Copilot is My God?

We likely don’t realize how much AI plays a role in our daily lives. You know those annoying phone trees, the ones that don’t seem to ask the right questions for your problem or offer a good answer or access to a real human being? That’s AI at work. They drive me nuts, but what keeps me awake is who has access to my data?

Many of our customers are turning to Microsoft Copilot to access the power of AI, and if you’re thinking about doing it, here are a couple of things to consider.

As you’ll discover upfront, there’s a free version and a paid version. The main difference is that free Copilot is a basic AI assistant with web-grounded chat and limited image creation. The paid Copilot Pro and Microsoft 365 Copilot offer deeper integration with Microsoft apps, priority access to advanced models, and higher usage limits. I can use ChatGPT to create Excel formulas for my data, but it’s the paid version that accesses my data.

AI carries a number of risks, including data poisoning, adversarial attacks, and privacy leakage, which can compromise a model’s integrity and sensitive data. There’s also the potential for model theft and vulnerabilities in the supply chain and APIs. Let’s focus on risks related to data, privacy, and model integrity.

  • Privacy Leakage: AI models trained on sensitive data may inadvertently leak that information through their outputs. This includes data inversion and membership inference attacks, where attackers try to extract private information about the training data.
  • Model Stealing: Attackers can reverse-engineer or replicate an AI model by analyzing its outputs, which can be used for malicious purposes or to steal intellectual property.
  • Data Breaches: AI systems often require large amounts of data, making them attractive targets for data theft. A breach can expose sensitive personal, financial, or proprietary information.

Whether you use AI or not, Windows 11 and your computer play key roles in your security. All computers are not created equal. If you do a lot of work with Copilot, your computer may not cut it. You should have a computer with a neural processing unit (NPU) capable of processing 40 TOPS – 40 trillion operations per second. Anything less than that will require your computer to offload data from your CPU and graphics card by sending it to the cloud.

Sending it to the cloud involves a security risk, no matter how small the risk may be, and that’s a breach opportunity. Sending data to the cloud also slows you down. If your computer can keep all your work local, it’s faster and more private.

Windows-based computer chips that run 40+ TOPS or more are the specialized Neural Processing Units (NPUs) in new “Copilot+ PCs,” which include processors from Intel’s Lunar Lake series and upcoming Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite/Plus chips. These are not standard CPUs like the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, which does not meet the requirement.

Computers capable of 40 TOPS start at around $600 to $700. More powerful and versatile models can cost more than $1,000, but prices could be much higher, depending on the NPU or if it uses a more expensive, high-performance GPU, which can add significant cost for graphics-intensive tasks. In addition, you likely will have licensing fees depending on what you’re doing and how many computers are doing the work.

We can help you assess your AI needs and sort through myriad options for Copilot licenses and the computers needed to accomplish the tasks you require. AI can require a large investment, which requires intensive investigation. Contact us by phone – 973-433-6676 – or email to set up an appointment to start the investigation process.

 

Carrots: The Root of Speedier Scrolling, Less Clutter

Carrots can provide useful shortcuts for navigation and decluttering your screen. You can find them almost anywhere on your screen. You’ve likely seen them and never paid much attention to them.

The carrot symbol ^ can be pointed in any of four directions on a screen – up, down, left, right – and carrots are most useful in File Explorer and Outlook, although they’re not exclusive to those apps.

Most of us will find carrots useful for doing a quick search in File Explorer. If you look at the upper left corner of File Explorer, you’ll see three listings: Home, Gallery, and your OneDrive. In Home, for example, you might find a screen to the right that shows > Recommended on the top row and > Recent, Favorites, Shared. If one of those three folders is highlighted, you can click on it and get a listing of files for a quick search. You can then open a selected file or simply collapse the listing by clicking on the downward-pointing carrot.

In the next grouping on the left, clicking on Documents or Pictures, for example, opens a dropdown menu of folders and subfolders (showing as many levels of subfolders as you have) to give you a quick look at your files. We’ve found it quicker to search this way than scrolling through our folder or subfolder lists of Documents or Pictures.

Farther down on the left are This PC and Network. Clicking the > carrots will show you more information about files on your PC or devices connected to your network. Again, they’re easily collapsable.

Similarly with Outlook, you can use carrots to expand or collapse your Favorites and the contents of each mailbox (account) that you have through Outlook. This can help you keep your screen less cluttered and more organized, helping to navigate the contents of each account more efficiently.

