Windows 8 Faster Than a Speeding Mouse

Windows 8 has been getting a bunch of bad press for removing the Start button from the desktop and turning it into a full screen menu. But I have a feeling that it is from media that hasn’t tried it yet. I mean not having a start button sounds horrific. But then you realize that there’s no need for it anymore and that not having one is actually a much, much faster way to get to what you want than having the start button ever was.

Here’s how to get around in Windows 8 really, really fast and never touch your mouse. The here-to-fore almost useless Windows Key is your new favorite key on the keyboard. Press it and your menu opens. Press it again and you go back to the desktop.

    

The Start menu is customizable and it’s easy to do but not easy to write. Next time you see your technician ask him to show you how to group your favorite apps together so they are right in front of you when you look at the menu screen. You can also pin items to your desktop taskbar.

    

Now that I have my favorite applications group together on the Start menu and pinned to my taskbar I rarely have to look for anything. It’s just all right there in front of me. So for example if I want to start Live Writer, I hit the Windows key and then I click the Live Writer icon. I’m immediately taken to my desktop and the application opens.

Even more powerful than the menu though, is search. Windows 8 has instant search. So I don’t really have to worry about whether everything is on my Start screen. Instead I just start typing what I want and it appears instantly. You’ll notice that I don’t have Excel on my start screen. I use Excel and Word almost everyday but I haven’t bothered to add either of them because it is simply easier to just search for them. Here’s how that works:

I press the Windows key, I start typing e x c and before I get the whole word typed out Excel has appeared and so I hit enter and application opens. This I’ve found is much faster than using the mouse. It’s faster because I don’t have to open a search window; windows 8 knows that I’m searching for something because I started typing while in the Start menu. Excel appears and I don’t have to reach for the mouse and move to click on it; I just hit Enter and it launches. Try it and you’ll see that not using the mouse is much faster than using one in Windows 8.

    

This trick works for files too. In fact it works for anything that you want to find in your computer. Just hit the Windows key and start typing what you want. Windows 8 will find it instantly. In the second image I wanted to find a file of a mailing list. I hit the Windows key and started typing m a i l i n g and my screen was full of choices for files called mailing list in order of most recent. I didn’t have to know where they were. Windows 8 has indexed the contents of my Libraries and so when I search everything is there.

Libraries are a different topic, first introduced in Windows 7 so I’m not going to get into them here. But Libraries allow you to instantly search and find files in the folders you use most frequently. Think of all of the folders you have access to on your network but you probably really only save things into just a couple of them on a daily basis. Those are the ones that we would want to add to your library. This is another item you should ask your technician about and let him show you how to make a library of your own.

The Windows key isn’t limited to just opening the start menu for you. It’s got a lot of tricks it can do when paired with other keys. Windows then S (which is generally written Win + S, but the + isn’t typed it’s just there to let you know that this is a two key command) opens the OneNote screen clipper allowing you to snip all or part of the screen, save it to your clipboard to paste into another app or save it into your OneNote notebook. Windows + X brings up an old style menu of system settings like Control Panel, System, Power Settings and such. Windows + P brings up Presentation options for your monitors (extend, duplicate, etc). If you’d like to know more about which Windows + (some key) are available you could just start experimenting. Almost every key on the board is a shortcut to something. Or you could install the Windows 8 Cheat Keys app from the Store.

Another key combination that I find myself using more and more is Ctrl+ and Ctrl-. These allow me to zoom in and zoom out and helps me read things now that my eyes are getting old. :(

 

- Amy

Light Weight But Strong

I’m a happy owner of a Microsoft Surface running Windows RT. You may have seen it. It’s been on near constant tour as my technicians get requests to see it. I had to get mine from a Microsoft store in Texas but now they are available from BestBuy and Staples too. There’s also the Pro version which not only allows you to install apps from the Store but you can load the applications your business owns too, plus you can write on it with a fine point pen. Microsoft has really hit one out of the park with the Surface and the commercials aren’t hurting either. But regardless of how popular it is, I don’t really expect Microsoft to keep making the Surface. I see it as proof of concept and a way for Microsoft to goad other manufacturers into making cooler hardware and it’s working.

We’ve partnered up with Lenovo to bring cool new hardware to our clients because as one of my guys says, “they are built like tanks” and they are at the forefront of building cool new devices. They have also promised us that our prices will be better than any available from a retail store or direct from Lenovo. This makes them the best possible choice: Cool, Tough, Best Price and here to stay.

 

We’ve also added some other new partnerships to our list including new IP Phone systems, security camera systems, cell phones and digital signage. Each of these things have turned into “computers” recently and they reside in your computer network, this makes it important to know that they are going to get along with the rest of your network and perform as designed. I’ll be be writing more about those things in the coming weeks so you know what we’re up too and can offer to your business.

