Five Tips for getting the best value out of your IT guy

Don't go to your IT guy with solutions, give him problems. A lot of clients might propose throwing extra storage into their computer system, when perhaps a better document storage format may suit the business better for example. A good IT guy will carefully fit the solution to your business model.

Give your IT guy the big picture. Computers and Information Technology are but a small part of business operations. You need a solution that integrates with your business seamlessly.

Manage the task. Do not rely on your IT guy. Ask for written progress reports and proposals/specifications. You don't want to waste the money you have spent on this task without retaining some knowledge after the IT guy leaves.

Understand the big picture yourself and how the details fit into this jigsaw. The key to most successful IT projects is to implement the key, essential parts first then work on an iterative process of optimisation and enhancement.

Get a proposal for the project in writing. Ask that a timeline or other indication of how the project should proceed is included. This can help identify any scheduling conflicts early on in the project so they can be resolved easily and with minimal expense.

Surviving a computer crash

It's the day of the week when you run your invoices...You load up the paper in the printer, press print and....An error message pops up 'Unable to read drive'.

Sound like the stuff of nightmares? It could well signal the end of your business unless you plan for this eventuality. All computers are like cars – highly complex machines with many parts to go wrong at the worst possible moment.

How can you protect yourself against this nightmare?

In one word – Backup. Ensure all critical data is stored in at least one other location than on your server or main computer. This could be in the form of tapes, recordable CDs, floppy disks, external hard drives, online storage or many other options. Ensure that the backup is carried out at least daily and periodically check the backup by attempting to restore data (like computers all back-up media can fail).

Ensure you have a UPS (Un-interruptable Power Supply) running your main computer. This could buy the critical minutes you need to save open documents and shut down cleanly in the eventuality of a power outage.

Set your office applications to 'auto-save' every 5-10 minutes. This could also save hours re-creating documents, not to mention prevent the frustration should the computer lock up for no apparent reason.

New attempt to halt spyware

Five computer security firms (ICSA Labs, McAfee, Symantec, Thompson Cyber Security Labs and Trend Micro) are joining forces to tackle spyware.

Spyware has become a huge problem as many hi-tech criminals, advertisers and vandals use various techniques to sneak their software onto users' PCs without the users being aware.

Some spyware gets in via email, although the bulk is by means of visiting booby-trapped websites or by downloading programs from the internet.

Some spyware is simply a nuisance as it bombards users with pop-up adverts they did not ask for or services they would never use.

However, other spyware programs are explicitly criminal and aim to hijack computers or steal confidential information.

The work of the group will be collected on the spywaretesting.org website and the prime aim is to remove confusion about "the origins of spyware and effectiveness of tools used to remove it" according to Larry Bridwell from ICSA Labs.

Full story on BBC News

Spam Email bounced replies

Please people, turn off bounce replies for Spam email and whilst we're at it rejection messages for unknown recipients (who are often random strings of characters generated by spammers/viruses).

Over a twelve hour period last night, the generic in-box for my domain was bombarded by over 18,000 spurious emails that had to be filtered. This equates to one message being delivered every 2.5 seconds.

Whilst I have a fairly sophisticated automatic system for binning them, it still ate up considerable bandwidth downloading them. The total file size was approximately 15 Megabytes.

DIY Computer Maintenance to keep things running smoothly

What can I do to prevent Computer problems?

This is a question that people have asked on numerous occasions. The entire process of reducing Computer problems can be bundled under the banner of Computer Preventive Maintenance.

It is not rocket science and you don’t have to be an IT professional to keep your PC in a good shape. Any computer user can follow the guidelines mentioned below and can reduce their PC problems dramatically.

Use this article as a computer maintenance checklist.

So what you should do as part of preventive maintenance?

1. Use a good anti virus program. This is possibly the most important piece of work in preventive maintenance. Installing the anti virus program however is not enough. You should do the following as well.

* Set-up the program to download and install updates automatically.

* Schedule periodic full system scans.

* Check the virus definitions date regularly and see whether it is up to date.

2. Set-up your PC to Download and install “Windows Updates” automatically.

Windows updates include Operating System patches for bugs and PC security related issues. These patches can reduce many unknown computer problems.

3. Install anti Spyware program to detect Spyware tools.

4. Install a Personal Firewall. Most of the anti virus programs are bundled with a Personal Firewalls these days. Personal firewall is a barrier between your PC and the outside world. This can prevent your PC from hackers and Spyware tools.

5. Do not download and install unknown software from Internet. This is the biggest mistake that most PC users make. Some of this software can damage the Windows registry, which cause lot of errors.

6. Uninstall unnecessary programs installed in your PC.

7. Be very careful when opening emails with attachments (particularly if you are not expecting them).

8. Perform Scandisk periodically to check the Hard Drive.

9. Defragment your hard drive regularly.

10. Ensure that you have a backup system in place to copy important documents and make sure it works.

How to speed up backups with zero cost

A recent study showed that more and more companies are not backing up data on a daily basis because the backup was taking too long to execute.

If you are running a Microsoft Windows Server, you could in fact speed up your backups by simply defragmenting the server hard drives. Tests have shown a reduction in backup time of as much as 60%