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I’m entering my sixth day of cabin fever in the Baltimore / DC area, and it hasn’t been as quiet as I’ve expected. I’ve actually been receiving calls from a number of clients who are also snowed in but need to access their work files in order to keep business running. After taking calls on a number of issues, I’ve separated them into three categories:

• “Help! Can I access any of my work files from home? I’ve never done it before but really need to get in!”
• “Help! We set up remote access and VPN months ago but I never use it. I don’t remember how to use it / can’t get it to work / don’t have it set up on my computer anymore.”
• “I’m safe and working from home! Since I’m online, can you take care of a couple of projects / small tasks for me?”

Ideally, I would like to see all of my clients fit into the third bullet. I understand that some businesses don’t require extremely advanced technical systems, and sometimes it’s just not in the budget. However, a snowstorm such as the one that is just starting to wind down in the northeastern U.S. might force a few business owners and managers to re-evaluate change and continuity plans across the board. It certainly pays to at least consider the impact of various events (man-made, natural or otherwise) on the business. Even if the ultimate result is that it is not worth the investment in countermeasures, at least you know what you’re in for.

What you might find from this exercise is that countermeasures actually aren’t that costly. Here are a few relatively inexpensive countermeasures that we can employ for a small business. Given the current weather and its anticipated consequences, I’ll use the case of a family-owned insurance agency.

XYZ Insurance agency operates out of a small shopping center in Montgomery County, Maryland. With the growing number of power outages, roof collapses, car accidents and other calamities, it’s safe to assume that XYZ Insurance is pretty busy handling claims right now. Unfortunately, the employees of XYZ can’t even get out of their driveways and down the street. Even if they could, the shopping center where the offices are located can’t clear its own parking lot. There’s just no way to get to the office.

Normally, this would be a catastrophe. However, just a few simple measures in what I will call an “emergency plan” (some larger organizations call it a COOP, or Continuity of Operations Plan) helped XYZ to keep moving and be highly effective for its customers, even when XYZ itself had some considerable issues in the snow. Let’s talk about a few of these measures:

1. On the company’s letterhead, answering machine, website (and just about anywhere else their phone number is posted), XYZ has an “emergency line” displayed. This line is designed for after-hours usage and any other time that the office can’t be contacted. The emergency line is actually a Google Voice line available free to anyone with a Google Account (also free) but by invitation. Google Voice provides such features as call forwarding to any number of telephone numbers (such as employee mobile or home telephones), voicemail transcription, and more. Now XYZ’s employees can be reachable to clients from an alternate location. Did I mention that Google Voice is free?
2. XYZ keeps some pretty detailed records on clients in their database, including contact and policy information. This is run on an internal server for security and privacy reasons, but the server isn’t actually located in the office – it is in a safe, reliable data center behind a trusted firewall. While keeping a hosted server could cost various amounts of money (anywhere from $40 per month into the thousands), it doesn’t cost anything to extend access to employees working from home. It’s as easy as installing VPN software provided by the hosting company. Luckily, XYZ thought ahead and ensured that employees had home access to systems in case of an emergency.
3. Most importantly, clients need to be aware of what is going on and why XYZ is not reachable at the office. They also need to be comforted in knowing that this isn’t a problem and that the company is still available to help. By placing an emergency message on their website with current status, most customers can be reached. Additionally, the office voicemail was changed to also reflect current status.

As one of the only local insurance agencies able to stay ahead of the snowstorm, clients praise XYZ for being there when they are needed. The company capitalized on this success and marketed its ability to be “local and available”, leading to new customer lead generation and increased profits.

In the end, XYZ was able to stay ahead of the storm’s incapacitation. What was the cost to implement this plan? Surprisingly, it was absolutely free. The only cost was some prior thought and planning.

I do agree that sometimes it requires an outside perspective to start thinking of an emergency plan. Here’s my shameless plug! If you need help putting together your COOP or emergency plan, especially when it comes to leveraging IT and systems resources during an emergency, I can help. I’ve done it for a number of clients, both big and small. Don’t forget that I have the free consultation guarantee – try before you buy!

If you’re in the northeast U.S. – stay warm and be careful digging your cars out!

