Note that most of the threats that come from forgetting to logout are from within your office, like your co-workers. Now, you might think that all of your workmates are trustworthy, but this may not be the case. After all, ?It?s always the person you least suspect.? Before Logging Out of Your PC, Log Out of Your Online Accounts…This might come as a surprise to many computer users, but just because you close your web browser, doesn?t necessarily mean that you?re logged out of your online account. Many online accounts require you to manually click ?Log Off? for you to actually log off. The danger of not manually logging off like this is that the next person who opens your web browser will find your account to be open, and have easy access to it. …Or Be Embarrassed.On the annoying-yet-harmless side of this problem, leaving your account open like this could lead to some mischievous activity on your social media pages. A co-worker may post something in your name that?s completely out of character and everybody will have a good chuckle the next day. …Or Worse.However, that?s a best-case scenario. A less-than-kind person who comes along and finds your account open could easily have access to your email or bank account, which could lead to some serious identity theft issues. In the same way, a hacker could remote into your PC while you’re away and take control of it. This is often done via a trojan-type malware, or a variety of other ways. If you haven?t manually logged out of your accounts, then the hacker who controls your PC could easily access your accounts by opening your web browser, checking your bookmarks and history, and visiting each and every site of value. If they come across a site with an account still open, then they?re in. Next, all they have to do to lock you out is change your password as if they were you, and send the new password to their email account. This is one major headache that could have easily been avoided by just clicking ?Log Off.? The biggest disadvantage of falling victim to malicious activity like this is that you?re not around to stop it. Instead, you?re away from your desk, completely oblivious that your identity is being ripped off, and you won’t figure it out until it?s too late. This is where remote security monitoring from White Mountain IT Services saves the day. With this service, we?re able to monitor your network?s activity and bring to your attention anything that seems suspicious, like the activity of a hacker, or even unauthorized access from an employee. You may not always remember to logout of your accounts before going home for the day, but at least with White Mountain IT Services watching over your system, you won?t have to worry about it.
It?s important that you consider the repercussions of leaving these comments on your company?s website. They?re harmful to your social media and website presence, and can give your site visitors and fans the impression that you don?t take care of your website. Furthermore, they might feel discouraged about leaving legitimate comments, which might nip a potential customer relation success in the bud before it even has a chance to blossom. To help fight spam on your website comments, you can take advantage of several options. However, it?s important to note that none of these are a sure-fire way of eliminating comment spam. Disable All CommentsThis option should only be used as a last resort. The reasoning is simple; even negative comments are valuable to your business for the purpose of understanding how you can improve your services or product. Comments show that people find your website and its content valuable. Even search engines pick up on comments and use them to give your website a higher search ranking. The positive thing about negative comments is that you have the chance to address these issues personally to improve your reputation. This shows that you care about the customer?s experience. Therefore, the only reason you should ever turn off comments on your site is if you plan on performing minimal maintenance to it. Approve All Comments Before They Go PublicIf a moderator is keeping an eye on comments that are submitted, it makes it much easier to spot spam before it?s posted to your comments. However, you should be on the lookout to ensure you don?t get fooled into approving a spam comment. Spammers are known for their remarkable ability to trick users, so don?t feel bad if one or two get through. You can always remove them yourself later. If you are fooled by a comment spammer by letting one slip by, then take solace in the wisdom of former President George W. Bush: ?Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me… you can?t get fooled again.? Use a RecaptchaA recaptcha is a great tool that can help you ensure that all users who comment on your posts are real people, and not spam bots designed to blow up websites with worthless comments. This can be as easy as entering in the numbers or letters that appear on the screen in an image, and it?s usually enough to prevent most spam bots from making it through to the posting. However, this tool isn?t 100 percent effective because a dedicated human comment spammer will fill in the required Recaptcha numbers. Block the Spammers? IP AddressesIf you happen to come across a spammer, your website platform should allow you to block the user?s IP address from accessing your website. By looking at some spammer statistics from Imperva, you will see how blocking a comment spammer?s IP address will go a long way toward taking care of the problem: 80 percent of the comment spam originates from less than one-third of the spammers, and a mere 17 percent of comment spammers actually account for a majority of the comment spam traffic. Imperva also found that nearly 60 percent of comment spammers are active for long periods of time. However you decide to take the fight to spammers, the best way to do so is […]
By resolving one problem with break-fix tech support, you?re creating another more serious issue that could complicate your IT expenditures for the entire upcoming year. What if a seemingly-harmless issue turns out to be a serious problem that requires hours of maintenance to resolve? That?s all cash that you could have spent on implementing more effective solutions or replacing malfunctioning hardware that you?ll never see again. Contrary to popular belief, spending more money than necessary on IT problems only complicates your budget and makes it less flexible. So, what can you do to prevent this? There are two things you can do: either hire a full internal IT department who?s responsible for overseeing your entire technology infrastructure, or outsource the responsibility to a managed IT service provider. Chances are that a small or medium-sized business like yours doesn?t have the resources and budget immediately available to hire multiple trained IT professionals. You?re not alone in this; in fact, most SMBs experience a similar problem. Therefore, the best solution available for the SMB just so happens to be a fantastic one: outsourced IT. There are a plethora of benefits that come from letting an external party handle the administration of all your technology, including: Cost Savings: The main difference between break-fix IT and managed IT is the potential cost. With break-fix IT, you pay an hourly rate to fix already-broken technology. While this is swell, wouldn?t it be better if the technology didn?t break in the first place? This is the proactive stance that managed IT takes, and it comes at a fixed monthly rate that?s designed to turn your IT support into an operational expense, rather than a capital one. Tried-and-True Support: One of the main hold-ups that SMBs have when acquiring IT support is the cost of hiring trained professionals. Managed IT service providers like White Mountain IT Services have several skilled technicians who are dedicated to providing only the best service for your business?s technology. Unified Point of Contact: Instead of having a specific vendor for your printers trying to interface with the guy who set up your network, using White Mountain IT Services as your single ?throat to choke? means we have a full understanding of the nuances of your network, and can manage your many hardware and software vendors accordingly. The benefits don?t stop there. Managed IT provides a whole slew of potential benefits that can keep your business running at maximum capacity at all times. Just give us a call at (603) 889-0800 and ask about what makes us different from other technology professionals.
