The world is divided when it comes to the Internet, many citizens see it as a vast network of free, or nearly free information where one can find the most neutral, and arguably the best, information. Many governments see it as something that should be controled, going so far as to introduce or try to introduce laws governing Internet use.

Here is a brief overview of the four most newsworthy government laws or regulations and what they mean.

SOPA. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was a bill suggested in late 2011 and tabled in the American House in early 2012. What it proposed was to give the US Justice Department and copyright holders the power to take take down websites due to copyright infringement without hearing a defense by the website owners.It also gave copyright owners the power to lodge complaints that websites infringed on their copyright and seek compensation from ANY company that did business with the website. They could also get the whole website taken down, not just the infringing material, all without entering a courtroom.

SOPA also would have made it a felony to stream pirated material, with a potential jail term of up to five years e.g., watch any video with pirated music on youtube (almost every video) and you could go to jail for it. Taking it even further, posting links to illicit material on social networks could result in the whole network being taken down. The big problem with SOPA was that it would have given the Justice Department power to shut down access to both domestic and foreign sites in the US.

PIPA. The Protect IP Act is the Senate version of SOPA. While nearly identical in nearly all aspects, there are two main differences. The first being that it doesn’t require search engines to stop working with foreign, copyright infringing websites. It still allows for copyright holders to lodge complaints against foreign sites though. The second is that it requires greater court intervention when pursuing copyright infringement. In late January, the Senate tabled the bill until its issues can be resolved.

CISPA. After SIPA and PIPA failed to pass, American legislators introduced a set of bills called the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). The main purpose of CISPA is to guard against “cyber threats” and has been expanded to also cover national security. If passed, military and government agencies will be able to collect and share private data from companies without a warrant.Companies will be able to share data with government agencies, as long as it pertains to a cyber threat. These threats include anything that’s in relation to efforts to harm public and private networks, theft and wrongful use of data. In other words, download a movie from youtube that’s copyrighted and Google - the owner of Youtube - would be legally entitled to share your information with the US government.

The worst thing about this bill is that it gives the American government permission to monitor ALL of your Internet activity, and use your information without liability. If a government or military body shares your information because they deem you a cyber threat and it’s a mistake, you won’t be able to seek legal recourse.

In April the US House passed the bill, and a version of it is currently being voted on by the Senate.

ACTA. The Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is a multinational act established to help prevent the stealing of copyrighted ideas and material via any medium, including the Internet. What it does for the Internet is turn ISPs (Internet Service Providers) into Web Police, while restricting copyrights. At this time, the bill is unclear on the extent and power it will give to governments and large companies to monitor and protect copyrights. However, it’s an International bill that has been ratified by almost all first world countries.

While these acts originate in the United States, if passed, other western countries will most likely move to enact similar legislation aimed at protecting the interests of the country and companies operating within. A good example of this is a bill, C-11, currently being debated in Canada’s House of Commons. It has many of the same provisions that SOPA, PIPA and CISPA do, which could change the face of the Internet in Canada with any company that has ties to Canada being affected.

At this time, these bills won’t affect small businesses that follow the law, but if enacted businesses will need to keep a very close watch on employee Internet use and use of any non-original material. What are your thoughts on the bills? Let us know below, or contact us for more information.

Computers and other devices have done nothing but get faster, giving businesses the ability to move traditional functions onto the computer. This move saved companies untold amounts of money and made employees more productive. The new trend is to move these now “physical” elements into a more virtual environment, a trend called virtualization.

In technical circles, the process of virtualization is the creation of a virtual copy of something actual like a server, network or storage device. Virtualization allows one device to run as more than one device. Running Windows on your Mac, or partitioning a physical hard drive into smaller sections that each act as a separate hard drive are examples of virtualization. In general, there are four types of virtualization:

1. Operating System virtualization. Running more than one operating system on the same device.
2. Server virtualization. Running more than one server on the same physical server.
3. Storage virtualization. Linking together multiple storage devices into what’s perceived as one device. Cloud storage is a common form of storage virtualization.
4. Network virtualization. Network virtualization is the combining of network connections like Internet and other Data into one seemingly visible network and then dividing the connection into separate connections. E.g., Taking a 5mb connection and assigning 2mb to your server and 3mb to employee’s computers.

