Firewalls can be deployed as software or hardware with varying degrees of effectiveness. Since the release of Windows XP Service Pack 2, all computers have come with a software firewall built-in.  It is a very basic firewall and provides limited security.  Hardware based firewalls are network appliances that physically stand between your Internet connection and your network.  All routers have a basic firewall built-in and also offer limited protection.  This limited amount of protection that is essentially offered for free is worth exactly what you paid for it.

Basic firewalls are passive and very easy for attackers and malware to circumnavigate.  More advanced firewalls do much more than block and allow traffic based on a set of static rules.  They look inside the traffic going through the network connection to see just what is coming in and out.  We can liken a firewall to a door of a building.  A basic firewall is a door with a deadbolt lock.  Whoever has a key gets in.  This is a very ineffective way to guard something that has hundreds of people passing through every day.   When you have an advanced firewall, it’s like having doorman that has decades of experience in investigation and law enforcement.  They’re armed with all of the latest in technology like metal detectors and x-ray machines.  These guys see threats coming from a mile away and prevent them from getting anywhere near the building.  Who would you rather have guarding your business?

During this deep inspection of traffic, the firewall can detect trends and block traffic that it sees as malicious.  It can detect and prevent intrusion attempts by attackers.  It can block viruses from being downloaded through the Internet or in email attachments.  Spyware can also be blocked.  Usually you’ll find most advanced firewalls offer content filtering and secure remote access features.  Content filtering is a service that can block computers on your network from accessing websites based on category or domain.  If you have any remote access, it is imperative that it be secured with the proper amount of encryption.

Preventing intrusion attacks and blocking viruses from ever getting to your network enhances any security and antivirus you have already have by adding another layer to your network security plan.  Just like in the cold of winter, with network security, the more layers the better.  If something gets past one layer, it will most likely get caught by another.

Having a firewall on your computer network is a very simple and inexpensive way to be proactive with the health of your computers.  Catching a virus or other malicious program on a computer can be costly.  The repair normally has to be expedited, and you can have information stolen.  A couple months ago a client of mine caught a malware program on his computer.  It was the fake anti-virus program that attempts to convince you that your computer is infected and that you need to purchase this program to remove the infection.   It’s all a scam, and he knew this, so he called me to remove it.  Before he called me, he made some updates to his website.  His username and password were recorded and sent to the makers of the program.  They replaced his company website with one of their own, that spread the spyware to anyone who visited it.  This did not reflect well on his business when potential clients were visiting the site.  I had to call the website host to have all of his passwords changed and his webmaster had to restore a version of his website from a backup.  Then I began repairing his computer.  It was a bad infection and took an entire day to remove.  The aggravation and downtime involved with events like these greatly outweigh the cost of implementing a firewall on a network.

You can read more about the dichotomy of proaction and reaction in my April article, Downtime Costs/ Uptime Pays.

Most of us have important information on our computers.  Some is our own and some belongs to our clients.  It is our responsibility to keep this information safe.  When connecting to the Internet, we must do whatever we can to prevent this information from getting into the wrong hands.  Some of us work in industries and professions where a certain amount of protection is mandated.  If you’re in a healthcare, financial, or legal trade you know this.  Without a good firewall protecting your computers, you’re just not doing everything you can to protect your computers.  

I recommend network hardware firewalls for all my clients. They protect everything on the network from Internet threats and can even protect individual network segments from each other.  I primarily work with SonicWALL brand firewalls.  They’re perfect for small and medium sized businesses and offer very robust security at very affordable costs.

© 2010 Engler Information Technologies, Inc

The easiest example would be a hosted email solution. Most small companies don’t have their own email servers. They pay a company to host their email for them. The host owns and maintains all of the hardware and software necessary to keep the email working.
There are many advantages to cloud computing. You don’t have to purchase any software licenses or hardware. There’s no maintenance to worry about. The host does all of these things for you. All you have to do is pay a flat fee that’s based on how much or how little of the host’s resources you utilize.