Have you ever tried describing a PC issue on the phone to tech support, and you get nowhere because you?re having such a difficult time describing the problem? To be sure, this is a frustrating experience. By taking a screenshot, you can send an image of the exact problem you?re experiencing, which will really help clear things up. Taking a screenshot is as easy as using the right keystrokes. Here?s how you do it. Taking a Screenshot in WindowsOn your Windows PC, you will notice a row of keys on your keyboard that you probably don?t use very much. It?s the very top row that includes all of the F1-F12 keys. To find the screenshot button, look to the right of F12 and locate the PrtScn key. By hitting this button, a .png file will be created of your entire desktop, but you?re not going to see it right away because the image is stored on your clipboard. To retrieve the image, you will next have to open an application that allows you to paste images from your clipboard. Popular programs like Microsoft Word, OneNote, or Outlook will do the trick. Even a common program like MS Paint will work. Once your application is opened, simply hold down CTRL and press V to paste your image. Let?s assume you used Microsoft Paint. With your screenshot now before you, you can use the application?s various image editing tools to manipulate the image. You can crop it to focus the attention on just the problem you?re experiencing, and you can overlay the image with text and arrows to clarify your issue. Finally, you will want to save your screenshot as an image so that you can share it. To do this, go to File > Save As. From here, you can give the file a name. With your image saved, you will now be able to access it from where you saved it and attach it to an email or instant message. You can skip that last step by pasting directly into your email with Microsoft Outlook. This is how you will send the image to your support team so they?ll know exactly what it is you?re experiencing. Using LightShot to Take ScreenshotsAs you can see, taking a screenshot isn?t terribly difficult. However, going the route we just showed you does create more steps than what?s necessary. The easiest way to take a screenshot is by using an app designed just for this purpose. One of the best (and free) apps, that we?ve found for taking screenshots is LightShot. You can download the app here: https://app.prntscr.com/en/download.html. With Lightshot installed on your PC, it will make it so that hitting the PrtScn key will grey out your entire screen. Next, use your cursor to select the area of your screen that you want to take a screenshot of. After you?ve done this, LightShot will give you the option to save your selection as an image, upload the selection to the cloud for easy access, and more. Once you get used to taking screenshots, you will find it to be an extremely handy tool that will revolutionize how you save and share images. As a bonus, you will find it much easier to communicate PC problems with your IT department. For IT support issues, […]
Cloud OptionsThere are three major cloud computing platforms that every small and medium-sized business owner should know. They are Platform as a Service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). Each of these offerings can be deployed from a public or private cloud system. Platform as a Service – PaaS provides organizations with a platform that provides users all the computing they need to develop, run, and manage web-based applications. This interface allows for high-level customization, without the complexity inherent in traditional development platforms. In other words, this is an extremely custom solution developed specifically for your unique needs. Infrastructure as a Service – IaaS provides users with a fully virtualized computing infrastructure platform. This interface allows users to do anything they would regularly do on their traditional computers. It can be hosted as an outsourced solution, or on a partitioned on-site server. Software as a Service – SaaS is basically the delivery of a piece of software that?s hosted in the cloud. By implementing a software as a service plan, users get the same software that they would have had to purchase and manage, in the cloud for a flat monthly fee. This allows business to shift costs from the capital budget to the operations budget, on a month-to-month basis. Microsoft?s Office 365 is a popular example of this. Cloud SecurityWhile it took some time for cloud computing to convince business professionals that it is a secure enough platform to ?do? business over, cloud implementation, specifically SaaS offerings, have seen an impressive increase over the past three years. This growth is due in large part to the revelation that a cloud interface is as secure as any other server as long as they are managed and maintained properly. A solution hosted in a data center that?s three states away is equally secure as the cloud environment hosted in your server room as long as they use the same security protocols; in fact, they can often afford better security than your budget may allow. For this reason the cloud?s upward trend figures to continue. By relying on secure and scalable cloud platforms, businesses can find affordable computing resources from dozens of reputable vendors that are no less secure than if you hosted them yourself. If you are one of the many business owners who feel as if they absolutely need control of their organization?s data, relying on a cloud platform that?s hosted outside of your place of business may be a difficult change to make. If you believe that controlling security permissions in-house and deploying it to the people that absolutely need it is the only way to keep your organization safe from security issues, then it may be time to reconsider that position by considering the benefits that integrating a cloud solution can deliver. At White Mountain IT Services, we can build a secure and powerful cloud platform that meets the needs of your business, and we can set you up with any cloud resource you may need to keep your IT costs low without losing the essential computing systems your business depends on. Call us today at (603) 889-0800 to speak with one of our trusted technology professionals.
