The Bottom Line: Thanks

There is no better place than this public forum to say thanks to those who make it possible for Georgia Business Net. I want to send out a “thank you” to our customers, and a “thank you” to our staff. This summer has treated us well, but not without our staff’s great effort. We’ve got our sights set on great things ahead, but that is not to say some praise isn’t due as we see some progress and a milestone or two in our rear view mirror. Nothing pleases me more than to hear stories from clients that contain words like “above and beyond.” The innovative ideas to help a client, the stretching and striving for a continuous improvement in our processes and products, make it awesome and fun to come to work each day. And yes, this is all true in spite of what we hear about the economy. Opportunity exists to succeed in every economy. And regardless of how challenging the landscape, I work around people that ignore the news and press on towards our goals. Because of people that care about the big picture, I work in an inspiring environment that motivates and breeds success.

Latest Tips for Virus Avoidance

We have all been there, and there is no doubt we will all be there again.  It's inevitable that our Internet connected devices will get infected and spread viruses.  New vulnerabilities occur every day, and not everyone is proactive in playing defense utilizing anti-spyware and anti-virus protection.  Here are some excerpts and my related comments from a TechRepublic blogger to build awareness and to help any user avoid viruses and spyware:

"Oh, the deck is stacked. Don’t think for a minute it’s not. As a technology professional responsible for securing office networks, workstations, and servers from viruses, spyware, adware, Trojans, and other malware infections, I can tell you that the situation is only getting worse.


A Computer Economics report showed that annual worldwide malware expenses increased by $10 billion (to $13 billion) over a recent 10-year span. Google Research suggests that one in every 10 Web sites is infected with “drive-by” malware. "

With that kind of growth, the IT staff has an uphill battle in informing users of threats and performing preventive maintenance.  Posting these tips around the office or distributing them in an email is a great way to pass the word to end users.  Take back a part of that $13 billion!

1.  Install Quality Anti-Virus

The best software packages on the market will give the user the ability to update frequently throughout the day.  As the vulnerabilities are revealed, the user will be protected in near real time.

2.  Install real-time anti-spyware protection

The best protection is one that checks as the user browses around the Internet.  Prevention is always a better strategy than detection and removal.  Most free versions only allow detection and removal.

3.  Keep All Software Packages Current

For security purposes, this is not a bad idea.  I understand that for operational purposes there are times where compatibility issues prevent immediate updates.  For those of you with these obstacles, please consult a technology professional for an alternate strategy and response.

4.  Setup Daily Scans

Even real time active anti-malware engines will fail and your system will get infected.  Daily scans will allow all of the running processes and system files to be analyzed, which could lead to isolation and/or automatic removal of a "sleeping" threat.

5.  Disable autorun

Users most certainly will have some autorun features turned on for convenience.  A good example is when a user connects a USB Thumb Drive and the routine task starts automatically.  This is a great way for a virus to propagate to the connected drive.
"Computer users can disable the Windows autorun feature by following Microsoft’s recommendations, which differ by operating system. Microsoft Knowledge Base articles 967715 and 967940 are frequently referenced for this purpose. "

6.  Disable image previews in Outlook

Automatically downloading images received in Outlook opens the door for a user to be automatically infected.  Many Windows features are convenient, but can result in unintended security breaches. 

7.  Don't click on email links or attachments

Professional grade anti-malware software can help protect the user by scanning the link ahead of browser download.  As a best practice, always try to manually navigate to the sites by opening a browser first and then typing in a link. 

8.  Surf Smart

 If the user has software that has phishing filters, link scanners, pop-up blockers, make use of all the tools.  If the user arrives at a website by manually typing the link, it is most likely okay to enter his/her user name and password.  If an online banking website appears automatically via pop-up window, close the browser immediately and avoid entering any personal data. 
"But even manual entry isn’t foolproof. Hence the justification for step 10: Deploy DNS protection. More on that in a moment."

9.  Use a hardware-based firewall

A separate device other than a user's PC is the best defense.  My general philosophy is that there is safety in numbers and diversity.  Whether it is investing in the stock market or computer security, having options is not a bad idea.

10.  Deploy DNS Protection

Our technicians have seen this a number of times right here at home for our customers.  Certain viruses like to translate friendly website names like Google or Yahoo and redirect the PC to malicious websites.  This is an advanced topic for the average user.  However, I would suggest to your company to consider talking with an IT professional about an implementation strategy if this is a concern for your organization.

If you are interested in reading the entire article (Yes, there is more, I actually shortened it with my comments),  it is available here.

Taking care of this yourself has become quite a burden.  Outsourcing your IT work to a company that focuses on monitoring and prevention is certainly a way for you to take a rest and focus on your business and core competency.

The New Economic Value

 In the old economy you wanted "value" from all of your vendors, right?  In the old economy, we all said we wanted value, but did we really mean it?  Now, more than ever, I am finding that many small businesses are looking for better ways to do business with vendors.  Seemingly for the first time, I am seeing innovative thinking applied to every aspect of small business, including the purchasing process.  

