Mac Security
~~So, you think you’re automatically safe from viruses and other malicious software because you bought a Mac? Think again. Savvy Mac users know that some simple basic precautions will go a long way toward keeping their computer system in good working order. While Apple originally tried a few forays into the business world with its Macs back in the 80’s, the company was successfully shut-out of the business market sector by IBM, Microsoft, and PCs. The reason for this is because PCs, while traditionally thought to be less user-friendly than Mac, were more reasonably priced. For the last couple of decades, Apple has been marketing its Mac computer systems to specific markets like artists, musicians, and film makers. Not only has Mac been touted as being more useful than PC for artists, owning a Mac is seen to be aspirational for many; it has come to be seen by many as a status symbol, in part because of its higher price tag compared to PC. Macs have also been marketed as a very user-friendly computer; you don’t have to be computer savvy to do great things with your Mac, so Apple’s advertising tells us. As another selling point, Apple has long boasted that Mac computers and peripherals such as the iPhone don’t get PC viruses and other malware. Many purchasers of Mac systems have slept easy knowing that they don’t need any expensive anti-virus software with all of the tedious updates and time-consuming scans that requires. But when an estimated 600, 000 Mac computers worldwide, including 274 right in Apple’s home town of Cupertino came down with a Trojan virus called “Flashback” that was originally designed for PC and converted to be a Mac virus, Apple had to re-think its advertising. Ever since that discovery, Apple has changed its advertising to reflect the fact that some effort is required on your part to keep your computer system safe and healthy. While it is true that there are many, many more viruses and malware in existence for PCs than there are for Mac, there is a growing number of Mac users and therefore a growing sector of Mac hackers and people coding viruses and malware made specifically for Macs. Whether you are an independent artist, a small business or a large corporation, everyone must make a choice for their business whether they will use Mac computers, PCs or some combination of the two. While historically there have been many incompatibilities between Mac and PC, Apple has come a long way in making sure its software is more compatible with PCs than ever. Microsoft, in turn has made efforts to adopt some Mac strategies for making PC operating systems more and more user-friendly. As a result, Mac and PC environments are becoming more similar and with that, security can become an issue. At TRA Consulting, Inc., an IT consulting and computer repair business serving the Long Beach and Greater Los Angeles areas, we can help you with both your Mac and PC needs for your business. Tired of waiting in long lines at the Apple store? At TRA Consulting, we have friendly consultants who are trained to deal with issues that arise with both Mac and PC. Does your Mac have a virus or other malware? We can help you take care of it and provide you with protection against any future attacks. If you live in the Long Beach or surrounding area, give us a call! We have computer solutions for you.
The XPocalypse Is Upon Us
~~The XPocalypse: a real threat or a Y2K-like scare? Is the XPocalypse as bad as everyone says it’s going to be? Well, yes and no. With the proper preventative action steps, it doesn’t have to be. All good things must come to an end. On Tuesday, April 8th, 2014, Microsoft will officially stop supporting their operating system, Windows XP. What does this mean for people who are still hanging onto their old XP operating systems on their PCs? It means that Microsoft will no longer be offering security updates, patches, or platform support after April 8th. This will make Windows XP vulnerable from that point on to viruses, worms, and other malware that Microsoft hasn’t designed protections for. Moreover, any user who is having trouble with her/his operating system is on their own when it comes to troubleshooting support. The XPolcalypse doesn’t have to be scary, but it is the end of an era. It will become more and more risky and difficult to keep your computer and your information safe if you’re still using Windows XP after April 8th. It is estimated that some 500 million computers throughout the world are still running Windows XP as their operating system. Very soon, all of those users are going to have to upgrade their operating systems to Microsoft’s flagship products, Windows 7 and Windows 8, or they run the risk of being vulnerable to viruses and malware. Save yourself the time, hassle, and heartache of lost files, identity theft, zombie computers, viruses and other malware by taking some simple precautionary steps today. Whether you were a fan of Windows XP or not, the fact is that Microsoft has adopted “planned obsolescence” as a business model. Accepting the fact that Microsoft has chosen to end its support of Windows XP, thereby effectively ending the life of the operating system, is the first step to ensuring that your computer stays in good working order and your small business doesn’t lose productivity due to viruses and other malware invading your old, unprotected operating system. The next step is to take preventative action by upgrading your operating systems from Windows XP to Windows 7 or Windows 8 before the April 8th deadline. We can help! Here at TRA Consulting Inc., an IT consulting firm located in Long Beach, California can help you and your small business upgrade your operating systems and avoid the XPocalypse all together. We provide computer solutions to individuals, small, and medium-sized businesses and we can help you upgrade your computers from Windows XP to Windows 7 before Microsoft’s April 8th deadline. The bottom line is this: for better or worse, Microsoft has decided to end Windows XP as an operating system. Save yourself time, trouble, and headaches by contacting TRA Consulting, Inc. today and we can help smooth the path for your transition to Windows 7 or 8. If you waited and the XPocalyse has already come for you, there’s still hope! TRA Consulting provides computer repair and virus removal in and around the Long Beach area.
