Survival is an instinct nearly every creature has hardwired into them. You can argue that many managers or business owners feel this instinct twofold, as they fight to physically survive as well as for their business to survive. Because of this, Disaster Recovery (DR) - the act of ensuring your systems can be recovered after a disaster - has become an integral part of the survival of a business.

Here are four ways to ensure your DR plan is sufficient and company is disaster-ready.

Are your systems compliant? Many DR systems are licensed, and it’s important to ensure that these licences are both up-to-date and supported by all necessary backup systems. If you’ve added or changed components like a server or software, but not upgraded the relevant licenses, chances are your systems won’t be covered when disaster strikes. If this is the case, when you go to retrieve the backup, you’ll just get a license error; your data can’t be retrieved.

Another issue with DR software is that it’s often not used, lying dormant for years. You should regularly check and ensure the software meets modern compliance standards, is up-to-date and licenses have not expired. You should also be aware of how the software you use integrates and interacts with the DR software. For example, an upgrade to a new email server, may not communicate well with your DR software.

What’s the status of your backup server? As most DR plans usually involve a separate server from day-to-day servers, it’s important to ensure that they are functioning properly, usually by having the vendor test them. It’s also equally important to communicate with the vendors or manufacturers of the servers to ensure that the correct software/hardware licenses are in place and cover the function. If they aren’t, you could risk legal action or being fined.

Test regularly Regular tests are an integral part of a properly functioning DR plan. You need to conduct tests on at least a yearly basis to ensure all systems involved in the DR plan function well. From these tests, observe any function that performed poorly, or not at all, and take steps to fix or replace it.

Work with a knowledgeable partner DR plans and systems can be a complicated, almost messy aspect of business. While this may be, DR is crucial to the survival of a business after a disaster, and shouldn’t be treated lightly. To get it right liaise with DR experts to create and maintain a plan that meets your needs.

If you would like help with either implementing or improving your DR plan, please contact us, we may have a solution for you.

For most of the 90s and well into the first decade and a half of the 2000s, Microsoft Office reigned as king of the Office suites. The Internet, in its early years, didn’t change that much, until the concept of the cloud was introduced. With it came competitors, such as Google with Google Drive, determined to give Microsoft a run for their money. Microsoft also has a cloud solution, Office 365. The question many managers are asking is: Which is better?

Here’s a comparison of both Google Apps and Office 365.

Cost Google has three pricing schemes for Google Apps: Free, $5 a month and $10 a month. Office 365 has eight price plans - six for normal users and two for kiosk users - these vary from $4 a month up to $22 a month. Note: all prices are in USD and are per user, per month.

With Google Apps, the majority of businesses will choose to go with the $5 a month plan, as it can support an unlimited number of users. Businesses that adopt Office 365 should chose the plan that closest matches the number of users in the organization. The only problem with the lower priced Office 365 plans ($14 a month and lower) are that they don’t include the desktop version of Office, which you will have to buy or license separately.

Setup/migration On paper the setup or migration to both systems can be easily achieved, but in reality, there are a few differences. With Google Apps, you follow an online migration process which you can either do yourself or with the help of a Google Apps Authorized Reseller.

Office 365 follows a similar process, with a setup wizard to help the transition. As of Spring 2012 If you’re a current Microsoft BPOS user, you can only do the migration at certain times, Microsoft's Online Services team will give you a schedule. This means your migration works around Microsoft’s schedule, not yours. For new Office 365 clients, working with a Microsoft vendor is your best bet to achieving a successful migration, as there have been known to be complications with the process, especially if you’re upgrading from a legacy system.

Cloudiness Both Google and Microsoft market their products as cloud solutions. Google Apps is centered around Google Drive and Gmail, with Drive being the online storage, collaboration and document creation and editing app. Basically, anything created using a Google App is accessed from Drive, which in turn can be accessed using any Web browser.

Office 365 users on the other hand will likely have to adapt a hybrid solution. You will be able to access documents through SharePoint, Microsoft’s online document management system. These documents are in turn shared with Office 365 users who can access them through their Web browser. There is also Office Web Apps which is a slimmed down version of Office for desktops, which is fully in the cloud.

