Secure Your Email

Posted on May 13, 2012 by James

Making Email Safe
I just don’t get it: Recently printed in our local GTA papers was an article stating more and more celebrity email accounts have been hacked by stalkers and news reporters. Now I understand that not everything computer-related is 100% secure but you can do your best to try and make it that way. I mean it’s not like celebrities don’t have the available cash on hand to fortify their networks. Maybe someone needs to educate them that they’re in the public eye and every whack job out there is going to try and get close to them by any means. I’m sure they spent the money protecting their physical property so why not do the same with their electronic property? So I’m giving you and any celebrity out there my top ten things you should have in place to protect your email account. Remember this is not limited to what can be done, but it’s a great start:
1. Use a strong email password. Don’t make this too easy to guess or for a script which uses the dictionary for its database to stumble upon. Try using a combination of letters, numbers and symbols.
2. Stay off public networks when checking mail. If it’s free it’s not for me!
3. If you’re using wireless at your home be sure to use encryption security. WEP is easy to setup but its been around a long time and hacking programs exist to sniff out passwords. WPA-2 is quite secure so if you have the option use it and set an encryption key worthy of your privacy. Usually the default is secure enough but change it if you feel you can do better.
4. Do not save your email passwords in the mail clients or web browsers!
5. For the love of everything holy, shut off the blue tooth on your mobile device when you’re not using it. It is the most unsecured connection besides public networks you can have.
6. Make sure if someone wants you to see an email that they use BCC instead of CC. BCC is Blind Carbon Copy which will show only your email information to you only, and include you on the email from the sender but keeps your address hidden unlike CC (Carbon Copy) which shows your address so others can farm your contact information.
7. Don’t Spam Emails: Forwarding emails can be a security threat as it becomes a chain and more people can see your email address. So don’t forward all the emails without checking for the email security. Never spam emails like this.
8. Don’t use only one email account: You should not use only one account to fulfill all of your requirements. For security purposes you can use more than one account. That is one for only business conversation and one for your personal conversations.
9. Mobile devices should have a pretty strong password set up to gain access to them. Should the device be lost or stolen you don’t want anyone else retrieving information from it. Go online and look for mobile security. Norton’s has a pretty good suite which allows you to wipe your phone remotely should you lose it. GPS tracking as well.
10. Keep your emails safe. Never save the emails as a text file to a public computer. Keep that for your private machine.

Following the above tips will give you a great start in protecting your information. Always assume someone wants to gain access to your files even if you believe there is nothing of interest there and be advised that you never, and I mean NEVER send sensitive information over email. This includes usernames and passwords. If you must send it that way then make sure you go into whatever system it is and change your password.

Service Assurance

Posted on April 30, 2012 by James

I know over the past couple of months we’ve been pushing the fact that By The Byte is a diamond in the rough in website design and coding as each team is assembled on a project-by-project basis to suit our clients’ needs. But now I want to move onto another subject that every business needs to perfect whether you sell a product or just support one. So let’s talk about your help-desk. Oh, and did I mention By The Byte has a help-desk for the individual or company? Just visithttp://support.bythebyte.ca
and fill out the form.

Did you know that the likelihood of someone buying your product or service, or even considering you for a potential project, your help-desk needs to be top notch. Too many times clients are lost because of call wait times to pick up, language barriers, transfer upon transfer or the lack of ability to speak to a live individual.

I’ve worked for a large corporation for many years and spent a lot of those years within the service desk. I can tell you first hand that the old smoke and mirror routine doesn’t work. You will inevitably end up scrambling to cover up the fact you’re not servicing the client the way you should be. This in turn can severely hurt your business and kill your relationship with the client. It doesn’t matter if your a one person operation or have hundreds of employees the fact remains the same; that is to service the client to the best of your abilities. A few things to consider if you have a larger help desk organization:

