Homeland Secure IT computer service Thanksgiving hours #HappyThanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from our family to your family!

In order to allow everyone at Homeland Secure IT to prep for the festivities, we are taking off early today, Wednesday November 23rd, hopefully around 2pm, and will return Monday November 28th.

We *will* be available for emergency calls as always.

Please, eat too much, and spend way too much on Black Friday, because that is the American Way!

 

My daughter @MegzCA simply rocks my world and gives me hope for the future… #Thanksgiving

Megan’s latest project at her new home, Converse College was pretty cool. She had to do a “reflection” of who she was before she started college, how she has changed, and then to speculate about her future.

So call me a softy or whatever, but this video makes my eyes get all watery and stuff.

Megan is certainly one of the main things I am thankful for this holiday season, in addition to my wife, son, a secure source of income, good health and the fact we live in the greatest country and one of the greatest states!

Hopefully you have just as much to be thankful for yourself!

Happy Thanksgiving!

TP-Link Wireless N Router TL-MR320 lets you create a Wi-Fi hotspot just about anywhere

TP-Link TL-MR3020 3G Wireless N Router

TP-Link just announced a new product in their stable of connectivity devices called the TL-MR3020 Portable 3G/3.75G Wireless N Router.

This little gadget will allow you to plug your USB 3G modem into and it in turn lets multiple Wi-Fi devices to share that connection!

Sure, there are other devices out there that do the same thing, but this one has some distinctive features, such as a firewall with port forwarding & port triggering, UPnP, Parental Controls, Access Schedules, MAC address filtering and a 3G/WAN failover function!

With one of these and your 3G USB modem, your iPad, Android tablet, X-Box, notebook computer and any other Wi-Fi device can be connected to the internet wherever you are! This could be the perfect camping or tailgating companion. It could make for backup connectivity for your business as well.

These are priced at under 40 dollars and they are compatible with over 120 UMTS/HSPA/EVDO 3G USB modems. If you need more information or want to get one, give us a call at 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com

Stream video & audio from your Windows notebook / computer to your big screen TV or projector wirelessly

Diamond VStream WPCTV1080H

The question of the day was from a client who asked, “How can I display what I see on my notebook to my big screen TV, without physically connecting it?”.

Obviously, connecting the notebook to your LCD TV is probably the easiest thing in the world, using an HDMI, DVI or even VGA cable, however, it is inconvenient, especially if you are using the notebook for a presentation and the TV is on the other end of the room.

Fortunately, there are a number of devices on the market that allow you to easily stream your video and audio to external displays, wirelessly.

One is the Diamond Multimedia Wireless Converter (WPCTV1080H), that connects to your display with an HDMI cable, and to your notebook with a little USB dongle.

Now your external display becomes an extension of your notebook! You can watch everything from Netflix to YouTube to your security cameras in full 1080p resolution. The computer can be up to about 30 ft away from the display device.

Slick, eh?  Only about 120 dollars, or less.  We have them if you need one.  They even include the HDMI cable.

 

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Why do videos start playing automatically when I visit a website? How can I stop this? #GoodQuestion

Today a client mentioned that videos are playing automatically on their computer and it annoys them.

Hey, it annoys me too! Why oh why do websites insist on force-feeding you content you might not actually want to hear? Please, web developers, give us the option to actually play your video if we want to. In fact, there is a particular web publication that I read frequently that does this on just about every page.. Yuck!

Anyway, the aforementioned person was using Firefox, and here’s how you disable this annoying feature on Firefox:

Select PREFERENCES, select APPLICATIONS, locate video formats and select ACTION for each item, such as QuickTime or Flash, and then select “always ask”.

For Internet Explorer (IE9 – if you are using something older… Uhmmm Time to upgrade!)

TOOLS / SETTINGS (Gear Icon) , Safety, Select “ActiveX Filtering”…   Now when you visit a website (such as www.YouTube.com), Flash should NOT play. You will get a warning saying you need to upgrade your Adobe Flash Player.  If you should want to view the Flash content, find the blue circle with a line through it to the right of the URL bar and you can enable for that site

For Chrome users, you can download extensions like “Stop Autoplay”. If you need assistance, I can type that up for you too =-)

Happy surfing…

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FREE Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2012? You betcha! Homeland Secure IT wants you to be protected!

Trend Micro Titanium 2012We believe Trend Micro’s Titanium Internet Security 2012 is the best anti-virus, anti-spyware & anti-spam package at any price, however one lucky person is going to get it from us at absolutely no cost this month!