Personally, I tend to follow the Getting Things Done (GTD) approach fostered by David Allen. There are many other strategies that can be just as successful. However, if you’re a techie like myself, you may find yourself struggling to find software that best fits your personal organization scheme. I’ve been struggling with that question for a long time, and I finally found a solution. Yes, I do think that simplifying my life a bit is certainly part of the answer, but life gets busy, no matter what. For a long time, I sought a solution that could help me keep information from all parts of my life in one spot. A couple of months ago, I found my solution and it has been working wonderfully. I call it “life by CRM”.

CRM, as you may know, stands for “Customer Relationship Management”. It is one of the bigger business buzzwords these days, partially because we’ve entered the age where software to manage CRM is available and relatively inexpensive. It’s popular among sales teams and project managers for its strength in measuring customer requirements, tasks and interactions. SalesForce.com is one example of CRM software – other examples include Microsoft Dynamics and my personal and professional favorite, Highrise. Highrise is a web-based CRM manager created by 37signals.

Let’s back up to how businesses use CRM. It’s strengths are in tracking contacts, interactions and tasks, to keep it simple. Isn’t that how personal life is structured as well? When running personal errands, there’s usually something to do, something that happens and someone to do it for. Many people like to keep track of their personal errands in some sort of journal or diary. CRM is a journal that’s in electronic form and tailored to help you get things done.

Being that Highrise is my CRM tool of choice (and what I use for both business and personal), I can share my strategy for keeping my life organized. Here’s a screenshot of what my Highrise looks like (with some proprietary data conspicuously hidden):

When I log in I can see a “Journal” of recent entries, including my notes, e-mails, tasks and so on. I can also see upcoming tasks, which I can complete and assign categories to. On the top of the page, I can view my contacts, tasks, cases, deals and tags. Cases and Deals are great. They are special groupings of notes, e-mails and tasks that pertain to one particular initiative. Cases and Deals are very similar, but Deals pertain to initiatives when there is an incoming sale. You can keep track of bid information and whether or not the deal was won. Tags allow you to assign categories to various people, companies, cases, and so on. This is all set on top of a pretty powerful set of permissions, if you’re going to allow multiple users to access the system. I’m not going to go into too much detail about the product – you can access a tour on the Highrise website.

What’s important to me is that I can use this Web-based contact / case / task / sales / Rolodex manager to help me stay on top of everything that I need to do. As a part-time consultant, I am constantly trying to keep up with shifting needs, changing priorities, and multiple updates from clients and vendors on a variety of issues. Highrise is uncanny in it’s ability to help any kind of professional like myself stay on top of this and update case files easily. When I need to fulfill a request, I add a task and categorize it. When I receive new information or have an interaction with someone, I can add notes or forward e-mails. At the end of the day, Highrise is the best tool for me and helps me to stay agile.

This doesn’t just translate to my professional work, either. Highrise CRM’s organization capabilities help in my personal life, too. My fiancé and I are planning our wedding and this tool helps us keep on top of our vendors, financials, and everything that we need to do before the big day. Being able to search for a receipt or for conversations from a specific person or company works great! It is especially useful when something doesn’t go as planned and need to go back to a previous conversation to verify what was said. I’m sure many have been in a situation like that.

Although I strongly advocate Highrise, please understand that I have some specific needs and operate in a specific way. Highrise is a perfect fit for a small company with many different things going on – most of them short-term. If you are a larger organization or operate in a different manner, different software might work better for you. I’ve worked for medium-sized businesses that have used Microsoft Dynamics with great success. I’ve worked with startups who use SalesForce.com and it is a disaster, while other startups wouldn’t want to use anything else. It is all about finding a solution that meets your needs. I can certainly assist anyone looking to determine how to leverage the benefits of CRM software or just boost productivity in general.

I invite you to keep this discussion going. What sort of CRM or web-based productivity software do you use (or have used in the past)? How has it worked for you? Feel free to share success and horror stories. Perhaps I’ll even share some of my own!

During some routine maintenance on this client’s domain names (i.e. name server and contact changes), we realized that the domain was not registered to the corporation, but rather an individual who had not been employed there for a number of years. The client requested that I change the contacts to reflect the corporation’s ownership and list the name of the CEO. Simple, right?

