Is Desktop Clutter A Problem?

There are more things to cause desktop clutter than the items that the eye can see.

There’s always the cable mess that seems to arrive with computers and other electronic items needed to perform your job. The electric cords and the large ‘bricks’ that accompany some items seem to always be in the way or causing an eyesore. Many manufacturers sell items such as cable ties to secure cable, wide outlet plug strips for those big bulky transformers.

And you can always use a wireless keyboard and mouse to keep those cables out of hand and sight. They have their problems as well. They run on batteries that need to be changed or recharged. Not to mention they need to be turned on before use and off afterwards, otherwise the batteries are replaced constantly. Sometimes it may seem just as easy to have those couple of wires on the desk instead of the constant changing of batteries. But like everything, that’s a personal choice.

But you may be totally surprised to find that clutter resides in your computer. Clutter in your computer could be anything form the adware and spyware that was installed onto your computer without your knowledge to just a bunch of old unused and long forgotten files and folders.

The huge hard drive you purchased thinking it was so big that you would never fill may now be starting to run out of space. Music and video files, even those compressed, when you have 100’s and 1000’s of them take up a lot of room.

Here are a couple of things you can do to help ease that filling hard drive. Take a look at the programs that are on your computer. Is that program you tried a while ago, decided you hated and now have never used still on the computer? It’s probably time to look, evaluate and remove any programs that you have never used.

Another thing you may want to do is check your emails. Do you have old messages that have huge attachments in them? A few may not seem like much, but if doesn’t take too many message with pictures to take up a lot of storage space.

Don’t forget to check your music files. Podcasts have become a common element in today’s life but do you download a daily one, listen to it once, but have no desire to ever listen to it again. It’s just like the pictures in your email a few isn’t bad but once you have 100’s it takes up room.

Then again there is another, more technical answer in case you are running out of room on your hard drive. You can always buy a new bigger one.

© 2006 Steven G. Atkinson – All rights reserved – tt4sb.com

Bad Technology Habits

1.   Talking on the cell phone at inappropriate places.  People when they are talking forget where they are or who may be around when they are having a conversation on the phone.  The guy next to you in the grocery line, or sitting in front of you in a theater don’t want to hear your end of the conversation and you may not want them to hear it either.

2.   Interrupting a conversation to answer you cellphone.  If you are talking with a client, is the caller more important than the client.  Probably not.

3.   Constantly checking email.  It’s better to check them in batches than when each mail is delivered.  Turn off notification and build into your schedule email time.  You will be more productive.

4.   Don’t use unusual ringtones.  A ringing phone at the wrong time is embarrassing, but one in a business meeting that plays your favorite rock song may be worst.

5.   Hiding behind Voice mail. Too many people will not answer the phone, let voice mail take the message and then respond to the voice mail.

6.   Calling back a number on CallerID  when a message wasn’t left in voice mail. It could have been a incorrect dialed number or the caller needed the answer right then nd not later.  It’s even possible that you may have already talked with that person since they called.

© 2007 Steven G. Atkinson – All Rights Reserved – Technology Tips for Small Business

Would you be ready for a software audit?

Computers have made doing business quicker and in many cases easier. But the computer by itself is nothing more than a box with a screen. You have to have software programs to make the computer a productive tool.

Do you know what software reside on your computer?  If you don’t know it’s probably time to find out.

Software companies just like any business they are in business make money.  They don’t want their valuable commodity being used by companies who don’t have the legal rights to use it.  So you really want to have the software on your computer to be in compliance.

There are many reasons that some of the software on the computers at your company may be out of compliance.  Some software companies may sell their software for use for a limited amount of time.  If that time has lapsed and you are still using the software it is out of compliance.

It’s possible that your company may have purchased the original software, but not the upgrade that one of your employees installed simply because they had it.

There are also cases where the software on your machine was purchased out of compliance for its use. Some software publishers will offer discounts for personal use. These versions, while identical to the full version, in the purchase agreement states they can’t be used for business purposes. This would make the software out of compliance.

You may not even be aware that the software is not in compliance, but if you happen to fall under an Audit it could cause a lot of trouble. Just the audit itself is troublesome; time is spent researching purchasing records, license agreement and other documents. After the audit you may find yourself in compliance, but most may also find themselves out of compliance with little leverage in negotiations.

Here are some things to assist you with your software inventory.

