Posted by Daryl Rinaldi on Fri, Feb 05, 2010 @ 02:30 PM
You have probably heard the buzz about Windows 7, Microsoft's new PC Operating System that supercedes the much-maligned Windows Vista. As an IT support company that advises our clients on how to get the most out of their IT infrastructure we were not big fans of Vista. However we have been quite pleased with Windows 7. Microsoft has fixed most of the problems with Vista and added some great new features and enhancements. We were advising clients not to upgrade to Vista and to stick with Windows XP even on new PCs. But now we are advising clients to get Windows 7 on new PCs.
Come get a sneak peek of Windows 7 and learn what all the buzz is about. Should you upgrade? Are there "gotcha"s to watch out for? What are the benefits of Windows 7 over XP and Vista? What are some of the cool new features that people are excited about? We'll answer these questions and more. We'll also have PCs setup so you can experience Windows 7 hands-on. Breakfast will be provided.
Click on the button below to register for this 1-hour presentation from 9AM-10AM on April 22nd at the Microsoft offices just off of Rte. 128 (I-95) in Waltham, MA. Hope to see you there!
Posted by Daryl Rinaldi on Fri, Jan 22, 2010 @ 10:59 AM
As you may know VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. This means your phone calls are turned into digital packets of information and sent over the internet rather than traditional phone lines. Why should you consider VoIP?
1. Cost! VoIP phone systems are significantly less expensive than a traditional analog PBX. You can save anywhere from 30-60% on the equipment purchase.
2. Cost! VoIP phone calls are significantly cheaper than analog phone service. We have seen a small office go from a $300/month phone bill to a $60/month bill.
3. Capabilities. While cost often initially grabs people's attention they soon get excited about the capabilities of their new phone system. For example the Aastra Response Point system has:
- An auto-attendant with built-in voice recognition. Callers can simply speak the name of the person they are trying to reach.
- Voice recognition on the phones means that you no longer have to remember a sequence of key strokes to peform functions such as accessing voicemail or transferring a call. You can simply press the big blue Response point Button and say "voicemail" or "transfer to Dave". This also means that a typical end user can manage and administer the phone system without help from a phone or IT technician.
- Integration with Outlook. You can import your Outlook contacts into the phone and they are automatically voice-enabled. So you can just pick up the phone and say "call Daryl Rinaldi". You can even give a contact a nickname like "my wife", or "my bookie."
- Voicemail-email integration. You can get your voicemails automatically emailed to you as an audio file attachment. So you don't have to call into your voicemail anymore when you are out of the office.
These are just some of the useful features of a VoIP system. One other advantage is that often your IT support company or your IT department can install and maintain the system so you don't need to engage with another vendor.
VoIP service is highly dependent on the bandwidth and quality of your network and internet connection. If you don't have proper bandwidth or if you don't have your internet connection properly configured you will experience call problems. You can use DSL or cable modem service as long as the speeds are high enough and the service is consistent enough. While your internet surfing can stand the occasional delay or slow down without affecting you too much, a VoIP phone call has much less tolerance for delay or quality problems on the line.
You definitely should install a commercial-grade firewall that has VoIP-specific QoS (Quality of Service) features. For example a Sonicwall TZ-100 is a basic unit that costs about $300. And you will need an IT company or department who knows how to configure the firewall to prioritize VoIP traffic. This means the firewall prioritizes VoIP traffic other types of internet traffic such as web-browsing.
If you have a T1 line you can reserve a certain amount of bandwidth just for VoIP calls.
GizmoFish's customers love their VoIP phone systems (and they especially love those low monthly phone bills) and we are obviously fans of the system ourselves. Of course a VoIP system must be setup correctly and you must have the proper network in place or you will experience problems. But if correctly configured with a proper network and bandwidth you'll be very happy with your system.