Management Management of any cloud based solution should, in theory, be as easy as managing web browsers across the organization. With Google, any program updates are automatically installed by Google, and will show up often instantly, meaning that all users are always on the same version, regardless of their location. If you use a Google Apps Vendor, the updates will be available to all of the vendor’s clients when the vendor updates, which is usually close to the time Google releases the original update.

Management of Google Apps is done through the Web browser of the admin account. Users can add new services, change access rights and tinker to their heart’s content. Office 365 on the other hand relies on a fairly tech-intensive backend that requires a company to have IT staff with knowledge of Microsoft’s products. A new version of Office 365 will be available in November 2013, however, if companies want to upgrade, they may have to pay for a whole new version of Office for each user.

When it comes to support, Google offers 24/7 support for paying customers, and no physical support for non-paying customers. Microsoft offers support for some price plans, however no 24/7 support is available for businesses that chose the Small Business price plan. Both have websites and incredibly extensive forums you can access for help.

Day-to-day use If you were to compare Google Apps with just the online parts of Office 365, you’d find that the two offerings are fairly similar. Both facilitate online collaboration, while providing essential features like a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation software and email, that are instantly familiar to any computer user. Strictly comparing these to Office Web Apps, both are fairly light on advanced editing and creation features that content producers and layout editors need.

Where Office 365 shines is with day-to-day integration. If it’s set up properly, Office 365 will work great with Office 2010, and allows users far greater formatting options than Google Apps. In fact, to get the most out of Office 365, you will probably want to use Office 2010 along with it.

In short, businesses that already use Microsoft’s products, have the required infrastructure for Office 365, or need the advanced functionality of the Office suite, will be better off sticking with Microsoft. For businesses that are looking for a set price solution that’s fully based in the cloud, Google Apps may be the better choice. If you’d like to learn more about the various products from either company, please contact us.

It used to be fire and thieves that destroyed or stole all your precious and important possessions. While these two things still happen, the more modern equivalent is having your various Internet accounts hacked, information deleted or confidential information stolen. There are two recent cases of this happening, both involving Apple and Apple’s products, which go to show that even Apple users can be targets.

Here’s a brief overview of the two high profile Apple security breaches and seven steps you should take to prevent these from affecting you.

Mat Honan’s problem Mat Honan is a writer for Wired, who in early August had nearly his whole digital life wiped off the map. His article on Wired is a fantastic and scary read, we highly recommend it. To summarize, he had the majority of his website accounts linked together, with one account linked to many. Hackers were able to get into his iCloud account by taking advantage of Apple’s lax password reset.

To begin with, the hacker wanted to take Honan’s Twitter account. They noticed that he had a Gmail account linked to Twitter, and from there was able to find that an Apple account was linked to the Gmail account, as a secondary account. To get access to the Apple account, they reset the password, which requires a billing address and the last 4 digits of the card registered to that account. The card number came from hacking into Honan’s Amazon account, which shows the last 4 digits of the card.

From there, it was a simple step of resetting the Apple account and shortly thereafter the Gmail password, sending the Gmail reset to the registered Apple account address (the secondary address on the Gmail account). Once in control of the Gmail account, asking Twitter to reset the password using the Gmail account and Bob’s your uncle, the hacker had access to the Twitter account.

Apple UDID leaks In early September infamous hacker group Antisec, related to the hacker group Anonymous, released over 1 million Apple UDIDs. A UDID, Unique Device Identifier, is the code Apple applies to all devices to be able to identify them. Upon the release of the UDIDs, Antisec announced that they had come from a breached laptop, owned by the FBI, and that the FBI was using the UDIDs to track users.

While it’s not known exactly where the breach came from, security experts have been able to prove, to a 98% surety rate, that the UDIDs came from Blue Toad, an app developer that had a digital breach previous to the release of the UDIDs. Blue Toad’s CEO has come forward acknowledging the leak and noted that the company is sure the info came from them, and not the FBI.

While it can be alarming that UDID were out there, users can be assured that passwords were not exposed, as the UDID tends to store information like account name, phone number and address. Yes, contact information is out there, which might raise concerns,  but don’t kid yourself, this information, or most of it, is already readily available on the Internet anyway.

