Once upon a time, large corporations began moving away from mainframe-based systems and started using servers and PCs instead. As technology improved and became more affordable, small and mid-sized businesses invested in servers. Today, even the smallest business has one computer that’s considered ‘mission critical,’ and would negatively impact the business if it failed.

One of the complications of computing software is its reliance on the specific computer hardware on which it is installed. For example, in the past, software files could not be copied from one computer to another with the expectation that they would automatically work. However, this changed with the introduction of “virtualization” in 1999.

Virtualization lets a computer operating system and software run independently of the hardware it uses. The actual physical computer is called the Host, and the computer instances that run on top of it are called Guests. With virtualization, we can now move entire computing systems from one physical box to another with ease. If the hardware is powerful enough, more than one computer can be run on the same physical box.

Apart from being a pretty cool technical trick, virtualization delivers real business benefits, such as:

Less downtime/Faster recovery time: In the event of a hardware failure, you can copy your virtual computer across to another physical box, start it up and away you go again. This can keep your business running while your original hardware is getting replaced or repaired. The only caveat is that a spare physical computer to copy is necessary, but that box can also perform another function (like serve as the bookkeeper’s PC) if it is powerful enough.

Software testing with no business impact: If your business software is being upgraded, take a copy of your virtual computer and run the upgrade on this test copy first. It will include all of your live business information, but enables the upgrade to happen during business hours with no impact to your staff and can prove that everything will go smoothly. When the test is successful, you will have more confidence about upgrading your real system.

Do more with less: If you run multiple pieces of software in your business, a second server may be necessary. Virtualization lets you run two servers on one powerful Host, which will allow you to save physical space and electricity consumption.

Under the covers of many cloud computing services, you will find virtualization. This helps Cloud providers isolate information and software programs from one client to another, using the same common piece of hardware. They can even spread the demand load from their clients across more than one Host during peak times, using hardware virtualization.

Talk to your local Computer Troubleshooters about whether virtualization could benefit your business, or for any of your technology needs.

With today’s smart devices, we take internet connectivity for granted. Now that we’ve untethered ourselves from large, immobile computers, we’re used to accessing websites, social media and emails no matter where we are. So how is “mobile computing” impacted if we travel? Can we expect the same connectivity overseas that we have at home? This varies from country to country and may be expensive if you want to use your own mobile phone. Here’s what to keep in mind when accessing the internet abroad:

Before you go – Set your “out of office” email message before you leave, to notify senders that there may be a delay in your reply. Change your phone’s voicemail greeting as well and leave the details of an alternative contact person. You may even be able to set your voicemail so callers cannot leave a message, if interested. Check with your phone provider in case you need to enable “international roaming” so your phone will work overseas and ask them if they have any arrangements with providers in other countries for preferential rates. Also remember that the governments of countries like Mainland China, Syria, Iran, Vietnam and the United Arab Emirates block access to some internet sites, so additional research prior to travel will be helpful.

International Email – The type of email you use will determine how accessible your email will be overseas. If you are using Gmail or a similar web based service it is generally quite simple. If you are using a service supplied by your ISP as part of your broadband package it may require further assistance or investigation to work overseas, so while your Microsoft Outlook may look fine & allow you to receive emails you may not be able to send emails. This is a question that needs to be asked before you travel as it may require an additional services to be added to enable.

When you arrive – Your phone may automatically connect to an available network upon your arrival in a new country. It may be worthwhile to manually choose the provider you prefer to use, as the automatically chosen one will likely not be the most cost effective. It is suggested that you check whether your phone automatically changed to local time, which can alter your calendar entries. You should also confirm the call and data costs of the network you are now using. If the data charges are high, you might want to turn off “mobile data” on your phone and instead rely on WiFi access when it’s available. This should help guard you from large unexpected bills when you return home. Remember that incoming calls and SMS/MMS messages will be charged to your account at international rates and therefore it may be cheaper to buy a local SIM card for calls and other messages. The local tourist information center will be a helpful resource and will offer SIM cards in most countries.
Be wary of free internet - Watch out for free internet access offers and instead opt to use known, trusted organizations. Internet connections can be monitored to capture login names, passwords and credit card details, particularly if you use their computers instead of your own device. Be careful about websites you visit on shared connections, especially when accessing your personal information and always take caution to sign out.

Talk to your local Computer Troubleshooters for more advice on internet access overseas and how to get friendly, local support from our network of franchisees in 25 countries.