In small businesses, the most popular type of virtualization is server virtualization and when many experts speak of “virtualization” they’re normally talking about server virtualization. The four types of virtualization do share common benefits though. These benefits include:

• Decreased physical hardware. When you virtualize systems, you need less hardware. Imagine an office that has both Mac and Windows computers, you can run either OS on the same machine which means no need to duplicate computers. If you have more than one server, you can bring them together onto one server, possibly being able to get rid of unnecessary equipment.
• Reduced overhead. With virtualization you will be able to get rid of hardware, which means all associated operating costs - e.g., electricity bills - and capital expenditures - e.g., maintenance - related to the hardware are decreased, or eliminated. You save money in the long run.
• Increased efficiency. As virtualization solidifies different systems into one, you’ll be able to more efficiently use the hardware components e.g., there’s no need to have separate Internet connections for email, servers and computers.
• Easy Disaster Recovery. With virtualization, you don’t need to invest heavily in backing up your company’s data, you can take the money saved from virtualization and invest it in a small number of servers that house backups offsite. When a disaster strikes, you can be up and running again quickly.
• Extended device lifecycle. It seems that current hardware is out of date almost as soon as you buy it, and within a couple of years it’s struggling to meet demands of more modern programs. With virtualization your programs are stored on servers, so the need for modern equipment is lessened. This means you can use your current equipment for longer.

The biggest benefit to virtualization is that it isn’t an all-or-nothing solution, you can virtualize different functions at your own pace, often times starting with free or low cost solutions and working up to more advanced and costly implementations. If you’re interested in virtualizing your business or would like to learn more, please contact us.

One of the biggest drivers of a company’s success, regardless of the size, is collaboration. If your employees can’t work efficiently together or with external parties, chances of success are fairly slim. This is especially important for small businesses where employees may fill more than one role, often with only a basic understanding of that role, which leads to lower productivity. To make it easier for employees, you can use a program like Microsoft SharePoint.

SharePoint was launched by Microsoft in 2001 as a document and content management program for intranets - closed networks within a company. Over the past 11 years, SharePoint has added a ton of different capabilities and features that make it an integral part of many business’s infrastructure. One of the biggest advantages of SharePoint is that it integrates with Microsoft Office and Office 365. Here are five things you can do with SharePoint to help make your company and employees more productive.

• Centralize all essential documents. The problem many small businesses face is that files are spread out, normally kept locally on an employee's computer which makes sharing difficult. SharePoint allows you to organize your files in a central location while allowing employees or other parties to access and share these documents.
• Collaboration. With centralized document management, your employees can collaborate easier. No more having to email another employee to get them to send a document then having to compile different versions into one document, as employees will have access to the same document with changes made clearly visible.
• Solidify goals and roles. Employees in small businesses often complain that they don’t know what their roles are and what exactly the company is doing. With SharePoint you can create lists and documents with your goals and expectations of employees, which they can access. Clearly defined goals and roles will go a long way in keeping employees productive because they will be able to see exactly what they should be doing.
• Project management. Project management can be one of the toughest things to keep on top of. One team may be using a separate calendar and documents that other teams don’t have access to causing productivity bottlenecks. With SharePoint you can create calendars and workflows that are shared on the network so you know exactly who is working on what, when it’s due and what’s left to be done.
• Stage-gate implementation. With the combination of calendars, workflow and shared documents you can establish a clearly defined stage-gates, a set point where document drafts, workflow process or any project needs to be approved to move on to the next step. This creates an element of control that keeps projects on track, and necessary parties informed at all times.

Through clever use of SharePoint and the different addons, you can reign in uncontrolled projects, keep track of projects and ensure your employees know what they should be doing. If you and your employees are organized and have easy access to data and collaboration tools, you will see an increase in productivity of both employees and the company. To learn more about how you can use SharePoint for your business, please contact us.

The Internet is one big massive information tool, we can find anything we want by clicking a mouse and hitting a few keys on the keyboard. Some information - passwords, addresses, etc.- we would like to keep secret from other users. We trust websites to keep this information safe and 99% of the time, our information is safe, however, there’s a chance your info could be breached. This has recently happened to two major websites.

The two breaches happened to Yahoo and Phandroid.

The Phandroid leak Phandroid is a large Android centric website, widely considered by many to be the main source for Android related news. It was announced on July 13 that over 1 million user IDs had been hacked. Information leaked included email addresses, passwords and other information.

Representatives from Phandroid noted that passwords leaked were hashed - protected with a harder to break code - and thought that the purpose of the attack was to get email addresses for future spam campaigns. If you have an account on Phandroid, you can check and see if your account was part of the attack at Should I change my password?

Did you Yahoo? Yahoo announced on the 12th that slightly more than 450,000 accounts had been compromised, and the information placed on websites available for anyone to download. Yahoo hasn’t officially announced what service’s accounts were leaked, but, other websites have announced the accounts belonged to Yahoo Voice.