This is great for small and startup companies because there is no initial investment to get started. In most cases, provisioning new clients is so automated that the host doesn’t have to do much of anything at all to get things going. And there’s no planning necessary either. If you need more email accounts or space one month, just ask and the host will provide. Don’t need as much space next month? No problem. The host can just reduce the amount of space that is allocated to you. It’s all about flexibility, affordability, and ease of use. You only pay for what you use.

To take advantage of cloud computing, you must be connected to the cloud. Although that’s the concept’s biggest downfall, it’s not really much of a shortcoming at all. Nowadays it’s not a question of how often you’re connected to the Internet…it’s how often you’re not connected. Internet connectivity is very inexpensive and even free in many cases. You can go just about anywhere and get free WIFI Internet access. How many places do you go that don’t have WIFI? If it’s a lot, then you can always get an air card from your cellular service provider. Staying connected is easy; don’t let it prevent you from taking the leap.

Cloud computing is a wonderful concept that many businesses can leverage to save time, money, and increase productivity and mobility. You only pay for what you use and the solutions are inherently scalable. You don’t ever have to plan for expansions or reductions or depreciate capital investments. In most cases, there’s no term commitment, so canceling the service is just as easy as starting it. New services are getting plugged into the cloud everyday and because of competition, they’re cheaper than ever.

© 2010 Engler Information Technologies, Inc.

 Unfortunately many people get frustrated with their smartphones when they get them because they don’t come with full functionality.  …They come dumb.  One can easily setup their smartphone to receive email, but what happens to the email once it’s on your phone?  What about the email you send from your phone?  The simple answer is:  It all stays on your phone.  When you go back to your computer you’ll have to download, read, and delete all of those emails you’ve already processed on your phone.  The same is true going in the opposite direction.  If you read, delete, and respond to emails on your computer, those actions are not reflected on your phone.  Instead of being more efficient, you’re doing double work.  This is a huge waste of time.  Not to mention the manual synchronizing you’ll have to do between your Outlook and phone.  If you want your calendar, contacts, and tasks on your phone, you’ll have to plug the phone into the computer and wait for it to go through a synchronization process before you’re phone and computer are on the same page.  I ran in to trouble with my first smart phone.  I would schedule appointments on the road, but forget to sync to my computer and then schedule more work at the same time in my office.  This is a very cumbersome process, but there is hope. 

The reason for all of these issues is the email host.  We don’t have the right kind to do what we need to.  When most businesses first get email setup, they usually get POP email.  With POP email your host’s only role is to collect your email on their servers so you can download it.  Whatever you use to download your email, such as a smartphone or Outlook on your computer, it is considered an endpoint.  They are endpoints because that’s as far as the information goes.  The mail is collected on the server and then distributed to individual endpoints.  With a POP email system the endpoints do not communicate.  When email gets to them it’s their responsibility to store and manage the emails.  That’s why the email processing you do on your computer isn’t reflected on your phone and vice versa.  The same rings true if you access your email from multiple computers.  Now you have unique information in several different places…a backup, security, and productivity nightmare!

This is why people trying to get their smartphones to work with their POP email host are always forwarding themselves email they’ve already received and responding to emails multiple times.  More time is spent managing the email between individual endpoints then on productivity.  A POP email host is not involved with your other Outlook information, such as your calendar and contacts.  This information is stored locally on your computer.  If you want to access this information remotely you’ll have to access your computer because that’s where everything is stored.  Or you can waist a bunch of time plugging your phone into your computer and syncing manually.

For this smartphone thing to work properly we need something to manage this information for us.  To really make these devices work right, you need to hook them up to a server.  Exchange is Microsoft’s email server and is the driving force behind almost all mobile syncing technology.  With an Exchange mailbox one can access their email, calendar, and contacts from any Internet connection in 3 ways. 

