Colbatech Solutions, LLC

First off, always always install an Antivirus / Antispyware solution on your computer. People have different opinions about what works best. They all have advantages and disadvantes to them. Do a little research and pick one. Some malware will always be able to get through. That is why it is especially important you heed the rest of this post.

Second, be aware of what you are downloading off the internet, which web pages you are visiting, and what you are plugging into your computer. Only download files from trusted sites. Sites like download.com, sourceforge.net and filehippo.com have a reputation for containing safe, malware free downloads. Remember that just visiting a website can infect your computer with something bad. This is because websites run scripts and sometimes these scripts do malicious things. There are a few good ways to protect yourself from these. If you are using Firefox you download an extension called 'noscript'. 'Noscript' blocks all scripts from running unless manually authorized by the computer user. However, this can be a bit difficult to get the hang of for more novice computer users. Another thing you can do is use Google Chrome. Google Chrome has what is called a sandbox built into it. Anything malicious is contained within the sandbox. After Google Chrome is closed, it's like the bad script never ran. Software such as sandboxie can also be used with Internet Explorer to the same effect. Lastly, Windows Vista and 7 allow for Internet Explorer to run in Protected Mode. Protected Mode prevents bad-doers from accessing more privileged parts of your operating systems functionality. Finally don't ever insert a Floppy, CD, DVD, USB, SD drive, etc into your computer unless you know what's been written on it or trust the person giving it to you. USB drives can especially be dangerous because plugging one in to an infected computer can infect the key, which in turn can effect other computers it is plugged into.

If you follow this advice and somehow still end up getting a virus or piece of spyware, it's generally best to wipe the computer clean and restore from backup. See our post about a building a comprehensive backup solution to learn more about different backup strategies.

Generally when tasks such as running reports and saving invoices starts to slow to a crawl, it means your Quickbook’s company file is starting to get too big; that it has too many entries over many years. Upon discovering this, our first instinct is to Google ways to shrink our company file. We then find that the only way to really do this is by creating a new company file and performing a lot of manual re-entry or paying a company to do this for us. However, asking how to shrink this file is actually the wrong question. What should be done is to archive the file. Archiving does not significantly shrink the size of the file, but it does significantly speed things up. Several things should be done when it is just too painful to maintain the books:

1) Verify the integrity of the company file

2) Rebuild the company file using Quickbooks built-in function (backup the file when prompted)

3) Verify the integrity of the company file to make sure the repair function fixed all the issues

4) Re-run the rebuild tool if it did not (Create a separate backup each time)

5) Repeat the verification and repair processes up to three times. If the company file is still damaged make a support call to Intuit to get the file repaired. Even if you do not have a support contract with them, you can pay for support on an as needed basis.

6) Archive the company file 1 year at a time until 2 years remain (previous and current).

Read the below article before performing these tasks:

http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/pages/knowledgebasearticles/1002282

In many cases, password protecting your computer means nothing if someone has physical access to it. There are free utilities out there that will let allow someone to use a CD, USB drive, or floppy to boot into an environment outside of Windows and reset administrative passwords. Once this is done, all they have to do is reboot into Windows and enter in their new password.

Some ways to mitigate this are to disable USB ports, floppy drives, and CD drives, lock the computer behind a closed door, or use encryption. Since Windows 2000 Professional, Windows has a technology built into it called EFS which can be used to encrypt individual files or folders. When someone resets your password forcefully, the key to unlock those encrypted files gets erased and the malicious user will not be able to access those files. A technology called BitLocker (Vista Ultimate and newer) actually encrypts the whole drive making it more difficult to access any data without the password and does not allow access to the stored password information for those who are attempting to forcefully change it.

I’ve noticed over the years that certain “Anti-virus” software is not so good at catching all types of “malware”. What is malware? Microsoft, in an October 2003 Article by Robert Moir entitled “Defining Malware”, described malware as “short for malicious software and is typically used as a catch-all term to refer to any software designed to cause damage to a single computer, server, or computer network, whether it’s a virus, spyware, et al.” Ok so how do viruses and spyware differ?  There are many different opinions on the differences. In my mind a virus is meant to cause harm to your computer in a way that reduces productivity or causes data loss. I see spyware on the other hand as software that is designed to either force information on you that you don’t want such as pop-up advertisements (also considered adware) or e-mail spam. Spyware can also send out information to others that you may not want revealed. Information such as your on-line shopping habits (hence the spam), credit card information or your bank account passwords.