Identify what you want in the Cloud – Cloud computing doesn’t need to be an ‘all or nothing’ project.  Start with a picture of your current IT setup and the functionality that it gives your business.  If you’re only just starting up, this will be different than if your business is already established with historical information.  Is there something new you want to explore, like email marketing or a prospect database?  This could be perfect for the Cloud. But if you are looking to only move pieces of your existing IT capability, consider any flow-on effects to other systems.  Make sure that a move to the Cloud won’t hinder any future integration opportunities.

Confirm your ongoing costs & savings – Cloud providers will point out the cost savings from using a centrally owned and managed system.  Certainly this may give your business access to IT at a fraction of the cost of owning it yourself. However, can your business handle a cost on an ongoing basis instead of a one-off purchase when you do have the cash to invest?  If there is still a large amount of technology needed in your business, Cloud computing may not significantly decrease your support costs.  Do your homework and know the costs you will be committing to and where the savings will be coming from.

Confirm the flexibility – Cloud solutions can be cut-down versions of the full software, so if you are getting ‘email’ (for example), make sure you know what functionality is included and what isn’t.  How flexible is the hosted system if you want to make changes, like increasing attachment size limits? Are you locked in to what you can change and what you can’t … and are you OK with that?

Prove the Backup & Disaster Recovery plans -Debate rages on whether businesses with their information in the Cloud also need their own local backup. Thoroughly reviewing your provider’s agreement is only the first step.  Ask about their last Disaster Recovery test. Include offsite backup testing reports in your contract. Plan how your business will survive if your Cloud provider fails and ensure your plan is implemented and tested on a regular basis.

Review your Infrastructure – Your Cloud solutions still have to be accessed via your local computers with your internet connection.  If your PC is slow, or if you are significantly increasing your internet usage, then your Cloud application may be slow or unreliable.  Consider your local IT components and plan for any necessary upgrades.  Also consider additional redundancy, like a backup internet connection or spare internet modem, as any failure in your connectivity will have a larger impact.

Ultimately, Cloud computing must deliver increased business benefits or reduce IT costs overall without reducing functionality, unless your business is prepared to make sacrifices to improve your bottom line.  Talk to your local Computer Troubleshooters to cut through the hype and make your Cloud adoption a success.

“The cloud” is a term that refers to a computer system that shares a business’ information over a set of servers to more efficiently and economically store data.

Among the benefits of going to a cloud-based system are that a company is not tied to a single location and no longer has to worry about backing up and maintaining its data.

In the traditional model of business computing systems, each function of the system is held on a different server — such as email, online stores, phone systems and contact databases.

What the cloud allows you to do is take the computers and applications and share the applications across those computers, which uses the space more effectively and efficiently. If one of the computers dies, not all of your stuff is gone and this allows for room for your data to grow.

And switching to the cloud can save companies thousands of dollars, he said. The savings come from not having to buy software per computer and having to maintain and upgrade specific computers to handle the software requirements. It is a rental rather than a buy model.

One of the drawbacks is that the cost of a computer system goes from being a capital cost, namely the investment in hardware, software and servers, to being an operating expense as it changes to a monthly charge to access the cloud.

For some small businesses, income is not consistent from month to month, in cases like that, when a company gets a large project and uses the money from that to expand its network, the cloud might not be the right solution or they tend to use IT equipment to it maximum life which makes buying cheaper in the long run.

While moving to the cloud may save business owners the headache of having to back up their data, it’s important, he said, to make sure that the cloud provider is reliable.

The most important issue in Australia for Small Business is connectivity & reliability. You connection to the internet becomes extremely important both in speed, & bandwidth. You need consistent high speeds to make the transactions seemless to the user & the ability to transfer data in greater quantities at cheap rates to make the cloud worthwhile.

The growth of the data speeds & great data inclusions are happening on the back of the NBN build & increasing choice at the retail level but the best way to determine whether moving to a cloud-based system is feasible to discuss it with an IT consultant or trusted IT Adviser.

We of course recommend Computer Troubleshooters as your trusted IT Adviser.

If done correctly, an audit of the technology in your small business should be quick and painless and yield you with some valuable information. They are about saving you pain & preventing problems.

Here are our top 5 reasons why your business would benefit from a technology audit:

1. Find immediate areas for improvement – If you’re thinking of replacing your computer, an audit may reveal that upgrading the memory would give you a significant performance boost. It could also highlight incorrect system settings or poor security configurations that could easily be fixed. With a clear picture of what technology you have, it might be easy to find some quick, inexpensive areas for improvement.
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2. Budget for longer-term areas of improvement – An audit may reveal out-dated hardware that should be replaced with newer, faster components. It could also highlight disks that are close to their capacity, but still have some spare space. You can then plan and budget to address these areas in the future, instead of having to react tomorrow to an unforeseen full disk.