The attack was orchestrated by a hacker collective called D33Ds Company, who released the list in plain text format - it can be read by anyone - on a number of websites. D33Ds Company did withhold more sensitive data, and it seems the attack was meant to serve as a wakeup call to Yahoo. At the end of the document they left a message, ”We hope that the parties responsible for managing the security of this subdomain will take this as a wake-up call, and not as a threat.”

If you have a Yahoo account and are worried that your account may have been one of the ones leaked, dazzlepod.com has a the whole list online, minus passwords. If you’re one of the unlucky ones, be sure to change your password post haste.

The recent LinkedIn account leak and these two leaks have made for a rough last month in the security industry. We strongly recommend that you take steps to change your passwords on a regular basis to minimize the chance of your data and information being stolen. If you have any questions about these incidents, or are worried about your company’s security, please contact us.

The hard drive is one of the components IT professionals look at when they’re buying a new computer, often worrying about things like read speed and storage space. Until a couple of years ago, there was only one type of internal hard drive available to computers, Hard Disk Drives (HDD). Now, manufacturers are starting to use a second kind, Solid-state Drives (SSD) and many customers are wondering which is better.

Here is a brief comparison of Hard Disk Drives and Solid-state Drives.

HDD Hard Disk Drives are the most common type of storage drive in modern computers, and have been since they were first introduced in the 1960’s. HDDs are comprised of a series of disks that are coated in a magnetic material. Sitting just above these disks are a series of magnetic devices that can both read and write content on the disks using magnetism generated by electrical impulses.

HDDs are relatively cheap to purchase, with an average price of $0.07 USD per Gigabyte of storage space, and can rewrite data a near infinite amount of times. There are two major weaknesses of HDDs, the first being that they are made of moving parts, and any bump or shock can ruin the drive. The second weakness is their read and write speed, which hasn’t really increased in the past few years, compared to processors or other components.

SSD Solid-state Drives are a newer form of hard drive, around in one form or another since the 1970’s but not gaining popularity until the mid 1990’s. As the name implies, SSDs have no moving parts, data is stored in integrated circuits and can be accessed quickly. Chances are high that you use USB storage drives in your company. USB storage drives are a close cousin to SSDs, using the same form of storage - integrated circuits.

The biggest advantage to SSDs is that they’re extremely fast when compared with HDDs, feature moving parts, use less power to operate and are more resistant to shocks and damage. There are two major disadvantages to SSDs, the first being cost, on average, $1.50 USD a Gigabyte, an expensive investment for many SMEs. The second disadvantage is you can only write the data a limited number of times before the device becomes unusable, most SSDs last around 5 years.

While SSDs may seem expensive upfront, they do help computers run faster, which means you can buy a processor with a lower speed and have an SSD compensate. While they may only last 5 years, most computers don’t last that long, so normal users should be ok.

SSD or HDD There’s a hot debate going on on the Internet, should users go with SSDs or HDDs? The best suggestion is to go with both. Use SSDs to store essential programs like the OS, and HDDs to store data. That way you can experience fast booting and loading of essential programs, while not having to invest in a high capacity SSD.

While SSDs will most likely replace HDDs in the future as their cost per gigabyte is rapidly dropping, making them even more popular. At this time however, both drives will remain in production and you will probably see more and more computer manufacturers using both drives. What type of hard drive do you use? Do you think SSDs will help your business? Comment below, or contact us for more information.

It seems that natural disasters are happening at a higher frequency than ever before. This could be because of climate change or the fact that news can travel around the world in seconds, or any other number of reasons. Business continuity - ensuring your business can stay operational during adverse times - should be an important part of your business. Many owners recognize this and take steps to backup their data. This is a good start, but it isn’t enough.

Here are five things you should be doing, aside from backing up your data, to ensure you're ready for anything.

• Where to work. One of the first things you should consider is where you're going to work if your office is inaccessible. Hotels, convention centers or other office buildings are viable locations. Whichever location you pick, you should pick at least two different places, as far apart as possible. You should also be sure to inform your staff and include maps of the routes to the locations you’ve chosen.
• Replacement equipment. It’s incredibly important that you know exactly what equipment you use and how integral it is to operations. For mission critical equipment (equipment your company absolutely can’t work without) you need to have a plan in place as to how you can quickly replace lost equipment, the cost of it and replacement time. For less important equipment, you should have a couple of vendors in mind.
• Communication systems. During adverse business conditions it’s vitally important that you and your employees are able to communicate both with one another and with your clients. You should look into a communication system that’s flexible, can be established wherever you are and allows you to keep your numbers. VoIP is a great system, telecommuting is another option as well.
• Coordinate staff. You’re staff drive your business, without them, your business likely won’t be able to run. With the continuity plan you develop, it’s important that you have hard and soft copies of the plan that are accessible to all staff, and staff know their role in the plan. When your plan is enacted you need to contact your staff and ensure that there aren’t any problems.
• Access to critical documents. If you have a good backup location, can set up equipment quickly and staff know their roles you may think your plan is perfect. You’re missing one key element: access to documents, employees won’t be able to work without them. It’s important to ensure that you can access your data backups, which means you should probably keep copies offsite and in the cloud if possible.

