One conversation new or potential business owners may want to have with their IT professionals is about what technologies exist that can improve their life. Below you will find some that are must haves…

Apple iPhone

Smartphones: Whether it is an Android, iPhone or even a Windows based phone, you cannot survive without one. These devices provide instant communication with your clients through email, text message and phone, along with the ability to browse the web and select from tens of thousands of applications to assist in your business. Your clients will not wait for you to get to your office to respond to an email. Even a quick, “I’m driving, will respond as soon as it is safe” auto-response is better than no response. The cost of a typical phone can range from 100 to 300 dollars per phone depending on features and term of contract from the carrier of your choice.

Square Credit Card Reader

Credit Card Processing: If you expect to get paid, then you need to accept every form of payment possible, including plastic. Yes, you will lose a little bit on the sale, but you will gain an instant payment. If you are just getting started, without purchasing a machine or paying a monthly charge, you can accept credit cards anywhere you have a cell signal using the Square credit card application with your smart phone and the free reader device that they provide to you. No per-swipe fee, and less than 3.0% charge. Fast, secure, and in your account the next business day. Find it in your phones’s marketplace.

Reliable & Fast Internet: There are a lot of choices these days for fast internet, from DSL to cable to fiber, and the old tried and true T1 standard, but some businesses may find that a wireless broadband internet plan may be enough for them. We recommend Charter Business in most situations, but that varies depending upon what is available at the business location. One advantage to using a cellular based broadband internet connection is that you can take it with you, which is great for businesses that are not tied to one specific location. Typical 4G plans will provide over 5 meg down and up to 2 meg up. Verizon Wireless offers the MiFi devices for around 50 dollars with 5GB plans for 50 dollars per month.

IP Surveillance Cameras

IP surveillance: Sure it sounds like the CIA, but IP security cameras at your business will decrease loss of inventory, increase productivity, and may provide an insurance savings. You can even keep tabs on your employees using a smartphone or any web browser to view these camera. Recordings can be reviewed after events occur, and most systems can email you when there is movement in a particular location. Prices range from $150 for a single entry level camera into the $2000 range to cover an entire business. You can install yourself, or get an IT provider to handle this for you for the most professional results.

Email: This is a no-brainer, but many small businesses will cut corners here. A Hotmail account will work for sure, but who wants AcmeWidgetCo@hotmail.com on their business cards. At the very least, your business should use a service that allows for linking a domain to your mail, such as Google Apps (Gmail) or Microsoft Office 365. This gives you a professional appearance, and provides for important features such as linking of your smartphones, sharing of calendars between users and so much more. Microsoft Office 365 costs about 5 dollars per person per month and gives you up to 20GB of storage.

Anti-Virus & Security: Far too often this is overlooked, or taken for granted. A business that is vulnerable to viruses or malware is a business that could experience costly downtime and repairs, not to mention, open yourself up for compliance violations and potential fines or legal issues depending upon the field you are in. The components of a secure network are as simple as a quality firewall like those offered from Cisco, Watchguard or SonicWall, an anti-virus software package from Trend Micro or Symantec, and taking the time to apply updates to the Operating System (Windows, Mac, etc) and support software (Microsoft Office, Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash, JAVA).

Backup: When disaster strikes, you need to be prepared for it. Having backups of your important files will insure you are not out of business when a computer or server fails. Backups technology can be as simple as an external USB drive or remote backup solution, or on the other end of the spectrum, as complicated as auto-loader tape drives. One thing is for sure, ANY attempt to backup your data is better than none. For automated cloud backup solutions, consider Servosity or Mozy Pro.

Here at Homeland Secure IT, we utilize a vast array of technology and we also help many small and medium businesses and even home offices stay up to date. If we can help you with decisions regarding your Greenville or Upstate technology infrastructure, please call us at 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com. We offer sales, service, repair and consultation of everything from computers to VoIP.

What is your “must have” business technology? I would love to hear about it.  VoIP phone systems? iPad, Android or Windows based tablet computers? A favorite app (We love TiKL & Waze)?