With these two, fairly serious incidents, iPhone users are right to be a little wary, and should be taking steps to insure their information is secure. Related to these two events, here’s seven steps you can take to minimize the chances of this happening to you:

• Unlink all essential accounts from one another.
• Set up an email account that’s only used for other account resets.
• Regularly back up all your devices onto a secure hard disk.
• Change your password regularly and use two-factor authentication if available.
• Don’t have the same username or password for all accounts.
• If the information isn’t necessary for your account don’t provide it.
• Delete and never store any credit card numbers.

If you have any questions or concerns about the security of your accounts or systems, please don’t hesitate to call us.

There’s no doubt that Microsoft’s products and programs are incredibly useful, with most companies using at least one of their systems. One of the most used products, one that many employees don’t see, is servers. Small businesses have many options including Microsoft Small Business Server (SBS) which has recently been retired, leaving many businesses wondering what to do now?

If your company has employed a Microsoft SBS 2008 or older solution, you aren’t totally left in the dark. Before announcing the end of SBS, Microsoft announced Microsoft Windows Server 2012, which is meant to be the replacement for SBS.

In the past, Microsoft has been a company of options, not content with releasing just one or two versions of an operating system or server structure, instead opting for many. With Windows Server 2012, the options have been slimmed down to just four, of which two will be best for the majority of small businesses.

Foundation Foundation is the most basic version of Windows Server 2012, with support for common activities like file and printer sharing. It won’t however support virtual environments, meaning, in other words, you will have to stick with physical servers instead of being able to run different servers on one physical machine. It’s also limited to 15 users and under.

The downside with Foundation is that it will only be available on new servers created by Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). If you want to utilize this version, you’re going to have to buy a new server. If you’re looking to centralize basic office functions, or connect the office internally, and don’t currently have any servers, this might be a good option for you.

Essentials If you currently use SBS, or another retired Microsoft product, you’re best bet is Essentials. At a cost of around USD $425, it’s a low cost upgrade aimed specifically at businesses with 25 or fewer users. An upgrade to Essentials brings about the ability to easily connect and manage Microsoft’s cloud based solutions such as Office 365 and the cloud version of Sharepoint, as well as others. Essentials also has Client Backup, and Remote Web Access, features which are mature and have been brought forward from SBS and Home Server.  Essentials can also integrate with an onsite Exchange 2010 server if you are keeping email in-house vs the cloud.  A separate server license will be needed for Exchange.

The downside to this is if you have more than 25 users in your company you’ll either need to pay for an upgrade to Server Standard to “unlock” Essentials to unlimited users, or pick another version. Aside from this, Essentials, unlike Foundation, does support a fully virtualized server environment. Essentials will be a good upgrade for companies that are interested in transitioning to the cloud but may still want some featured in-house during the transition (Exchange, Sharepoint). Interested in learning more about integrating Windows Server 2012 in your company? Please contact us, we can help.

Microsoft has an exciting fourth quarter of 2012 ahead. The impending release of Windows 8 is being met with mixed thoughts by pundits, and there are a ton of new features that could essentially change how we use computers. Some of these features focus on enabling businesses to adopt a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) solution.

Here are four features of Windows 8 that will help companies manage or implement a BYOD policy.

DirectAccess. DirectAccess (a feature of windows that allows users to connect to enterprise systems without the need for a Virtual Private Network), first introduced in Windows 7, has had some improvements. The goal of this feature is to allow users on their own devices, or who are out of the office, easier connectivity to the office, without the need for costly networking. Windows 8 Enterprise editions will come with this already installed, and the new version will make it easier to configure and monitor.

Windows To Go. For companies that have no assigned seats, or with consultants/remote workers, the need to use the same system as the office on their devices is important. With Windows To Go users can run their work PC from a USB drive. When a user connects the USB they can boot up an exact copy of their work PC, and continue working. This feature is a perfect match for BYOD, as users have a distinct solution to plug into the office, without needing to install extra software, and IT can manage the work PC without being too invasive.

More secure mobile platform. One of the biggest updates Windows 8 will bring will be closer integration of the OS between desktops and mobile devices. With the new platform, IT can set which mobile devices have access to different apps, encrypt hard drives on phones, and run more efficient security campaigns with the aim of keeping business data on personal devices secure.

One management tool, many systems. One of the hardest tasks IT has in relation to the monitoring of personal devices is managing the different systems employees use. Windows 8 will extend the current device management tools IT uses to monitor systems in the office to all devices using Windows. This means IT has one device management tool, not 3-4, and changes made to one system can, in theory, be applied to all devices.