Working in Microsoft Word, if you keep the ribbon open and expanded across the top, you can access more options by using carrots for things such as fonts, sizes, colors, bullets in bullet lists, etc.

We encourage you to look for carrots in File Explorer, Outlook, and your Office apps. Looking at the results of each click may lead you to a new shortcut that makes your computing life easier.

Windows Shades

You wouldn’t believe how many versions there are of Windows 10 and Windows 11. Don’t bother to try to count them. Instead, start making a plan to make sure you have the latest version of each throughout your organization and a plan to update on a regular basis.

Let’s look first at Windows 10. As we all know, Microsoft will end its support of this operating system (OS) in October, but there are ways to keep it going with security updates. You have two options to enroll in the Extended Security Updates (ESU) program for free. That will enable you to receive critical and important security updates from October 15, 2025, through October 13, 2026. You can also enroll in a wizard accessible via notifications and the Settings app.

In order to take advantage of the extended support, you need to know which version of Windows 10 you have on your computer(s) and see if it will be supported. Since its introduction, Microsoft has issued 14 versions of Windows 10, covering office, home, and student versions and updates for each. If you have version 1903 of Windows 10, for example, you won’t be able to receive any updates. To extend your Windows 10 use, you need to have version 22H2.

Depending on your hardware, it may or may not be possible to update your Windows 10 to a version that can work with security updates going forward. To check your Windows version, navigate to Settings > System > About. Under “Windows specifications,” you’ll find the edition and version of your Windows operating system.

Windows 11, by the way, has four versions, with a new one expected this fall.

A key thing to know about Windows – and your app software – is that you used to be able to install newer app software on older versions of Windows. That’s becoming less and less possible. One of our clients learned about that when they couldn’t install a new app their accounting firm had suggested because their Windows version wasn’t compatible.

As we go forward, this is only going to become a more critical issue. Both OS companies, such as Microsoft, and app publishers, will need to meet their customers’ need for more speed to process more data and provide the security measures needed to protect critical data.

Don’t wait until your technology system collapses under the weight of more data and faster-moving environments. We can help you by analyzing your current system – both hardware and OS – with an eye toward your future needs. That will help you develop a plan (and a budget) to make changes with minimal disruptions to your business. Call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us to set an appointment to talk about it.

Cybersecurity Keeps Them Awake at Night

“What keeps you awake at night?” That’s a question that seems to come up at many a business networking group when someone begins to offer a solution to a problem they can solve. If you’re a CEO at a major corporation, the answer to that question is: cybersecurity.

Internet systems are more complex, and complexity leads to more risks. It’s become a boardroom issue, and the most concerning part of the problem should be the increased time it takes to find a system intrusion. It now takes 292 days – more than nine months – to discover a breach.

Part of the problem is the size and complexity of large corporate networks. They have thousands of endpoints, and it’s become harder to spot anomalies and deploy patches. While our clients typically don’t have large, sprawling networks, we all interact on the corporate or personal level with large global networks for just about everything we do.

Other parts of the problem are that companies may take too long to investigate the breach, and then they need time to develop a plan to patch it. That time is directly related to the network’s size and complexity. If a company doesn’t have a continuous monitoring plan (yes, it’s hard to believe a large company wouldn’t have one), it also extends the time to discover a breach.

Two other reasons are:

  1. Hackers have better stealth tools to invade a network. Once they’re in undetected, they can take their time to look at all of their victim’s data to see what’s best to monetize.
  2. Hackers can steal login credentials and hang around a system for a long time until they’re detected.

Companies that can detect intrusions in less than 100 days can save $1 million in containment costs. But they may not be as motivated as you are to protect your network and the people they serve.

Here are some things you can do right away:

  1. Make sure you have strong passwords for every account you and your employees and family members have.
  2. Insist on using passkeys or some other form of two-factor authentication (2FA) wherever possible. A good authenticator should be device-specific and tied to a device that’s always with the user.
  3. Make sure all your software (operating systems and apps) and firmware (hardware systems) is up to date.
  4. Have an easily accessible list of your key usernames and passwords for emergency use.

Microsoft is making strides in a couple of areas. The company introduced passkey support across most of its consumer apps a year ago, allowing you to sign into your account without the need for 2FA methods or remembering long passwords. Today, it’s encouraging all new signups to use passkeys as it removes passwords as the default.