Oh, one more thing. I was talking about an onsite VoIP system in this blog post. You can also buy a hosted system where you purchase the phones but the 'brain" of the system resides on the internet. A hosted system has pros and cons. The big benefit is your upfront equipment purchase cost may be less and you don't have another piece of equipment to maintain. Also with some of these systems you can take your VoIP phone out of the office and plug it in to another internet connection (at home for example) and make and receive calls just like you were in the office. There are a few caveats to that -- if your home network and internet connection is not up-to-snuff then the phone may not work very well. But if the internet connection is good enough this is a very nice benefit of a hosted VoIP solution. The downside is of course cost. You pay more per month and you pay forever - you never own the system like you do with an on-premise solution.
Please contact GizmoFish if you have any questions or would like a quote for a VoIP system for your business. Call us at 866-MY-GIZMO (866-694-4966) or locally at 617-965-6800. Or just click on the button below to have someone contact you.
Posted by Daryl Rinaldi on Mon, Jan 18, 2010 @ 06:18 PM
Data privacy is a hot topic these days. The new privacy regulations (201 CMR 17:00) by the Massachussetts Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation are going into effect March 1st, 2010. These regulations cover any business that stores personal information about Massachusetts residents. Your Boston-area IT Support firm or IT Department should be knowledgeable on the specific requirements of the regulations. Some important things to consider:
- Even if you don't collect customer personal information, if you keep your employees' Social Security Numbers then you are covered by these regulations.
- There is no technological silver bullet. These regulations require you to adopt certain business practices now.
- You have to create a Written Information Security Program (WISP).
- You have to appoint an Information Security Manager to maintain the WISP.
- As part of the WISP you must inventory reasonably foreseeable security risks and the WISP should address those risks.
- The first step is to actually inventory the personal information (see our white paper for the definition of "personal information") your company keeps. You may be surprised at all the places this information resides.
- These regulations apply to personal information on paper as well as in electronic form. If you don't already have locking filing cabinets you should get them now.
- The regulations have some specific requirements about your computer systems, your password security, and data encyption. Download our white paper for a more detailed discussion of the computer system requirements.
GizmoFish has prepared a helpful White Paper called "10 Things You Must Know About the New Massachusetts Data Privacy Regulations." Click -> here to download this paper
Posted by Daryl Rinaldi on Mon, Dec 28, 2009 @ 05:12 PM
The previous post told you about a cool little tool called Roboform that allows you to not have to remember a bunch of different passwords. As an IT Support company, we at GizmoFish advise our customers on IT Security best practices. Part of that discussion is often providing advice on creating passwords that are longer, more complex, and therefore more secure. Here are some tips:
1. Think pass-phrase, not pass-word. A long phrase of strung together words can be just as easy to remember but much harder to crack. Ex."TheBostonCelticsbeatLA".
2. Use an absolute minimum of 8 characters (more is better.) Using an easy to remember phrase makes it much easier to add length.
3. Replace letters with numbers or symbols in words. 1 for i or l, 0 for o, @ for a or e, 5 or $ for s are just a few examples. Ex. TheB0st0nCelt1c$be@tLA"
4. Use the first letters of the 1st line of your favorite song. Ex. There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold = talwsatgig. Easy to remember (sing to yourself), hard to guess.
5. Never use your name or initials in any passphrase. C'mon, how easy do you want to make it for the bad guys? Ditto your birthdate. Think that info is hard to get?
Posted by Daryl Rinaldi on Sun, Dec 27, 2009 @ 04:37 PM
I know, I know; You have too many passwords to remember so the easiest thing to do is make them all the same and all short and easy to remember - right? -- Wrong! I hope your IT Support firm has told you that while that may save you frustration it also leaves you easy prey to password guessers and crackers. Fortunately there is a better solution -- use Roboform. Roboform is a great little product that adds a toolbar to your internet browser with all of your website user names and passwords. You only have to remember 1 password -- the password to open Roboform (Please please please make THAT a complex password). Every other password is in the Roboform software. In fact even the links to the login pages for your saved websites are in the Roboform toolbar so you don't have to remember the URL or add it to your favorites.