Built in virus protection. When Windows 8 releases, it will come with built-in security and virus protection. While it can be guaranteed it won’t be perfect, hardly any anti-virus programs are. This is an added layer of protection if your users don’t have an antivirus program on their personal devices.

Windows 8 is still a month or so away from release, and many companies are preparing for an upgrade. If you’re interested in upgrading to Windows 8, or have concerns about BYOD, please contact us.

Clark Kent: star reporter for the Daily Planet and always one of the first reporters to break the news. To many, Clark Kent is more commonly known as Superman. If Superman had an email address, it’d be a sure thing that he’d take steps to ensure it remains secure and out of the hands of criminals. Do you echo what superman would do and protect your email address?

Failing online protection from a superhero here’s five things you can do to ensure your email address is properly protected.

Give your email a disguise Superheros often protect their identity through the use of a disguise. We’re not saying you need to dress up in spandex, go out and search for spammers/scammers to beat down, or prevent from getting your email. Instead, you should be aware of how scammers operate - largely by writing programs that search websites for email addresses - and disguise your email from this.

Many programs look for traditional emails like imthebatman@gmail.com, so to disguise your email, spell it out: imthebatmanATgmailDOTcom or, imthebatman(DELETETHIS)@gmailDOTcom. People are smart enough to figure out that the AT and DOT are actually @, . or to delete (DELETETHIS). You’d be surprised at how much this will cut down on spam.

Protect your email’s identity Aside for a disguise, superheroes will often go to great lengths to protect their identity. You should do the same with your email address. When signing up for a new service, forum, or anything that requires a username, don’t use your email as the username. If possible, don’t use your email address at all.

You should also read the Privacy Statements of all websites you have accounts with. Yes, there is lots of legal speak and they are long, but thats to get the user to scroll to the bottom of the document and hit accept. Look for clauses regarding your email, and note any companies that say they reserve the rights to sell your email to advertisers or aren’t held liable for stolen information, as you can ensure that your email will be spammed.

Beyond that, many websites allow you to hide your email address from other users. It’s highly recommended that you do this and an option to do so can usually be found in the Account Options or Account Security sections of your user profile on websites.

Don’t respond to flashy requests When a superhero is not out fighting crime, they’re off cultivating and maintaining their alter-ego. They hardly do anything outside of their normal character, and normally won’t respond to flashy requests for super luxury balls (unless you’re Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark of course). If you get an email that sounds too good to be true, such as announcing that you’ve won something spectacular, it’s a good idea to not open or respond to it, as chances are near 100% that it’s a scam or simply aimed at getting your email address or other information.

Get your email a side-kick Some superheroes have sidekicks that help them fight crime or solve mysteries. We recommend that you get your main email a sidekick and sign up for a separate email that you use for online shopping, forum registration and basically anything that’s non-work/family/friends related.

Take a picture of your email In numerous Spider-Man story arcs, Peter Parker is tasked with taking pictures of Spider-Man. Of course, being Spider-man, all he has to do is take a picture of himself and people seem to be happy with that. As many spam programs don’t take information from pictures, it’s a good idea to make your email addresses into a picture that you place onto email signatures, or into the body of the email itself.

The easiest way to do this is open MS Paint, (if you have a windows machine), or an online image creator like pixlr and type your email address into the image, resize so it just fits the font and hit save. The best format to save it as is a .jpeg, as it can be easily read by Internet browsers and email programs. Most email programs will allow you to put an image into your signature, typically done under Settings.

You don’t have to be a superhero to protect your email, just take these precautionary steps and your important email addresses will be as safe as any superhero’s true identity. If you’d like to learn more about staying secure while surfing the Internet, please contact us, and we will come to your aid.

Have you ever been sitting at your computer at work, buried up to your ears with somewhat trivial tasks and wished you could do all this from a more comfortable environment, or your home even? You’re not alone, and many professionals have switched over to a remote office, where they connect to work via the Internet. The one downside to this is it can be a chore for managers to ensure remote employees are productive.

Here’s five tips on how you can better connect with and manage your remote workers, freelance or otherwise, to help ensure optimal productivity.