- Amy

Ted Promoted to Technical Manager

I’m pleased to announce that Ted has been promoted to the position of Technical Manager. Ted has been with Harbor for a number of years now and his experience in managing clients and providing great consulting advice is what makes him the ideal candidate for this position.

You will notice Ted taking a larger role in overseeing your technician too. Instead of reporting directly to me, they now report to Ted. In addition to implementing larger projects, Ted will also be their escalation support person. You should expect to have much more frequent interaction with Ted.

In the short term Ted will continue to have a few clients assigned to him but the majority will be assigned to other technicians in our company with Ted’s oversight.

Congratulations to Ted for taking on this greater role at Harbor!

-Amy

Alert: Beware the Microsoft Phone Scam

Two of my friends were called by "Microsoft" this week. Be on the lookout for a call from "Microsoft" because it's a scam. I think you should laugh at them, as Mitch did. Excerpt from The World According to Mitch, below.

"I knew something was fishy when the phone rang and the Call Display showed a call-back number of 666-035-3612 because, as we all know, 666 is the area code of the beast. I wait...ed the five seconds for the auto-dialer system to connect me to a real operator.
‘Hello, my name is Gary from the Windows Technical Department. I am phoning you because we have been receiving a series of errors from your computer this week indicating several vulnerabilities, and I am calling to help you to fix them. Do you have a few minutes? It is very important.’
Try as I might, I couldn’t help myself from bursting out laughing, but after a few seconds I answered ‘Ok, how are you going to help me to fix them?’
Gary was put off by my laughing and asked why, emphasizing that this was a very serious matter, and that I could be facing serious financial and legal repercussions if I took it lightly. ‘Computer Security is very important and if you do not take it seriously by following my instructions it will cost you. So why are you laughing?’

When you get to this point hang up the phone. It's a scam. They just want your credit card and to install some spyware on your computer so they can get your online banking info later.

Be careful out there. - Amy

Yahoo and Evernote Passwords Compromised

Yahoo and Evernote have both been hacked. Usernames and passwords are compromised at both services. This means that the bad guys have your username and password.

• You need to go to the website and change your password immediately
• If you have used that password on ANY other accounts you need to change the password there too. The bad guys will try to use the username and password that they have stolen from these cloud services on other sites.

- Amy

Sales Tax on Cloud Services

Recently we’ve had several clients question whether or not they should pay sales tax on software they pay to use that is not housed on their server. These are known as cloud services. We have been including sales tax on these items for our non-tax exempt clients.

To make sure that we’re doing the right thing, we’ve done a little research and were pointed to Michigan Senate bills 335 and 336 by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

Bill 336 Introduced by Sen. John Proos, IV (R) on April 26, 2011, to clarify that a right that has been granted to another person allowing the use of “prewritten computer software” is not exempt from use tax.

Bill 335 Introduced by Sen. John Pappageorge (R) on April 26, 2011, to clarify that a right that has been granted to another person allowing the use of “prewritten computer software” is not exempt from sales tax

Both of these bills have passed the Senate, moved on to the House Tax Policy committee passed there with recommendation to the full House that they pass the bill. They have sat at this status since mid-September. Both bills also include a retroactive clause. This means that when they pass (and I say that because the Senate has already passed and House Committee has recommended that they follow suit) everyone will owe back sales and use tax for cloud services if they haven’t already paid it.

We’ll continue to watch this issue but the trend nationally is toward expanding the definition of a taxable sale and use and Michigan is following suit. That the bill is worded as a clarification means that as far as Michigan is concerned they feel it’s already taxable. These bills are just to make that very clear to everyone. This is why you see sales tax for these items on our invoices.

-Amy

Messenger Moves to Skype

The much beloved Messenger application is almost dead. Microsoft has decided that March 15th will be it’s last day of functionality. On that day you will have to start using another IM client. Microsoft thinks that you will like to use Skype.

When Microsoft purchased Skype I expected them to integrate Skype into everything but instead they have move Messenger into Skype and integrated Skype (optionally) into Office 365.

None of that is important right now, the important part at this time is that you have a plan to stop using Messenger and start using another IM client. If you choose Skype all of your contacts will migrate over seamlessly.

If you would rather not use Skype, let us know. We have some alternatives we could offer especially if you’d like to keep your IM’s private within your company. 

We’re here to help with this migration. If you need a hand with it please let us know. When we talk to you between now and then we’re going to be asking about whether you are using Messenger currently because the move needs to happen BEFORE March 15th or you’ll lose  access to your contacts.