A continuity plan is important, hopefully you’ll never have to enact it. Nevertheless, you should plan for the worse. If you’re unsure of where to start, or feel your current plan is inadequate, please contact us.

In most world economies, businesses and entrepreneurs are having a tough time securing funding for their projects or ideas. Banks are wary about lending to any perceived risk ventures, and most venture capitalists are not investing. Because of this, many small businesses and entrepreneurs have had to look elsewhere for funding, one of these options available is crowdfunding.

Crowdfunding, crowdsourcing or social funding is the act gathering funding from a group or network of people, using the Internet as a source. Crowdfunding was initially used by fans of bands to help fund albums and concerts and from there has evolved into one of the most popular ways to secure funding or support for ideas.

How crowdfunding works Crowdfunding is centralized around a number of websites where both potential investors - anyone who has money or likes an idea - and entrepreneurs with ideas communicate with each other.

If you have an idea, you post it on the website with as much information as possible. Many investors are out there looking for ideas first, if they like your idea, they will want to know more about it. Many people with ideas will use visual mediums to gain interest. Most importantly, they set an amount of funding needed, usually based off financial investment projections. To encourage investors, it’s recommended that you offer a reward based on the amount of money invested. It could be the product itself, discounts or anything really.

As crowdfunding relies on websites, a number of websites have sprung up to meet needs. Here are our top 3 sites:

1. Kickstarter. Kickstarter is the most popular crowdfunding website, focusing mainly on creative projects. Projects have a start and end date, an accountable person and definable expectations that all investors agree to. The interesting thing about Kickstart is: projects follow an “all-or-nothing” approach, if projects don’t meet the set goal, they don’t get funded.
2. Investedin. Investedin is a website that caters to individuals and companies that would like to host fundraisers, or raise funds. It’s similar to Kickstarter in that projects generally offer rewards for investment, but differs in the fact that it can be used for any kind of fundraising, including funds to cover capital expenditures.
3. PeerBackers. PeerBackers is a crowdfunding site for anyone with a business idea, or a business in any stage of its life-cycle to raise necessary funds, and help make their idea a reality. Like Kickstarter and Investedin, PeerBackers follows the invest and reward structure, the main thing it does differently, is it’s mainly for getting funding for businesses, or business ideas off the ground.

While there are more crowdfunding websites out there, we feel that these three meet the needs of the majority of people. If you have an idea that you think other people would benefit from and would like to be a part of, give crowdfunding a try. Still unsure about the whole process? Contact us, we may be able to help as well.

Malware is an ever present threat that PC, and to a lesser extent Mac, users have to live with. There is a high chance that your computer will at one time come under attack, or you will inadvertently install a piece of malware. There’s a new scheme you should be aware of involving Facebook photo notification emails.

Hackers are sending out emails that look like Facebook notifications. The notifications claim that you’ve been tagged in a picture and provide a link to click on to view your profile. When you click on the link in the email you're taken to a website where malicious malware is posted, and is installed.

After the malware is installed, you’re taken to a Facebook profile as if nothing happened. This could be a serious issue, luckily, it’s easy to spot. The sender of the email is notification@faceboook.com, the extra “o” makes it obvious that the email is not a legitimate email from Facebook.

As a reminder, it’s never a good idea to open an email unless you know the sender. The easiest way to not be infected with these types of emails is to simply open Facebook when you receive a notification email. When you log in, you’ll see any new notifications on the top left of your screen. We also encourage you to ensure you have virus scanners installed and updated, as the developers of the software are aware of this and will most likely have updated their software by the time you read this.

Have you received an email like this? Let us know what it said below, or contact us if you’re unsure what to do with it.

Printing, when one thinks about it, is an important part of any company’s infrastructure. Many infrastructure elements of companies have been integrated with technology to make them more efficient, or reduce operating costs. This isn’t true for printing, many companies struggle with high printing costs, or inefficient output. Managed print services can help change this.