Apparently not. I logged into the Register.com control panel to update the registrant’s contact information, but received a notice saying that the domain was “locked” and that the registrant could only be changed with a “change of registrant” form. This was confusing. Why was the domain name locked? There was certainly no setting in the control panel to lock or unlock a domain name. This seemed like an arbitrary setting with no rationale. Perhaps the domain name was registered through another registrar later absorbed into Register.com, or it was a setting that was chosen when the domain name was first registered. Either way, it didn’t seem practical and nobody was able to explain it, including a couple of otherwise friendly technical support representatives from Register.com.

Giving up on the online change, I looked at the change of registrant form. New problem – this form needed to be completed and filed by the existing registrant! This would not work in our case, as the employee left the business and there has been no contact with him ever since. In fact, I would think that this is the case in most scenarios where an employee leaves the company, so unless a transaction is being made by two separate parties, this seemed like a bad method for Register.com to facilitate this change in the first place.

Having nowhere else to turn, I dialed customer support and started asking questions. Surely there must have been another customer facing this issue in the past, and I thought that company representatives could help me through by using some type of loophole. I had no such luck. One representative told me that I shouldn’t worry; as long as I had the username and password to log into the control panel, it didn’t matter whose name was on the account. Another representative told me that I could just fill out the form, leave out the current registrant’s information and explain the situation in the notes block; we realized that didn’t work when the form was promptly returned to me.

The third representative told me that I should follow the steps outlined in Register.com’s dispute policy. I examined this policy closely and concluded that the only way to make this change would be to file legal paperwork, appear in front of a district judge asserting the change, and send the results of the proceeding to Register.com.

Needless to say, we decided it was not worth the time and money to conduct all of this litigation just to change a name. Instead, I went forward with an alternative plan – let’s transfer the domain name to another registrar that wouldn’t give us the runaround. Before doing so, I gave Register.com one final chance – I called them, explained the situation and told them that I would be forced to transfer the domain names if they didn’t offer an alternative. The phone representative actually agreed with me and said that the best plan would be to transfer the names. So, I transferred the domain names to another registrar, updated the contact information, and completed the work.

I wanted to note that I sent Register.com an e-mail alerting them of this post and asking them if they wanted to comment. I haven’t received a response in the 24 hours since I sent it, but if I receive one I will be sure to post it.

A couple of closing points. First, the moral of the story – unlike a decade ago, there are now hundreds of domain name registrars. Don’t let them bully you and have you jump through hoops; your time is precious. If your registrar won’t allow you to do what you need, find another one that will and transfer the names over. Transfers are quick and easy these days, and most registrars include a free year’s renewal with the transfer, so you’re not losing any money. Additionally, transfers are cheap, averaging about $9.00 per domain name.

Second, there is a larger issue. Companies must always balance the security of their business and their clients against functionality and convenience. If you have too much security, functionality and convenience suffer, driving away customers. With not enough security, you might make your customers happy in the short term but they’ll be running away with the first sign of trouble. In some business models, it is okay to lean a little bit more heavily towards one side, but there is always a limit. In this case, it might very well be that Register.com erred too much on the side of security and not heavily enough on the convenience side. After all, they lost a customer because of the issue. However, Register.com is a large company and might not mind losing a customer here and there for the sake of keeping domain name transactions secure. There is no right or wrong answer – this is a strategy that many business should think about from time to time in regard to its own products.

If you have any comments, feel free to post – I’d be happy to keep this discussion going!

Modern Etnacom Logo

Etnacom has existed in one way or another since 2001. Throughout its life its services, employees and even its location have changed multiple times.

I thought it might be interesting for some readers to see how the company has evolved over the years. At most, this will serve as a way to see how I’ve gotten to this point and some of the interesting things I’ve encountered. At the very least, it will be a “statement for the record” of where the company has been and where I intend to take it.

The Beginning

Original Etnacom Logo

In the summer of 2001, I was still in high school. A close friend and I were deliberating about how we could make some extra money in addition to our typical teenage jobs as waiters. We both knew a lot about computers and my friend was an expert in video editing, producing clips for many local events such as track meets, town gatherings and weddings. I already had some success in creating small websites for local businesses and helping others around the community with their computer repair issues. Thus, Etnacom Networks was born. I still joke with my friend about the day when we typed up a one-page “business plan” and brought it upstairs so that my father could review it (we were both under 18 at the time and needed a financial guarantor). Being a business owner himself, my father was excited about the idea and took us to the bank to open our own account. Our initial investment was fifty dollars each.

