If Punxsutawney Phil Crawled Out Of His Hole And Saw Your Network’s Security & Backup Plan, Would He Crawl Back In?

Groundhog Day is Tuesday, February 2nd and thousands of people from all over will flood to Punxsutawney, PA to see what Phil predicts for the upcoming Spring.

    The story goes that if the groundhog sees his shadow when he emerges on this day, six more weeks of winter will ensue. Apparently the threat of the cold, harsh winter continuing scares him back into his comfy little hole in the ground to wait it out.

     But since we’re not weathermen around here, we thought we’d have a little fun with this holiday and change the meaning to be more fitting for us and our customers (hence the “tongue and cheek” headline).

    So, in celebration of “Groundhog Day,” we’re giving away a FREE Network Health Check to any of our clients and friends  who have a business network of 5 or more PCs.

    At no charge, we’ll come onsite and…

¨ Check your security settings to make sure you are protected from hacker attacks, worms, and viruses.

¨ Scan and remove spyware that is secretly stealing your company’s bandwidth, jeopardizing the speed of your computer system, and embezzling confidential information about you, your employees, and your business.

¨ Check your network’s back-up system to see if you really could be back up and running fast in the event of a major outage, crash or natural disaster.

¨ Verify that you have the most up-to-date security patches installed properly; miss one critical update and you’re a “sitting duck.”

¨ Diagnose slow, unstable PCs.

    And if WE find problems, we promise not to crawl into some hole in the ground to hide! We’ll outline what we’ve discovered and provide suggestions on what you should do to ward off 6-weeks of downtime, data loss, slow performance and a host of other problems.

    Why free? Because we want all of our clients to understand the importance of preventative maintenance. As we all know, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So call us now at 508-992-2541 for your FREE Groundhog Day Health Check!   

Tweeting Could Land You In Jail

The Associated Press reports that Guatemalan Jean Anleu may spend five years in a Guatemalan jail for his anti-government Twitter rant.  It makes him the first person in the world to be arrested for a tweet!

Using his Internet alias "jeanfer," Anleu advised Guatemalan depositors to "take cash out of Banrural and bankrupt the bank of the corrupt."  According to prosecutors, these words "illegally undermined" the banking system, violating a 2008 law enacted by the fledgling democratic government.

Foreign governments aren't the only ones concerned about the use of social networking sites.  Many US businesses are revising their acceptable use policies regarding company-owned technology to include social networking.  A recent survey estimated the annual cost to US businesses in lost wages due to personal use of technology on company time topped $1 billion.  FREE assistance with the creation or modification of acceptable use policies is one of the many benefits enjoyed by our Network Headache Eliminator Platinum clients.

                                

Are You Being Too Cheap About Protecting This Aspect Of Your Business?

Think back to the last time your server went down or you weren't able to get e-mail; remember how frustrating that was? Or perhaps you experienced a virus or other data-erasing disaster. Remember how painful that was to resolve?

There are very few business activities that don't heavily rely on your computer network, e-mail and data - and if any of these components stop working, business grinds to a screeching, frustrating halt. And with viruses and hackers becoming more sophisticated (and smart) about accessing your network, you simply cannot afford to NOT monitor the health and security of your network daily.

A network monitoring system is simply a way for a trained professional to watch over your computer network for slow or failing components, security breaches, and alarms that signify trouble is brewing. It can also detect signs that your backup is not working, that you're running out of space on the server, or that a firewall is not functioning properly. Think of it like a security camera watching over your entire network 24/7/365.

So if network monitoring is SO important, why aren't more small businesses INSISTING that their IT person put a system in place? One of the biggest reasons we see is lack of knowledge. The reality is that many businesses DO have their systems monitored for problems; and the bigger and more sophisticated the company, the more critical this becomes. But smaller businesses are often outsourcing their IT support, and unless their computer guy offers this service, they may not even know it exists.

The second reason is complacency; the belief is that, "If it isn't broke, why fix it?" This is akin to saying, "We don't need locks on our doors because we've never had our house burglarized." The reason you HAVE the locks is to prevent your home or office from being robbed - and the reason you have network monitoring is to make sure you DON'T have problems.

Plus, simple monitoring is cheap. For as little as 93 cents per employee per day, you can have a basic monitoring system in place.