1)      Outlook on your computer.
2)      Outlook Web Access (OWA) on someone else’s computer
3)      You’re smartphone

Microsoft’s Exchange server stores and manages all of your information for you.  Your email, calendar, contacts, tasks, and notes are all located on the server not the individual endpoints.  You only use the endpoints to access the information on the server.  Now everything is centralized!  Whenever you make a change on any endpoint, the action is updated on the server and the next time you access your mailbox from another endpoint, it will be updated.  So if you read an email on your phone, it will be read on your computer.  And if you respond to an email on your phone, you’ll have the sent message in your sent items folder.  Type in a new contact on your computer and it will be on your phone in seconds.  The same is true in the other direction.  Read or delete something in Outlook on your computer and the change is reflected on your phone…all in real time!  Lost your phone?  No problem, we can remotely wipe the lost phone and when you get your new one all of your information will be downloaded to it when we hook it up to the Exchange server.  Your mail, contacts, calendar will all come back just like it was before! 

In the past only enterprise businesses could afford this technology, but independent professionals were trying to leverage the technology more than anyone else.  Several years ago the industry responded to this overwhelming demand, and many new service providers have catered to this niche.  Enter the Hosted Exchange provider.  There’s no server for you to purchase, just pay month by month for only the space and mailboxes you use.  All of the system maintenance and backup is done for you.  It’s a completely managed solution.  It’s easy to setup and even easier to use.  This type of system is probably the single most time-saving and useful piece of technology I use and I leverage it constantly.

© 2010 Engler Information Technologies, Inc.

Uptime is an opportunity to take small precautionary steps that can pay off big in the long run. 

Let’s look at the effects of downtime:

1)      Production slows or stops.
2)      Revenue is lost.
3)      Opportunities can be missed.
4)      Overhead remains.
5)      Hefty repair bills await.

When a business’ computers stop working, so do they.  And when business stops, the money stops coming in and quickly starts hemorrhaging out. 

Your landlord, the state, and your employees are all still getting paid during downtime.  Just because your business stops doesn’t mean your rent isn’t due at the same time at the end of the month.  Employees may not be productive, but you’re still going to owe them a paycheck at the end of the week.  When you’re down, everything else keeps going.  It’s like running out of gas in the middle of a race.

Here’s a real life example of how downtime can cause an opportunity to be missed:

Last year my father called up one of his suppliers to order parts.  The supplier’s computers were down.  (They’re NOT clients of mine.)  The sales rep. couldn’t tell what was in stock or even quote a price!  My father dropped my name and then hung up to call another supplier to get the parts.

In this case, the supplier didn’t just miss an opportunity, they damaged their reputation.  They don’t take their business seriously, so why should we take them seriously?  How many times will this happen before that supplier ends up on the bottom of my father’s list?  …or off the list entirely?

The worst part of this whole mess is the fact that you’ll have to pay someone to make it better.  It’s not going to be easy.  Computer guys aren’t cheap.  And the more you need them the more they charge.  When they get a distress call from a customer, they have emergency charges and elevated labor rates.  The worse the problem, the higher they can charge.  Now you may say, “That not fair!”  Let me share something with you.

These big disasters are almost always a result of either little or no planning.  This type of business owner has consciously decided not to be proactive.  They simply don’t take their computers seriously.  All they ever want to do is patch and fix, but never improve or prevent.  They want to feel the downtime to justify spending money on their computers.  Believe me, they feel it.  And a special type of IT service provider has evolved around this type of reactionary thinking.

Here’s one more real life example of one of these IT service providers in action:

Recently an associate told me about his server crashing in his office.  This is always a very big deal.  Files were inaccessible, email was down…business was interrupted in a big way!  The solution was to replace a major component in the server. 

Oftentimes when leading up to a disaster, one will find errors in the event log suggesting something is wrong.  In this case, no one was getting paid to monitor the event logs so the warnings went unseen.  Most likely this disaster could have been averted, and the company would be in much better shape.  Now the company has invested even more money in an aging server when it probably should have been replaced.  How much longer will the server last until it needs to be replaced?  When will the next component fail?

They got hit by their IT service provider.  The repair was huge and so was the bill.  This type of IT service provider leeches off of the misfortunes of a company.  They profit when the company is at its worst.  I don’t see how they could have their clients’ best interests at heart.  If they gave their clients 100% and even a little more to preserve uptime, they’d go out of business.