As mentioned earlier, antivirus software is not always very good at catching spyware. What I have found is the cheapest and best way to protect on both fronts is to run a paid program called Malware Bytes (for the spyware) and Microsoft Security Essentials (for the antivirus). Unlike some solutions you have to renew every year, you only have to pay for Malware Bytes once. Microsoft Security Essentials is free. If you are using Vista or Windows 7 this combo works great. For Windows XP users, Malware Bytes plus Avast! works well. I’m not saying your computer will never get infected with a virus or spyware again, but this combo along with an awareness of safe practices will minimize chances greatly.

I tend to be a bit of a pack rat myself (especially when it comes to anything computer related), but I’m not advocating becoming a hoarder. I’ve just seen it too many times where someone threw away a piece of software and regretted it five years later. Computer crash? Oh wait, what? Your billing software is 10 years old and the company who wrote it is out of business? What happens if the operating system and subsequently all your software need to be reinstalled? You could very well be out of luck in accessing those files. Hopefully there is a way to convert them into a file type that can be read by a different company’s software, but that’s not always an option. Also if you are purchasing the “upgrade” version of a piece of software, you will want to have a copy of the older version so that you can validate that you really do own an older version. An example of this is upgrading from Office 2003 to 2007. If you purchase the upgrade version of 2007 it will ask for the 2003 disk or any other legacy version that qualifies. Hold onto those System Restore CDs that come with computers. Again, if you lose these and your operating system needs a reinstall, it can be a real hassle. You may end up having to buy another copy of Windows.

Have you ever received a brand new PC that feels sluggish out of the box? Often times computer vendors will load their products up with tons of useless software that most people will never use. This software will not only sit there doing nothing for you, but will also cause immediate performance issues. Streamlining is the name of the game. Remove everything that doesn’t have a specific and useful purpose. Don’t let anything start-up that doesn’t make your world a better place to live. Get rid of that pre-installed anti-virus software and replace it with something more efficient. Depending on if the computer is for private or business purposes, I recommend Microsoft Security Essentials, Symantec’s small business solutions, or Microsoft’s Forefront line.

If the computer is used for the basics (web browsing, email, word processing) and /or business, I recommend buying a business class machine from Dell. Why do I recommend Dell? It is my personal experience that they are the easiest to maintain and also hold a good track record of reliability. Back to the topic of this post…many of their business class machines, that I have worked with recently, come very streamlined out of the box.

When creating a backup plan for your organization’s computer data, there are three tiers of safety nets that must be put into place.

1) On-site backup for easy accessibility: The on-site backup is the key for quick access to lost data. These backups should be done incrementally so that multiple versions of the same file can be retrieved from recent days in the past. Take the following example:

On a Wednesday afternoon, an important PowerPoint presentation becomes a jumble of garbage after your computer is hit by a power surge. The corrupted file is not noticed until Thursday (after Wednesday night’s backup is performed). If the backup is designed so that each new copy erases the backup from the previous day, there is no way to restore to a working version of that file. However, if you also have Tuesday’s version of that file, you can go back and restore that version. You might have to redo any changes that were made Wednesday morning, but at least you don’t have to start all over again.

2) Off-site backup: An on-site backup is not going to do much good if, god-forbid, your office is in the radius of a devastating natural disaster. The idea here is to geographically diversify your important information so that a work can resume at an alternate site. This can be performed by a few different methods. The easiest method, which is usually a good fit for those with less data, is a nightly upload to an on-line backup company’s server. Another method for companies with a lot of data is to manually rotate through tapes or hard drives so that one set is always on-site while another is in a secure vault at an alternate location.

3) Images vs Individual file backups: An image is a snapshot in time of your all of the data on a particular hard drive. Images are there to get your operating system, files, programs (everything) running exactly as they were with minimal effort. Individual file backups are there when you need tweezers instead of pliers. When individual files are deleted or become corrupt, file level backups let you pick and choose what needs to be restored on a more granular level. These two methods combined allow for maximum restoration speed.

There are many important cost and headache saving reasons to purchase vendor built PCs rather than building your own or hiring others to do so.