- Amy

Sea Change for Desktop Computers

Last week Intel made a major announcement that has been largely ignored by the general media. Probably because they don’t understand the significance. Intel announced that it will phase out production of desktop system boards and will exit the market entirely in three years. Thus marks the final release of system boards for desktop computers.

There are other manufacturers of system boards for desktop computers and Intel will continue to make high-end boards for engineering, cad and graphics computers but the golden age of the individual desktop is ending. The other manufacturers in this market make products that don’t compare to the quality of Intel. They are ASUS and a whole host of other Korean manufacturers. Of the bunch ASUS is the best but even so it’s a big step downward.

As a result of this announcement some PC manufacturers have announced that they will cease production of computers. Infotel in Ohio is one of them. They were a supplier to CDW, Global, and TigerDirect and a Fortune 1000 company. They aren’t going out of business just out of part of the market. Dell is also rumored to be soon to follow. Our supplier Equus plans to continue to offer desktop PC’s but obviously the internal components are going to change and the selection significantly diminished.

All of this seems rather surprising since you probably have a desktop computer in your house and at the office. But you probably also have a laptop, smart phone, netbook or tablet computer. Computers are getting smaller and individual customization is diminishing. But suddenly everyone has multiples of devices.

We smelled the change coming and so have been installing and recommending remote desktop environments for years. We installed our first in back in 2000. It was cutting edge at that time. Now it’s common place. The replacement of PC’s with thin clients, zero clients, something Intel will soon release called NUC and remote work applications is now inevitable. If you haven’t yet had a meeting with us to discuss a future implementation of terminal services or multipoint you will. They bring the promise of work anywhere from any device in any location to reality. Meanwhile the desktop computer requirement drops significantly from $800-$1200 per desk to $100-$400 depending on the power required for graphics. Some of that is traded off with the server implementation but then there’s compensation for that in form of reduced support costs and a much lower electric bill. Over the ROI is excellent.

With change always comes a certain amount of pain and lack of planning makes change more painful and expensive. So the time is now to talk about making a change, planning for the change and phasing in the change to make it most cost effective for your business.

- Amy

the Java crisis

is a bit overrated. It’s been in the news because originally Sun said that would not fix the problem. The announcement was a way to embarrass them into action. Update 7.11 has now been released and is ready for installation. However, it’s not quite as simple as it seems.

1. The installation has checked by default your acceptance to also install the ASK Toolbar. It’s a search engine toolbar for your browser and is not needed and generally considered junk software.

2. Older versions of Java are not uninstalled during the update. So the previous flawed versions still remain on your computer leaving you vulnerable to the exploit even after you install the fixed version. In fact you might find that many older versions of Java are installed on your computer and need to be removed.

3. Websites often require a specific version of Java to work. This is actually the reason why the software doesn’t remove the older versions of itself. So we may find that this new version of Java will actually cause a problem with websites that you depend upon because the website itself has not been updated yet.

So the plan is to update Java on your computers as we visit them. We also be uninstalling the older versions at the same time. We will not know if all of the websites you visit are compatible with the new version until you visit those sites. So we’ll require your cooperation and patience to get through this.

-Amy

Introducing Ed Rempala

I’m pleased to announce that Harbor has added another employee. Ed Rempala comes to us from Delta Airlines where he supported the network at the airport. Ed is looking forward to the variety of work that Harbor provides and the chance to really put his Microsoft certifications to work.

As always getting our new employees off the ground is a lengthy process. Ed will be working with Ted and travelling around to get to know the breadth of our clients. He will also be assigned specific issues and tasks which we will work closely with him on.

When you meet Ed, I hope that you will welcome him.

- Amy

2013 MVP Award

An MVP has passion for the profession. Each person is awarded for a year for the work that they did on behalf of the IT community in the previous year. Nominations are made by other MVPs, peers and Microsoft employees. After the nomination each MVP is asked to submit a list of all of the community work they did in the past year. As you can imagine this is not an easy task. By virtue of being MVP material, the community things you do are just part of your being and generally not something that you keep a dally of.

It is quite an accomplishment to be named one of the worlds elite by one of the worlds top software companies. I wanted to share the letter that MVPs receive. Each of the 5,000 MVP is awarded in a specific product area – mine is small business. There are 42 of us in this category.

Happy Holidays to All

I hope that you enjoyed the cookies. They were made with love and there’s no calories in that. Each year the baking project gets bigger and bigger but we also have a lot of fun with it.

This holiday season I find myself reflecting on the past year. It has been a year of huge mostly stressful change both personally and professionally. On the plus side through and through across every industry our clients are busy and keeping us hopping. Isn’t that a welcome change? The Michigan economy is rocking like I’ve never seen. Over the past 12 years I have had the honor of learning so much from each of you about how to run a successful business that endures through Michigan’s ups and downs. You may not have realized it but I watch and learn how you run your businesses and apply those lessons to mine. You are all great mentors and I appreciate you very much.