I put myself on the same side as my clients.  I get paid to preserve uptime.  All of my skills, talents, and technology are aimed at minimizing and even preventing downtime.  It’s more profitable for both me and my clients.  I do whatever I can to ensure their systems stay up and running their best, and my client doesn’t incur the overwhelming expenses that downtime can produce.  This allows my client to be more profitable because they experience little or no downtime at all.  I profit when my client profits and I suffer when my client suffers.  My clients and I have a mutually beneficial relationship. 

Most people take uptime for granted.  I liken this to the oil in a car.  You don’t wait until your engine seizes before you change your oil.  By that time, its’ too late, and now the whole engine has to be replaced.  But if you had spent a little time and money before to change the oil, you wouldn’t have the expensive repair or the wasted time.  Be proactive! The same is true for your computers.  Why wait until your computer completely breaks down to service it?  Invest in uptime — it pays in dividends.

© 2010 Engler Information Technologies, Inc.

 What’s really happening is this — as technology improves from year to year, last year’s technology is looking better and better.  And last year’s technology is always cheaper than this year’s.  When you see a very inexpensive computer, there are 4 things that will always be true:

1)      The system is of low quality and based on older technology.
2)      It has a 1-year maximum warranty.
3)      It was just a way to get you into the store or on the website.
4)      It’s going to cost more to service than a better system.

Just like any other product, not all computers are created equal. Each computer is only as good as the sum of its components.  There are different types of components like processors and hard drives.  Some are built for quality and performance and others for price.  For the most part computer manufacturers, like HP, Dell, and even EIT, do not produce every component inside a computer.  We use components built by other manufacturers.  Seagate and Western Digital manufacture hard drives; Intel and AMD manufacture processors; and the list goes on to encompass every component found in a computer.

In order to hit a specific price point, manufacturers frequently opt for lower quality components or those based on older technology.  We in the industry call this the “Value System” – designed to give the purchaser a moderate amount of functionality and quality.  I’ve seen Dells before that only came with a 30-day warranty without an option to extend.  Tell me there’s not something going on there. 

You can also find very nice high-quality systems from Dell.  The point here is not every model carrying the same brand is composed of the same quality or type of components.  I’m not saying your $400 computer is going to blow up after a year.  But I bet the odds would be better if you spent a little more at the time of purchase.  I’m always seeing similar models from manufacturers coming in with the same problems.  For instance, I have two clients who purchased the same “Deal Laptop” for really cheap.  Within the first year, they both came in and needed new hard drives.  They were under warranty, but that didn’t cover my data recovery services.  Later on, they both came in with cooling problems… another service bill.  Especially with computers, you get what you pay for.

From a business perspective, there are two main purposes for the value system.  If you purchased the value system from a company who also offers services (i.e. the local computer shop or Best Buy), they just want the make service revenue off of you. If you don’t have a computer, they can’t offer you services.  If you buy this inexpensive system, you become a service customer instantly.  Most likely the system will have problems just outside the warranty period, and you will have either a costly repair bill or another new system. 

The other purpose of the value system is to lure you in to the store or on to the website.  Once more, closely examined, you’ll normally find the system is very limited or doesn’t come with such a good warranty.   You may ask yourself, “Why can’t I get more than a one year warranty on this system?”  Once in the store or on the website, statistically you’ll be more likely to buy a more expensive computer with the functionality and quality you really need or want.

I don’t sell value systems to my clients.  I could, but I don’t touch those things.  For one, there’s no margin.  And two, they take up too much of my time to service, upgrade, and replace.  That usually equates to employee down-time and costly service calls.  In this day and age, that’s just not acceptable.  I would much rather help my clients purchase a system that will be dependable and will come with at least a 3 year warranty.  In the long run, it costs less because the system requires less service, works faster, and lasts longer. All this equals more uptime and productivity…and we all know what that does for the bottom line.

Below, I have listed the general guidelines that I send to all of my clients and friends when they want purchase a system on their own.  Each guideline should be considered a minimum specification.  In this industry, the more the better.  Each application and business is different so they have different needs.  I’m not claiming this will be the right system for your business, but I have found it works well for most of my clients.  And, of course these, specifications will change drastically over time, so don’t come back to reference this in 2011.