Establish workflow As your employees work off site, they will set their own hours. This means they have to rely on their own discipline to get work done. Because of this, it will be hard for you to set/control their hours, which means you’ll have to trust them to get their work done. You should be aware of when they prefer to work, simply by talking with them, and be flexible with their schedules.

Working with remote workers is a two-way street, and while you should know your remote employee’s schedules, they should also know your schedule, and how you work. If you answer emails in the morning and have meetings in the afternoons, be sure to let them know that you expect/will answer their requests before lunch, for example.

Communication is key As in most businesses, communication is key to both a happy and productive workplace. You, as the manager, need to ensure that an open line of communication with your remote employees exists. This could be as simple as a telephone number or VoIP account that’s always on, (within reasonable hours of course), or an instant messaging platform. It’s important to ensure that you find out if your employees have the tools to complete their job.

Two-way feedback, both positive and negative, is also an important part of the communication process. You need to provide near constant feedback, even on small issues that would ordinarily be glossed over in physical interactions, while encouraging your employees to do the same.

Remember: you’re the boss Many bosses with remote employees find that the employee seems to run the show, and getting projects or tasks completed on time can be a bit tough. As the boss, you need to clearly explain what is expected of remote employees, why it’s expected, and the consequences of not meeting expectations. If there’s a problem it’s up to you to try to fix it.

Most importantly, if you work with strict deadlines, you need to ensure that remote employees are not only aware of the deadlines but are held accountable for them. If deadlines are missed, you may want to find another employee, remote or otherwise.

Provide a secure platform While the majority of remote employees connect to the office from their home, there’s a chance that they may connect from other locations, like coffee shops or libraries. A large percentage of public Wi-Fi connections have little to no security, and the last thing you want is to have your data breached due to unsecure connections.

This means you should provide remote employees with a secure way to connect to the office. Some solutions include virtual desktops or a secure laptop. Providing a secure connection isn’t enough, you need to ensure your systems can actually handle remote connections and that IT support is available for remote workers. The added benefit to this is that you can better monitor productivity, as the systems can be monitored using the same software as is used for computers in the office.

Judge by the final product Productivity is not easy to judge when you can’t physically see someone sat in their seat. For remote workers, the easiest way to monitor productivity is by the quality and consistency of the final product turned in compared to the time it took them to provide it. In reality, remote workers should complete tasks in about the same amount of time it takes employees who work onsite. The time and date of submission shouldn’t enter into decisions unless there are deadlines.

Employees that connect remotely can offer companies who employ them many benefits too and if you’re interested in employing remote staff, why not contact us. We can help find a solution that will work for both parties for best productivity all round.

In business, and in life, decisions can be one of the toughest things we have to do. If you make the wrong decisions, you could be the reason a business fails. You don’t want that to happen, so when it comes to good business, a tool like business analytics (BA) can help you or others in your company make better informed decisions that could lead to increased success.

The most important thing to be aware of with BA is that its success largely depends on how astute companies are in using BA tools. Here are seven tips on how to ensure BA is working for you.

1. Collaborate to define questions. Before you approach a BA vendor, it’s important to collaborate with all functions within your company to identify questions and issues that are tough to answer. With questions clearly defined, you’ll be better able to see if a vendor can provide solutions that will answer these more efficiently than solutions already in place.
2. Start with fresh reports. After implementation of a BA solution, you should focus on developing new reports that analyze data in a different way when compared with your old reports. Doing so could help you find new ways to secure advantages, competitive and otherwise. A new solution also provides you with the opportunity to audit your data and get rid of junk data that has no viable purpose.
3. Work with BA experts and your vendor. BA is a science; it’s a lot more involved than the traditional method of comparing current results against previous reports. As such, you should either employ a BA expert who knows which questions to ask and what to do with the data or work with a consultant. Consulting the vendor you work with would be a good start, as they normally employ BA experts who are there to help.
4. Train employees. Like any business function that will be used in all departments, it’s important to train your employees on not only how to use the software, but the basics behind it. Before any training is done however, it’s important that you adapt roles to incorporate the change in process.
5. Don’t give up on Excel. Microsoft Excel, or similar spreadsheets are fantastic programs. Chances are high that the majority of your employees are competent users of at least Excel and you can use this to both their and your advantage. In fact, many BA solutions use, or are based off of, Excel-like spreadsheets which makes training a lot easier and less expensive as employees will already be comfortable with the basics.
6. BA should deliver on 2 levels. Business analytics functions on two main levels: summary and drill down. Summary encompases multiple elements, while drill down allows in depth looks at one element. When reports are compiled they should encompass both elements.
7. Don’t let BA do all the thinking. BA is not the be all and end all, it’s supposed to help your company with decision making, not make the decisions for you. There may be times when the analytical output just doesn’t match what you think will be best. Some of the most successful business people have relied on instinct even when the available data tells them they are wrong.

