Homeland Secure IT will be closed this coming Monday, September 5th for Labor Day…
Should you need computer service, computer repair, or network support during this time, please email us at info@homelandsecureit.com or call 864.990.4748 – Leaving a message will result in that voice mail being sent to all of us here.
We hope that you and your family will have a great labor day weekend, and keep it safe!
If your business depends on Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security, Advanced or Standard, then you should have received notification that WFBS 7.0 Patch 1 Build B1435 is now available.
The patches that have been released by Trend Micro allow for better integration into Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2011 for one thing, but also fix important issues which have been reported. Even if you are not experiencing the issues, such as slow saves of Microsoft Office documents, you should install the latest patch.
It is available from the Trend Micro download center, or you can call upon your favorite computer & network service and support experts to apply the patch to your server/s.
Should you wish to try Trend Micro WFBS for your business, or require assistance, we are a Trend Micro partner offering sales and support to Greenville and the Upstate of SC. Email info@homelandsecureit.com or call 864.990.4748 for more information
I believe when it comes to data, MORE IS BETTER! Yeah, so call me a hoarder, it’s okay. I have plenty of room and hard drives are cheap!
Case in point… Yesterday I received a call from the IT administrator for a corporation based out of MA about a router that was down. When I arrived, I found an old Cisco 2500 router that would not boot up. Sure, you can replace a nonoperational router, but what about that configuration? You see, when an IT service dude or dudette walks into a business in this kind of mess and no records are available, you are left with a bunch of question marks…
What is the WAN IP? What is the WAN gateway? What’s the netmask? What’s the LAN information? Are there VPNs? Where do they point to? What about access in from the outside world to internal resources, what goes where?
You can get some of this information by calling the internet service provider, you can get some by checking a desktop for where it might already be pointing for it’s gateway, but some of it is a certain blank without having notes.
One thing better in this situation is having a backup of the running configuration from the router. Guess what? The IT administrator at the main office has the foresight to save a copy 4 or 5 years ago, and he was able to provide that information to me, allowing for a very rapid replacement of the equipment and a reconfig!
The moral of this story is – hang on to those old emails, keep those old configs, even if they are 4 years old.
Hard drives to store data on are inexpensive, the cost to recreate the data is NOT when you consider the downtime, the service charges for a technician to sit on hold to find out simple information, etc.
-
Homeland Secure IT provides computer, server & network sales, service & support to Greenville / Upstate SC businesses and individuals. Call 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com for more information.
Homeland Secure IT Alert
Homeland Secure IT Alert for Thursday, February 23, 2011
Microsoft has released Security Advisory 967940, titled “Update for Windows Autorun”, and it covers an issue that has long plagued Microsoft Windows Operating Systems. When you insert a USB flash drive, or USB hard drive, Windows has attempted to treat them like CD/DVD material and perform an autorun on it. While most IT professionals and tech savvy individuals have disabled that feature, and anti-virus developers such as Trend Micro have provided an option to disable that function, as gaping hole has been there for everyone else.
How has it affected people? Many ways, from a person inserting their USB flash drive from home into a business computer and the autorun functionality automatically installing the malware that was on the home system directly onto a network computer, creating a huge network security issue, down to malicious people dropping a flash drive containing malicious software on it in the parking lot of a large company they wanted access to. This resulted in workers at said company picking up the flash drive and inserting it into a computer on the corporate network in an attempt to see what was on it or find the owner to return it, and unknowingly permit software that would allow remote access to the network.
So, finally, after years of this, Microsoft has addressed it!
Microsoft has also published MS10-077, a revision to a bulletin posted in 2010 for a change to the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 update package. And MS10-070, which is yet another revision to .NET Framework 4.0. These are labeled “Critical” and “Important”, respectively.
Keep your systems up to date, and be sure you have current anti-virus… We recommend and sell Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security and Titanium. In Greenville / Upstate, SC please call 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com for more information…
Homeland Secure IT Alert
IPv4 Exhaustion Prediction
We knew the day was coming, and today we learned that it was sooner than later.
IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority), the organization that manages IP addresses and domain allocations has assigned two IPv4 address blocks to APNIC (The Asian-Pacific Network Information Centre), which in turn has caused a provision in the IANA rules to go into affect, releasing the last five IPv4 address groups totaling 82.5 million addresses to the regional internet registries.