Keep it simple. Too many departments cause too many transfers.
Get rid of the IVR system and have a live answer to direct the call.
Overlap your shifts by one hour. Yes it costs a bit more but give your representatives a pre-shift to explain what is in the queue and who is online and what trouble.
If you run 24/7 then all your service assurance departments should run the same hours.
If you can’t afford to keep all departments on 24/7 then have at least one subject matter expert for that closed department on staff during the off hours. Simple things may be cleared immediately but a more difficult issue can be pushed to that department for when they open and that trouble can be qualified prior to them opening to avoid misdirected troubles and possible SLA payouts.
Keep your help desk in-house. Although outsourcing is cheaper, you will find the larger corporations moving to this as they can afford to lose the odd client here and there. Their name carries a lot of weight and can get new business just by being there. But smaller businesses don’t have this luxury as we need to fight for every dollar we earn.
Consider an e-chat system. More often than most a client will consider this option if its available on your website. It’s fast, no language barrier to an extent and please NO CANNED RESPONSES. Everyone knows the standard hello which is fine, but make sure the representative that answers e-chat has the basic typing skills to keep up with a moving dialogue. This system can also help with potential sales
Although I’m a fair individual and believe you should get equal pay for equal work, I do not believe a help desk representative who answers the phone to type support tickets is worth 70 thousand a year. Employ people based on their skill level and pay as such. This will reduce your operating costs and hopefully allow your operating budget some relief.
Make sure the representatives are updating the client every 15 minutes with a status report on the trouble. Now this can vary in time to the severity of the trouble but a good rule of thumb. Even if no status change is available tell them that and you will call back with another update in 15. This keeps your client calm to an extent and lets them know they’re not forgotten.
Representatives must log every call to the client in the trouble ticket as well as who they spoke with. Have them log every little detail throughout the duration of the ticket no matter how small. If the client comes back to you after the outage requesting an RFO you will have enough detail to prove you’ve done your due diligence in correcting it. LOG EVERYTHING!
Don’t let the ticket sit around in limbo. Have alarms or notifications to management should there be no activity on the ticket within a certain amount of time. Usually 30 minutes should suffice. If the representative is updating it every 15 minutes or so with details of the call to the client this should keep it moving in your system.
Have the ability to suspend the trouble. If the ticket needs to be dispatched on and it’s waiting for an available outside technician to pick it up you, don’t want notifications alerting management as this can be a long pick up depending on workload of the outside force.

This should be enough for now. By The Byte is available for consultations should you require assistance in creating or updating your Service Assurance department. Feel free to contact us.

P.S.
I’ve heard that local Police departments will be combing the neighborhoods looking for open WIFI coming from residents. They would like your WIFI locked down and secured so no one roaming around can access free internet service possibly for illeagle activity. If you have not done so please secure your WIFI. If you don’t know if you’re transmitting or know how to lock it down please feel free to contact us today.

By The Byte is currently re-designing our own website. This may take some time as our clients come first but stay tuned for the new launch to be announced.

Regards,

James
www.bythebyte.ca
905.716.3374

By The Byte is a discount computer service company. From computer repairs to complex network installations or webpages. Please feel free to contact me for further details or visit our website.

Website Design & Updates

Posted on April 30, 2012 by James

Website Redesign

Let’s be honest here, websites don’t get old but they do lose functionality. This could be either user or business related functions and what served your needs back in 2001 is not servicing them now. More and more websites are becoming the single source of contact and information about the service or products you’re offering with the ability to collect valuable information on the potential/existing client coming to view your site. You can ask if the user would like to receive your newsletters or stay up to date on new product information and offerings. This can give you 100% target marketing for your business.

One major reason for a redesign is the look and feel of the site. If your site looks amateurish, is housing broken links or pages, these could all indicate good reasons to spend the time and effort in updating. Nothing turns somebody away from your site faster than a broken link. This makes them think the site is old, the company is out of business or they just don’t care about their clients. Remember that your site doesn’t have to look good (although it really helps) but it does have to work as this is most likely the first impression your company is making to a potential client.

Here is an important part as well and I cannot say enough about it, if you’re selling a product, you need to ask your viewers to click a link to buy the product. If you’re selling a service, you need to ask your viewers to submit a form and contact you to get a free quote (or whatever). If your site is a free information resource, you need to ask your viewers to create an account in order to access the information.

Keep the links on your site short and to the point. Don’t make them confusing to the user or hyperlink some short story. You may understand the products and services but the potential client may have difficulty navigating to what they’re looking for. Also trim, resize and crop your images. Making a 12mb picture/poster fit into a small box is not cool. Resize that image so it loads faster and isn’t all distorted.