What specific change precipitated us all to take a second look at value?  In our industry, I believe massive layoffs at larger companies changed the overall value of their products and services.  I have not concluded if the value change was intentional.  Would you intentionally "layoff" a valuable asset?  Regardless of the strategy, I believe in most cases value declined, while the cost of the product remained the same.  (That leads me to believe: the results were strategic and intentional - the bottom line staying the same and/or increasing was the ultimate goal)  Have you found that you are receiving less service, doing more work, and yet the costs remained the same?  If you lead an organization or run a small business, have you started asking questions like:  How does this organization become more valuable?  What is stopping us from setting the standard of becoming the most valuable ________ (fill in the blank of your product or service)?  Georgia Business Net's vision is to be your LAST Phone & Internet Solution Provider.  If we are going to be the LAST, we had better be valuable.  I hope that with this vision that we have inherently woven the idea of maximum value into our business culture.  There is certainly room for us to improve, however I think we are on the right track.  I hope some of my vendors are listening to this!  Will they take this information and use it?  Will you?
Like many small businesses, there is a customer service gap we fill as your Telecom and Internet vendor.  Roles we play like purchasing agent, your turnkey solution provider, your project manager aren't new to our business model.  Ten years ago those roles weren't nearly as valuable as they are today.  Why?  Much to my disbelief, those key roles with our competitors and some of our vendors were some of the first subjected to downsizing.  Change is awesome, and all of these changes have led to great innovation and opportunity.  I hope your company is taking advantage and seizing the current "gap" opportunities.  Maybe I lack logical reasoning, but if you layoff the value, won't your results include a less valuable bottom line?

Not Another Social Media is Awesome Article

Why don't you make it remarkable?  Why don't you make it meaningful?  Whether your vision is for marketing or for actually building relationships, those questions lead to characteristics that will help your social media efforts be more visible and appreciated.  Just a hunch here, but I bet those questions could help in the real world too.  I'm not an early adopter by computer geek standards, but I do qualify when compared to the general population.  However,  I was not an early adopter to social media - Facebook, Twitter, etc.  Nevertheless, we started dipping our toe into the social media pool last year.  Wow, just like many other environments in life, there is noise, spam, and junk mail that have taken on new faces.  I understand why.  Social media is a low cost way of advertising.  Now, I love innovation - especially disruptive innovation!  Can you guess my favorite innovative tool of late?  The Facebook Filtering tools!  I am very grateful for all the relationships I have in life (and in my virtual social media life).   However, I never put all my friends on one giant conference call, and expect them to all talk at the same time.  Think about that phone call in reverse.  I am speaking to all my friends from all areas of life at once.  What subject matter interests them all simultaneously?  I could not provide value to all of them for very long.    I am thankful for filtering tools in email, in spam, in the form of Caller ID, but I digress.   My brief and humble words for you today, have a plan for your social media efforts.  The plan should be to provide value to your potential followers, friends, and customers.  Remember, the filter exists, and your audience will tune you out if your message is too loud, too often, or meaningless.  Before you post, run your own mental filter first and decide if the post is meaningful.  Value is ESPECIALLY important if you choose to interconnect and redistribute your content and comments across several mediums.  Proceed with caution when using Feedburner, Twitterfeed, and other tools that redistribute your posts everywhere instantly.  Think about the users that are following you or that you want following you.  If they are devoted long time followers, most likely they subscribe to all your feeds.  If you choose to interconnect all feeds and post the same material across all platforms - they will stop listening.  Too loud or too often is not an initial problem on startup efforts, however it is a rule of thumb that you shouldn't forget as time passes by.    Social media is awesome, but only if you choose to make it awesome.   Once a follower filters you out for being too loud or boring, odds are you will never get them back.

Stay Alert: Facebook Dangers

While it is very common for your friends to write on your wall, "You've got to see this!” - be aware that not all Facebook content is safe for your PC.  We have seen an increase in virus activity on Facebook in recent months.  Most of the viruses have similar characteristics including a pop up window that won't go away, advertising for pc repair, and locking up altogether.  

Here are a couple of items to watch for to try to prevent an infection:

• If you see: 
  
  • An external web address or link that you do not recognize...
    
    • What should you do?   
      
      • Don't Click!
      • Especially a very long cryptic looking web address (a.k.a URL)
• If you see: 
  
  • Not so tech savvy Great Aunt Myrtle has sent you some "awesome web cam shots"
    
    • What should you do? 
      
      • Do I have to say it? 
        
        • Don't Click!
        • Even if it is not a virus, Myrtle and a web cam does not sound like a good idea.

A cautious eye, always suspicious for malice and fraud, will save you from wasting time and money on PC repairs. 

Did you know...SIP Trunks?

A SIP trunk is a phone call routed over Internet Protocol using VoIP technology.  A SIP trunk can be thought of as a traditional phone line replacement.  However, it can be much more.  Only recently has the flexibility of SIP trunks started to gain momentum with small and medium size businesses.  The delivery of the call is the key to the quality of the call; see our previous article to learn more.  The flexibility inherently presents its own set of challenges as you, the business owner, set out to purchase a SIP trunk.  Why would you buy?  What would you buy?  A multifaceted buying process is required to take full advantage of all the features.  I utilize a checklist to view it from the following perspectives:

The central question is - How will the ___________ see, use, and benefit from this technology change?