So that’s it for the total pool of 4.3 billion IP addresses!
Where do we go from here? IPv6 baby! It has been there waiting in the wings for this moment, and now it is time for it to shine. ISPs will be left with no choice but to begin deployment.
What is interesting is that the graph on the left, from the Wikipedia site about “IPv4 Address Exhaustion” was spot on in predicting the end…
It is time (actually past time) to be planning for your own future, meaning, getting your infrastructure ready for the IPv6 deployments that will be coming. You may need some new hardware, and certainly a few configuration changes, but either way, you should be working with your network support professional to ensure you are ready.
If you need assistance in the Greenville or Upstate, SC area, please call upon us. We offer computer, server and network support, service, repair, sales and consultation. 864.990.4748 or info@homelandsecureit.com
All of our partner companies (Cisco, WatchGuard, SonicWall, etc) offer IPv6 ready firewalls, security appliances, routers, and more!
Yep, still nasty out there. I spent 3+ hours with my daughter clearing our driveway though, so at least we can get out (maybe not back in) tomorrow and hope to be at the office by 10AM.
Regardless, we will still be available via phone, email, etc should you need computer or network support.
If you are driving in that mess, please be careful… Greenville and the Upstate of SC is a winter wonderland! #snomg
#snOMG
Well, I gave it a valiant effort, got the car dug out, even got it down that steep driveway and down the street, but was unable to get out of the neighborhood here in the big town of Easley… Tomorrow may be a better day for driving, but with the school systems already declaring tomorrow another snow day, and the chance of sleet and refreezing, I’m thinking maybe not.
I made an executive decision and decided to close our office today, and more than likely tomorrow out of concern for the safety of our guys. Stay tuned for more information regarding when we will reopen the office.
If you should require computer, server or network support before then, please do not hesitate to call or email, as we can provide many repairs via remote, email or phone support and will do our best to assist you! Voice mails left on our phone system go direct to our respective email addresses.
Enjoy your Greenville / Upstate #snOMG day and be safe out there if you decide to go play!
Most of you probably wonder why Homeland Secure IT doesn’t advertise… Or maybe since you have never seen any kind of ad, you haven’t thought about it at all! hah
The number one reason we don’t advertise is because we have a very strong & established base of amazing clients and so many terrific friends and family who believe in us so much that they do an incredible job of spreading the word of what we offer! That’s the main reason. There are other reasons, such as the fact that I don’t believe the majority of people who want to buy a Cisco ASA 5505 security appliance or license Trend Micro Anti-Virus are going to pick up the newspaper or phonebook to find us.
I know for a fact that the IT people that we work around don’t get the idea to get a backup solution from listening to top 40 radio, etc. So, in short, advertising in those ways has not been very attractive for us.
But, I couldn’t pass this one up… @BigJonEvans is available for rent. That’s right. This crazy guy over at http://www.youbrand.me/ is allowing us to tattoo our logo on his forehead for a day, as well as streaming a live video where he will discuss some of our products and services, and making a short promo video. But wait, that’s not all, he’s also going to introduce himself as “Homeland Secure IT” for an entire day. And, because we acted right now, he’s throwing in a video of him lip syncing to a song!
I can’t afford a billboard on I-85 that says “Homeland Secure IT offers computer, network and server support, service, repair, sales in Greenville and Upstate SC”, etc, and frankly I don’t think the system administrator at XYZ corporation would read it and give it a serious thought, but I CAN afford Jon’s forehead for a day! While not quite as big as a billboard, I think more people may see it!
All for the low price of 9 dollars! Now that is advertising money well spent. Advertising with an impact! (The price goes up one dollar each day, so reserve your spot NOW)
Tomorrow, SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY! That’s the day you can watch @BigJonEvans talk about Homeland Secure IT and wear our logo. For more information, HEAD on over to Jon’s website at www.YouBrand.Me or follow him on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.
If you have a business or cause or something that you would like the world to know about, this is certainly a fun way to increase awareness =)
Have a great weekend and prepare for the snowpacalypse that is coming!
Oh and Jon, I love your current project… That’s using your head!
This sure isn't DSL!
Tired of waiting for that ISO to download? I know the feeling, even with the 30megabit download speeds we currently have…
As if they were reading our minds regarding speed limitations, our Charter Business rep let us know the other day that they have turned it up a notch here in Greenville and are offering two new speed packages.