• Have a computer policy. It should state how the computer should be used, lists who may install software and document that unauthorized software can not be installed. Unauthorized software would be everything whether it’s free off of the Internet or purchased.
• Have one person or a small team being the authorizing point. You may also want to be part of that team.
• Document all software installed on each computer. Be certain that each copy has it’s own license and document such. One purchased copy put on the three machines is not valid unless the license agreement gives that right.
• Perform your own computer audit once a year.  One way to accomplish this is in conjunction with an employee performance review.  If the computer is found in compliance, than the employee did their job to maintain it as such.

If an audit is now performed, give the auditor the documented software list for each machine and you can feel confident that the audit will go smooth and, for you, successful.

© 2006-2007 Steven G. Atkinson – All rights reserved – tt4sb.com

Inventory Control – Do you know what you have?

Over time it’s amazing to see how much technology equipment a business can purchase. Do you know everything that you have? Do you know how old it is? Do you have a maintenance contract on something you took out of service months ago? These are all valid question, and some of you may be surprised with your answers.

Here are some ways to help control your inventory.

Start a database now, if you don’t already have one. When you purchase something, enter the information in it. Helpful information to keep in the database is the item description, serial number, cost, date of purchase, ending warranty date. I also keep an estimated time of use and have a column to enter the disposal date. I’m sure there may other items to put into it, but this is a good start.

Now each time you purchase a technology item just enter this information. It’s easy to go from here onward, it only takes a few minutes with each new item.

Now comes the hard part. It’s not really hard, it’s just time consuming. Enter all of your existing equipment into the database. The purchase cost or date may not be readily available, but on most items you can make an educated guess.

Now here comes the real hard part. Contracts for services. This would include maintenance contracts on equioment such as copiers, computers or telephone equipment. It should also include the monthly service charges for telecommunication items such as telephone service office and cellular, Internet service and all cost associated with them.

You may have to get your carrier involved to really get this updated information. The local phone company should be able to give you a CSR (Customer Service Record) that has detailed information on what you are receiving from them. The Internet carrier can give you the same, and make certain you get the details on speed, both upload and download, of the connection. This is the only way that you can be sure that the price you pay is competitive.

Now that you have everything together you can make informed technology related issues without having to reinvent the wheel.

© 2006-2007  Steven G. Atkinson – All rights reserved – Technology Tips for Small Business

10 things to do to help secure your data

Here are 10 tips to assist you in securing your data.

1) Back up early and often – do it, as you are working as well as the end of the day.

2) Use file-level and share-level security – This helps keeps others away from your data.

3) Password-protect documents – Many programs allow this, but while it may be at times easy to crack, idle eyes won’t have the time to do it.

4) Use EFS encryption – EFS uses a combination of asymmetric and symmetric encryption, for both security and performance. To encrypt files with EFS, a user must have an EFS certificate, which can be issued by a Windows certification authority or self-signed if there is no CA on the network.

5) Use disk encryption – Whole disk encryption locks the entire disk, but can be transparent to the user, once the password is entered. Since removable devices may be easily misplaced or lost it’s a good idea to always use this on removable disks.

6) Make use of a public key infrastructure – A public key infrastructure (PKI) is a system for managing public/private key pairs and digital certificates.

7) Hide data with steganography – You can use a steganography program to hide data inside other data. Example: hide a text file inside a graphic or music file.

8) Protect data in transit with IP security – Your data can be captured while it’s traveling over the network by a hacker with sniffer software (also called network monitoring or protocol analysis software).

9) Secure wireless transmissions – Data that you send over wireless is more subject to interception than that sent over a wired Ethernet network.

10) Use rights management to retain control – You can use Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) to control what the recipients are able to do with the data they receive.

© 2006-2007 Steven G. Atkinson – All Rights Reserved – Technology Tips for Small Business

Businesses – Do An Energy Audit

For most businesses their single most costly item is their electric costs. In some cases a business may have to spend some money to save it. But there are ways to save on energy costs without spending a dime.

By doing an Energy Audit savings can be seen quickly by finding the energy wasting hotspots.

When looking at the electric costs, there are three major places where it’s used.  Lighting, Office Equipment and Heating/Cooling. Each area needs to be looked at individually as well as in total.

Lighting:
* Reduce lighting by using task lights.

* Turn off the lights when they aren’t needed.

* Use timers and sensors for seldom-used areas such as storage closets, conference room and rest rooms.