From that point forward, we worked hard to earn any business that came our way. The majority of our clients were local organizations that needed websites and web hosting, and we were able to meet their needs quite well. In fact, we still retain a lot of our original clients, even though Etnacom has evolved quite a lot since then.

As we grew older and more experienced, we started working on more complicated projects. The era of wireless computing was just starting to come about, and many businesses in the community wanted a cost-effective way to network multiple laptops and desktops into a small network with shared printers, files and Internet. We started installing more complicated server systems that ran on various flavors of Linux and Windows Server. Of course, we never forgot about our “bread and butter” services of web sites and web hosting.

Transformation to Consulting Firm

Towards the end of 2006, the original two Etnacom partners decided to go separate ways. There were no hard feelings (in fact, Brian is still a very close friend and is the best man at my upcoming wedding), but we decided that I would take the company into a consulting role while Brian would concentrate on his own profession that actually had little to do with the IT field. I became a support provider for a few start-ups and small businesses in the New York / New Jersey area, and I partnered with GoDaddy so that I could continue to offer web hosting services to my clients while improving maintenance and quality of service. Web hosting services are now offered under a subsidiary called Etnahost.

With the completion of my Masters’ degree at Carnegie Mellon University, I expanded my knowledge and experience within all of the topics I consult in, which included some very in-depth expertise in Online Marketing and SEO. I also added a new field to my repetoire – Information Security, which is in my opinion one of the most important aspects of IT. Because of my large concentration in this new field, I decided to again make some big changes and accept a full-time position working in the Baltimore / Washington D.C. area. However, Etnacom will continue to operate in the same reliable capacity it always did.

The Future

The Internet and IT in general have certainly evolved quite a bit since I’ve started doing this. Networks were once a luxury only enjoyed by corporations, now they are common in most homes (and even in some automobiles). Websites were a one-way venue to share information and e-commerce was just taking off in 2001; Facebook wasn’t even an idea in anyone’s mind. These days, community-based interaction over the Internet is common. There is no telling how Etnacom will evolve over the next few years or how technology will either. However, I can promise that I’ll continue to offer solutions that are on the cutting edge but also practical. It will certainly be a fun ride!

If you are a client, you are well aware that I started a new full-time position in July, working information security-type issues. Being that my degree is in Info. Security, I decided that this would be a wonderful opportunity, but I also wanted to continue doing my work at Etnacom. So, I decided to transform the company into a vehicle for part-time consulting.

Before I accepted the position, I spoke with my clients to see if there were any concerns with me meeting their needs part time and mostly during nights and weekends. Everyone was extremely supportive (and I thank everyone for their generous support!)

So, here we are. Getting back to the website – I think a look and feel that shows that I’m a one-man show with a lot of experience to offer does the trick. I am now showcasing my blog on the home page so that you can read about my insights and experiences with clients and technologies (and sometimes with my full-time job, if I am able to share). I am still accepting new clients, but have relocated to the Baltimore-Washington metro area, so my on-site work is limited to that region.

As always, i’m available anytime for help, so drop me a line if you need anything!

However, what we’re going to talk about today completely dwarfs the article from a few weeks ago. Today we’ll discuss online telephony services that actually allow interactive calling, such as Skype and other Voice-over-IP services. To those of you who are very technical, this is not a new idea. On the other hand, to a small business owner that doesn’t frequent the IT realm, this could be a revolutionary new strategy.

Voice-over-IP (also known as VoIP, which I will use for the rest of this article) is a technology in which voice and telephony services are delivered through the Internet or another comparable network. It became popular in the early 2000s when large corporations saw just how expensive it was to run an internal phone system. Think about 2,000 employees in an office building, each of them with their own telephone wired into the central telephone room. What if one of those employees moves to another floor? Their telephone system needs to follow them, which means that the company needs to hire an expert to come in and reprogram the telephone system so that the one particular employee can have his telephone socket at another desk. This is on top of the already ongoing maintenance of the telephone system and the ongoing maintenance of the data network that is also in the building.