The “Pro40″ package is 40 megabit down and 4 megabit up… YIKES! 40m x 4m is incredible! 4 megabit up is nearly twice what we have now and an extra 10 megabit down will make those big ISOs arrive a bit quicker. Oh but that’s nothing at all. Seriously.
There’s a “Pro75″ package, yeah, and you already guessed it: 75 megabit down and 5 megabit up. Holy #&!% this is amazing!!!!!!! All I want for Christmas is 75×5.
While it is not Google Fiber, it is available right now, without a huge outlay of cash. In fact, the 75×5 is less than the cost of a 1.5m up/down T1.
This type of bandwidth is necessary if you are contemplating a move towards cloud computing, and the uplink speeds will allow you to better serve remote users!
If you would like more information about Charter Business services and how it can help your business, please give us or your Charter Business rep a call. Our free network support evaluation will tell you if your current firewall, router, switch, etc may be a bottleneck in your new high-speed network infrastructure. We are also your Upstate experts on cutovers from one internet service provider to another. Call us today – 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com
Today you can hardly have a conversation with IT professionals without the buzz words, “cloud computing”, “in the cloud”, “cloud solutions”, etc popping up.
What do these terms mean? To over-simplify the definition, it means that something is not stored at your location. It is stored “in the cloud”, or on a remote server, and accessed via the internet. The “it” could be data, as in your databases, email, files, or it could be programs / applications, such as web based suites of software like Microsoft Office suite, including Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Word or custom applications.
All this talk about moving to “the cloud”, a term which is generically used for the internet, has people thinking about how it can be used for their business. Let’s take our own small business and use it as an example.
Currently, we use a large server which has Microsoft Server 2008 loaded on it and functions as our domain controller, DNS, DHCP, and other standard server tasks… It also serves as our file server, and it hosts Microsoft Exchange for our in-house email. Other tasks this one piece of hardware is responsible for are: TFTPd for management of our VoIP phone system’s configuration files, backup of data (Using multiple backup systems such as Servosity Online Backup Solution, an “in the cloud” product, and MozyPro) and Trend Micro Worry Free Business Security Advanced for anti-virus and anti-spam.
We have a second server which hosts additional files, Blackberry Enterprise Server (not currently in use due to the switch to Android phones), and is a test bed for us. Then we have two other servers, a Voice over IP server based on Linux OS which is in control of our phone system & voice mail, and a DVR (Digital Video Recorder) for storage of video from our CCTV cameras.
In order to reduce some overhead, we could potentially maintain a smaller main server with only Windows 2008 R2 running on it as a domain controller, then utilize Microsoft Aurora, or even Microsoft BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite), allowing mail storage and transport to take place outside our building.
We could then switch from Trend Micro Worry Free Business Security Advanced to the Trend Hosted solution, relieving our server from those duties.
Since we are already using a remote backup solution, we would not have to worry about that, and our backup requirements would actually drop since we would no longer need to backup the Microsoft Exchange Store (Microsoft would handle that for us with the BPOS solution).
As you can see, eliminating the main server entirely from the equation here is not going to be possible, however a considerable amount of storage, backup, and resources could be moved elsewhere.
One thing to take into consideration before moving to these hosted solutions is, what if our internet is down? That is a good question which still has many people concerned about these technologies. In the case of online file storage, if you do not have cached storage at your location, you simply have no access to it. In the case of mail, if you are caching the information locally, you CAN see your old/existing email, but you cannot send or receive new mail until the connection is reestablished. It is important to note that cloud based email will still RECEIVE email when your business is without an internet connection and you will get it as soon as the connection is reestablished, something that doesn’t happen now if you use an onsite Exchange Server, unless you are using a mail hold & forward (spool) system at your ISP or other provider.
Should you desire to discuss your needs and how products like Microsoft Aurora, BPOS, Google Apps, Servosity and other cloud services can fit into your infrastructure, please call us at 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com for a free consultation! We are partners with Microsoft, Google, Servosity, MozyPro and other cloud providers. We also offer a full line of computer, server & network service, support, sales and consultation here in Greenville & Upstate SC!
Microsoft is offering a free 30 day trial of their Business Productivity Online Suite if you would like to see it in action.