Office Equipment:
* Shut off computers, copiers and other office equipment at nights and on weekends.  If these items are always on just by turning them off during these times will reduce energy costs associated to Office Equipment by over 50%.  While some computes, such as servers, need remain on at all times, the monitors do not.

* Use Power Management on computers, copiers and laser printers.

* Replace CRT style monitors with LCD monitors.

Heating and Cooling:
* Don’t open windows and doors.

* Lower the thermostat in the winter and raise them in the summer.

•    Make certain that the thermostats are not blocked and can get a correct reading of the room air temperature.

When performing and energy audit, it’s important to walk around the office with an energy checklist to help identify areas where savings cane be found.

This walk around should involve the employees and done at different times during the day, during work hours as well as after-hours and on weekends.  Since seasonal conditions may change it should be done on average once each season.

Once the checklist is finished items needs to be itemized and prioritize.  Those that can be accomplished quick and with little expense can be done first.  Those that have costly upfront costs need to be part of the annual budget review and made part of the business plan.

Visit More Than Switching Off the Lights – Common Sense Ways to Conserve Energy at morethanswitchingoffthelights.com 

© 2007 Steven G. Atkinson – All Rights Reserved – tt4sb.com

Five things to do when you get a new computer.

1) Create an Administrators and a Users account. Use the user account for normal work and only use the Administrators account when required.

2) Turn on the operating system’s firewall. This firewall is strong enough to help prevent many internet problems.

3) Install and activate Anti-Virus software.

Do each of the above items before connecting to the internet.

4) Update software. This would include your Operating System as well as your Anti-Virus.

5) Be proactive against spyware. It’s better to have the protection before you get infected than trying to remove it once it is installed.

© 2006-2007 Steven G. Atkinson – All Rights Reserved – tt4sb.com

Take a look at More Than Switching Off the Lights – Common Sense Ways to Conserve Energy.

Secure data on removal devices.

Removable USB drives makes it easy to move data from one PC to another or to keep backups at another location. But because of their size they are also easy to misplace and lost. If it happens to have all of your private data on it, all of a sudden someone else may be you, having stolen your identity along with your drive.

Some devices now offer data encryption as part of their drives. It’s wise to use it. There are also other software answers to data encryption.

But if the data that is on your USB drive is so valuable that if the drive is lost than you need to secure that data so that only authorized individuals can read it.

© 2006-2007 Steven G. Atkinson – All Rights Reserved – tt4sb.com

Scan computers for hidden Spyware and Adware.

Adware and Spyware are the enemy of Windows PC. If you don’t have some sort of adware or spyware on your computer, it’s probably because you aren’t on the Internet. And if you are reading this you obviously are on the Internet.

What is Spyware? The term spyware refers to malicious software designed to intercept or take partial control of a computer’s operation without the informed consent of that machine’s owner. Adware is software that displays advertisements, whether it has the owner consent.

Information on spyware can be found at spyware guide.

There are many anti-spyware programs. One of the most common are Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware SE and Patrick Kolla’s Spybot – Search & Destroy.

Check out your computer. If there are Adware and Spyware on your machines it probably is causing the Internet connection to appear slow. This is because they are constantly in use in the background.

© 2006-2007 Steven G. Atkinson – All rights reserved – tt4sb.com

Backup data and store at a separate location.

No matter how new or old your computer system may be, it is possible for it to fail. It’s bad enough that it may fail and you need to have it repaired, but if that failure occurs in the hard drive, where your data it stored, you could lose that data.

Backup your data.

When? Whenever you have data stored that you cannot afford to lose. The day that you finish that important report needed for advancement in your career could also be the day that your system fails and your data is destroyed.

What do you use to backup. That’s not as important as that you do it. You can have another hard drive and have it backed up there. Or you could have the data backed up to a CD or a removable USB drive.

It’s also a very good idea to have your data stored in another location than your system. If a fire occurs and destroy your system and the backup is sitting next to it, then it’ll be gone too.

© 2006-2007 Steven G. Atkinson – All rights reserved – tt4sb.com

Ideas to keep your PC performing smoothly

Other than the telephone the most important technology tool for many businesses is the computer. In many businesses it may even be more important than the telephone. When the PC is running smoothly the business runs that way too. When it’s not there’s usually panic.

There are things that can be done to help prevent problems. Using the following as a guideline will greatly assist in keeping the tool in good shape.

