This holiday season, Google is spreading some cheer by offering free WiFi service on every Virgin America flight and in major airports across the country. That’s right folks. From now until January 15th, you can surf the web for free. Burbank and Seattle airports will be offering free WiFi indefinitely. For more information, check out Google’s official site: www.freeholidaywifi.com/.

Is your small business server running at it’s best? Microsoft has a free tool to help you find out. It will automatically look at your server configuration and present to you a list of issues to review.
The Windows SBS Best Practices Analyzer examines the server and collects configuration information from many sources including:

• Active Directory Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)
• Registry
• Metabase

If you’re running SBS 2003, click here

If you’re running SBS 2008, click here

Ok, so it’s no secret that small businesses often suffer from inadequate IT support. Maybe you’re in the same boat, maybe not… either way, we’d love to get your input.

Please click here to take our survey

If your small business uses a Microsoft Exchange Server, you can delay delivery of an e-mail. Here’s how you can delay delivery of all messages by having them held in the Outbox after you click Send:
^{Note: These steps were created specifically for use with Outlook 2007}

Delay delivery of a single message

1. In the message, click Options.
2. Under Delivery options, select the Do not deliver before check box, and then click the delivery date and time you want.

Delay delivery of messages to a specific person or group

1. On the Tools menu, click Rules and Alerts, and then click New Rule.
2. Under the heading Start from a blank rule, select Check messages after sending, and then click Next.
3. Under Step 1: Select condition(s) list, check the box that says sent to people or distribution list.
4. Below that box, under Step 2: Edit the rule description, click the blue underlined words (should say people or distribution list).
5. Select the contacts you’d like to delay sending messages to, then click Next.
6. Under Step 1: Select action(s), check the box that says defer delivery by a number of minutes.
7. Below that box, under Step 2: Edit the rule description, click the blue underlined words (should say a number of).
8. A little window should pop up that says Deferred Delivery. Enter the number of minutes, then click OK.
9. If you’d like to set any exceptions, click the boxes that apply. Follow the same rules as above. Click Next.
10. Under Step 1, type in a name for the rule. Make sure the box that says Turn on this rule is checked, then click Finish.

In today’s tight economy, businesses need to save money wherever they can. The cost of maintaining and repairing an exchange server can be a major drain on your company’s budget. So how do you fix all this?
One solution is cloud computing. Google has several web-based applications to run your business. They require no hardware, no software, and need minimal administration.
If you’re running low on resources, this sort of solution may work great for you. But as I was researching this, I stumbled across this enlightening article: The Problem with Google Apps Engine

Ok, so Google Apps is great, but it isn’t perfect. One point I’d like to highlight- if you don’t feel completely safe entrusting your company’s data to Google, you may want to think twice before making the switch. The applications are great, but the framework they use is proprietary. You definitely want to pay attention to their EULA before handing off classified information.

According to Symantec, over 40 million people have fallen victim to “scareware” scams in the past year. Online criminals make millions off these scams, by simply convincing computer users to download fake anti-virus software. Scareware sellers deliberately use pop-up ads that are designed to look legitimate, using the same styles as Microsoft and other software providers. They often appear when a user switches between websites, and falsely warns that the computer’s security has been compromised. If the user clicks on the message, they are directed to another site where they can purchase the fake anti-virus software.
Attorney General Rob McKenna called the practice a “blatant rip-off of consumers,” explaining that users were being “duped into downloading a fake scan (of the computer) and then duped into paying for software they don’t need”.

Software deemed useless by the suite include Scan & Repair, Antivirus 2009, MalwareCore, WinDefender, XPDefender and WinSpywareProtec.

If you’ve been working with computers for any length of time, you know computers aren’t invincible. Hard drives crash, data gets lost, and it costs a good chunk of money to fix the issue.

Responza specializes in mission-critical data recovery for businesses like yours. We have IT experts who specialize in virtualization and backup.
The long-term solutions we offer could save your business thousands in recovery costs, but if all you need right now is a quick fix for a crashed hard drive, here are a few free tools:

TestDisk^* – cgsecurity.org
^*Only good for recovering lost partitions and making non-bootable partitions bootable again.

PC INSPECTOR File Recovery – www.pcinspector.de
supports the FAT 12/16/32 and NTFS file systems. Includes a ton of great features.

Recuva – www.recuva.com
The only freeware that can do a “deep scan” of your drives for lost files. It can take hours, but may turn up more missing data than the other options out there.

On Monday, news reports announced that hackers gained access to several thousand Hotmail accounts through a possible phishing attack. According to the BBC, the list of hacked e-mail addresses also contained information from Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Comcast and EarthLink accounts.

“We recently became aware of a phishing scheme through which hackers gained user credentials for web-based mail accounts including a small number of Gmail accounts. As soon as we learned of the attack, we forced password resets on the affected accounts. We will continue to force password resets on additional accounts if we become aware of them,” the Google spokesperson wrote.

Identity theft is a real problem, and this report is just the tip of the iceberg. So how can you make sure your personal information is safe?

Here are a few tips:

1. Never click through any warnings about certificates. That’s a red flag– one you should not ignore.
2. Be very careful when opening unsoliticed attachments and links from any source.
3. Install and regularly update your anti-virus software.

When you think of saving a few bucks, does printing come to mind? Well, perhaps it should.
Printing is a massive cost to small businesses. Here are ways you can save on printing costs:

• Unplug printers. Fine Line Pacific did this one of their bigger machines and cut their printing costs by 1/3 with no reduction in business service.
• Make printers less ‘available’. Responza did this by moving our HP printer into a corner office, away from the team. No one makes the walk and we save trees.
• Document management. Instead of renting out space to hold a warehouse full of documents, why not store it all on a simple disk drive? Could save hundreds, if not thousands.

Do you have any printing tips? Feel free to share them below!

In my last post, I explained why tape backup may not be the best solution. Many business owners still commit to this old standard because, let’s face it, old habits die hard. Change is difficult, especially when that change must implemented by an entire department or business. Ultimately, you need to decide which is better – to sacrifice more time and money just so you can resist change, or to bite the bullet and improve business productivity.
So… if you are ready to consider making the change, what are your options?

Option #1 – Using a CD/DVD

If your data doesn’t change a lot, you can use a CD/DVD recorder to backup your updated files.

Benefits:
• Backups are fairly fast
• Media is compact
• More affordable than tape backups
• Anyone with a CD/DVD drive can access the files

Drawbacks:
• Most people can’t fit a complete backup on a DVD
• It’s difficult to automate backups

Option #2 – External hard drive

Quite possibly the best backup solution. You will, however, need at least two drives so you can cycle one off site.

Benefits:
• Costs as little as 10 cents per GB
• Fast
• Reliable
• Easy to recover

Drawback:
• If you use an external hard drive with USB, the maximum transfer rate for the interface is determined by the other USB devices in use. We recommend using Firewire, since it is faster.

Option #3: Online backup

This is a quick, easy way to backup important data off-site.

Benefits:
• Convenient
• Costs less to setup and run
• Great option if you travel frequently
• No need to purchase or maintain backup hardware

Drawbacks:
• Requires high-speed internet connection.
• Possible cost and speed issues if you need to backup large amounts of data

Of course, this is just a basic overview of your backup options. The best backup solution depends on your business environment and the priorities you set. If you’re not sure what those are, just ask the experts.