Windows Hello allows users to securely sign in to their accounts with their face, fingerprint, or PIN. Today, more than 99 percent of users sign into their Windows devices using Hello. The company reports that 98 percent of passkey attempts to login are successful; passwords are only 32 percent successful.

To help keep all your software up to date, Microsoft is developing an update orchestration platform designed to unify the updating system for all apps, drivers, and system components on Windows systems. Right now, it’s aimed at developers and IT product teams. The goal is to run an update scan tool that will queue downloads and updates at optimal times. We’ll see if they can actually make it work.

That’s in the future. For the here and now, we recommend you contact us for a security audit. It’s something you should do annually to make sure you’ve taken the four steps we enumerated above. At the very least you can strengthen your own systems before the big guys know they were breached. Call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us for an appointment.

Pass the Key, Please

If you’re sick and tired of managing passwords (see our article Take the Time to Do the Right Thing), take a new look at using passkeys and forget about the hassle. A passkey is a pair of cryptography keys generated by your device. A public key and a private key combine to create a passkey that unlocks your account. They may take some getting used to, but the security boost will be well worth the effort.

Microsoft is encouraging everyone to use a passkey when they sign up for a new account, and they’re moving away from the default of passwords for all new accounts allowing you to ditch them altogether. Just as a related side note, when you create a Microsoft account, do not create a local passkey. It will only work on the device you used to create the account, and that will defeat the purpose of being able to sign in from anywhere on any device.

A passkey is a pair of cryptography keys generated by your device. A public key and a private key combine to create a passkey that unlocks your account. If you remember going to your safe deposit box at the bank, you had one key in your possession, and you got a key from the bank for your visit. This is an electronic variation of the theme.

Microsoft introduced passkey support across most of its consumer apps a year ago, eliminating the need for two-factor authentication (2FA) or passwords. Now, it’s encouraging all new signs up to use passkeys as it removes passwords as the default. Websites are increasingly allowing you to passkeys for secure access.

Passkeys and password managers are able to work together for the most part. Usually, the device or software generating the passkeys uses a biometric authentication tool, such as FaceID or TouchID, to authenticate your identity. If your password manager is the passkey source, you can log in with your master password. Passkeys are unique to each app or website and stored in a password manager’s vault or your device’s keychain. Passkeys can also sync across devices, making them a convenient choice.

There are some holes in the passkey strategy that you should be aware of. The websites themselves can be the source of weakness in the security chain. Security experts say criminals can easily get around a passkey by stealing users’ validated browser cookies using malware.

While that puts an onus on the websites  to tighten up their operations, you can help protect yourself better. For example, don’t just accept the website’s data privacy settings when a box pops up on a website. Instead, navigate to the “Cookies” or “User Data” sections and choose the shortest available session duration. That way your cookies will expire automatically or whenever you close your browser window. You can also turn off various marketing and targeting cookies.

Again, passkeys take time to set up, and there’s a learning curve to using them effectively. We believe it’s well worth your time to start using them. Call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us to learn more about passkeys – and how they work with password managers. We can help you select and configure passkeys and password managers together and move you up to the next level of online security.

Getting Oversubscribed and Fed up

Our love-hate relationship with Microsoft – and Apple and Google – is coming to a head. Our beef right now focuses on Microsoft and its hard push to get users to adopt the New Outlook. It’s the default for Microsoft 365 subscriptions, and it’s not as feature-rich as the Old Outlook, which Microsoft calls Classic Outlook. Subscription prices are another issue.

Let’s get one issue out of the way. We like subscriptions for application software, such Microsoft 365. They provide regular updates and bug fixes automatically, either periodically or as needed, to make sure you have the latest performance and security features. As we use the cloud more, these updates become a bigger benefit.

Our beef with Microsoft is with the New Outlook. In our opinion, Microsoft is pushing us into a new system that has fewer features than the one it replaced. We recently covered the differences between Old and New Outlook, and we invite you to revisit that article. Microsoft essentially forced us to go with New Outlook before it was ready for prime time. It may be faster, but Microsoft took away many features in the new version. It seems like they made the move for their own convenience, not for the betterment of its customers. They say they will restore some features, but we have to ask why they didn’t get in all the features before they rolled out the new version?

You can go back to the Old Outlook by clicking on the Help tab along the top of your screen and then clicking on Go to Classic. But it’s not a simple toggle-back-and-forth process. It takes some time, which you may not have when trying to get a lot of things done.