I hope that you all have a wonderful holiday season and that next year your hopes and dreams come alive!

Amy Babinchak, Harbor Computer Services

Our Elf is hitting the road

You know what that means. Cookies are on the way! I spent the weekend baking and will continue to bake all week to keep up with the packaging and delivery schedule. I do hope that you enjoy them.

Alert: cellphone outage

Our cellphone phone functions are not working. We have no incoming or outgoing call capability. However email and text are working fine. Please use these methods to communicate with us temporarily.

Apologies for the inconvenience.

Amy

Introducing MultiPoint Server

We’ve been installing MultiPoint Server for select clients since late 2010. MultiPoint is a smaller terminal server, limited to 20 people per server but it also contains orchestration, enables work from anywhere from any device and the ability to use zero client stations.

Orchestration gives a manager the ability to see the desktop screens of workers, offer assistance, broadcast a presentation, have internal only instant messaging, and limit Internet access.

Zero Client workstations reduce the cost of in-house worker hardware from a typical $800 per workstation to $100-$300 each, depending on the applications being used by the individual.

Work from Any Device means that we can enable any type of device from Zero Client to Slate to Laptop to full Computer whether in or out of the office, whether owned by the business or owned by an individual. It’s the most flexible access to a server we’ve ever seen.

This week TechSoup a non-profit software distributor posted a blog highlighting the overall ROI of this product including energy savings. Microsoft claimed 63% reduction and this article claims 66% reduction.

http://forums.techsoup.org/cs/community/b/tsblog/archive/2012/11/12/the-environmental-and-cost-savings-benefits-of-windows-multipoint-server.aspx?utm_source=newsletter

But MultiPoint Server is a big secret for the most part. There has been no marketing campaign. It isn’t even listed with the rest of Microsoft’s servers. They only list it under Academic servers, completely missing the importance role that this server can play in small business. 

A couple of weeks ago, Microsoft hosted 20 people for a special training given by their own internal developers and support team and I was lucky enough to be one of those selected. This training makes us a premier firm for installing and supporting this product in a business environment. So if you hear us mention MultiPoint server please know that we’ve got experience with it, we’re uniquely trained and this thing can really bring big lasting benefits to your business.

Dangers of OnLine Banking for Businesses

It’s me again to remind you of the dangers of online banking for businesses. I feel like I’m starting to sound like a scratched CD (also know as a broken record) but this is very important.

Recall from my last post on this topic that FDIC insurance does not protect you from fraud. It only protects you from a failed bank; not from having your account emptied through online banking.

http://krebsonsecurity.com/2012/11/cyberheists-a-helluva-wake-up-call-to-small-biz/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

There’s an article that demonstrates how easy it is to become a victim. This company was infiltrated by a link in a single email. Through that infection the bad guys were able to obtain the banking credentials the next time an employee logged in to the bank account. Next the bad guys initiated a payroll distribution and the bank processed it. $180,000 was several times regular payroll but the bank doesn’t care. “You” asked them to process it and they did. Your money is gone.

Please check your insurance and add coverage for online banking fraud. Please keep your online banking to an absolute minimum for business transactions and please keep very little money in that account. The law says that the onus is on you to protect access to your account, not the banks.

p.s. these same rules apply to your personal accounts too

Price Increase Announced for Client Access Licenses

Today our distributor gave us the heads up that the price of User CALs is going on by 15% on December 1st.

A CAL is a client access license. It is the license that allows your account to successfully login. Microsoft is raising the price because one User CAL allows you to login using multiple devices. So when your phone, ipad, laptop, desktop all connect it only requires a single license because you always log in as you. They realize that most people now have more than one device that they are logging in from and so they have raised the price because of this increased use.

We appreciate that our vendor let’s us know these things in advance. Most of our clients are at the correct CAL count at this time and won’t be affected. However, if you are planning to add to your employee count soon it might be worthwhile to make that purchase of those CALs before Dec 1 and save the 15%.

Amy Babinchak, Harbor Computer Services

Anticipating Internet Outages

The Internet is a connected set of routers. Any drop in those connections and outages will occur. Today we see the angry winds of a weather system that is unable to push east because of hurricane Sandy. Tomorrow we will see it pushed back and the edges of Sandy enter our region and bring even higher winds. (Waves are already over 20 feet on the Great Lakes.) Then on Wednesday-Thursday we will see this weather system again as it is finally able to push east.

This means that you should anticipate down trees and limbs resulting in power outages, Internet outages, Internet slowdowns and phone problems.