3. Know what software is on your computers – If your employees are able to install software onto your computers, do you know what they have been installing? An audit will reveal if your computers have illegal file sharing software or other programs that may be relevant to their hobbies, not their work (e.g. share trading).

4. Know you have the correct software licenses – In some cases, it is a software manufacturer’s right to randomly audit your business and check that you have the correct license number and the right kind of license for their software. If you’ve taken on more staff since you started, or you’ve had employees installing software on your computers, an audit can reveal where your software licensing might need some attention.

5. Compile an asset register – Your business will have certain assets listed for accounting purposes. That audit may not include many of your IT devices that are under a certain monetary value. If a theft or natural disaster hit your business, wouldn’t it be great to have a full list of all of your technology components? Ask your I.T. guy to store a copy of your audit results, off site, in case you need to refer to that asset list to make an insurance claim.

The outcomes of your audit should be a comprehensive list of your I.T. assets and recommendations for improvement that fit in with your business plans (both short and long term). If your I.T. guy uses your audit as an opportunity to sell as much of his products and services as he can, call Computer Troubleshooters for an independent trusted second opinion.

Recently, Google has been very busy implementing various changes to its privacy policy and to its search engine.  Let’s look at these changes and how they may impact you.

You may have noticed the banner “We’re changing our privacy policy. This stuff matters.” on some of the Google sites you’ve been visiting.  Now that Google is much more than just a search engine, it is consolidating more than 60 individual privacy policies across its products into a single one that promises to be “a lot shorter and easier to read”.  Some products (like Wallet and Chrome) will retain their own policy for regulatory purposes and/or to help spell out that product in greater detail.  Google believes this will allow them to consolidate your usage across their products, to bring you better integration and more relevant content.

Imagine a scenario where Google notifies you that you may be late for your meeting, because it combines your location, your calendar entry and the local traffic conditions.  Sounds helpful, doesn’t it?  And if your status on Google+ is often about horse riding, you may start seeing more horse riding videos in the Featured section of YouTube.  The other side to this coin is that Google will have a much more detailed picture of you, enabling it to target you with specific advertising, which is a much more valuable commodity to pitch to advertisers.  While Google still won’t sell your personal information, access to a tightly defined market will see advertisers running to Google to promote their products, as a targeted audience is much more cost-effective for them than a mass marketing approach.

To see your presence across the Google products and to access your personal settings, you can log into the Google Dashboard (https://www.google.com/dashboard/?hl=en&pli=1).  To learn more about this topic, view Google’s official policy page here:  http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/policies.  The change goes into effect on March 1, and if you don’t agree with the change, your only option is to stop using Google’s products (with an account).

The other major changes impact website owners. Google will now lower your search result ranking if your site is packed with advertising ‘above the fold’ (in the top space before a reader needs to scroll down).  It will also focus on how relevant your content is to your keywords – do you deliver a helpful website and a great user experience, or are you delivering some slick, copied sales pitch to promote an e-book on a different topic?  More than ever, your website needs to focus on being relevant and recently updated. Webmasters also need to be aware the Google search results can now include content from other Google products, so items like your company’s Google+ page updates may also appear. This is good news for businesses who have embraced social media as it will add to their search results presence.

Talk to your local Computer Troubleshooters about your Google presence or any of your technology needs. ]]> http://technology-solved.com.au/2012/02/07/google-changes-privacy-policy-and-search-result-rankings/feed/ 0 http://technology-solved.com.au/2012/01/30/myob-when-your-logo-is-not-appearing-on-invoices-statements/ http://technology-solved.com.au/2012/01/30/myob-when-your-logo-is-not-appearing-on-invoices-statements/#comments Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:38:44 +0000 admin http://technology-solved.com.au/?p=1309 Continue reading →]]> Have you lost your logo in MYOB – on your invoices, statements, & logo’ed customised forms?

In MYOB accounting software used in Australia – customise a form and insert your own picture/graphic (eg company logo), use the ‘Send to email’ or ‘Send to Disk’ to create an electronic version of your document (invoice/statement etc) … and no picture images appear.

The solution?  Install Apple’s free Quicktime software http://www.apple.com/quicktime/, which must be at least version 5.5.  You’ll most commonly find this occurs if a computer is rebuilt, or you have transferred to a new computer with it’s software reloaded from scratch, and someone forgets about Quicktime.

This has to win the award for one of the most illogical solutions to a problem, though I’m sure MYOB have some great reason for the quicktime dependancy.  It can also be a little challenging to find this solution in the official MYOB knowledgebase (though if you are paying for support, the call centre are pretty quick with this answer).

Of course we can help with other MYOB issues as well.