Well, enough of that. Why not have the telephone system and the data system part of the same network? Additionally, since the telephone system is now travelling through the data (computer) network and so it could carry much more information, such as configuration and user settings. Now, instead of re-wiring the telephone system every time someone moves, the employee can just take his telephone to a new spot (the telephone is configured with all of the information it needs) and plug it in. Voila! Same number.

As this technology evolved, some thought “why even have a desk phone at all?” Why not make the phone part of the computer? After all, the computer is already part of the data network. Large businesses started turning to Cisco’s VoIP system, which is quite expensive. On the small business end however, services such as Skype started to pop up. Skype is very similar to many online Instant Messaging clients such as Gtalk and AIM, but it has superior call capability. For example, a Skype user can call any other Skype user and talk for free. A Skype user can also choose to receive telephone calls and place telephone calls for a very small amount of money. Etnacom’s employees each have their own direct telephone number and the capability to make unlimited outgoing calls anywhere in the United States and Canada for a cost of $12 per month per employee. Skype also offers many other services such as video calling, international calling, voicemail, call forwarding and more – all for free or at a very low cost.

One of the major advantages of VoIP is that it eliminates the need for physical phone lines – everything is done through an existing Internet connection. As long as you are running some type of Broadband (Cable/DSL or better), there should be no reason why you shouldn’t be able to run at least 2 or 3 VoIP lines. Additionally, since services like Skype are portable, you can access them anywhere with an Internet connection. We are frequently on the road and make telephone calls from outside the office. Even if we didn’t have Internet connectivity, we could always forward calls to our cell phones while away.

Although we use Skype and it is certainly the most popular VoIP application out there, many other services do exist. Vonage is one such company and offers some interesting phone plans starting at $17.99 per month. We used to use Vonage, but abandoned it because Skype was a better fit for us. On the other hand, there are plenty of businesses that might feel that Vonage is a better fit. Instead of requiring computer software, Vonage supplies an adapter that connects to the Internet on one end and an ordinary telephone on the other. So, if you’re looking to keep your existing telephone hardware but still take advantage of VoIP’s costs, Vonage is certainly a great solution. Vonage also supplies some interesting services such as “telephone on a stick”, which is a USB-key-like device that can plug into any computer for access to a telephone line.

There are many other small companies that offer VoIP services – many of them may be good, but we encourage you to check them out thoroughly before making the switch. Be sure that they are proven, reliable and cost effective – and feel free to contact us if you need assistance in making that decision.

There is one last warning that we feel is very important – VoIP services don’t have the same quality emergency services as physical lines. Although we may never need to use it, we always take comfort in the fact that during an emergency we can reach 911. This is not so on every VoIP service – Skype does not offer 911 capabilities. Vonage does have 911 services, but you must register your location in your control panel and update this location when you move – this could be troublesome for those that are frequently on the road and rely on Vonage. On the other hand, this may not be a large problem if you also use a cell phone, since you can access 911 easily with that. The bottom line is, always have a backup phone for emergencies.

In the end, VoIP technology is a very reliable and cost-effective alternative, especially for those looking to cut the costs of expensive land-lines or mobile phone plans. Our company has saved an average of $30 per employee per month since switching to VoIP services – our cell phone plans are much less expensive now!

Happy chatting!

Today we’re going to talk about online faxing and PBX hosting services. First, a little bit of explanation regarding what these services actually are. If you’re a normal business, chances are that you have a fax machine, and maybe a dedicated fax line that you can use to send and receive faxes at will. You might even have a main phone number for your business with extensions that point out to various departments or people. Unfortunately, these systems provide a lot of overhead, and it is time-consuming (and costly) to maintain them. But what if you could outsource all of the equipment and time associated with maintaining these systems- and for only a fraction of the cost? Five or ten years ago, this would be difficult – but today it is routine and just considered to be smart business.

Let’s start with fax lines. A typical fax line costs about $20 per month for standard service. Additionally, a fax machine costs anywhere from $30 to $200. Therefore, the cost of maintaining a fax line is about $340 per year, when including the cost of the line, equipment replacement and maintenance. On the other hand, an online service costs about $95 per year for the same capabilities.