It’s going to be an interesting week.

Windows RT–Surface

Microsoft has taken a page out of Apple’s success and has started to produce their own hardware. The first product out of the gate is called Surface and it is running software called Windows RT. It is available for pre-orders now and shipping in time for Christmas.

Many of you have been anxiously awaiting a touch enabled slate device from Microsoft so you can take your applications with you on an iPad like device. This is not that device. That device (also called Surface) won’t be available until January.

So what is the Surface running Windows RT? It’s cool. But you can’t install your applications on it. It will have a web version of Office installed, it will let you deal with work and personal email, surf the web, play games, listen to music. In short, it’s pretty much like an iPad except with the added benefit of simplified business productivity apps built-in. Note that I said apps, not applications. They aren’t the same thing. Apps are simplified.

Having said all of that. If you are looking for a business companion the Surface is going to be a good one.

New Appointments

 

As part of my continuing quest to bring the needs of Harbor’s clients to the attention of our vendors, I have recently been appointed to two advisory councils.

Storagecraft Marketing Advisory Council. Storagecraft produces backup software and recovery tools. This Council meets monthly online with top management to help them understand the challenges in the marketplace and to influence product development to meet those challenges.

Equus Partner Advisory Council. This Council meets quarterly online and once annually at the headquarters in Minnesota. Equus is the largest USA based manufacturer of Intel computers, laptops and servers. This Council meets with top management from all areas of the company to provide direct product feedback and direction on future development.

Both of these Councils are really sanity checks for the companies involved. It provides them an opportunity to reveal to us what they think their future plans are and us an opportunity to provide advanced knowledge on what our clients (and therfore the market in general) wants, needs and is expecting.

Saying Fair Well to Diana

The times they are a changin’ at Harbor. We’ve enjoyed a long period of stability in employee retention with Ted at nearly 10 years and Diana 8. We’ve been a cohesive team completely jelled in our thinking and actions. We’ve added a couple of new people at the beginning of this year due in part to the anticipation of this transition and in part because you are keeping us so busy.

It is important to me that we maintain the cohesion that is Harbor. That we all work and approach problems in the same way; that we all have the same depth of training. That’s why we started the new guys at the top of the year. This stuff takes time and a big investment to achieve. I sometimes get scoffed at by my peers in the industry for not running a McDonald’s type operation where just anyone can be plugged in off the street with minimal knowledge but I think that the results speak for themselves. Yes, it means I have to plan way in advanced and train hard but unless you work hard you can’t stand out from the crowd. To all of us at Harbor, your business comes first and we strive to make technology work for you, your way.

Diana and her husband are moving to Malaysia for at least 12 months and possibly longer. As a consequence she’ll be leaving Harbor on October 23rd. It’s a grand adventure in living abroad in a new melting pot and area of bustling international businesses. I’d be as excited as she is.

When Diana came to work for us she was a Chinese citizen. Today she’s an American citizen. She used to get lost all of the time and now she’s got GPS. She used to have a tough time with quotes and purchases and using credit cards – well, she has that mastered. I’ve watched her grow from a quiet IT person who prefers to work in the background into someone completely comfortable at the helm. I’ve always had complete confidence in her.

On October 17th from 5-8pm at Ike’s Restaurant in Sterling Heights (on VanDyke) we’ll be having a going away cocktail hour. I hope that you’ll be able to join us in wishing her well on this new adventure. I’ll be sending out an invitation but if you’d like to RSVP early, that would be great too.

Between now and October 23rd, we will complete the transition that began a while back. Those of you that are still Diana’s clients today will have a new Harbor technician. You will get a personal introduction. This person won’t be anything like Diana, but that’s because there’s only one Diana. We understand that. Rest assured that we’ve already begun to make the transition internally and Diana’s been working with her replacements for last several months to make sure that they are up to speed. In addition to that though you should know that Ted and I are going to be keeping a very close eye on how things are going. You might even see us, though we are going to try to stay in the background so as not to confuse anyone about who the point person is. So in short, we’ve got a group effort going to make this transition as smooth as it can be.

Meanwhile, please block off October 17th Happy Hour and plan to join us over at Ike’s to see Diana off properly.

This is Spam

Dear Windows User,

It has come to our attention that your Microsoft windows Installation records are out of date.

Windows Update helps keep your PC safer-and your software current-by fetching the latest security and feature updates from Microsoft via the Internet.

Click on the Verify button below and enter your login information on the following page to Confirm your records.

Thank you,
Microsoft Windows Team.

 

There are many varieties, all of which look legitimate but are far from. Please don’t click. Be careful.

