We’ll Back Up Your Everything to the Cloud

Did you know that not all data back-up services back up all of your data? While you may not be surprised to read that, you could have an unwelcome surprise if you need to restore files lost from your hard drive.

When we do audits for new and existing customers, we’re always amazed – and dismayed – that few business owners and home users know how their files are backed up. Of course, that assumes that the files are, indeed, backed up.

Even with a back-up program in use, you still may come up short.

One of the limitations many computer users – business and home – ignore or don’t regard is the limit on data storage. Free services, as most you know, have a cap, and paid services have them as well, depending on how much you want to pay.

Carbonite, for example, won’t back up a file larger than 4 GB. What kinds of files can be larger than 4 GB? One is a .pst file, which can hold your Outlook contact and email files. What would happen if you couldn’t retrieve your contact list after a hard-drive or server crash? What would happen if you couldn’t retrieve a customized dictionary or some other file with data you’ve collected over a long time?

How many videos do you save? Many of them can exceed 4 GB, and let’s face it, a family video can be as valuable as some of your business files. One of our clients was very lucky with videos. He had sent them to someone, so he was able to retrieve them after his computer crashed.

One other problem with many back-up services is that they don’t care which files are important to you. They allot you space, and when you run out, that’s it. You can’t set up any rules to determine which files or types of files get backed up.

We can help in a number of ways. We can set up rules to make sure that certain types of files are backed up. We also monitor your backup activity, and if we don’t see any activity for 72 hours, we contact you to make sure everything is OK – unless you’ve told us you’ll be away and not online. That’s how we put service into your backup.

Contact us by email or phone – 973-422-6676 – to discuss your needs. We’ll meet your storage and budget needs and – most important – meet your retrieval needs.

Searching for Business

Like everyone else, we’re always looking for ways to use the Internet to grow our business. Search engine optimization (SEO) has been around for a long time, but gaining a top ranking requires you to hit a moving target. Here’s what we did.

We started by hiring Pam Aungst and Pam Ann Marketing, a specialist in local search engine marketing. Being local was very important to us because even though we have clients far away – whom we serve over the Internet – so much of what we do depends on at least one site visit to understand how everything fits together.

Pam gave us a roadmap based on the geographic area we wanted to cover and keywords that connect widely used search terms to our services. We tied all of this into Google Local to focus on searchers in the area we wanted to serve.  Essentially, this was like preparing the foundation for building a house.

The “house” we built was a link with a shortened URL for our Google Local listing (http://bit.ly/SterlingRose), which many of you have already seen. We use this for soliciting customer reviews.  The link allows us to more easily direct you to our listing, instead of having to type in long and complex web address that actually takes you to the link. We know we are asking you to do us a favor when we ask you to write a review, so we want to make it as convenient as possible.

By the way, if you are so moved, you can click that link now and write a review. If you have any questions, a link can walk you through the process and help you decide if you want to sign up for Google +. It’s not necessary to sign up to write a review. We needed to be part of Google + and part of the Google SEO system, however, because it is part of the way to show up higher in Google searches – which was our goal.

With all of that set up, we couldn’t be passive. We started actively soliciting reviews through our link – http://bit.ly/SterlingRose – and we’re still doing it because it helps our marketing effort. The reviews must be genuine and placed by the reviewer. Any company that posts fake reviews can be fined and sued for deceptive advertising practices.

Pam told us that getting reviews would be the most critical part of our SEO marketing campaign, and that we would need to be diligent about asking for them. We followed her advice, and quickly got 12 positive reviews on our Google Local listing. We jumped from position #14 to #1 for “it support” on Google Local, from zero to #2 for “it support mac”, and from zero to #4 for “it support” in regular (organic) Google search results.

You can read Pam’s case history on our success from her perspective and get an understanding of what it takes to raise your SEO profile. We also invite you to contact us (973-433-6676) if you have any questions about SEO marketing from a “customer” point of view. Growing together is a good thing for all of us.

This article was published in Technology Update, the monthly newsletter from Sterling Rose LLC.

