hand. If you lose electrical power, you won’t be able to support your network infrastructure, let alone maintain the things we seem to take for granted, such as lighting the office.

4. Sign Up for a Reliable Internet Service. All of our businesses rely on the Internet to handle day to day operations. Without the Internet, we wouldn’t be able to send and receive e-mail, fulfill orders from customers, or perform a variety of other daily tasks.  When terrestrial networks are severely damaged, satellites provides instant infrastructure where it’s needed.  This allows business owners to ensure their Internet connection is not interrupted, so they can continue to send and receive e-mails, process orders, check inventory, and conduct day-to-day business.

5. Plug in a Corded Telephone. If you use a cordless phone in your office, don’t forget that it will not work during a power outage. By having at least one corded phone, you can make sure that your business will still have a telephone even if there is no electricity.

6. Computer Storage. If worst comes to worst and you have to evacuate, your computer, monitor, and all peripherals such as printers, scanners and speakers, should be shut down properly and unplugged from wall outlets. Move computers and peripherals away from windows and doors, and towards the center of the room.  If flooding is a possibility, place all your computer equipment on a raised platform least two feet from the floor.  Make sure everything is securely supported and covered with plastic sheeting.

Let Us Help You!
Intelligent Technical Solutions will be glad to help you get ready for the season. We can help you document your Network, prepare your Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plans, and get ready for the storms. If we are unlucky enough to get hit by a weather emergency, we can help you recover and get your technology back up in the shortest possible time. Call us today at 702-869-3636 for a free disaster preparedness assessment.

Mozilla implements new initiatives to ensure the security of its browser to fix the main security holes, and this brings Firefox’s latest version to 3.6.7

The Mozilla foundation, the organization behind the Firefox browser, announced recently that it has released a patch to fix many major security holes found in its software, as well as the pull out of malicious add-ons in its extensions gallery.

A new update brings Firefox’s latest version to 3.6.7, and includes fixes for nine critical issues that could potentially be exploited by hackers to launch attacks on vulnerable systems. This comes after recently pulling out a password stealing add-on called the “Mozilla Sniffer” in the Firefox extensions gallery. As a preventive measure, the Mozilla foundation has announced a US $3,000 security bounty program that for anyone who finds an eligible security bug. It has also announced that it will implement a source code review of add-ons to catch potential malware that could be injected into otherwise patched Firefox browsers.

As always, users are advised to be constantly on guard and to make sure they are using the latest updated versions of their software. Customers under our Managed Security program benefit by letting us do the worrying and updating for them, so they can focus on their business instead of their security. Not on our Managed Security program? Contact us today.

With mobile devices becoming a staple in business dealings these days, it’s high time companies enact policies for mobiles that will not only help them cut costs, but keep their information and data safe as well. Experts outline several tips to help you achieve this.

In this day and age, it’s a necessity to always be in touch, and many mobile phones are now equipped with features to help us do just that, such as internet connectivity, SMS, push email, and more.

With this increase in the use of smart phones such as Blackberries and iPhones for work, it follows that maintenance costs of mobiles can get to be pretty steep if not managed correctly. Bills for one mobile phone can reach more than $2,000 a year – just imagine the maintenance costs for several units.

In addition, the need for more rigid and concrete policies for mobile devices is also increasing. Experts recommend that since many of the functions of mobile devices mimic those of a desktop workstation, companies should apply the same policies they have for their IT systems to their mobile devices.

Such a policy not only reduces costs, but will also keep your entire system safe. Since sensitive information is now stored on mobiles, there’s the risk of infiltration and information theft – and for many companies with little or no protection for the mobile arm of their system, it’s only a matter of time before they find themselves in trouble.

Here are some tips from the experts:

• Use an integrated management system for both your office IT infrastructure and your company’s mobile devices. There are plenty of reputable providers for this kind of software, with big names such as Nokia and Microsoft offering programs that cater to multiple phone manufacturers.

• Minimize the frequency and access of personal mobile devices to your IT system at the office. More often than not, personal mobile devices do not have the same safeguards as that of office equipment, and allowing them to connect to your system poses a number of risks.

• Authorize your IT group to remotely access company mobile devices. In case a unit is lost or stolen, any or all information on it can be wiped clean.

For more details, read the complete story at:

http://technology.inc.com/telecom/articles/200810/mobiledevice.html?partner=newsletter_Technology

If you want to evaluate your IT policies and strategies to include your mobile devices, simply contact us and we’ll be glad to draw up a customized work plan that meets your specific needs and requirements.