Harbor Secure Cloud–Backup

We’ve been working with a unique provider of Cloud storage for a few years now and using them to store server backups securely. With this solution your files can be securely stored on the Internet for archival purposes or for sharing among roaming workstations. We are also able to direct a second copy of your data to a location of your choice for quick disaster recovery.

We like this solution because it’s a Cloud you control, it’s encrypted and duplicated beyond what anyone else offers. Best of all it’s affordable because you are actually part of the Cloud.

The flow chart below might look a little technical, so let me try to simplify it further. We choose a folder to backup. That folder could be a set of important files on your laptop, or it could be the folder where we store the copies of your entire server. The client software takes the content in that folder and encrypts it, then it dices it into very small pieces, then it makes 32 copies of each small piece and scatters them randomly around the world. This makes it impossible for anyone holding your data to make any sense of it because no one location ever holds more than 1 tiny bit.

I like this solution because it does not require that we have to trust anyone. We do not have to trust the locations, the people, or the equipment where your data resides. This is important because the Internet and by extension the Cloud is not worthy of trust.

Further it’s important that we can also deliver a copy to the Cloud and a copy to your home, second office or even our office. Why do we want a local copy when we have 32 copies in the Cloud? Because restoring from the Cloud is slow. It is limited by the available bandwidth and while downloading a few files isn’t too bad, downloading gigabytes of the them will take days.

The good news for our existing customers is the new price! It’s quite affordable and now includes a lot more.

$60 a month per server AND up to 10 workstations are included too.

$40 a month per server to transfer a local copy to the location of your choice.

The price gets lower per server when you have multiple servers.

Your technician can explain more and help figure out what you need. Or you can email me amy@harborcomputerservices.net

Securing Your Facebook Account

Online services are inherently insecure because they are applications that you are sharing with others on the same server. In this information age, your information is a valuable commodity. Information about where you vacation, where you live, the names and ages of your family members is a marketing goldmine and it has a value of a few pennies to a few dollars depending on how complete the information is. So when your Facebook account gets hacked someone makes money off of you, all of your friends get very annoyed and you might even loose your account completely and have to start all over again.

Now that many businesses are using Facebook to communicate with their customers the loss of your account can really hurt.

Facebook has been steadily adding security features to help combat this problem. I’m going to suggest a few and also recommend that you check your account settings pages on a regular basis for new security features and add them as they come along.

1. Use a long password and remember if you are using your Facebook ID to log into other websites than when you read that, that site has been hacked (like Dropbox) then you need to change your Facebook password too.
2. Add a security question. This way when changes are made to your account there will be a second hurdle to jump.
1. Click the account menu at the top right of any Facebook page and choose Account Settings. From the left column menu, click Security. Click on the Security Question section
3. Turn on secure browsing. This will keep your Facebook browsing encrypted so when you are in a public space the content can’t be viewed by sniffers.
1. Go to your Security Settings page ( Account Settings > Security) Click on the Secure Browsing section. Check the box provided and save your changes
4. Turn on Login notifications. With this setting on you will get a notification every time a device logs into your account from a different IP address. If you are notified that a device you don’t recognize has logged in go immediately to your Facebook page and change your password.
1. Go to your Security Settings page ( Account Security > Security) Click on the Login Notifications section. Check the box next to the type of alerts you'd like to receive and save your changes

Those settings will be enough to keep your account from being the lowest hanging fruit. In the Account Settings/Security section you will see many other settings you can also add. Whether you need those or not will depend upon how you are using Facebook. Browse through them and implement any additional security features that appeal to you and consider the list I provided a baseline starting point for all Facebook users.

Alert: Phone call from Microsoft support

Last year a fraud squad started calling businesses and individuals, claiming to be from Microsoft support. It was shut down pretty quickly.

It’s back only this time it’s worldwide and the volume of calls is much higher. So this is an alert to remind you that Microsoft will never call you and offer to fix a problem with your computer. If you get one of these calls, hang up immediately.

Here is how the scam works: You receive a phone call from “Carl with Microsoft support”. They have noticed that there’s a problem with your email or maybe they noticed that your computer has a virus and he needs to connect to your computer. When you agree, the next step is to ask for your credit card so they can charge you a fee for this service. At this point they have your credit card, full name and address. End of scam. They now need to get off the phone with you.

So remember if you get a call from Microsoft support please hang up.

A Must Read–Don’t Let This Happen To You

This article might sound very technical to most of you but I hope that you will bear with me and read it through because the concepts are very important.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-honan-hacking/all/

Basically, the "hackers" liked his Twitter handle, @mat. So they found his email address mat@gmail.com, and went to Gmail to see what they could find. His Gmail password recovery was an @me account. Next using Internet search they found his address, called Amazon, added a fake credit card to his account, which then on another tech support call they used to gain access to his Amazon account. Access to his Amazon account showed his real Credit card number, which combined with his address they were able to get Apple to reset his @me password. Which then they could log in, wipe his phone, ipad and MacBook. At this point not only is his Internet identity owned by someone else but all of his personal data is gone. Oops. But wait, he has a backup, right? Not exactly. His backup is in iCloud. Which he can't access. Because they reset his password and all of his security questions. Then they used his accounts to post racist and worse information in his name.