Google’s Revolving World

In the ever-changing world of online services and applications, Google is going through another round of transitions. Here are some of the key changes that may affect your business and home computing:

  • Google Reader, which lets you pull in articles from just about any blog or news site, is being discontinued as of July 1. The company says that with more people accessing news from smartphones and tablets in bits and bites (pun intended) throughout the day and night, it’s no longer needed. You may already rely on social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, to keep up with news instead of devoting a larger block of time to reading more in-depth articles online. If you want a replacement for Google Reader, Feedly is seen as a good place to start. It works with the most popular browsers, except Internet Explorer, and has an app for mobile devices.
  • Google Postini, which provides email security and archiving services for use with their existing email servers, will be transitioned to the Google Apps platform. Google will manage the transition for its customers, and they will not have to replace existing email servers with Gmail. Google says it will notify customers 60 to 90 days ahead of the transition to let them know who is eligible and how it will be done. Postini customers can learn more from the Postini transition page.
  • Google Cloud Print lets you send your file securely to your printer over the web from any connected phone, tablet laptop or desktop. It’s a new app, and it has a lot of exciting possibilities. You can learn more from Google’s Cloud Print page and contact us with specific questions about setting it up and using it.
  • Google Quickoffice is coming to the web. Google recently purchased the app, which allows users to read and edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents on the iPad, iPhone and Android without losing the document’s layout and other advanced features that Google Docs currently can’t handle. Google recently introduced Chrome Office Viewer for displaying Word, Excel and PowerPoint files in a browser. You will get Quickoffice as part of an automatic update. Likely to replace Google Docs, the new program will affect you if you use Dropbox. Google will not support it, and you’ll lose some functionality. Documents To Go may be an alternative to the new Quickoffice if you rely on Dropbox. We’re researching it, along with other possibilities, and we’ll let you know what we find.

Microsoft Office for iPhone

Microsoft last week released a version of Office for the iPhone. It’s available through iTunes or the device app store, but you must be an Office 365 subscriber to get it. The iPhone app has light (reduced capability) versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint and syncs with Microsoft’s SkyDrive online storage service. You should be able to pick up a document exactly where you left off on another computer tied to the same account, while comments they add to a Word or Excel file should appear when you open it up on another machine. You should be able to preserve charts, animation, comments and other key properties. That’s not always the case with programs offered by Google and other companies to work with Office files on mobile devices.

We have a copy on our phone, and here’s our initial review: It does not have the option to sync with Dropbox or Google Drive. You can only sync with SkyDrive, which means you need to choose your platforms wisely.

The app platform changes all the time, and new providers are always entering the market to bring you new products and services or to replace the apps you’ve liked and want to keep using. We’re ready to answer your questions and help you install and set up the systems and apps that will enable to be more productive at work and at home. Just call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us.

This article was published in Technology Update, the monthly newsletter from Sterling Rose LLC.

Administrative Alert

Are you the owner or key manager of a business? Do you know the passwords for your network and the software packages that keep your business running? If you answered “yes” to the first question and “no” to the second, it’s time to take the necessary steps to get control of your lifeline.

We’ve been seeing a lot of this password problem lately when called in to take over a company’s IT services. Neither the owner nor a key manager has any idea of the administrative user name or password, and that means they have no access to their system.

The issue typically shows up when a business takes on a new IT company to manage or troubleshoot its data system. It creates a huge problem because you can’t switch ownership of your system back to you and your new IT provider. That, in turn, prevents you and the provider from being able to fix problems with your network and operating system or from being able to update or upgrade your software packages.

As you would suspect, no business changes its IT provider unless it’s unhappy with the service. When we start with a new account, we find a system has deteriorated from neglect for one reason or another. Sometimes, we can use special tools to unlock a password and get into a system and/or software package. It all depends on whether the set-up is simple or complex.

When hard feelings and money are involved, the break-up is pretty bad. At worst case, the old IT provider can withhold or threaten to withhold passwords. Even if a company owner can successfully sue a former IT provider for the password information, it still takes time and money.