You really don’t have a lot of choices. Most organizations are locked into Microsoft 365 for email (Outlook), its suite of Office products (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.), and the collaboration enabled by OneDrive and Teams. Everyone knows how to use the apps, and businesses, non-profits and governments know how to support them, either through internal tech departments, IT consultants or both.

Microsoft knows they have a firm grip. If they maintain the best possible security measures for their customers, they can get away with fewer features to support while raising prices. They’ll add features (and support them) when enough customers kick and scream or when another software provider threatens a piece of their market.

We can help you on the economic side by analyzing all your Microsoft and other application subscriptions to see where we can eliminate duplications of licenses or scale back some to meet your needs more efficiently. There’s no need to be oversubscribed. Call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us to set up an appointment.

New Outlook has Mixed Benefits

Classic Outlook has aged like a good wine, but Microsoft is pushing more users to the New Outlook for managing emails, contacts and calendars. Some features are gone from the New Outlook, and some are hidden.

Deciding whether to hang in with the Classic Outlook or go to the New version depends on how you use the app. However, keep in mind that Microsoft is like Lola. What Microsoft wants, Microsoft eventually gets – and at some point, they’ll stop supporting Classic Outlook to force everyone into New Outlook.

Microsoft touts a more minimalist interface for New Outlook that it says is more in line with Windows 11 and AI and handles email, calendars and contacts better. One of the specific benefits is they claim is the use of AI to help you write better emails, but you can turn off the autofill. They also claim New Outlook can let you access your emails – including Gmail, Yahoo, and even your “shopping account” – from one spot on every Windows device. And you can organize your appointments, share availability and events with a click, and ensure time for important people and events.

However, Microsoft took away a number of key functions that they may or may not restore. These include features involving multiple mailbox accounts and ways in which accounts can be shared from SharePoint. Some “take-aways” are scheduled to be restored, and some are still under investigation. The company says it’s looking for user feedback in deciding what to restore and when that might happen.

Quite honestly, we think this hurts Microsoft’s credibility, but it also shows where all major software companies are headed. They will make changes seemingly on a whim without regard to how those changes affect our ability to maximize our production. Features might come back – or they might not.

Together, we need to be flexible in how we use software such as Outlook, but on the other hand, we can force the issue somewhat. We can look specifically at how you use Outlook and determine what Classic features we may be able to recapture some things that were lost or help you find ways to make better use of New Outlook.

As much as we might yearn for the “good old days” of apps like Classic Outlook, it’s likely we’ll all be using New Outlook sooner rather than later. So, let’s get a head start on adapting to it. Call us – 973-433-66765 – or email us to see how you can bridge the Classic and the New to make Outlook work better for you.

Microsoft’s Outage Issues

Microsoft outages seem to be a regularly occurring event, and that’s a real problem for all of us as we grow even more dependent on technology. The bad news is that the problem won’t get any better. Here’s a look at the industry’s metrics.

From my old help desk days, we followed the “rule of five-nines.” This meant our goal was to be “up” 99.999 percent of the time. Is it attainable? It sounds like a great marketing goal, but the reality is that no global company with the size and scope of Microsoft – or Google or Amazon or anyone else – can be perfect. It doesn’t matter which company you use; their service depends on the reliability of satellites and cables for connections and the power grid to keep them online. As we use online services more extensively, we can strain the capacities of those resources.

According to ThousandEyes Internet and Cloud Intelligence from Cisco, more than 90 percent of the world’s data centers experience outages. Local ISPs (internet service providers) experience the most outages, trailed by CSPs (cloud service providers). Outages increases are attributed to more demand on their infrastructures.

You’re not going to get any better service by switching the companies you use; they all face the same challenges. And they share some challenges with you, and those will be hard to plan for based on the world’s political and economic environment. This is not a political statement; it’s just a clear-eyed look at potential problems. For example, will there be a rush to order new equipment before possible tariffs go into place? Supply and demand issues ahead of any tariff issues will undoubtedly affect prices and inventories.

What can you do? We’ve discussed many of the steps you can take, so let’s put them in perspective.