Many people are saying this could have been prevented if he had used two-factor authentication to log into his Google account, or if it wasn’t so easy to get around Apple technical support security questions or if he’d had a backup of his MacBook and the data in iCloud. But it really isn’t that easy.

We all have multiple accounts that are tied together by virtue of them being ours. Like it or not we all now have an online identity and when it gets stolen it is as bad or worse than having your physical identity stolen.

Securing your Internet identity and the information housed within it is difficult. There is no quick fix and every Internet based application has its own rules for best practices. I’d like to help you solve this problem, so we’re going to do a few things:

1. We are involved in the early development stages with a product that will backup a copy of your employees and your businesses cloud stored data. This will eventually include things like gmail, facebook photos and friends lists, file storage and will be able to interface into almost any hosted service provided the service make API’s to allow it. (an API is a programming interface)
2. We are going to begin to develop best practices sheets on how to secure various types of Cloud services that you’ll be able to follow to help secure your Internet identity.
3. We are investigating a service that will let us setup secure two-factor authentication on any hosted service that supports SAML. (saml is a standard authentication protocol and two-factor authentication is your password plus a one-time PIN which you will get from a key fob or a small app on your phone)
4. We are working to redesign our Internet backup solution to provide more flexibility to allow you to also backup your laptops whether they ever come into the office or not. These backups can also be centrally stored in your office as well as in the Cloud.

Most of these new things are going to ride under our new umbrella, Harbor Secure Cloud. Hopefully that will keep it simple as well as secure.

Introducing our Cloud

Once upon a time a cloud was a fluffy white thing in the sky, a dark grumbling rain bringer or a rapidly rotating vortex of destruction and chaos. Today The Cloud is a style of computer networking that leverages the Internet to provide additional mobility and access to data with minimal investment in hardware. The Cloud can also have the same characteristics of a cloud which why we have researched and developed expertise in business grade cloud services for you.

Harbor will only bring you business grade Cloud. Business grade Cloud has several critical components:

• Ability to control your own data
• Ease of movement in and out of the service
• Ability to set and monitor data security
• Redundancy
• Data Backup and Data Restore
• Privacy

Harbor Secure Cloud are subscription services chosen for their ability to protect your corporate data and enable you to work from anywhere.

• Email
• Protection - Anti-Spam, Easy Encryption, Live Archive
• Hosting
• Compliance Archiving
• Compliance Encryption
• Data Storage - Cloud Share, Web Share, Sharepoint
• Backup - Cloud Share, Backup to Cloud (server and PC), Backup to Remote Location (server and PC)
• Authentication
• Phones – Mobile, Hosted PBX 

Because The Cloud is subscription based it can put significant pressure on monthly cash flow, which is one of the reasons why businesses will have a mix of Cloud services and on-premises solutions. On-Premises solutions however are evolving too and today we can implement many solutions that provide the benefits of Cloud without the monthly cash flow hit.

Harbor Private Cloud resides on installed equipment in your office that enables simple remote access, eliminates PC purchases and stores a copy of your Cloud shared data.

• Servers · Remote Desktop Services (formerly Terminal Services), Virtual Servers, Virtual Desktops, MultiPoint (RDS and VDI)
• Computer Alternatives - Thin Clients, Zero Clients (requires MultiPoint)
• Data Storage - Local Cloud, Sharepoint
• Bandwidth – Cable, T1 for Internet and Phone

We will be adding to our Cloud offerings as the market for them matures and more business grade solutions enter the market. Harbor will also continue to provide tradition servers and solutions.

Shanewaz Ahmed

Shanewaz joined Harbor about 3 months ago. You might be wondering how to pronounce is name. I did. It’s not as bad as it looks. It’s Shan-Waz. He came to us from the Oakland University IT department.

Shanewaz will be handling all maintenance activities for us. These are the things that we do in the background every month or quarter and includes software updates, backup verification and on-site visits to check PC status, firewall updates and lot of other tasks. He has performed the majority of these tasks for the last 3 months and will now be taking them over in their entirely for all clients.

This does not change anything with your assigned technician, except that in hiring Shanewaz I have lightened their work load significantly. We’ve already started to see the benefits accrue in knocking down our background task to-do list as well as a speed up in response time by the primary technicians.