Why Updates Are Good For Your Computer
~~Have you ever seen that little yellow shield in the lower right hand corner of your PC screen? You might have just ignored it in the past and kept right on working, but here we’ll explain why that little yellow icon with the exclamation point on it deserves a few moments of your attention even if it means restarting your computer after the updates have completed. Windows updates are usually released on the second Tuesday of each month and they contain packets of software code that updates various Microsoft products on your computer (such as Outlook, Word, and many other programs most businesses use on a daily basis) as well the Windows operating system in general. Sometimes updates and patches are released more frequently depending on what threats and software problems are emerging. Most computers are set to automatically check with Microsoft for updates and then notify you when updates are ready to be downloaded. When your computer checks for updates, it lets you know by displaying that little yellow shield icon with the black exclamation point on it in the system tray (that’s the bar right next to the clock on the lower right hand side of your screen). Most computers are set to download those updates when you shut-down your computer for the day. If you are someone who leaves your computer on at the end of the day, those updates may not be completed for quite some time. It’s important to allow your computer to install updates as soon as you notice the little yellow shield icon on your screen. Simply click on it and then click “install” when the window pops up asking you about installing the updates. For most users, the “Express install” option is just fine, and the good news is that that is the default setting for the updates installation so all you have to do is click install. There are several reasons why you should attend to this simple and quick bit of computer maintenance. One is that you will help keep your computer system protected from viruses and malware. While updates don’t protect your computer completely from attacks, they help by inoculating your computer against known threats. It helps to patch security weaknesses in the programs you use every day by making sure hackers can’t take advantage of back-doors and loop-holes. It’s a lot like getting a flu shot. So be sure to buff up your computer’s “immune system” by taking just a few moments every few weeks to allow your computer to do updates. Another great reason is that these updates often contain code that can fix problems in the programs you use at work. Have you seen a weird glitch in Outlook or encountered a problem with Excel, sometimes it’s a software “bug” or benign minor problem that can be fixed with a simple update. The third reason it’s important to keep current on your computer’s updates is that it will save you a lot of time in the future. Rather than installing many month’s worth of updates in one go, which can take a very long time and really bog down your system, a regular update takes only a few minutes usually and then you’re back up and running. At TRA Consulting, Inc., we also offer managed support software computer solutions for businesses in the Long Beach and greater Los Angeles areas. This managed desktop support software allows our IT consultants to complete updates on your business’s computers for you, so that your employees don’t have to run their own updates. This will help keep your computers in good working order and ensure uniformity among the computers at your business. Take a few minutes to take care of your computer and it will take good care of you!
Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance
See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/experts-working-to-fix-healthcaregov-insurance-marketplace-officials-say/2013/10/20/1e1a35ce-39b4-11e3-a94f-b58017bfee6c_story.html The recent and ongoing issues plaguing the Obama Administration's attempt at the website spearheading the Affordable Care Act's initiative is a case-study in poor planning and follow through. I can relate this to IT in general. There is an old adage in the IT world which goes, "People never notice IT until something breaks." I think that saying appropriately relates to many aspects of IT. Something TRA fights every day to change is this very notion of IT as a behind-the-scenes, shadowy, reactive force which only rears its ugly head when something breaks. We proactively partner with our clients to plan for lifecycle management, efficiency, and proactive support. Back to the Affordable care act, if this website was planned for properly and designed with the amount of care that should go into such a huge implementation, we wouldn't be having these issues. Good luck to the cleanup team. I don't wish that sort of project on anybody. TRA Consulting, Inc.