Lastly I’d like to leave you with this. Coders aren’t designers and designers aren’t coders! That being said I advise anyone I speak with about websites that one person who designs, codes and publishes your site is putting too many eggs in one basket which is a recipe for disaster. Leave each section of the website creation to one professional at a time. We here at By The Byte believe in this model of creation and have seen the differences. Proper designs/builds take time and money so don’t rush the process, work closely with your website design company and make sure you get exactly what you want. In the end you won’t need drastic changes every few years but rather an update to your existing site. Hiring a professional is easy but finding the right professional for the job can be complex.

Should you require further information about any of the above please feel free to contact me as By The Byte is entering into the realm of website construction and maintenance. Have a look at one of our first professional projects:http://www.touchoftint.com

Stay tuned for By The Byte’s new website launch in the months to come!

Regards,

James Butler
By The Byte
www.bythebyte.ca
905.716.3374

By The Byte is a discount computer service company. From computer repairs to complex network installations or webpages. Please feel free to contact me for further details or visit our website.

Hard Drive Failure

Posted on April 30, 2012 by James

Has your hard ever disk crashed?
Some people believe that there computer will never fail them. They run the highest rated virus protection software or don’t connect to the internet so they have nothing to worry about. I sometimes wonder if they’ve ever heard of hardware failure. Or realize that their hardware is controlled by firmware which in turn is software. What I’m trying to say is everyone is open to failure and it can be life changing depending on what information was stored and never backed up. Hard disk failure can happen in four main ways combined or individually:

Firmware Corruption / Damage to the firmware zone
Electronic Failure
Mechanical Failure
Logical Corruption

Whether the data on the hard disk is recoverable or not all depends on what has happened to the disk and how bad the damage is. Over time all had disks will develop bad sectors which could ultimately lead up to disk failure.

Firmware corruption / Damage to the firmware zone
The hard disk firmware is the software code that controls the physical hard drive hardware. If this becomes corrupted or unreadable the computer is often unable to correctly interact with the hard disk. Frequently the data on the disk is fully recoverable on the drive has been repaired and reprogrammed.

Electronic Failure
Electronic failure usually relates to problems on the controller board of the actual hard disk. The computer may suffer a power spike or electrical surge that knocks out the controller board on the hard disk making it undetectable to the BIOS.

Mechanical Failure
Mechanical hard disk failures are those which develop on components internal to the hard disk itself. Often as soon as the internal component goes faulty the data on the hard disk will become inaccessible.

Logical Errors
Logical errors can range from simple things such as an invalid entry in the file allocation table to truly horrific problems such as the corruption and loss of the file system on a severely fragmented drive. Logical errors are different to the electrical and mechanical problems above as there is usually nothing physically wrong with the disk, just the information on it.
So what can someone like you do to save their data? Back up, Back up and Back up. One type of device that has been around for a few years now is a network storage device. You can set these drives to back up your data at certain times so you don’t have to remember to do it. It doesn’t get much easier than that. Now your data will be backed up in two places, your computer and your network drive. Never forget that nothing is failsafe. Remember when people were saving everything to CD or DVD discs? Did you know that they have a shelf life too? Or that the disc which you believed would last forever will eventually deteriorate depending on conditions of where its stored? USB drives can fail too so if you grab anything from the above it’s to have your data saved in at minimum of two locations. Microsoft also offers Sky Drive for those using MSN and Google has their DOC zone for GMAIL users. All free I might add but please read and understand the privacy policy and know that because its free they are not responsible for lost items.
My Hard Drive has stopped working now what?
Good question, you can take the drive into a computer repair department to see if they can retrieve the data for you. Usually they will try their best but sometimes the damages are just too much for them to handle. This is where the labs come in. Professional services who’s number one job is data retrieval. I know what you’re saying “too expensive” right? Well the next time your drive crashes and your neighbour, friend or cousin tells you the drive is a paperweight give us a call first before throwing the drive away. For a minimal fee we’ll have a lab look at the drive and tell you if indeed the data can be recovered and it’s not as expensive as you may think. We will also take the time to assist in setting up that new network drive! “wink wink”.

Regards,

James Butler
By The Byte
www.bythebyte.ca
905.716.3374

By The Byte is a discount computer service company. From computer repairs to complex network installations or webpages. Please feel free to contact me for further details or visit our website.