BA has become an important part of many businesses and while you can develop your own program in-house, many small to medium businesses just don’t have the capital, expertise or time to do so. We recommend that before you start, you get in touch with a BA expert or consultant and see if they can give you a solution. We can also help, so don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and give us a call.

One of the more popular trends companies are adopting is virtualization, moving from physical systems to cloud/server based systems. Desktop virtualization, the act of moving your desktop computers from a physical to virtual environment is a type of virtualization that’s gaining more popularity. When it comes to this trend though some companies are apprehensive about how secure virtual environments are.

In general, you can do nearly everything on a virtual desktop that you can do with a physical desktop. The majority of office oriented software now has versions that operate in the cloud, or give administrators the ability to install the program on one machine and license it out to other machines.

The largest difference between the two systems comes in the form of security. Virtual desktops are susceptible to the exact same security issues as their physical counterparts, but they also have a few extra potential problems which are unique to virtual machines. The biggest security issue with virtual desktops comes in the form of access. With physical machines, you can lock an office door which will usually prevent people from physically accessing the machine. With virtual machines you are not able to do this. Anyone with access and a password can get onto the machine.

While this may sound like a deterrence to the adoption of virtual desktops, users should be aware that vendors are aware of this issue and have adopted measures to ensure their products are safe. In fact, if implemented properly, virtual desktops are often safer.

To ensure safety of data and machines virtual desktops need to be implemented in a specific manner. For example, some solutions will create a new environment every time you need to access a different system. This is like starting with a blank slate, with unnecessary data being deleted when you log off. Users won’t be able to customize their workspace, but it can help stave off problems of errant downloading, or installation of unnecessary programs.

Other systems allow users to customize their workspace, but save the changes in a separate location when the user logs off. This keeps any changes made to the base system easy to keep track of, and it’s easier to spot security problems, while keeping them local.

If you’re looking into virtualizing your office’s desktops, we strongly recommend you work with an experienced IT partner who can help deploy a system that meets your needs, while remaining safe. We can help with virtualization, so why not give us a call?

One of the latest industries to be developed in the past 50 years is Information Technology, or IT. Many aspects of IT have become essential parts to every business and household. We rely on products and services offered by IT to conduct business and live our daily lives. It’s highly likely that IT will continue to play an important role in nearly everything, and a recent report has been released to corroborate this.

A report released in the summer of 2012 by Gartner, Inc. an IT research and advisory firm, states that in the year 2012, companies will be spending a worldwide total of around $3.6 Trillion on IT related products and services.

This represents a year on year growth of 2.5% in spending when compared with 2011. Growth like this is nothing to sneeze at, and it will continue to grow as more products and services are invented, developed and released to the mass market.

The report noted that the largest sector of the IT market is in telecommunication services, with an expected growth of 1.4% this year. It also stated that companies in emerging markets will spend more on Internet technologies and consumer electronics. This means that with more capital, tech companies in these industries will be able to invest in and release more products.

One IT silo is expected to have significant growth over the next four years. Cloud tech spending is forecasted to grow 19% year on year, and double again by 2016. This indicates that companies and developers are incredibly interested in cloud computing, and it will continue to be an important part of modern technology.

While this report is primarily inward facing towards the IT industry, it does showcase the fact that IT is an integral part of modern business infrastructure. This report also highlights the impact that companies in the IT industry will have as they continue to innovate and release new products. If the past half decade is anything to judge by, new technology will continue to get more complex. The result of this is that businesses will benefit from close relations with IT providers and subject matter experts.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the increasing complexity of programs and solutions, take a logical and simple step in the right direction and contact us. We’re here to help ensure your IT experience is as smooth as possible for the future.