IT Consultant or Computer Tech?
http://www.varjan.com/articles/0912-dec-09-it-consultant-or-computer-technician.shtml Mr. Varjan says"Most people know the difference between a builder and an architect, a bookkeeper and a chartered accountant and an line cook and an executive chef. But there seems to be some confusion about the difference between computer technicians and IT consultants. For some reason there is a preponderance of computer technicians who love calling themselves IT consultants. And probably there are some computer technicians out there who'd like to migrate to the area of IT consulting. And this is what I'd like to discuss this month. This magic migration from being a computer technician to becoming an IT consultant. And don't get me wrong, one is not better than the other, but they have different mandates, so it's vital that we understand the difference and how companies differentiate, position and package their services accordingly. There is nothing more pitiful than a bunch of computer technicians posing as IT consultants. The market also perceives them differently." I find this to be very true in the environment we work in. As consultants to SMBs, many of our clients are unaware of a distinction between the two. The pitfall is years of lost or declining productivity. We spend a lot of time retraining our clients to think of IT as a partner, rather than an enemy. And we have measurable results proving the positive. Likewise, we choose not to work with clients who treat what we do as a commodity, rather than a partnership. A mentor of mine is fond of calling the IT Department he oversees "IM" (Information Management). He tells me that he wants his techs to think in terms of how we manage information rather than what technology we are using today. It's brilliant. Why? Because the average desktop support tech doesn't care about seeing the forest for the trees. What is on her mind is solving the problem right in front of her. Now that is great for the problem at hand, but it does nothing to raise the customer to a new level of efficiency, or to bring significantly higher value to the commodity of desktop support. TRA Consulting, Inc. seeks to align our business goals to those of our clients; to form lasting, long-term partnerships; and to maximize our client's efficiencies. TRA
Who is your desktop support provider?
Our organization has been fighting for years to differentiate ourselves from the rest of our competition. Our competition has changed over the last 12 years because we have followed a model of continual improvement. When we began the process, our target audience was the end-consumer. Beginning with the recession of 2008 and the sharp increase in competition for residential business that same year, combined with the decrease in price of hardware, we realized we had to do a better job of differentiating ourselves from our competition as a local computer repair shop to a value added reseller with a managed services practice. I won't bore you with the blow by blow of that process. What I will do is outline the difference between a traditional computer repair shop and a managed support practice from an executive level outlook. What TRA does to differentiate from the rest is easily summed up into the words proactive and value-added. Proactive: We look for ways to be proactive rather than reactive in our response to problems. We do not strive to be a break-fix shop. There is always a place for break-fix work, and we do fill that need when it comes up. To our customers, downtime is toxic, efficiency is a must, and costs should be predictable. We employ RMM agents to catch issues as they come up, perform updating, patching, alerting, schedule maintenance, and remote support. Furthermore, we employ managed AV agents to provide an added layer of security. By putting the right pieces in place, we are able to successfully charge a flatter rate to our customers, and there are very few surprises. Value-Added: To our customers, we strive to be not only the "computer guys", but rather a partner in their growth. We seek to align our business to our customer's businesses to partner for long-term growth. This means we are always looking for opportunities which allow us to serve our customers better while increasing their efficiency. This means that in addition to providing traditional deskside and remote support, we are providing the peripheral services that make us even more valuable to our customers; whether that be hosted exchange, business-productivity software, subscription-based services, hardware leasing, or support of proprietary software. TRA Consulting has developed considerable internal competencies as a result of our growth. We are looking to the future and thinking big for our customer's benefit. Who do you partner with? Is your IT provider keeping you in a box, hindering your growth? Can you consider your IT provider a partner in your success? TRA Consulting, Inc.
Will the cloud solve all your desktop support problems? Probably not.