The new look of Nexlink computers

Check out the new look for Nexlink’s computers! Same great case, with a more modern face plate…

Those of us here at Homeland Secure IT have worked with computers from every major computer manufacturer you’ve heard of, and we are partners with many great providers of computers and servers, such as HP, Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, etc…  However, for business computers, we tend to recommend the Nexlink line of computers.

Why wouldn’t we go with a mainstream solution for every client? After all, HP has a reputation as a quality business computer supplier, wouldn’t it be a great investment for any business?

Absolutely! HP does make a quality system, however, one of the things you are paying for when you purchase that new HP system is the name. HP has worked hard to create a presence in the business market and that has cost a fortune.

Other vendors, such as Nexlink, can offer comparable desktops, servers and notebooks, without the marketing and sales expenses attached to them, allowing you the best computer for your dollar!

Furthermore, the Nexlink products are some of the highest quality we have ever worked with. They use trusted components, such as Intel motherboards and Intel processors, nothing less than the best. The support from Nexlink is outstanding, and all the business systems we sell have a 3 year warranty with next day shipping should something be needed!

Should your business be considering new computers, servers or notebooks in the Greenville / Upstate, SC area, give us a call at 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com and let’s discuss if Nexlink is right for you!

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

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.

Say "no" to stacks of CDs

If you are using CDs,  DVDs, flash drives, external hard drives, or other physical media to backup your notebook computer, you are doing 100% more to protect your data than the majority of all PC owners!

However, you are also spending time connecting devices or inserting backup media and likely are manually starting the backup, leaving lots of room for missed backups. If you are using an external USB hard drive, you may be using the included software to automatically backup to that media when you have it plugged in, which could make for gaps of days, weeks, months, or who knows, even longer between backups.

Those of you who want to insure your data is backed up, automatically, without interaction from you at all, should consider an online or remote backup solution. These are ideal for a mobile computer, whether it is an Apple Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows or even a Linux based system! All you do is establish an account, install the software, configure the software for a time frame for running and you are done. “Set it and forget it” as they say.

When you have your computer turned on and connected to the internet, the data is uploaded to the remote server automatically and you get an email that lets you know that it completed correctly or that a backup was missed. You can see the backup details, you can set the backup to be “continuous” where your files are synced as they change, etc.

Your data is stored remotely on encrypted and secure servers. You can access a single file or restore an entire folder via the application or a handy web interface!

Here at Homeland Secure IT, we use, recommend and offer a free trial of Servosity Online Backup. Servosity is a locally owned and operated business here in Greenville, SC whom we are proud to partner with to bring our clients a rock solid, dependable and affordable backup solution. Servosity works with desktops, laptops, server (including Microsoft Exchange, SQL, and more!) and as mentioned previously, multiple operating systems from Windows to Apple Mac, to Linux, etc.

Free Servosity Online Backup Trial! Click Here...

If you would like more information about how Servosity Online Backup can help you or your business, or you would like a FREE TRIAL of the service, please email info@homelandsecureit.com or call 864.990.4748. We offer a full range of backup solutions, both physical onsite and remote.  Don’t go another day without KNOWING your data is protected!

As the end of 2010 draws near, some businesses are planning to refresh and renew tired old hardware such as desktop and notebook computers, as well as servers. Driving the updates are security requirements, new versions of operating systems, company rotation policy, depreciation schedules and more often than not, a need to overcome bottlenecks in performance and insure trouble free operation in the coming year.

Many times a company needs to purchase a new server but liquid capital prohibits them from doing so, and other times, it just makes more sense to purchase based on a lease.

Some benefits to leasing include:

• Fair Market Value or 10% option – This option allows for a customer to have the choice to purchase or return the equipment at the end of the original term AND deduct the payments as a monthly operating expense. Upgrade equipment anytime during the lease with a “Wrap Lease” product or upgrade at the end of the term.
• $1.00 Purchase Option – This option allows a customer to own the equipment at the end of the term for $1.00 and deduct payments over five years on a depreciation schedule or deduct all in one year under IRS Section 179. Upgrade options are still available with this program.
• Equipment Finance Agreement (EFA) – This allows the customer to retain full ownership of the equipment from the inception of the contract. It is tax deductible under a five year depreciation schedule or under IRS Section 179. This product has unique advantages for the customer who will most likely want to exercise and early buyout option.