Shanewaz was also a student at OU, however due to family illness had to leave the university. He intends to return part-time to complete his degree in Computer Science. He will also be pursuing certifications relevant to the work we do for our clients. We’ve all been really pleases with the quality of his work and are happy to have him aboard.

Dangers of Online Banking

I read an article recently that claimed that most people do not realize that they are not protected from unauthorized withdrawals from accounts where they have enabled online banking.

Think a fraudulent withdrawal of funds to your commercial or business banking account is limited to $50, like a fraudulent credit card transaction? Think you are protected by FDIC insurance? Think again. FDIC insurance does not protect your bank account from fraudulent withdrawals. You have no protection other than attempting to obtain the funds from the criminals that withdrew the funds. You will lose it all and have no recourse.

Because there is no protection for online banking fraud, business bank accounts have become a favorite target. Protecting yourself and your business isn’t an easy task.

• Don’t use your phone for banking
• Don’t use any mobile device for banking
• Never do banking over WIFI
• Never click on a link in a banking related email
• Use only a dedicated computer for banking. That is a computer that is used for no other purpose.

I say it is no easy task because we all want banking to be simple and banks keep making it simpler. But because they are not initiating the transaction, the responsibility rests entirely with you to make sure that all initiated transactions over online banking are legitimate not the banks. 

Windows 8 is here

We’re seeing signs that Windows 8 is coming in for a landing. My guess and this is only a guess is that we’ll see it available for purchase in 30-90 days.

Here are the signs:

• From this point forward every new computer is going to come with a coupon for a $14.99 upgrade to Windows 8.
• Microsoft announced Surface, a Windows 8 slate
• Microsoft announced Win8 Phone
• Windows 8 has moved to Release Candidate status

Here’s what you need to know:

• The specifications for Windows 8 are the same as Windows 7
• Windows 8 is touch/swipe enabled
• The new OS will be the same on phone/slate and PC
• The Metro interface is like nothing you’ve experienced before. There will be learning curve as severe as moving from DOS to Windows.
• I think that you’ll really like it

Because the user interface difference is dramatic, education is going to be really important. We are going to plan to hold a couple of Windows 8 orientation classes. In the coming months we will put together enough hardware to make these hands-on classes designed to put you as ease using the new interface.

 

p.s. I’m headed to Redmond to help work on developing a certification exam for IT professionals on Windows 8.

MAC Update, Virus Check, SkyDrive, SMB 150 Award

A few short updates for you:

MAC Users: A flood of new viruses is coming down the pipe to MAC users. Long exempt from hackers because there was simply not enough money it in, finally enough MACs are in use that the magic critical mass has been reached and hackers have turned their attention to exploiting them. Recently a JAVA hack infected over 600,000 MACs that were not running the most current updates. Please be sure to install all available updated, especially JAVA and Adobe updates as released and you need to be running anti-virus software. Our favorite anti-virus for MACs is Sophos. If you need to purchase it, let your IT person know and we’ll get if for you.

Home Computer Virus Check: The FBI has been redirecting traffic from computers infected with the DNSChanger virus for a long time now. DNSChanger redirects your computer browser to look-alike websites designed to fool you into thinking that you really are on Amazon or your bank website. It then collects the information you put into your account. The FBI was redirecting you back to the real site to thwart the hack but all of that is coming to an end July 9th. They have now shutdown the hacker network and so the FBI is ready to shutdown their fix for it. But this means that if your Home PC is infected after July 9th you won’t be able to get to any Internet sites. To check and see if you are infected you need to go to http://dns-ok.us/ If the background is green you’re in the clear. If it’s not green give us a call and we’ll help you clean it up.

SkyDrive: SkyDrive users need to login and accept a free upgrade in order to keep the 25GB of FREE storage space they have enjoyed from Microsoft. Please go to https://skydrive.live.com/ and accept the upgrade to keep your 25GB. If you do not, then you will be reduced to only 7GB. This is a limited time customer loyalty offer. All new SkyDrive accounts will only get 7GB with additional space available for purchase. Since Windows Phone, iPhone and Windows 8 are all integrated with Microsoft’s Live it’s becoming increasing important.

SMB 150: On Tuesday Amy was named to the SMB 150 Channel Influencers List. She joins a group of esteemed colleagues who were chosen during a two-phase voting process. In the initial stage, channel community members voted on 400 nominees. Following the community vote, a panel of industry experts evaluated each nominee based on a pre-established rubric. The community vote accounted for 40% of each nominee's overall rating, with the expert panel's decision contributing the remaining 60%. This award is sponsored by SMBNation, SMBTN and Blackberry. Amy will be receiving a Blackberry Playbook and has been invited to the awards dinner and ceremony in Los Angeles.