One of our new clients was in the middle of installing new hardware and software. With only part of the system delivered over the course of six months and only partial payments being made, the company’s owner decided to scrap the whole project and order all new hardware and software.

That’s extreme. But key point to remember is that not having your passwords makes next to impossible – if not totally impossible – to service your system properly.

To protect yourself from impending disaster, you should follow these steps:

  1. Make a list of all the user names and passwords your business has for your operating system, email system, software packages, Internet access, etc. Put them in an electronic format and decide who has access to what. As the owner, you should have all the access. You can give all or partial access to other people in your business, but make sure they will always be there or be accessible to provide the access information when needed.
  2. When you install or upgrade any system, make sure you have all the user names and passwords and that you give the information to people as required.
  3. When you change IT providers or when someone with access information leaves, change user names and passwords immediately. We recommend a complete password reset because bad break-ups lead to security breaches.

If you’re not sure about all of your passwords and access information or not sure how to set it all up, we’d be more than happy to help you resolve any problems. Just call us – 973-433-6676 – or drop us an email to schedule a consultation.

This article was published in Technology Update, the monthly newsletter from Sterling Rose LLC.

Credit Cards: Small Businesses are Big Targets

Accepting credit cards is a way of life for many small businesses, and most owners don’t give a second thought to extra layers of data security. After all, what can a small mom-and-pop store have that would be attractive to hackers? Well, as it turns out, small businesses are big targets because they’re pretty easy to hack – and a valid credit card number is a treasure.

The Wall Street Journal a year ago chronicled the tale of a newsstand owner with two stores who was victimized. And even though he thought he was taking precautions to protect his customers’ data, cyber thieves planted a software program on the cash registers at his shops that sent customer credit-card numbers to Russia. At the time the story was written, he was out about $22,000 because the credit-card company said he didn’t do enough. They said his weak password for his cash-register software, pos, was easy for hackers to try.

But a weak password is only part of the problem for most small businesses. Too many small businesses store passwords to sensitive data in Outlook or other email clients, and the data can frequently be found easily hacked Excel spreadsheets. Even if you have antivirus and antimalware software, there are numerous ways that hackers can find their way into your system. For some, it’s like taking candy from a baby.

However, you can put up some protective fences around your data. The measures may cost a little more money than you’d like, but those costs are smaller than the liability you could face from a breach of your data.

  • Get “business-grade” antivirus and antimalware software. We offer it for $4.25/mo/computer, and we set it up and monitor your threat activity. In addition, we assist you on any software changes you make to ensure that your virus and malware protection remain at your expected level of performance. Why is this important? You need to protect yourself against somebody installing a Trojan horse that can turn up years later. The newsstand owner’s system was compromised two years before anything happened. You can have the same protection that big corporations buy.
  • Don’t keep user names and passwords in Outlook folders or Excel files. To be honest, they shouldn’t be on a computer. You should write them down on a piece of paper and store them under lock-and-key. Having your data compromised through an email backdoor is a growing problem. (See Lowdown on Hijacked Email, the next article in this newsletter issue.) If you get an email from your bank, credit-card processor or PayPal, don’t just click and reply. Hover over any link or email address and see where it’s really going. Better still, go to your provider’s website independently of the email or pick up the phone and call customer service.
  • Use strong passwords. If I had a nickel for every a-b-c or 1-2-3 password I’ve seen, I’d be managing a large investment portfolio instead of IT systems. Make your passwords long or complex or both. Use uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters.
  • Keep your Wi-Fi network secure. Networks are all over the place in commercial and residential areas. Just take out your smartphone and see how many networks are in your range. If your network is unprotected, anyone can sit in range unnoticed for as long as they need to find a pathway to your valuables

We would welcome the opportunity to provide a free risk-management assessment of your practices and systems. Call us at 973-433-6676 or send us an email and feel more secure.

This article was published in Technology Update, the monthly newsletter from Sterling Rose LLC.