So just click on the Roboform toolbar and select, for example, the GizmoFish Customer Login and your browser will go to the GizmoFish site that allows customers to create tickets and view and edit existing tickets, Roboform will fill in your user name and password and click the login button for you. And Roboform is smart enough to recognize if you change your password to a site and ask you if you want to update the information in Roboform. Roboform saves the information in a strongly encrypted format for security.
I must say that some people in the IT industry think that Roboform is a security problem because access to all your sites is protected by only 1 password. While we recognize that concern, in our experience people have too many sites to create and remember complex passwords for so they end up just using either the same password (or almost the same one) or very short and easy-to-remember (and thus easy to crack) passwords. We think the risk is much higher that people will use simple, easy-to-crack passwords than the risk that someone with nefarious intent will obtain your PC and crack your roboform password. With roboform you can use more complex and random passwords than you ever would if you had to remember them yourself. In fact Roboform will even generate random complex passwords for you!
Roboform is well known and respected in the industry. It was was named PC Magazine Editor's Choice, and CNET Download.com's Software of the Year.Roboform works with Internet Explorer and Mozilla. The best $29.95 you ever spent! Click on the image below to to to the Roboform home page to learn more or to purchase.
PS. And to you cynics out there -- No we do NOT resell or get a commission on Roboform. We just think it is a great product that you should know about.
Posted by Daryl Rinaldi on Sun, Dec 20, 2009 @ 12:47 PM
Did you know according to a recent study by Dell and the Poneman Institute that:
- Up to 12,000 laptops are lost or stolen in U.S. airports each week.
- Between 65 and 70 percent of lost laptops are never reclaimed.
Think any important, sensitive business data could be on those laptops? Yea, me too. OK even though I'm sure this could never happen to you (ahem) here are 4 quick tips from our friends at Sunbelt Software makers of our absolute favorite Anti-Virus/Anti-Spyware Program VIPRE, about how to protect yourself just in case...
- Computrace: If you are familiar with LoJack for your car there is one available for your laptop as well. Computrace LoJack for Laptops by Absolute Software is a software-based theft recovery service. It tracks and locates stolen computers and lets you remotely wipe all data from the hard drive.
- Passwords, Passwords, Passwords: Pretty commonsense advice here: Don't make them short and simple (Think pass-phrase, not pass-word); change them regularly, and don't share them with strangers. Be sure your laptop requires a password or a fingerprint scan to log on. We strongly suggest you automate and secure the many passwords you use with my personal #1 favorite piece of software ever: RoboForm. RoboForm encrypts and stores all your passwords for you so you only have to remember 1 password and it remembers all the rest. Cool huh?
- Be Watchful: Observe your surroundings. I don't mean to sound paranoid but there are serious thieves who specialize in stealing laptops (especially when going through airport security). Watch for those watching you. You don't have to be weird about it, just stay alert.
- Not All Wi-Fi Is Created Equal: Look for legitimate hotspots and not fall prey to some nefarious doings. It is better to pay a fee and be safe than try to log in where you don't belong. Better yet get an aircard for your PC that lets you get online using the cell phone network anywhere that gets reception -no more hunting around for a wi-fi hotspot!
Posted by Daryl Rinaldi on Tue, Dec 15, 2009 @ 12:40 PM
Scam Alert!
Be careful about scam emails offering urgent security updates from Microsoft. These emails try to trick you into downloading dangerous malware (viruses or spyware). Microsoft does NOT send unsolicited emails and they do NOT send attachments. If you have automatic updates turned on your PC will download them automatically. You won't get an email from Microsoft about it.
Your IT Support Vendor should have you well-protected with:
1. A fully-monitored anti-virus and antispyware system
2. 24/7 monitoring of your network for unusual activity
3. A fully-monitored complete backup system so that you can recover even if a virus wipes out your critical business data.
With these 3 layers of protection in place you are well-protected even if you inadvertently download something you shouldn't.