See discussion: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/05/31/0332220/it-desktop-support-to-be-wiped-out-thanks-to-cloud-computing For the SMB, many of whom are just beginning to adopt cloud services in their organizations, the cloud will change nothing with respect to desktop support. The cloud can actually, in some cases, increase the complexity of serving the needs of SMBs. The modern desktop support tech needs to not only be versed in the onsite needs of the SMB, but also be familiar with the most popular cloud-based productivity services: Office 365, GoogleApps, Lync, Symantec.cloud, etc. The future of computing probably sees us moving towards dumb-teminals and 100% cloud services. When we get to that point, services must still be configured and maintained for users IN THE CLOUD. The role of desktop wupport will change at that point. Three things must happen first – internet bandwidth and speeds must increase, QOS must improve, and the price of dumb terminals must come down. I see it on the horizon for the SMB, realistically, in the next two years. The adoption rate will be much slower than that, however. Be careful when choosing your IT provider. It is imperative you make the right choice, expecially if you have adopted cloud-based services to offset your on-premise services. The industry is changing rapidly. The driving force behind all of these changes are efficiency and price, but IT can turn into a very costly endeavor very quickly if your trusted IT provider is behind the eight ball. TRA
Protecting your data
From: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/10/17/indonesia_number_one_attack_source/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter "Indonesia has had the dubious honour of supplanting China as the number one source of attack traffic globally in the second quarter, according to the latest stats from content delivery and security firm Akamai. The vendor’s State of the Internet report for Q2 found Indonesia accounted for 38 per cent of the world’s attack traffic, almost double the previous quarter’s 21 per cent." No matter where the primary vector of attack; the fact remains that the globalization of the hacking industry continues. As companies increasingly rely on data and the free exchange of information over the internet, the sheer abundance of unprotected data will continue to be a tempting way to get rich quick. The SMB environment is extremely vulnerable. I cannot count the number of environments I have walked in to which are a BIG RED target due to lax security. I cannot count the number of SWOT analyses we have done for free for local businesses that never resulted in extra business for us. Some SMBs see the value in securing, protecting, and backing up one of their primary assets – their data. Sometimes we add a new client and can get them to where they need to be. More often than not, the executive I am negotiating with either thinks the price of doing what they need to do is too expensive to implement or choose not to see it as a very important priority. I pray that said businesses took appropriate security; but I fear many have not. A different mindset needs to be adopted when you grow a business of, say, 3 people to the size of, say, 25 people. The amount of data the organization relies on increases exponentially, the number of vulnerable targets increases, and the number of social attack vectors increases. Hacking proprietary data is becoming more and more profitable, and those organizations who choose not to see the value in protecting that data are treading deep waters. IT is not the enemy of growth. To growing companies, companies watching the bottom line, companies who have vulnerabilities to protect; I encourage them to see IT as a partner to grow with and align with, rather than a handicap. Your IT provider, the right IT provider, can make the transition from a very small business to a small business to a medium-sized business much less dangerous. If you partner with the right IT organization, the process can even add efficiency to your process. How long can your organization deal with a major breach? A breach that results in data loss? A breach that results in stolen intellectual property? TRA Consulting, Inc.
Your employees could be your number one security threat
From Article: http://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/risk-based-security-for-executives/connecting-security-to-the-business/insider-threats-big-problem-shouldnt-surprise/ "I was just reading the results of a Forrester study called, “Understand the State of Data Security and Privacy.” One of the big findings was that “insiders” were the top source of breaches in the last 12 months, with 36% of breaches attributed to the (often inadvertent) misuse of data by employees. I’m not surprised by this and I doubt you are, either. After all, insiders have the most access to our critical systems and data, so it stands to reason they would be a top vector for attacks and data disclosure problems. This Forrester report drives home the need for enterprises to monitor their systems and data for suspicious changes and activities, regardless of the source. Merely watching network traffic is not sufficient." TRA: This is very true. Although 36% of breaches were directly attributable to employees, I would speculate that the majority of breaches are based on both the misuse of employee data by both indirect and direct means; by the employee, and by people exploiting the employee. It seems sometimes that our number one security threat is your employee. And that is why it is very important that we segregate data. That we allow access to confidential data on a need-to-know basis. That we institute the appropriate security and preventative measures to protect systems from employees AND from neglect and incompetence. A good first step is to invite your IT staff or consultant to perfor a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) Analysis so we can see what weak points we have in our systems and find ways to improve. The worst thing you can do is be reactive and not proactive on something as important as the information that drives your comapny. A breach can teach you what you are doing right or what you are doing wrong. A customer of ours was hit two weeks ago. Ironically, I was in Hawaii on my first vacation since I started the business. We have a strong competency in our team, however, and we were able to manage the breach well. We have multiple redundancies built up into all of our systems. The breach taught us where we had been lacking in our defense, and we made adjustments accordingly. Don't leave your security to chance and the good graces of your appliances. As my friend TIm says, "Trust God, but lock the car." TRA
The Eight Essential Metrics for Desktop Support
The average Desktop Support organization tracks fewer than 5 KPI's. However, there are literally hundreds of KPI's that have been defined for Desktop Support. The vast majority of these metrics, however, are only marginally relevant – at best! When it comes to KPI's for Desktop Support, less is more! The eight that really matter are as follows: Cost per Ticket Customer Satisfaction Technician Utilization First Contact Resolution Rate (incidents) Mean Time to Resolve % Resolved Level 1 Capable Technician Satisfaction Balanced Scorecard These eight metrics represent the 80/20 rule when it comes to Desktop Support performance: 80% of the value you receive from performance measurement and management in Desktop Support can be derived from these eight simple metrics!