1. Warranties: When you build your own PCs you may have warranties on the individual parts. However, you will either have to replace these parts yourself or hire someone else to replace them. This can get expensive fast. In many cases the cost of labor or your time is worth equal to or more than the cost of a new machine. For example if a part called the motherboard dies, someone literally has to pull just about every component out of the case, send the board back to the manufacturer, wait for a replacement to arrive, and then hook everything back together again. Not only is this time consuming but it is nerve racking worrying about static discharges, bending pins, and reapplying thermal grease. Also let’s not forget about the time it just took to get everything back up and running…a week, two weeks, or more?
On the other hand when purchasing a vendor built PC with a good warranty, a technician could be on-site with a replacement part that day or the next day. They would do everything themselves and you would have your computer up and running that same day.

2. Ease of installation and maintenance: It is much less labor intensive and therefore cheaper to deploy operating systems and software to multiple machines of the same make and model. When computers are the same throughout an organization, complete installations can literally be stamped out simultaneously in an assembly line fashion. This is the difference between taking hours to deploy each new PC to taking minutes. If a computer gets a virus or a piece of software gets corrupted, it is a quick and easy process to get that machine back into top shape.

3. Value: In this day and age you can pay as little as $350 for vendor built computer that will perform just about any day to day business function. This $350 computer may come with a $120 operating system. When adding up the parts individually + the operating system itself, it’s actually cheaper just to buy the machine rather than build your own. Of course the $350 doesn’t include the warranty but as you can see, warranties can easily pay for themselves.

As you can see there are many advantages to buying vendor built machines. These advantages compound when keeping the models as similar as possible throughout. Warranties, ease of installation and maintenance, as well as increases in the amount of performance you can squeeze from a dollar are all factors when making this analysis.

There are two different ways that Windows 7 can be installed. The first way is to install it from scratch, reinstall any programs you may need, reconfigure settings, and transfer over your documents or other important files. The second way, is to perform an in-place upgrade. An in-place upgrade allows you to install a newer operating system over an older one without theoretically having to reinstall any programs or reconfigure any settings. In the case of upgrading to Windows 7, an in-place upgrades only work if you are currently running Vista. I decided to test both types of installs with the release candidate of Windows 7.
The clean install was great. Windows 7 detected all of my hardware immediately on first boot-up. This saved me a lot of time locating drivers and manually installing them. I was able to install and run all the basic applications such as Adobe Reader, Microsoft Office, Skype and other common programs without issue. The operating system has been absolutely solid for the last couple of months, giving me no blue or black screens and performing smoothly without any hiccups.
Because of my past experiences with performing in-place installs, I was skeptical of how well Windows 7 and my applications would work when installed over Vista. Upon performing the upgrade, my fears were re-recognized in several ways. First an in-place install took double or triple the time of a clean install on the same computer. In the amount of time it took to do an in-place install I could have re-installed all applications from scratch. Secondly, I had to re-install several applications anyways because they weren't designed to go through the upgrade transition. Lastly, Windows 7 itself was having problems after the upgrade. A process as simple as opening the 'System' applet in the 'Control Panel' resulted in a crashed window. Even if I was able to correct these issues, it would be much more worthwhile to just go through the clean install process. Even if all the initial problems could be solved, there would always be some question as to the integrity of the operating system.
In summary, there are very few cases, if any, in which an in-place upgrade is appropriate. Even with past operating system upgrades, it has never been a solid solution.

When someone calls you, they call a specific number for a specific line or phone. Each line has its own fixed number attached. Google decided to think a little differently and asked an innovative question. What if a number wasn’t attached to a specific line but was attached to a specific person? This is the concept behind Google Voice.
Using a web browser, you are able to attach your Google Voice number to one or more phones. This can be changed at anytime so that when you are out of town, for example, people can reach you in your hotel room by using the same number they always use. You have the power to decide which phones ring when specific people call. For example, a client calls you and you want to be as accessible as possible. You can have your home, office and mobile phones ring simultaneously. If a friend calls, you don’t want to be distracted at work, only your mobile and home phone rings. However, if an annoying acquaintance keeps calling and just won’t leave you alone, you can tell Google Voice to send that person directly to voice mail.
One great time saving feature of Google Voice is that voice mails are transcribed to text and can all be viewed and listened to on-line.
The sky is the limit with this concept and it is exciting to think of what is to come as this technology grows.