We Care about your Business

Probably you are sitting there and having your doubts.  I can't really do anything about that.  For us to help, you must accept that we really do want to help you spend less time making more money.  We also want to help you improve your customer relations.

But yes, we also want to make money ourselves, and we know that if we don't treat you right we can't achieve our goals.  I don't know about you, but for years I wished there was somebody in my corner, on my team, who could really make my life and business easier.

This first step we have come up with involves using the internet in a hands-on, personal way.  We wish to provide network monitoring services delivered in a professional and personal way.  (Read our White Paper for more information on these services) This is a service you can resell to your customers on a monthly basis (meaning you make money every month).  Easy for you and we provide you and the customer regular status reports.

This not only brings in monthly income for you, but tips you off to projects your customer may need.  Of course once these additional projects present themselves, it is up to you to work with your customer on a time-table for a solution.  Hopefully we provide the information you need to have that discussion.

Are you interested?  If not now, no problem.  Maybe our paths will cross in the future.  If you are interested to find out more or just need some encouragement or advice in your business, send me an email. I would love to visit with you.

Actually, I would love to hear the story of your business journey past and present. Maybe we can all be an encouragement to each other and work for the "greater good" ... helping others to achieve their goals and reaching our own as well! Post your story here or send it to me via email and I'll post it as a seperate blog entry.

Best of luck!

Kristin

Get your Technology Spending Under Control

Technology is your friend. Really! But it is easy to spend a lot of money on technology and not get much return on that investment. Especially in these tough economic times, make sure you are being wise with what you spend on Technology. Below is an article from the Wall Street Journal that gives some tips on some ways to save on IT. I would also recommend making an assessment of your corporate networks and systems. Instead of reacting to computer problems (and paying through the nose!) plan out how you can keep your systems running more optimally for low monthly costs. You might spend a little time and a little money each month but overall you'll spend less money and your systems will operate more efficiently more of the time. Don't take a laissez faire approach - take a hands on preventative approach. You'll be glad you did. Here is a link to the Wall Street article. Happy Computing! http://businessonmain.msn.com/knowledgeexchange/articles/expert.aspx?cp-documentid=18571178

Do you have a copy of that? | Adventures in IT - InfoWorld

Sometimes office politics are strange! This poor guy was caught in the middle of 2 warring employees. I think the answer is to outsource your backups to us! I just couldn't resist that one :)

Do you have a copy of that? | Adventures in IT - InfoWorld

Posted using ShareThis

Google Chrome in 3D?

What do you think? Should web browsers go 3D? Check out what Google Chrome has to say about it!

(hint hint .... it was posted on April 1st!)

http://chrome.blogspot.com/2009/04/google-chrome-without-3d.html

Ashmar Advantage: What can you do with twitter? Shop til you drop.

Ashmar Advantage: What can you do with twitter? Shop til you drop.

Don't Learn The Hard Way, Do Data Backups

Of all the best practices your company thinks about adopting, I believe the very most important one is the practice of regular backups. We are in the business of helping companies adopt some of these good practices so they can manage and save on overall IT costs, plus get more from their investment in computer hardware and software. But even if you decide to take this on youself, don't ignore doing the backups. And make sure you also follow up on each backup to see that it executed properly. I'm shocked to hear from Microsoft that there are a large percentage of business who have not adopted this very core practice of getting backups of their data. The cost of not doing backups could be debilitating for a business. Here is a very short video produced by Microsoft regarding backups.

phishing in plain english

Ok, I know I just posted a blog entry but I found a great video done by the Common Craft people on phishing so I thought I'd share it with you! This issue of improperly opening email attachments has caused many a heartache for home users and business users alike. The key to avoiding this kind of scam that can not only cause problems for people personally, but can also unleash the powers of virus attacks is ... education, education, education. Did I say education? Especially in the corporate setting it's imperative that employees receive continuous education on best practices for email and internet usage. If companies choose to ignore and allow employees to operate as they wish, they run a large risk of continuous computer problems and down time. I think it's much more enjoyable to spend the time educating people and operating in a healthy computer environment. Less downtime, less stress, smarter employees!

Here is the video on phishing:

Twitter the new Social Network?

I love the videos from Common Craft!  This isn't actually a video that they produced but one from CNN Money where they got permission to use some of the "in plain English" in their video.  But twitter is an interesting giant to me as well so combining the two makes for an interesting look at what the heck Twitter is used for!  It's interesting to me and I am a member on Twitter but don't really use it or follow many people on it.  But as a business owner and marketing person, I think I'm going to commit to finding out more about it and how I can get information out about our company through that medium as well.  See what you think about the CNN Money video on Twitter!

Email Attachments May Contain Virus'

In these rough economic times, it's more important than ever to make sure your company's computer network is safe from outside threats.

As a general rule - don't open any email attachments - check with the sender to make sure they meant to send it to you.  Period.  I know this can be a pain and means you can't immediately access information, but trust me, it won't be worth it if upon accessing that one attachment an all out attack is launched on your computer.  

If you'd like help in safeguarding your computer network from virus' like those that launch from email attachments, contact us - we'd love to help out if we can!  Just installing a virus protection program is not enough - let's talk.

Here is an article by Microsoft, Inc. regarding email attachments: http://www.microsoft.com/protect/computer/viruses/email.mspx

ARE EMPLOYEES COMPROMISING YOUR DATA?

You've heard it before - company get's attacked by virus -  data integrity is compromised.  How does it happen?  Why are companies so vulnerable to these attacks?  According to an article by Information Week Business Technology, the problem may lie with your employees.

"The findings from a global security study on data leakage revealed that the data loss resulting from employee behavior poses a much more extensive threat than many IT professionals believe."

"In the hands of uninformed, careless, or disgruntled employees, every device that accesses the network or stores data is a potential risk to intellectual property or sensitive customer data. Magnifying this problem is a disconnect between the beliefs of IT professionals and the realities of the current security environment for countless businesses. The new findings show that "insider threats" have the potential to cause greater financial losses than attacks that originate outside the company.

As a company committed to helping neutralize these threats, we have long encouraged our customers to write policies and procedures in respect to internet and email usage.  The best and most safe route is to restrict usage of the internet to those websites that your IT professional has already researched and deemed "safe".  Set employees up without administrator access rights such as installing programs and downloading files.  Restrict email attachments - possibly setting up an alternative way for receiving them.  There are many options you can discuss with your IT professional.  Of course, in reality, you can't restrict employees to the extent that their hands are tied and they can't even do their jobs and use the awesome technology at their disposal to assist and empower them to do their work.  It's a fine balance and one that each company has to explore for themselves - deciding what level of risk they are comfortable with.

Maybe you have questions about security risks and how vulnerable your company is ... maybe you know that you have some level of protection but are worried about if it's even working properly - do you even have your data backed up - are you sure?

Call or email us - we'd love to visit with you and suggest ideas you can do yourself - or we have services to address these areas if that is what you feel will work for you company.  What ever you do, don't ignore IT Security - it could mean the difference between being in business and going out of business.

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