Computer Medic On Call

Most Businesses Won’t Survive a Disaster. Could Yours?   With the crazy weather we’re seeing, natural disasters on the rise and cyber terrorism echoing for years, it’s not a case of ‘if’ a disaster will strike your business, but ‘when’. Surprisingly, it’s not the scope and scale of the event that influences how deeply your business is impacted, it’s your business continuity plan. Put simply, this is the all-important set of precautions and pre-planned responses to an event, laid out in bullet-proof detail and implemented with one driving focus: keeping your business running with little or no downtime. Think about what would happen if your business was hit by a natural disaster tomorrow. Would it survive? How much downtime would it take to push you into dangerous territory? According to an IBM study of all the companies that had a major loss of data, 43% never reopen, 51% close within two years and just 6% will survive long-term. For a fraction of those survivors, business eve

Why it makes sense to use Desktop as a Service in your business While a majority of entrepreneurs may see  Desktop as a Service  (DaaS) as a technological fad, a pragmatic business owner will not reject the idea without considering its pros and cons. A careful analysis of this new concept gives us more reasons to adopt it rather than thinking otherwise. DaaS is a very convenient solution, especially for small businesses. In this write up, we will put this proposition to the test by discussing aspects like flexibility, cost-effectiveness and ease of administration.   What is Desktop as a Service? Before signing up for any new technology, it is best to understand the background and how it can exactly help your business. Essentially, Desktop as a Service is a cloud-based solution that enables users to access their desktops remotely anytime, anywhere and from any device. What makes this solution ideal for small businesses is the fact that it is very easy to manage. In

Why Are Security Patches Important? As more and more cyber-attacks are reported on, so too is the importance of ensuring machines are regularly updated with the latest antivirus software. These software updates or ‘patches’ are perhaps one of the single-most important cyber security tools that the everyday user needs. A patch is a small piece of software that a company issues whenever a security flaw is uncovered. The patch repairs the flaw, keeping hackers from further exploiting any weaknesses. The recent WannaCry ransomware exploited a flaw with severe consequences for some before developers could create a patch. Regularly allowing your device to install patches can be annoying and disruptive for some. However, updates can be scheduled to run at a time that will not disrupt your work flow. Patches push out fixes to bugs detected and create a safer environment for your computer. Viruses and malware are always on the lookout for security holes to exploit and ga

8 Bad Tech Habits to Avoid There’s no hiding from the truth – we are often in front of a screen from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep. Constantly checking our personal devices for updates can drive us to distraction. At work, we find a desktop work station waiting for us with so much to be done we eat lunch over our keyboards. Does this sound familiar? We’re in a digital age, and we’ve developed a lot of bad digital habits. Jokes aside, it’s not just about checking our notifications – it’s about keeping good digital hygiene, too. There are plenty of little things we can do to improve our security and safety, both on and offline. Physical bad habits Eating over your device This is a very common thing for busy people to do. We aren’t going to tell you not to, but we are going to suggest that you remember to clean your devices regularly. You can wipe down screens with special cloths, and you can even find tiny vacuums to lift the debris from your keyboard. Ma

6 Ways to Help Identify a Malicious Email Remember when you could easily identify phishing emails because they all came from a foreign prince who wanted to share his wealth with you? As with all cyber attacks, malicious emails have evolved to the point where they look like they came from the person or company the bad actor is trying to imitate. Here are some things to watch out for: You don’t know or trust the sender – Not all malicious emails come from an unknown sender (see Google Docs Phishing Attack), but many will. Spelling errors – These could be in the company name, email domain, or anywhere throughout the email. The “To:” line looks suspicious – This could mean it is blank or contains an email address that doesn’t look legitimate. You are asked to verify account information or an order you don’t remember placing – When in doubt, do not click links in the email. Go to the webpage you typically log into without clicking links and make changes and/or verify info

Data Security and How it Drives Business Major data breaches seem to hit the news everyday. The stakes for companies are high.  Recent research  by Cisco showed that 29% of breached organizations lost revenue. Breaches can impact companies of all types, from large corporations to small hospitals. On the black market, health care records reportedly  sell for $50  apiece. Social Security numbers only sell for $1. The Federal Government says “endpoints” are one of the largest areas of vulnerability for the US. Endpoints are notebooks, desktop computers, mobile devices, servers – basically anything connected to the IT system. That can include medical devices and military sensors. In fact, “Endpoint Epidemic,” a recent study from  MeriTalk , found that  44 percent of federal government endpoints are unprotected or even unknown . Even more alarming is the lack of qualified experts. The ISACA, a non-profit information security advocacy group, predicts a global shortage of two mill

Understanding Spyware is the First Step to Preventing It What Is Spyware? Spyware is any program that accumulates data from a system without being discovered by that system’s user. Data that is typically targeted includes passwords and credit card credentials, email addresses, and even keystrokes and browsing habits. The key to a program being labelled as spyware hinges on the idea that it was installed without the user’s consent. This is often accomplished by attaching the malicious software to another program that the user is installing by choice. Spyware can also be spread through other methods that malware utilizes – including compromised websites or emails. Spyware is a massive epidemic, with an estimated 90% of home PCs being infected with some form of spyware. The Issues that Spyware Will Cause If your system is infected with spyware, it can cause some serious operational deficiencies. Since the device’s resources are tied up by the spyware, your system is likely

Installer Fails and Rollback. Nowadays users reported that they are not able to install applications. When they try to install any of the application it stuck and rollback to the previous state mentioning installer fail. This can happen on any OS, though reason for failure of installation could be different. Windows installer plays major role in installation as well as configuration of any application in OS. In case, installer is failed or dependencies files of installer are corrupt you will get issues while performing the task.   The best solution for such problem is updating Windows OS regularly. Patches and security updates are already deployed by the Windows team regularly, though they are also deploying service pack and update properties for different issues at the interval. By enabling these options, you can protect your computer from hacking and virus attacks as well.  Nowadays, OS are with full security features and it takes less time to update the propertie

Why outsourcing business IT support makes sense? IT support  is a vital element to any business and many will decide to run this internally initially, however,  IT support  is something that can easily be outsourced to help ensure your team focuses on the business’ needs and main tasks. IT support can be time-consuming as it can take a while to fix issues, but most importantly it can be hard to determine how long tasks will take. This element of uncertainty can be most harmful as you could be delaying progress and hindering your business for unknown periods of time without additional support. We strongly suggest sourcing external  IT support  to help keep your business productive and profitable, here are a few more reasons why. IT support  requires those working on it to constantly be up to speed on the latest technologies and software updates to ensure that they can support you in the best possible way. If you choose to run this in-house, you will need to continually

Why businesses need a UPS Power outages caused by utility failure, accidents, and natural disasters such as storms, flooding, or earthquakes are inevitable. There’s very little you can do to prevent any of these from happening, but you can avoid the consequences to your business by using an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS). What is an uninterruptible power supply? An uninterruptible power supply is an essential piece of hardware that protects both your computer and your data. It provides a backup power source in case of main power failures caused by electrical current problems such as blackouts, brownouts, and power spikes. Smaller UPS units can protect individual computers while larger models can power multiple devices or an entire office. Small businesses can opt for individual UPS units, which should be enough to back up critical computers and other devices that are key to business continuity. Benefits of having UPS It’s a known fact that power outages can dama