 

Titanium Internet Security 2012 includes everything you would expect in an anti-virus package with a few extras…

  • Blocks email and image spam
  • Blocks and finds malicious links in emails and IMs
  • Blocks downloads and access to malicious websites
  • Fake AV cleaner – eliminates malware posing as antivirus software
  • Protects from viruses, spyware, worms, trojans, botnets and rootkits
  • Utilizes the Trend Micro Smart Protection Network to proactively stop threats before they reach you
  • Prevents unauthorized changes to your applications
  • Skinable interface (allows customizing Trend with a favorite photo or image)
  • Windows Firewall Booster
  • Protect your children – restrict internet content and set access schedule for your kids with Parental Controls
  • Maximize your PC’s performance – System Tuner improves PC performance by cleaning up browser history, cookies, temporary files, registries and more
  • Protect and defend your data from loss and theft with Data Theft Prevention to keep information like credit card numbers and passwords safe
  • Secure Erase – shreds computer files with sensitive information to keep it from being easily recovered
  • Includes SafeSync – secure online backup with sync, sharing and mobile access (2 GB cloud backup)
  • Includes a  copy of Trend Micro Smart Surfing for Mac

So how can you score such great anti-virus for yourself or your business?  Homeland Secure IT is a partner with Trend Micro and recommends this product as well as sells it and installs it.  The suggested retail price is only 49.99 for the first year, with renewals generally costing less. You can call us at 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com for more information.

However, since this is the Thanksgiving season, and we want to give you our thanks for supporting us this year, we are going to give away one copy of this software, and maybe a couple copies if the interest is high enough.

We will draw on December 1st and announce the winner on our blog, Twitter, Facebook and Linked In.

You enter by subscribing to our mailing lists HERE, subscribe to this blog, LIKE us or link us on Facebook, Mention us on Twitter, or give us a Google Review, or otherwise connecting with us.

Here’s a list of how you can connect with us!

For every way you reach out to us, we count that as an entry. So if you join our mailing list, leave a review on Google, post a link on twitter and like us on Facebook, that is FOUR entries !  If you have already connected because you love us, or because you wanted to win something like the X-Box we gaveaway, don’t worry, you are STILL in our list and need do nothing.

The winner who is selected must be able to come pick up the item at our office in Greenville, SC. We will not ship it to you.  If you do not want it, or you do not claim it within 7 days, we will pick another winner!

Good luck!

Servosity Online Backup Now with Disaster Recovery for Server & Desktop

Free Servosity Online Backup Trial! Click Here...

Free Servosity Online Backup Trial! Click Here...

If you are from the Greenville / Upstate South Carolina area and are into IT, you likely know Damien Stevens, or at least the name of his company, Servosity.

 

Today, Servosity announced that in addition to their quality online / cloud backup solution, they will have Servosity DR Server and DR Desktop available! DR Server and DR Desktop are Disaster Recovery solutions that allow you to perform a Bare Metal Recovery to dissimilar physical hardware, recover VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines, and more.

Features:

  • Bare Metal Recovery to Dissimilar hardware, VMWare, Hyper-V, and VirtualBox
  • Local, Network, and Cloud Backup and Disaster Recovery
  • Purpose built for MSPs and IT Resellers
  • No Hardware Required
  • Geographically Redundant SAS-70 Type II Cloud
  • Recover a server, desktop, or laptop in just minutes
  • Disaster Recovery with snapshots to the Network and Cloud every 15 minutes
Homeland Secure IT is happy to be a Servosity partner and offer all their great programs to you and your business!
If you would like additional information, or a FREE TRIAL of the Servosity backup solution, please email info@homelandsecureit.com or call 864.990.4748.

Microsoft Security Advisory – Fraudulent Digital Certificates Could Allow Spoofing

Microsoft notifications sent this out in email today (November 10, 2011) regarding fraudulent digital certificates:

 

********************************************************************

Title: Microsoft Security Advisory Notification

Issued: November 10, 2011

********************************************************************

 

Security Advisories Updated or Released Today ==============================================

 

* Microsoft Security Advisory (2641690)

– Title: Fraudulent Digital Certificates Could Allow Spoofing

http://technet.microsoft.com/security/advisory/2641690

– Revision Note: V1.0 (November 10, 2011): Advisory published.

Analysts predict hard drive supplies could run out by end of November due to Thailand’s flood situation #HDDShortage

Everybody Panic!

Remember what I said back on Oct 25th about the hard drive shortage? Then I rambled a bit more and went as far as to say, “Don’t Panic“???

I think I misled you.  I now upgrade my opinion to, “OKAY, PANIC”.

According to numerous articles citing industry experts and analysts, we’re seeing a total 180 from the “relax, everything is going to be okay” attitude.

One analyst at Piper Jaffray (Gus Richards) believes supplies of hard drives could run dry by the end of November. He stated, “Availability is really going to tighten up. I’m seeing prices quoted anywhere from up 10 to up 60 percent”. Read the entire article over HERE.

Here at Homeland Secure IT, we have been feeling this for many days. Drives that were costing us ~150 dollars are still running as much as 250 dollars. Desktop computers we were quoting at 750 have now gone up as much as 100 dollars to reflect the increase in hard drive costs.

Multiple vendors we work with are entirely out of stock and online retailers are limiting purchases to quantity one, as well as indicating they are out of stock as well.

This week has brought more queries about SSD (Solid State Drives) than we have ever had! Even though we can obtain just about any size or speed SSD you may want, the price is considerably higher than traditional hard drives, even with the inflation taken into consideration.