Managed print services is a service that’s designed to help businesses streamline their printing operations; reduce operating costs and waste, and increase productivity. It works much the same way as Managed IT services, you have a company work with you to develop a printing solution tailored to meet your needs. This could include consolidating print, scan, copy and fax into one machine, or, upgrading systems to connect to the network to allow for virtual printing.

The benefits of doing this can be far reaching and could include:

• Decreased IT costs. Many office printers and copiers are closed systems that require a qualified technician to fix, or at the very least takes up the time of current IT staff. If you have a managed service, you don’t have to pay for a technician to come fix the machine, and your IT staff can focus on priority tasks, thus reducing costs.
• Decreased material costs. Many managed print services use new technology, that while an investment in the short term, can quickly pay for themselves through increased output, decreased material cost and lower maintenance costs.
• Helps the environment. As managed print service companies use current technology, which itself uses less energy, you’ll find electrical bills to be lower. The technology also uses less ink and can reuse paper, thus reducing harmful waste and helping the environment.
• Increased productivity. By making printing systems more efficient, a company will see an increase in physical output, because they’re not constantly waiting for the printer.

If your company is looking for a new printing solution, you should ask yourself these three questions:

1. Will we see ROI? Many companies will see upwards of a 30% savings in printing costs with an optimized printing solution. It’s important to work with managed printing providers to ensure that you will actually save money with their systems, or at least see a return on your initial investment.
2. Can our technology support growth? Many small businesses are constantly changing and their current solutions may not meet needs in the future. You should analyze your current technology and see if it will be able to support you in the future.
3. How much does printer downtime cost you? If you’re using older technology that’s constantly breaking down, the cost of downtime can be quite high. This is a good indication of the need for managed print services.
4. Do you want to focus on printers? If your business is in need of a printing solution to help operations, and doesn’t focus on printing, or you want to spend less time thinking about printers and more time focusing on tasks, then going with a managed print service is a good choice for you.

If you’re looking to replace your printers, or would like another way to make your business more efficient please contact us, we may have a solution for you.

It’s rumored that later this year, most likely in October, Microsoft will release its latest operation system, Windows 8. While a preview version has been available for a number of months, many users have been curious as to how much they’re going to have to pay to upgrade. Microsoft recently announced the cost to upgrade to both Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012.

Microsoft has finally announced the cost to upgrade from previous versions of the Windows OS - XP and Windows 7 - and the cost of Windows server 2012.

Upgrade to Windows 8 Microsoft has announced that systems running Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7 will be able to upgrade to Windows 8 for as low as USD $40. Users will be able to download the upgrade from the Microsoft store at a cost of USD $40, until January 31 2013. The upgrade will also be available on DVD in retail stores at a cost of USD $69.99.

Microsoft also announced that users currently using personal versions of Windows 7 - Starter through Home Premium - will be able to upgrade to Windows 8 or Windows 8 Pro and keep their personal settings, files and applications. XP and Vista users can upgrade to both versions of Windows 8, but only personal files will be migrated over. If your business currently uses Windows 7 Professional or Enterprise, you can upgrade to Windows 8 Enterprise, and keep all files, applications and settings.

There are a few things to be aware of with the upgrade. The first is that users who want to upgrade from different architecture versions - 32 bit to 64 bit - will be able to do so, however, none of their files, applications or settings will remain. The second is, if you buy a copy of Windows 7 between June 2, 2012 and July 31, 2012, you can purchase Windows 8 Pro for USD $15.99.

Windows Server 2012 Anytime Microsoft releases a new operating system, they also release a version for servers that’s compatible with the new OS. Windows Server 2012, unofficially dubbed Windows Server 8, is the new server OS, and will be available in four versions.

1. Datacenter. This version is aimed at companies that operate in “highly virtualized environments and hybrid cloud environments”. It can support an unlimited number of virtual instances and will cost USD $4,809.
2. Standard. This version is exactly the same as the Datacenter version, only it’s for companies with light or no virtualization and will cost USD $882.
3. Essentials. Essentials is for small business environments, supports up to 25 users, comes preconfigured to connect to cloud based services and will cost $425 USD.
4. Foundation. Foundation is the most general version of Windows Server 2012, and will come preinstalled in general servers. At this time, it will only be available for server manufacturers, with no cost being announced.

With the announcement of the different versions of Windows Server 2012, Microsoft also announced that they will no longer be supporting Windows Small Business Server, thus, forcing users to upgrade. If your company is looking to upgrade to a Windows 8 environment, please contact us, we may have a solution for you.