1) Have the right software installed. Every computer will come with the operating system installed. The first ones to install now would be Anti-virus, firewall and one that will protect you from ad-ware and spy-ware. After those it’s time to determine what other software you need to do your work.

2) Keep the operating system software and prevention software updated. Just as important as having these packages installed on your system you need to be sure that they are up-to-date and are regularity updated. Most will allow you to set a time to update. It should probably be done once a day and at a time that you know that the computer will be connected to the Internet.

3) Think before adding new software or upgrades. It’s always best to consider all factors before adding new software or updates. Is the computer powerful enough to run the updated software? Will the software impact any other installed software? Will it require system resources that may slow the system to an unusable level? These are just a couple of the questions that should be raised when looking at new and upgraded software.

4) Clean and organize your Hard Drive. Even though computer data storage devices are getting bigger, so in many cases are the files being stored on them. Software packages can take up a lot of space, as can music and video files. It’s a good idea to occasionally check your drive to remove outdated and unwanted software and other files. Email is another source of storage hogs. There may be multiple message with the same attachment or just old messages that have attachments. The Hard Drive is nearly always working and it does have mechanical parts that can fail. You will want to back up critical files routinely for quick restore in case of a failure.

5) Keep the area and air vents clean. One of the biggest dangers to the computer is heat. And the inter working of a modern machine generates a lot of it. It’s important to keep the air vents clean and free from dust, dirt and other air flow inhibitors such as paper and sticky notes. You don’t want to have the computer in a cabinet that has little to no air flow and keep it away from the heating source of the room.

6) Know where important documentation is located. In the case that the computer does decide to break it’s important to have the contact and/or warranty information easy to find. If you have a maintenance plan that allow for checkup and cleaning, have it done at the recommended times and if possible just before the warranty expires. Also know where the system restore and other software disk are located. And have current backups available.

© 2007 Steven G. Atkinson – All rights reserved – tt4sb.com

Secure your wireless network!

Not too long ago it was hard to have all of the computers in the office networked together. To do it you had to string wires all over the office or pay the expense to have those wires property installed in the walls. At times a decision to not network may have been made because of the cost.

Now it’s almost impossible not to have them networked. All users at one time or another may require access to the Internet. Or there may be a common printer. Or you have an office file server.

Wireless technology has made some of the hassles of an office network vanish. You plug a card in the PC, or turn on the wireless (Wi-Fi) function in your laptop to connect to the wireless router attached to the Internet.

But along with the benefits wireless, some data security issues have also risen. There are a couple of simple steps that can be done to alleviate some common security flaws of a wireless network.

1) Set up your wireless router or access point near the center of the area that you want to cover. The closer the remote device is to the router, the stronger the signal. If you have the router near a window, it’s possible that a person in the parking lot could have a better signal that the office at the end of the hall. There are folks who travel around looking for a clear un-secured wireless system to attach them selves and like a vampire suck the bandwidth away.

2) Change the default Administrator username and password. The default Administrator username and password can easily be found doing a simple search on the Internet and readily known by hackers. Having these changed will prevent unauthorized changes to the settings of the router that you establish.

3) Enable firewall on the router as well as the computers. Most will have it turned on as default, but it’s always best to be certain.

4) Turn encryption ON. There are several wireless encryption schemes and you may need to determine which one is used by all of the devices that are going to be put on the network. WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) and WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) are the most common. WPA is stronger than WEB. Some older equipment may not have WPA and you may need to use WEB.

5) Change the SSID. Access Points and Routers have a network name known as the SSID. Manufactures will ship their products with the same SSID. You should also change this name. Even though a hacker can’t change anything in the device simply by knowing this name. They will use this as a point to located a network. When they see a default, their assumption is that the network poorly configured and may attack it.

6) Disable Auto-connect. You want to be certain that your laptop wireless is not set up to auto connect to open wireless networks. With auto-connect turned on, when it detects a network it will attach itself to it. A hacker may have set up this network to download a worm or trojan horse onto the system.

© 2007 Steven G. Atkinson – All rights reserved – tt4sb.com

Problems between Apple iTunes and Windows Vista

If you use Apple iTunes and are considering upgrading to Windows Vista, you may want to think about it before doing so. Apple has released a notice detailing some compatibility issues between their iTunes application and Windows Vista Operating System.

Apple recommends that you delay upgrading until their next release of iTunes. They haven’t given a date of that release, but believe it to be available within the next few weeks.