• And then I fill in the blank:
• End User: receptionist, salesperson, call center, my customer...
• I.T. Staff
• Business Owner & CFO

As I view and listen to the different perspectives and wishes of each person(s) affected, a clear picture of the product and its feature set is provided.  If the vendor and the customer have the same vision for product design, the benefits typically are:

• Efficient Use of product, therefore moving towards a cost savings
• Overbuying is eliminated
• Features that aid in higher productivity are put in place
• Evaluations & Metrics are available to enable constant evaluation of needs and new requirements.
• Costly Forklift Upgrades are avoided 

 Of all the items you could have read today, I sincerely thank you for reading our blog.  We hope this adds value to your technology life and experiences.

Small Business Advice: Efficiency Tip of the Day

At every level of life and small business, the details can slow us down.  None of us have the time to dig into every aspect of our business to discover the advanced warning signals to prevent problems.  What if there was a quick litmus test that would send off early warning signals of business problems?  This recent article, by Dan and Chip Heath, tells the story of an unlikely character developing a litmus test for his business.  Your small business success story will one day be filled with the details that didn't slow you down.  Take time each day to figure out what the most important details are for your life and your business. 


Over the past year, I've enjoyed the Heath Brothers various columns and their best selling book.  If you would like to learn more about them, click here.  In a world full of massive amounts of information, they are standing out... which is the premise of their first book.

Influence: The Best the Internet has to Offer

My recent conversations with friends have centered around the "best" items on the Internet. Stating the obvious... we are truly in the Information Age.  Hey Mr. Huxley, it is a Brave New World, but not quite like the one you envisioned - not yet at least - not ever, I hope. We have so much to choose from. Who has time to sift through all of this information? Whether you acknowledge it or not, you have some influence among those close to you. My advice to you... Use your influence. Tell everyone about the best the Internet has to offer or the best customer service you have received in awhile. We are all dying to know about the best things in life. Why? So we can all find the good stuff quickly. Life's too short to be slowed down with the not-so-good stuff.

Technorati  has a list of the best blogs on the Internet based upon various statistics, but nothing beats a good friend's recommendation.  These mathematical rankings never quite work, just ask anyone that follows college football about the BCS standings.  I think only one blog that I read is in the Technorati 100.  For the record, I really appreciate the information received from the 10 or 20 less popular blogs that gain my regular attention.   
Here's to happier more efficient browsing.

1 Quick & Easy Security Tip for Today

A brief discussion about "Two-Step Authentication" and your small business network.

Every additional layer of security reduces the risk of unauthorized access, and adding a second method of authenticating business network users may be a great way to deter inappropriate activities. For very secure enterprise environments, this would require a key fob or some external hardware attached to a laptop in addition to a user-id and password. While this method is very secure, it is costly to implement and few businesses choose to do so. However, nothing is stopping us from being creative and implementing two sets of authentication methods for various aspects of business. Let's look at a simple wireless network in a small retail environment. A consumer grade wireless router & access-point can easily implement a form of two step authentication. Consider enabling the wireless encryption protocol. When encryption is enabled, not only is it harder to gain access to the network, scrambling part of your transmission path is now an added benefit. Many small businesses take advantage of this simple encryption method, but few take the second step of authentication to significantly reduce the probability of a network intrusion. Media Access Control (MAC) Address filtering is another deterrent method available on consumer grade routers. This will help restrict wireless access to only those users or devices you authorize. These addresses are uniquely assigned to each network device manufactured. If a MAC address isn't on your router's list, access is denied. We certainly don't claim that this method is 100% secure. If you are in a industry where security policies are regulated, we don't recommend consumer grade wireless routers as a solution. Consult a professional! Review your industry's requirements or recommendations, and if you have any questions - feel free to call our local support team for help. 706-823-2115.
At Georgia Business Net, we want to be your LAST Telephone & Internet Solution Provider. The Client Relationship means everything to us! We feature Local & Long Distance Telephone Service, High Speed Internet, Next Generation Phone Systems, a local Data Center, and much more.

Two Tips for Your Security Review

Spring is almost here! It is always a good time for a Network Security Review.

Here are a few questions to ask and some low cost tips that are quick to implement on the road to continuously improving your network's security.

1. Have you had any staffing changes in the last twelve months?

If you have had a staffing change recently, take a moment to change passwords, VPN or Wireless Keys, and the security system's code. We recommend this even if the staff left on good terms with you. Why? You never know when their password list was written on your letterhead which got thrown out with the garbage while cleaning their office.

2. Have you had problems with your wireless router recently?

When most small businesses buy a wireless router, they do a good job of making sure it is secure. Wireless Encryption, turning off the SSID Broadcast, and changing the default password are all on the agenda. And then one day recently, it stopped working. The quick fix was..? You hit the "reset" button to get it working again quickly. Now all those default passwords are back, and it is easier than ever to get access to your wireless network.

Changes in your office often result in potential gaps in your security policies.

Take a moment to review or give our Local Support Team a call if you have questions 706-823-2115.

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