  • Be backup savvy. Make sure all the data you and your employees use is backed up frequently in multiple places. In addition to backing up data, have battery backup capability so you can save data and close applications. This is more critical for desktop computers; laptops and phones have batteries.
  • Keep all your software up to date. It’s all related. Up-to-date operating systems and apps perform better, and that performance may be the difference in finishing and saving critical data or losing something that will take a long time to recreate or that might be lost forever.
  • Think about replacing computers and other hardware that’s approaching five years of service time. It’s nearly five years since the COVID-19 pandemic, when a lot of companies and individuals bought new hardware to be able to work effectively from remote locations. Five years is about the effective service life of most equipment, and your equipment may be on the same timeline as many other users. Our vendors and distributors have told us to expect shortages just for this reason.

We can help you set up a plan to replace your aging hardware and make sure all the systems you keep have the best prospects of making it through the next year or so. Call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us to discuss your needs.

Windows 10 ‘Support’

We’ve been talking about this for a while. Microsoft will end its support for its workhorse Windows 10 operating system next October. The good news is that the company will provide security patches and bug fixes until October 2026. The bad news is that it will cost you $30 per device. The worse news is that we don’t know how long that support will last – and you won’t get any performance enhancements. Right now, it’s a matter of kicking the can down the road.

The can is called Microsoft’s Extended Security Updates (ESU) Program, and enrollment will open near the end of the current Windows 10 support program in October 2025. It will only cover security updates, and its effectiveness will be limited by Windows 10’s limitations. This is Microsoft’s way of giving in to customer demands to keep Windows 10 alive – at least for now. Older computers can run Windows 10 but may not work with Windows 11.

Thirty bucks a device sounds cheap enough until you look at what you get for your money – and what you don’t get.

The ESUs are just for security updates. You don’t get any new capabilities, performance improvements, or bug fixes that come with the newer software versions. Then, you need to worry about other limitations and risks.

  • You’re still vulnerable to other types of threats, like zero-day exploits or advanced persistent threats.
  • ESUs don’t guarantee compatibility with other software or hardware. Your outdated systems may not work properly with newer applications or devices, leading to productivity and security issues.
  • ESUs can create a false sense of security. Just because you’re getting security patches doesn’t mean your systems are fully protected. Hackers are consistently discovering new ways to exploit vulnerabilities, and outdated software is an easy mark.
  • ESUs can slow down your business and hinder your business growth. Companies get complacent with ESUs, and before they know it, they’re years behind on their technology and struggling to keep up with their competitors.
  • There are no guarantees that Microsoft will continue ESUs or that they will hold the price.

At some point, you may have no other choice than to buy new computers and move to Windows 11. But Microsoft’s ESU for Windows 10 could buy you some time – or let you procrastinate longer. Either way, it’s kicking a bigger, heavier can down the road. Don’t stub your toes. Call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us to discuss your technology footwork.

Out with the Old, In with the New

As Microsoft winds down its tech support for Windows 10, it’s time to make a plan to migrate to Windows 11 and – if needed – the hardware to run it. It can save you money in the long run when you factor in the cost of support for Windows 10 and the efficiencies you’ll gain.

As most of you know, Windows will only offer security-related tech support for Windows 10, starting next October. It will not upgrade any performance features. Furthermore, the tech support will cost you $30 per year.

We’ve been getting a lot of calls from clients whose hardware is not up to snuff for Windows 11. Your best option, in our opinion, is to have new hardware in place for Windows 11, and as you’ve probably read in our newsletter, it goes beyond just the operating system.

Older hardware and software put software vendors in a bind. They feel a need to protect all their users, and they don’t want to leave technology systems exposed to a breach. Yet at the same time, they need to serve their customers who demand more security and better performance. If not, those customers will look for other software vendors.

Hardware has a shorter shelf life, but hanging on to a device for too long can be a disservice. As most of us work with larger files, possibly in collaboration with other users in real time, the speed and security of data transfers through the cloud has become increasingly more important. We’ve had older computers crash during file transfers, putting data at risk. Data, after all, is your most valuable asset.

We saw that value first-hand when we installed five new computers for a client. During the process, we discovered there were some missing files in obscure locations. They had not been saved to the cloud or backed up. Two of the people getting new computers had issue after issue with transferring files. We had to copy files from their old computers onto another device and then transfer them from the device to the new computers.

When you combine the cloud with software subscriptions and up-to-date hardware, you have data security with system reliability and performance. It’s where technology is heading, and we think you will fall farther behind by waiting to install and maintain new hardware.

If your hardware isn’t compatible with Windows 11, we strongly urge you to start the replacement process. Rome wasn’t built in a day, as the saying goes, but your technology can crash and burn in an instant. Call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us to develop a plan to keep your technology up to date.