1)      Intel Core2 Processor w/ 1333MHz FSB
2)      4GB or RAM
3)      250GB Hard Drive
4)      64-bit Operating System
5)      3 Year Parts and Labor Warranty

If you purchase a system today meeting these guidelines, the following will always be true:

1)      The system will provide 3-5 years of good performance.
2)      It will have a warranty for at least 3 years.
3)      It will cost $700-$1,000.

Since the system will last longer, you’ll spend less money in service because you won’t have to replace the system as often.  I think most other computer service companies push value systems just so they can replace them more often.  You and your employees will be able to work faster because you’re not waiting for your system to startup or perform some other process.  No reputable company would allow you to spend around $1,000 on a system without backing it by a good parts and labor warranty.  As the months pass, the guidelines increase, but the price is always about the same.  If you want your technology to work well for you, this is the ballpark where you should be when purchasing workstations.

If you’re still confused about any of this stuff, luckily I’m only a phone call or email away.

 © 2010 Engler Information Technologies, Inc.

Unfortunately, evil doers have discovered these benefits as well and are using this tool against us.  Email is quickly becoming the most widely used and effective delivery method of malicious software.  Any computer threat can be delivered through email.  Viruses, spyware, Trojans – you name it, email can deliver it. 

What can we do?  First, let’s identify the real problem.  It’s Spam!  There are not too many things that I dislike more than spam.  It is a constant ailment to countless business people.  Whether you host your own email or you’ve outsourced it, spam can still affect you. 

Spam has developed into a very broad term.  Wikipedia.com defines it as “the abuse of electronic messaging systems…to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately.”   For our purposes I’ll define it as junk mail.

I’ve seen new clients with an excess of 1,000 junk emails on a daily basis.  How do these people get any correspondence done?  It seems like they spend half their day working in the mailroom, just sorting the good email from the spam.  Not only is this waste of time, it’s also very dangerous.  This is one of those situations where people spend more time trying to get there technology to work then the technology saves.

The Big Questions:
-How much time do you spend sorting email every day?
-Are you getting all that junk on your phone too?
-Are you safe from email threats?

I would make two classifications of Spam.  The first would be the relatively innocent advertisement.  This type of spam is sent to you with the intention that you’ll view it just like any other advertisement.  These make up the overwhelming majority of all spam messages sent.  It’s the reason we have to sift through tons of messages just to get to the ones that matter.  The second type of spam is the malicious email.  This email can carry with it any digital threat.  There are far fewer of these emails, but they can really mess things up!  You’ll normally find they are well disguised and can be tricky. Never verify any account information via an email or link from an email.  If you have an account with a company they already have your information!

Let’s talk about how we can protect ourselves…

Filter, filter, filter…  Filtering is the process of scanning your email for viruses and identifying junk so you don’t have to.  These are the building blocks of any anti-spam solution.  Fundamentally there are two methods used to filter your email…one for home and one for work. 

The first and most basic method is desktop-based.  This is great for home users.  You install an anti-spam program that filters your email as you download it from the server.  Many Internet security suites will come packaged with some sort of anti-spam component.  Although they are mildly effective, most people find them to be adequate.  I recommend Trend-Micro’s Internet Security Suite for home use.   If you find that you have a more severe spam problem, I recommend getting a stand-alone anti-spam application.  The best desktop anti-spam application out right now is made by Cloud Mark.

The second method of filtering spam is domain or server based.  It’s a transparent and effective process.  There is no software to download or install on your computer!  Essentially it’s a service that filters your email before it even gets to your inbox.  This form of filtering brings with it many benefits that most businesses need when it comes to effective messaging, including:

less maintenance;
more security;
easier management; and
centralized reporting.