We are happy to be able to offer leasing terms for larger purchases, so if you have a server refresh in your future, a larger scale deployment of desktop or notebook computers, etc, call us at 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com for more information.

Last night’s storms in Greenville played havoc with the sensitive computers, servers, network equipment, CCTV systems, VoIP systems and even alarm systems!

At 10pm we received a call from the alarm monitoring company saying that we had multiple zones activated at my wife’s business, including a door, and several interior motion sensors! Police were dispatched, and Pamela and I rushed out the door headed towards her office with flashlight and firearm at the ready. We actually beat the police to that location due to the large number of calls they were receiving due to power outages and lightning strikes in that area.

It was immediately apparent that we had a false alarm… Thankfully, nobody was arrested or shot, and in fact, the only casualty was the alarm system sensors that were damaged by the strike. The power had been off all around that location, and computers, servers, and more were offline.

After the storm died down and morning came we were greeted with calls from our clients. As you can imagine, computers were down and would not come up, servers were down, a lot of network connectivity issues such as no internet access, no access to application servers, etc. Most of these were solved over the phone, but a couple required visits to the sites.

Thought I would just take a moment to remind everyone that a large number of service calls and computer repairs can be avoided by simply investing in adequate UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) devices. These affordable products can be used to protect almost everything you plug into AC power. Those switches, routers, firewalls? Protect them! What about your time clock? Yes, that too. How about that expensive CCTV or VoIP system? Yewbetcha!

Small surges that come in on the power line can cause big damage to sensitive electronics!

Homeland Secure IT is happy to partner with some great power protection companies such as Eaton and APC and we can provide you with a quote for the proper product for your application! Please email info@homelandsecureit.com or call 864.990.4748 for more information…

If you have issues with your business computer systems, who do you call?

If you are calling a one-man-shop, you may be getting a great deal in terms of hourly rates, however, you may find that the wait for this one person to finally get around to you could lead to inconvenient downtime. Unfortunately, the better the technician, the more likely this will become reality as they will pick up new clients, and have to service them. Obviously, there is only so much of one person to go around.

Some independent technicians have built-in a set number of clients to avoid this, as they realize they cannot be in two places at one time. The average tech will operate on a first come, first served basis, and still others will prioritize their calls, placing downed servers higher in the queue than a workstation with a virus.

Before opening Homeland Secure IT, many years ago, I ran a business like that, and though I had plenty of clients, I was run ragged with a call in Easley, then a call in Greer, then a call in Clemson. I am glad those days are over!

Homeland Secure IT is fortunate enough to have multiple technicians who CAN be in more than one place at one time! What about when we can’t? Yes that happens, when we are deploying a new server or network where all technicians are tied up on that job, sometimes we have to pull a man off that job to handle a call. Still other times we will have a heavy workload, such as in the case of when a new virus or updates are released and everyone is calling at one time. Using remote access tools, in many cases, we can service more than one client at a time. Again, these are tools that the average one-man-shop does not have at his/her disposal.

What is YOUR response time?

Generally, in the Greenville area, we are on location within 30 minutes, longer if we are dealing with Seneca due to drive time. Our average response time is difficult to measure due to a large number of our calls being handled by remote access, email or phone, which equates to INSTANT response time! When averaged in with our typical on-site response time of 30 minutes, it brings us closer to 5 minutes for response time! Just remember “on-site” where we go to you, will generally take us 30 minutes from the time you call.

What about these free estimates? How does that work?

Computers which are brought to our office qualify for a free estimate. We never charge to determine what is wrong with your computer, if it is brought to us. The same goes for an onsite consultation regarding performing service for your company. We will come to you and talk with you about how our services or products may or may not be right for you at no charge. That being said, we do not offer free estimates for a computer repair if we must dispatch a person to your location. We still generate a charge for the visit.

What services does Homeland Secure IT provide?

