PC Clean up time!!!

Now is a good time to do an annual clean up of the computers, servers and electronic equipment in your office, both inside and out. Failure to thoroughly clean your computers and servers at least once or twice a year will result in decreased performance and possibly even system failures.

 

Here’s why:

 

Dust clogs the computer’s cooling system causing it to heat up, damaging sensitive electronic equipment. Dust can also cause fan noise and (believe it or not) slow performance!

Crumbs and dirt in your keyboard can cause keys to stick and crunchy sounds when typing. Plus, it’s just gross and unhealthy; do you know there are more germs on your computer keyboard than the average public toilet? Even dust, fingerprints and dirt build-up will make your computer monitor dim and fuzzy.

 

But the physical “dirt” is only the beginning…

 

Here are 5 quick steps you can take today to clean up your systems and improve performance:

1. Use Disk Cleanup to delete temporary files, unused programs and any other file taking up space and slowing things down. (Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup)
2. Defrag your hard drive to speed up access to your data. (Start > Control Panel > System and Security > Administrative Tools > Defragment your hard drive).
3. Update your spyware and antivirus software with the newest definitions. The internet changes fast. Having outdated security can slow you down dramatically.
4. Make sure you have the latest security patches and updates installed and configured properly.
5. Check your backups and conduct an emergency “restore” of the data. Remember, the best time to check your backups is when you DON’T desperately need to recover your data!

Try the above and let us know how it goes and share your experiences with a friend.

Is E-Mail Archiving Important?

Email has become the accepted form of communication in business. Market researcher, Gartner Group, conducted a study and found that almost 97% of all business communication was via email. Another survey by Osterman Research found that 79% of all businesses now accept emails as written confirmation of approvals or orders. This means that emails form part of companies' records and must be stored for the same time period that written records would be stored for. In fact, up to 83% of a business's critical data can be found in its email. 

The primary function of  archiving is to extract message contents and attachments from incoming and outgoing emails. It indexes them and stores them in a read-only format, which ensures that they are recorded and maintained in their original state.

One of the benefits of archiving emails is that it creates more space on the mail server. Emails are stored in a compressed format, on a local hard drive which saves a huge amount of disk space for users, not to mention keeps your email program running smoothly.  Developing an archiving standard operating procedure (SOP) can make accessing the information a much easier task than it would ordinarily be.

A business's email system serves as a repository for industry knowledge and email archiving is of considerable importance to the modern business environment.  Archiving allows you to store emails in their original form, in a manner that can't be tampered with.  Developing a SOP that outlines the archiving procedure and retrieval process should be created so that you can retrieve emails easily.

So is email archiving important?  Absolutely!!  

TURNkey IT can handle this procedure and many technical issues with ease.  Call us at 866-928-8208 to learn more about our group.

3 easy technology solutions to protect your business now!

Ahhhh! A brand new year, full of promise, hope and a fresh start. If you’re like most people, you’re making the usual resolutions to exercise more, lose weight, pay off debt, etc. Essentially, it’s a time of year when we momentarily take stock in our lives and think about all the things we “should” be doing more of, but don’t. So while you’re in the goal-setting mode, we thought we would tack on 3 business-related resolutions that probably aren’t on your list, but should be – especially since these all fall into the “important, but not urgent” category.

1. Offsite backups. Can we beat this horse to death anymore? I know MOST of our clients reading this newsletter already doing this, but many still don’t and are relying on undependable (and outdated, I might add) tape drives or other volatile backup solutions. If that’s you, don’t let this be another year where you gamble with everything you’ve worked so hard to achieve. Get a better backup!
2. Write A Disaster Recovery Plan. Pop quiz: If you woke up tomorrow and discovered that you couldn’t access your office building due to a local disaster or fire, what would you do? Or what would happen if a key executive—one who holds the “keys” to critical processes or applications—fell sick or (God forbid) died? Or what would happen if a disgruntled employee or hacker gained access to your web server, line of business application or file server and deleted everything—particularly if the data was hosted on the 3rd party cloud provider’s web site? These are all very real scenarios, and without a plan in place, you could be facing serious downtime and financial losses.
3. Develop A Stronger Cyber Security System That Goes Beyond A Firewall And Anti-Virus. With more and more information about us being stored electronically, and with State and Federal laws becoming more strict, you MUST take cyber security seriously. Simply having a good firewall and anti-virus isn’t enough these days to keep the highly motivated and technically sophisticated criminals out of your network. The HUMAN element is the biggest threat—employees who accidentally click on links in e-mails or download files that introduce viruses to your network. Employees are also using social media sites more frequently, and they can intentionally or accidentally post something that could harm your company’s reputation or leak confidential information. Therefore, your security plan must also include employee training and policies so they know what is and isn’t acceptable when handling data and using company resources (Internet, computers, etc.).

If you don’t know where to start in creating any of the above, we’re here to help! Call TURNkey IT at 847-808-3990 to discuss how we can do all of this for you and take the work and worry out of these New Year’s resolutions!