More and more companies are developing this service and are regularly claiming 95% to 99% spam removal and 100% virus removal.  …And with virtually no false-positives!  (A false-positive is an email that is incorrectly classified as spam.)  It almost sounds too good to be true, but I can personally attest to the effectiveness of this method.  It works!  And it works as well as they say it does!  I had quite an extensive spam problem before I implemented this type of solution.  Now when I see a new message in my inbox, I know it’s for me and it’s something I’ll want to read.  It is so liberating to have control over my inbox again.  Most of my clients say the same thing and so can you. 

 © 2010 Engler Information Technologies, Inc.

Data on a hard drive appears to be just a bunch of tiny magnetized areas on a round metal disk.  It barely even exists.  …All the more reason to replicate the information somewhere else for safe keeping. 

That’s what backup is.  Computers don’t differentiate between the data that is important to you and the junk that just builds up over time. There are also many ways data can become corrupt.  Important data can be erased accidentally just as easily as junk can be deleted intentionally.  The computer doesn’t care. 

Because of its many moving parts, hard drives have one of the highest failure ratings of all computer components.  That’s not good considering a hard drive is where all of your information is stored.  There is a very specific way to protect against hardware failure, but I’ll save that for another time.  Like me, I’m sure you know many people who have suffered through a hard drive crash.  It’s not pretty.  “72% of businesses that suffer major data loss disappear within 24 months”, says DataDepositBox.com.  The bottom line is if you’re not backing up and staying on top of it, you’re being reckless with your data and your business. 

As a business owner, here are some basic questions you should ask to get the assurances you should have when it comes to your data.

The Big Questions:
-What am I backing up?
-How often does my data get backed up?
-When was the last time my backups were verified?
-Do I have a copy of a recent backup off-site?

When I say, “your data,” I’m referring to the information contained in your computers.  What that actually means to you is contingent upon what you use your computers for.  Most businesses use their computers for one or more of the following things:

-Creating and Storing documents (Word and Excel),
-Bookkeeping (QuickBooks)
-Sending and Receiving Email correspondence (Outlook)
-Saving Client information
-Business Automation

If this information is suddenly lost, most companies would be devastated and could even come to a halt.  How much business could you get done if you lost your data?  What about all those projects you’re currently working on?

 There are so many ways one could lose access to information, but I’m not going to bore you with lengthy speculations and hypothetical situations.  What you really need is clean statistical information based on real word experiences.  To learn more about the real threats to your data, you can visit this page from DataDepositBox, a partner of mine that provides an easy Folder-Based backup solution for very small offices and home office applications.

Data Loss Statistics

If you think you might like to subscribe to this service, please sign-up through the link below so I can get the credit for the referral.

DataDepositBox Sign-up

Your data doesn’t have to stay lost in the event of a disaster.  If you still have your hard drive your data can be recovered even if you don’t have a backup!  In most data recovery scenarios, the hard drive must be sent out to a recovery lab to retrieve the information.  This is a very costly process and could also be lengthy.  Data recovery labs feed off of urgency and disaster, and their rates prove it.  The more you want that data back and the faster you want it, the more it will cost you.  In my experience, data recovery jobs average about $2,000 and take about a week.  But it could cost much more depending upon the configuration of the hardware and the urgency in which you need the data.  The bottom line here is: you’re out of your data for about a week and $2,000.

For those of you that do have a backup in place: When was the last time someone verified your backups?  Verifying backups is just as vital as doing the backup in the first place.  Many businesses will implement a backup system and expect that it performs its job from day to day, but never check to see if it’s actually working.  I can’t tell you the number of businesses that thought they had a backup and ended up not having much of anything at all.  That can turn a bad situation worse very quickly.  Those of my clients that have decided to take advantage of my Easy Backup service know that every morning I get an email that tells me how the last night’s backup went.  How nice is that?

What happens after a disaster?  What’s your recovery plan?  I have one for each of my clients.  If you don’t have one, you need one.  If the Navy didn’t have a plan for how to repair the different areas of the ship in case of disaster, what would happen to the ship?  I can guarantee you it wouldn’t get back to functioning as quickly and maybe not at all.  Get a plan!… I can help!

To learn more about what features a robust backup system has, check out the description of my Easy Backup service.

 © 2009 Engler Information Technologies, Inc.