5 hidden costs of aging technology

Did you know that most business owners don’t even think about replacing technology until it fails? That can make it more expensive than it has to be. Here’s why.

• More downtime – Lost time is lost money for essential equipment and software 
• Lower efficiency – Competitors with newer solutions can do more in less time 
• Higher maintenance costs – Spending more money to get the job done hurts margins 
• Costly rentals – Substitute equipment is expensive and can create cash flow issues 
• Urgent replacements – Emergencies can lead to rushed decision making on long-term solutions

Is any of your technology getting to the place where it may be costing more than you thought? Get in touch and let’s break down the costs to see if an update could save you some money in the long run.

Don't forget that the cutoff for support of Windows 7 is coming up on January 14th 2020.

Are you handling Credit Card Payments? Let us help you become PCI compliant!

While we are all working towards making our businesses run as smoothly and safely as possible, one of things you may have overlooked is making sure you client’s financial information is as safe and secure as possible.

Credit Card information is a critical piece of information that you need to be aware of protecting. It is not hard to do so but you need to put the right protection in place to help you do this.

We find many small businesses still using simple home routers or just your Internet Provider’s modem for your connection to the Internet. That is just not the right piece of equipment to do this. You need to call one of our security experts to provide suggestions on how you can easily create a secure environment for your business.

We suggest Sophos Security products primarily to do this for you. The first line of defense is to put in place a business class firewall that will provide the following protection:

• ·         Intrusion Protection for those trying to break into your network and detection of outbound traffic that needs to be secure and managed
• ·         Control address, port, protocol and specific application traffic and behavior patterns.
• ·         Perform NAT (Network Address Translation)
• ·         Detect and block spoofed IP Addresses
• ·         Inspect data traffic for malicious activities

While this is a good first step in creating a protected environment, it is not the only one you need.

Again, contact one of our security specialists that can provide you with a complete analysis and recommendation for your business.

Article Healthcare InfoSecurity questions why we are so stupid!

These tricksters are getting better and better at finding ways to bilk us out of our hard earned cash. Here is an article posted at HealthcareInfoSecurity Blog that asks: Why Are We So Stupid About Security?

And we really are at times, letting our greed and hopes for easy or quick returns to egg us on. The new FBI Alert states that businesses have lost over $2.3 billion in the last 2.5 years. The article above gives some examples of what to look for and some of the security that you need to consider with your transactioins.

Will Voice to Text and Voice Recognition be taking over all of your phone functions?

My use of voice to text recognition software goes in spurts.  I don't use it routinely just because I am very seldom in a quiet enough area to make a good environment for the voice to text recognition software work well.

On my Windows 7 machine I use the built in Windows 7 software for speech recognition.  It does pretty well, but I can't help but think that Dragon Naturally Speaking would do a much better job at this.  I sometimes use the Dragon app on my iPhone to create like texts that I send out.  But other than that, I don't use any of the boys search programs that are out there for my phone.

I have written a lot of blog posts using the voice to text technology on my iPad, and more recently on my new Nexus 7.  On the iPad am using the Dragon app to create a note that I eventually will paste into another application to post up to my blog.  The Nexus 7 has a very similar voice to text recognition application that you can use inside multiple applications on the device.  This makes it a little more usable then the dragon app.

New wants is the software manufacturer of the Dragon series of software packages, and they are in constant development of their software to place it on as many devices that they can.  We're starting to see it on some smart TV use and even in cars.  They are hoping to have their software power in every application that you use.

They're placing a new software development kit so all iOS and Android app developers can use the same voice recognition technology in any app. This might be exciting for some of us that there is a scarier side to this coming to fruition.  They are also hoping to combine actual voice ID’ing to financial applications to access banking and payment functions.  Think about one click purchasing at Amazon being processed totally by voice control.

What is frightening is the possible loss of control as someone overhearing, recording your voice, or some other IP capture system to be able to take advantage of this voice function on devices and within applications that could hurt you financially.  The question is do you want to open this Pandora's Box or not?  Think about it.

A $300,000 Reason Why Secure Banking Is Now a “Business” Responsibility Too

AVG posted a blog entry on 6/10/2011 detailing a situation where a US District Court Judge in the state of Maine has ruled this week that Ocean Bank is not liable for $300,000 stolen by hackers from Patco Construction Company’s online banking profile.

In May 2009 hackers siphoned around US$100,000 per day from Patco’s online bank account. The hackers had previously sent an email to employees carrying a Zeus password-stealing Trojan, which was successfully installed on an employee computer.

The judge ruled that the bank’s security was on the level of other bank’s security. The judge ruled that the bank made it clear to customers when they signed up for an account and the amount of liability the bank would shoulder. He ruled that Patco itself was ultimately responsible for the loss because it hadn’t better secured its credential.

This is increasing scary when we read reports that show that less than half are aware of the real and tangible threats posed by Internet based attacks, and that one in seven small businesses have no security software (this number rising to 1 of 4 in businesses that are single employee).

Given this week’s events in the US, it should be clearer than ever than business-level IT security issues necessitate a precision engineered business-grade IT security software suite. Now is the time to act. So we must learn from the Patco Construction case and not become an easy target for the hackers; your business can take steps to avoid malicious IT attacks, so please afford it the respect it deserves.

A good starting point is AVG’s Free Online Security Audit.

Square updates iOS app, intros iPad-based Register

New version of Square’s mobile payment software is available for download. Version 2.0 has an expanded iPad specific feature set that Square is referring to as the Square Register. These new features allow sellers to customize their systems with product photos, prices, sortable categories, and create variations of specific items, accept cash payments, let regular customers set up tabs, publish their menus, and share daily specials.

The Square Register allows you to setup and inventory system that allows you to manage your inventory stock as well as provide reports that will show you your sales patterns and inventory levels. It will allow you to swipe a customer’s card, have them sign for the payment directly on the screen and send them an email or text message receipt. The customer can even add a tip as they sign.

You can even setup menus and share daily specials with your customers. A great way to setup a mobile payment system that can be used just about anywhere you have an internet connection on you iPhone or iPad.

The Credit Card reader is free and plugs into the audio jack port. Works with Android, iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. Each payment cost you 2.75% fee for processing the payment which funds with automatic daily deposits the next day to your bank account. Click here for information on security of the transactions.