‘3D without the glasses’ was a great engineering feat but hasn’t hit mainstream manufacturing for your living room just yet.  Monetising social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter etc.) has also not been widely adopted, with many businesses still scratching their heads over how to accomplish this.  Facebook advertising, social media competitions and promotional codes all seem to be small steps towards this.  Location-based services gained more momentum (especially with the rise of FourSquare) and with Apple re-securing a patent relating to locations, expect to hear more about these services in the future.  Tablets did indeed move into the world of business, forcing I.T departments to adopt strategies for securing and supporting these devices.  And last but not least, the adoption of cloud computing could not be more varied, with some companies transitioning to it completely while others are still wary of security & availability.

So what’s in store during 2012?  Here are the top picks for the year ahead:

Smartphones are normal – We now have a generation of ‘smartphone literate’ kids who would never turn on a computer if they could find what they need from their mobile phone.  Though we first mentioned this in 2010, if you still don’t have a mobile version of your website, give that some serious thought in 2012.  With the internet in their pocket, people will research, locate and share like never before.

E-commerce here to stay – Sadly, 2011 saw the demise of some well-known American retailers, with the effect spreading to other locations too.  Online stores will have to shout out their point of difference or play the pricing game to compete with one another, as shoppers easily compare items between stores. Are traditional retailers going to continue to struggle to keep up or will they adopt new strategies to exploit their ‘buy now, use it now’ capability?  eBooks will continue to push through this paradigm in reverse though, as electronic delivery to your device is faster & cheaper than purchasing in store.

Mobile payments – MasterCard and VISA both rolled out ‘contactless’ payment systems last year, opening the doors for this capability on your mobile phone.  Google is firmly pursuing this with the Google Wallet smartphone application, creating another advertising revenue stream for itself.  Maybe in late 2012 you’ll leave your real wallet at home?

Social Media is normal – The sparkle may wear off social media but it will remain a powerful, uniting communication medium.  Businesses will be forced to accept it as part of their marketing strategy or be left behind by competitors that have embraced it.

And though it can’t really be classed as a prediction, Microsoft will launch its Windows 8 operating system in early 2012, replacing the Start Menu with touchable, updating panel icons.

Whatever the I.T. industry delivers in 2012, contact to your local Computer Troubleshooters to discuss how it can benefit your business or for any of your computing needs.

Gone are the days when all of your interaction with the internet was done at a computer.  Our mobile phones no longer hold just names and telephone numbers as we now use them to access websites, social media and software applications.  Tablet computers have also enabled us to use the internet while we’re on the move or from the comfort of our living room.  So, if you have anti-virus software or security software to protect your computer, do you need it on your phone or tablet too?

The answer is a resounding YES.  The creation of malicious software (malware) for Android in particular (the operating system found on many smartphones and tablets) has jumped significantly in recent months.  This is mainly due to the creators switching their focus to Android, which now has a significant presence in the market.  They also know that most Android-based devices are not running any security software.  However, don’t think that your iPhone or iPad is immune either.

So what exactly is at stake here?  Well, malware can allow hackers to gain access to any personal information on your phone or tablet, which can then be on-sold to identity thieves and also used to spam other device users.  This can include your messages, your contact list, your photos, your location and any information you’ve created using an installed application (e.g. notes or documents).  Phone malware can also be used to secretly send premium rate text messages or make calls to premium numbers from your account.  As this activity does not show in your Sent folder or Call History, you won’t even know it’s happening until you get your account statement or run out of credit.

Most commonly, malware lurks in software applications (apps) that seem innocent but may actually be pirated versions of genuine apps, ‘free levels’ of popular games or even fake security tools.  There is also a growing concern about malware hidden behind ‘URL shorteners’ (like bit.ly, t.co and cl.ly).  These tools are used to display a short version of a long internet address and hide the target location of the internet site where you will actually end up.

Malware usually relies on your acceptance before it can install, so you can protect yourself with some good habits:

• Avoid installing apps that you’re not familiar with including software that wants to download and install automatically from websites.
• Be wary of free apps and those with prices that seem too good to be true, compared to their usual price.
• Confirm whether friends or family really did send you a message before clicking on any links.
• Be wary of online contests or promotions to win free gadgets, other products or services.
• Install a reputable anti-malware app.  Learn how to use it and keep it updated and what the alerts looks like.

Talk to your local Computer Troubleshooter about the best anti-malware solution for your phones and tablets, or for any of your technology needs.

Most technology depends on a clean, uninterrupted supply of electricity. Unfortunately, inconsistencies in your electrical supply or a sudden complete loss of power can cause major damage to computer systems and other sensitive equipment. This month we investigate power problems and the devices that are essential for protecting your technology investment.