Our sister company http://www.backmeup.ie has just launched it's new website.

BackMeUp has developed a new approach to selling online backup by the creation of a multi-level marketing scheme that provides a secondary income from the simple sale of online backup.

Go check out http://www.backmeup.ie/affiliates to find out more information about the scheme.

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The 3 Key Elements of IT for Small and Medium Sized Organisations

Some IT companies appear to be obsessed with providing new computers, software and services to companies - while there are business cases to be made for much of this equipment, there are 3 key services which no organisation should be without.

• 1. External Firewall,

This is a box which sits between the internet and your computers. It provides a barrier preventing access to your network from the internet and allowing you to control access from your company to the internet (one current customer has restricted access to the bebo webpage for example).

SupportsIT currently uses the Watchguard Firebox series of firewalls costing between €500 and €2,000. These represent a good level of protection and functionality for money spent.

• 2. Backups,

Many companies use a range of informal backup processes to protect from data loss. These range from USB keys (easily lost, not encrypted) to external hard drives (not encrypted, subject to failure).  The business case is obvious, imagine the cost to your business of losing a single file or folder. Not a lot? What if it was your list of debtors? Or your sales pipeline? Or your weekly timesheet?

There is a cost-effective solution - online backups. This service allows you to select the files that are most important for your business and have them copied securely to an online storage facility. The data is encrypted and the process is automated.

While major data-loss may be a doomsday scenario, the statistics are compelling - 94% of companies experiencing major data-loss go out of business within 2 years, 43% never reopen, 51% close within 2 years.[1]  

This service is easy to set up and costs between €2 per gigabyte (for large volumes of data) and €5 per gigabyte (for small amounts of data)

• 3. Remote Access,

Wouldn't it be great if you were able to call your IT maintenance company and they could see your computer screen, direct you through the menus and fix the problem This is now possible through remote access.

By providing a secure means of accessing your network your IT provider can not only provide faster fault resolution and can help you deal with the irritating it ‘gremlins' (the headers and footers in MS Word sometimes seem to have a mind of their own). The same system can also be used to manage staff who want to work from home or staff who are on the road but need access to email and other services from the computer network.

So there you have it, you may need a computer system like NASA or something much more modest, either way, these three services - Firewall, Backups and Remote Access represent three key elements of any organisation's IT requirements.

[1] Impact on U.S. Small Business of Natural & Man-Made Disasters, HP and SCORE,  University of Texas Center for Research on Information Systems, www.score.org/pdf/HP_Download_ImpactofDisaster.pdf

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We've created a great promotion that allows anyone to get a free laptop......

All you have to do is give us a referral that converts to business and you'll earn yourself one of these:

Not bad huh?

Register your interest and view our terms and conditions at www.supportsit.com/iwantmyfreelaptop

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Cloud computing and more generally SaaS computing is a topic that we are extremely interested in. The ability to utilise software products for our customers without having to support them on a day to day basis is something that appeals greatly. Especially when customers are becoming more and more sophisticated in their demands for services and solutions that meet the need of their businesses. Coupled together with a tight budget and an SBS server that is trying to handle it all!

However, where is the lowly IT support company going to end up if they don't rise to the challenge and start up services of their own?

With broadband speeds increasing on a seemingly daily basis, it becomes clear that more and more services will continue to be pushed into managed data centres and out of the office environment. An IT support company that doesn't step forward to offer these services might very well be left to become a broker of technology rather than an enabler.

cloud computer | Saas

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I noticed this evening that someone had changed the admin password for our site. Apparently our version of Joomla had a serious flaw and it was easy to change the password. This website shows the problem http://developer.joomla.org/security/news/35-core-security/241-20080801-core-password-remind-functionality.html

Just goes to show the age old problem of a painters house never being painted. Having only launched the new website, we hadn't bothered patching it up yet when new versions where released. We have now!!

Anyhow, whoever changed our password...thanks!! At least they didn't deface the site...Yet!

Anyone who isn't on Joomla 1.5.7+ beware!

threats

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• Everybody likes a good gadget, a clever idea that saves time and hassle – but how to decide which product will create more problems than it solves and which will make the business more efficient and easier to manage?

• A few things to bear in mind;
• Many businesses make decisions on technology based on the product itself, without thinking about maintenance, training of staff or redundancy. In our experience most companies end up spending more on these than on the product itself.
• 
  

References – most companies seeking to provide computer services will provide a list of references with a proposal, however over 90% of potential customers fail to check even one reference.

• All computers require maintenance, the more complicated the system or the larger the network, the more maintenance required. Money spent in this area should be looked at as maximizing the usefulness of technology and minimising downtime – after all you wouldn’t expect to drive a car for 15,000 miles without a service.

• In general (and particularly when things are a bit tight economically) companies should be careful to maintain their basic infrastructure – desktop machines, firewall, server, while approaching any new IT projects with a skeptical eye.

small business | IT Support | Systems | Maintenance

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We have seen an awful lot of scams that claim that the receiver has won a lot of money. Most of the scams seem to use large corporations as a hook into the scam. For instance, a recent one that we saw said that Microsoft Corp has set up a lottery fund, is giving away lots of money, and that YOU are the lucky winner.

Firstly, why would a company like Microsoft Corp give away all of that money? Even if they did, why would it not be to a huge worldwide fanfare with the Microsoft marketing department at full tilt and spreading the word across the world.

A number of our customers have phoned me asking if these scams are real or not. Of course, my answer is always to shred the letter. However, some of them have been called first by a mystery woman who tells them what is going to happen. This seems to be a step up from the normal scattergun approach and it would appear that these people are actually targetting potential victims.

A good website for checking out a lot of these scams is http://www.scambusters.org/

It has a lot of good information about each scam or hoax and tells you straight away whether the mail is true or not.

Be warned!

scammers | spammers | scams | threats

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One question that was posed to me today is whether implementing MS Exchange in a small business environment poses more of a threat to a network than using a more traditional POP3/hosted approach.

My answer was that, quite the contrary, in our experience, implementing MS Exchange provides a more centralised approach to email than the POP3 method and so is far easier to police, no matter how big the site.

Our experience goes as far as the 200 user mark but the majority of our customers would fit into the 5 - 25 user bracket. Having MS Exchange installed at their site has always lead to an increase in productivity and a decrease in overall spam and malware outbreaks, given the correct anti-X tools.

MS Exchange | IT Support | threats | small business

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Over the years we have worked for a number of schools and charities. Most of these organisations didn't realise that they could avail of great discounts from most of the bigger software vendors until they met with us.

There are a couple of simple rules to get cheaper software licenses from these guys:

• If you are a charity then you must have a charity number. In Ireland there is no such thing as the "Charities Commission" like the UK and therefore there is no such thing as a "Registered Charity". A fact which surprised me when I first read it here. The Irish charity number is issued by the revenue commissioners for tax purposes only.


• If you are a school, then you must be registered with the Department of Education to get software discounts.

Once you satisify the rules, the discounts are quite considerable and well worth asking for. Never buy Microsoft Office "pre-installed" from your hardware supplier if you qualify for the above rules.

charities | software | schools | IT Support

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