Some of the compatibility problems are;
• iTunes store purchases may not play when upgrading from Windows 2000 or XP.
• iPod models with the “Enable Disk Use” option turned off may be unable to update or restore iPod software, make changes to iPod settings or may require being ejected and reconnected to resync.
• Ejecting an iPod from the system tray and not iTunes could cause corruption on the iPod.
• Contacts and calendars will not sync with iPod.

Apple recommends following these steps if you do plan on upgrading before the next release of iTunes.
1. Deauthorize all iTunes Store accounts.
2. Enable Disk Use on all iPod models.
3. Uninstall iTunes.
4. Perform a clean install of Windows Vista (Highly recommended but not required).
5. Reinstall the latest version of iTunes.
6. Open iTunes.
7. Choose Authorize Computer from the Store menu in iTunes.

The full text of Apple’s warning can be found;http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305042

What the Vista?

Updated from post of November 19, 2006

If you haven’t heard of Vista, you will be soon. On January 30th Microsoft will release its updated Windows Operating System.

It’s classified as an upgrade of Windows XP, but a replacement would probably be a better term for it. Windows XP is five years old.

Vista will be issued in a few different versions. The right Vista version for you would be the one that best fits your needs.

The announced versions from their website are ;
Home Basic (For Basic home needs such as email and Internet access)
Home Premium (For the best home computing and entertainment)
Business ( For small and mid-sized organizations)
Ultimate (For work and entertainment, this is the most complete edition)

There is an upgrade for users of Windows 2000 or Windows XP. Any other version would require purchase of the full product, although systems running those versions probably wouldn’t be able to run Vista anyway.

What do you need to use Vista?

While Microsoft does say that if a PC was purchased in the last 2 years, it may run Vista they never claim that it will. What they do give you on their website is the minimum requirements. They use two different levels.

The Windows Vista Capable PC
A Modern processor (at least 800MHz)
512 MB of system memory
A graphic processor which is DirecTX 9 capable

A Windows Visa Premium Ready PC
1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 GB of system memory
Support for DirecTX 9 graphic with WDDM driver, 128 MB graphics memory
40 GB hard drive with 15 GB free space
DVD-ROM Drive
Audio Output
Internet Access

Obviously the better the computer system the better it will perform under any operating system. My recommendations for a possible Vista system are;
1 GHz processor
1 GB system memory
DirecTX 9 capable graphic processor
80 GB hard drive with 30 GB free space
DVD-RW drive

The offical site for Vista is at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/

The new Apple

Steve Jobs in his keynote speech at Macworld 2007 on January 9, 2007, only made three announcements. The announcements were major one, though.

Possibly the least important announcement is the one that will shape Apple in the future. As he said in his address; “The Mac, iPod, Apple TV and iPhone. Only one of those is a computer. So we’re changing the name. We’re announcing today that we’re dropping the ‘Computer’ from our name, and from this day forward we’re going to be known as Apple Inc.”

Considering that very few people referred to them as Apple Computer, is this really a big announcement. The big picture on this will come out in the following years, but this is a turn said that they aren’t a computer company, but a technology company.

The first of Jobs announcements was for the AppleTV. The device will allow a user to connect their digital media by displaying 720p HD video to their TV. The device priced at $ 299 will have a 40GB hard drive with built-in Wi-Fi, Component video, audio and optical ports.

The AppleTV can stream content from up to five computes and will work directly with iTunes. It will be available in February, 2007 with Apple beginning to take orders now.

The 2nd announcement was for the Apple version cell phone called iPhone. The iPhone is as he said ” … three revolutionary products of this class …The first one is a wide-screen iPod with touch controls. The second is a revolutionary mobile phone. The third is a breakthrough Internet communications device. These are not three separate devices. This is one device. And we are calling it iPhone.”

The iPhone instead of using a keyboard as many smart-phones do, will use a new technology called “Multitouch”. The user will use his fingers to work the device by touching the display. The iPhone features a 3.5-inch, 160 dot-per-inch color screen and at 11.6 millimeters, thinner than any smart-phone out there.

The iPhone is planned to be available in July and will work on the Cingular network. The phone will be sold in both the Apple Store as well as Cingular outlets. The cost will be $499 for a 4GB model and $599 for the 8GB. You will also need to sign up for two years of Cingular service.

© 2007 Steven G. Atkinson – All rights reserved – tt4sb.com