It may be easier to ask, “What services doesn’t Homeland Secure IT provide?” than to ask what we do. We specialize in small business computer and network support. We have offices with a single person in them that we provide total IT support for, and we have clients with 50+ users, with multiple locations, requiring VPNs between their sites and many servers. There really is no client “too small” for us, and we have yet to find one too large, but I am sure there is one out there! We do everything from desktop and laptop repairs, to network security, Voice over IP, CCTV and server deployment and maintenance.

If you are dealing with the one-man-operation and you are happy, then by all means, please continue! If you are growing tired of waiting hours and hours, or even days for a technician to show up, or return a call, then please call us at 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com. We serve the entire Upstate of South Carolina!

Microsoft BPOS

Are you tired of dealing with POP3 or IMAP mail from your ISP? Tired of SLOW email? Do you want to share calendars between coworkers? Do you want to see the same contacts, calendar entries and emails on your phone as you do in your Outlook on your desktop and also via a web interface? Do you want your mobile workforce to have access to the same resources you do, including public / shared calendars & contacts? Want support for your Mac, Apple iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry?

Then Microsoft Exchange is the way to go, however, there are costs associated with hosting your own Exchange server that are unattractive to many smaller businesses.

Fortunately there are Hosted / In-The-Cloud alternatives, such as Microsoft’s Own BPOS, the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite which features a Hosted Exchange server, SharePoint, Office Live Meeting and Office Communications Online. Using BPOS can eliminate the need to purchase, deploy, maintain, backup and eventually upgrade a Microsoft Windows Server with Microsoft Exchange Server. The services are hosted “in the cloud”, in a data center, where all maintenance and upgrades are maintained FOR you. No need to worry with backups either.

This solution isn’t right for everybody, but it could be the answer to your problems if you have a smaller office, a large mobile workforce, a small budget or possibly no central location to place a server at. Would you like more information? Please call us at 864-990-4748 ext 201 or email info@homelandsecureit.com to arrange for a free, no obligation consultation.

Free 30 Day BPOS Trial

Optionally, you can sign up for a FREE 30 day trial of BPOS - Business Productivity Online Standard Suite - This trial includes 20 user licenses for Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Live Meeting, and Office Communications Online.

Homeland Secure IT offers Hosted Microsoft Online Services including the full BPOS / Business Productivity Online Standard Suite (Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Live Meeting & Office Communications Online) as well as the Business Productivity Online Deskless Worker Suite (Exchange Online & SharePoint Online), and each service individually.

If you are in the Upstate / Greenville SC area, we can assist you with configuring your Outlook to work with the Hosted Exchange Online service at your location or ours.

We also offer full remote support and phone support to clients anywhere in the United States.

Homeland Secure IT Alert

Homeland Secure IT Alert for Monday, August 02, 2010

Microsoft Issues Emergency Patch: Rated Critical

Microsoft issues out-of-band security bulletin and patch today August 2, 2009. Out of band means released ahead of the regular scheduled monthly update.  The out-of-band patch is designed to address a security flaw in the way shortcuts are displayed.

Software affected includes Windows operating system, various versions, and is rated critical. Microsoft encourages users to take action

This security update is rated Critical for all supported editions of Microsoft Windows listed here and obtained from Microsoft

Operating System
Windows XP Service Pack 3
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Service Pack 2
Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2
Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition Service Pack 2
Windows Server 2003 with SP2 for Itanium-based Systems
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows Vista Service Pack 2
Windows Vista x64 Edition Service Pack 1 and Windows Vista x64 Edition Service Pack 2
Windows Server 2008 for 32-bit Systems and Windows Server 2008 for 32-bit Systems Service Pack 2*
Windows Server 2008 for x64-based Systems and Windows Server 2008 for x64-based Systems Service Pack 2*
Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-based Systems and Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-based Systems Service Pack 2
Windows 7 for 32-bit Systems
Windows 7 for x64-based Systems
Windows Server 2008 R2 for x64-based Systems*
Windows Server 2008 R2 for Itanium-based Systems

Recommendation from Microsoft: Customers who have not enabled automatic updating need to check for updates and install this update manually.

Microsoft Security Advisory

If we can be of assistance with this or any other security or computer issue, please do not hesitate to call us at 864-990-4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com

Homeland Secure IT Alert - Contact Info