An online fax service typically includes a log-in screen which takes you to a homepage, which looks just like a webmail service. You can view incoming faxes and download or print what was sent to you; you can also create new faxes with cover sheets and attach documents from your computer (or scans if it is a hand-written document). In most cases, you can also configure the service to notify you via e-mail or SMS when you receive faxes as well as allow you to send faxes via e-mail. It’s easy, convenient and most importantly, inexpensive. There’s no need to worry about re-sending faxes to busy phone lines (the system will automatically re-attempt as many times as you wish). Power and telephone outages won’t disrupt your fax system at all. Best of all, you don’t even need to be in the office to work with your fax system.

To take things a step further, you can also host your entire phone system online. Many companies offer “Virtual PBX” services that allow callers to contact you via a local or 800 number (and more than one number if you wish), hear a custom greeting, access extensions, voicemail, and even added services such as company directories. In many cases, these virtual PBX services also offer faxing capabilities. Some of them even offer online conference calling capabilities – allowing you to hold conference calls with multiple people simultaneously without using up all of your phone lines. When a user dials an extension, the call can be transferred into a queue, forwarded to one or more lines such as a home, office or mobile phone, or even answered online using your computer.

Some of the companies we have worked with in the past include j2 Communications, eFax and RingCentral. J2 and eFax are normal online fax services, although j2 does offer an online conferencing service. RingCentral includes this as well as a virtual PBX service. All three companies offer custom plans depending on the capabilities that you’re looking for and the price you’re willing to pay. Etnacom is currently using RingCentral for various telephony services and has been using them since 2006. We’ve never had any problems with them.

Our next article will take telephony services a step further and show you how to stop paying for telephone lines altogether. We’ll explain how to use VoIP (voice-over-IP) services such as Skype and Virtual Assistant / Paging services to act as virtual receptionists.

In this blog post, I’m going to answer a few questions:

1. What is a Windows User Profile and how does it work? (Windows Admins – feel free to skip)
2. What kind of information is stored in the user profile?
3. Why does the profile get so large, but it is so hard to shrink down?
4. Most importantly, what are some strategies for keeping my profile size down?

So, what is a user profile?

A user profile is a collection of all of the information on a computer (or a set of computers) that has to do with you. Think of it as a manifestation of your personality in the digital realm. It holds information about your identity (your username, password, even biometrics if you use those kinds of devices), a history of the things you’ve done, your favorite items, appearance, and more. Your profile is your experience on a Windows computer.

What kind of information is stored in the user profile?

When you first log in to Windows (or in many cases, a computer network) your profile is created for the first time. Of course, you haven’t done anything yet, so your profile is empty. It might hold the default background on your desktop, a few suggestions for favorite websites, and some templates that you can use for applications like Microsoft Word. As you continue to use the computer and customize your experience, you’ll start using more applications, which will save settings and data about what you’ve done. You’ll visit websites, which will download temporary content and store it in your profile. Your documents, music, and pictures will also be stored. So, it’s easy to see how a profile can start to take up a lot of disk space after your computer use picks up.

There are two kinds of profiles – roaming and local. A local profile is a profile that is only used on one computer. Usually, if you’re using a personal computer or are part of a very small network, you’re on a local profile. That means that your customized experience can only be used from the same computer. On the other hand, a roaming profile can be used on many computers that are usually part of a computer network. In this case, your settings are stored on a server and wherever you log in, your profile follows you. This is common in large, corporate networks. Local and roaming profiles have their own sets of pros and cons, but since we’re concentrating on profile size vs. computer performance, the disadvantages are the same.

Why does the profile get so large, but it is so hard to shrink down?

The short answer is that profiles don’t like to forget. If you go hunting in your own profile (and we’re going to do that in a few minutes), you’ll see that unless you are vigilant about cleaning out your old temporary and application files often, information is stored that hasn’t been used in a long time. Even if you do stay on top of this, there’s still plenty of old data lying around taking up disk space. Many of these files are hidden, and so it’s hard to find them. The main system file for your profile, NTUSER.DAT, holds all of the registry settings and system configuration for your user experience, and tends to grow quite large over time. Since this is just one file and can’t be deleted, it’s difficult to simply go in and clean it out. An experienced user of the Windows Registry Editor might be able to go in and delete some old entries (a process that is sure to take some time), but if you’re not comfortable working in that application, stay out. Deleting the wrong registry keys can cause some serious damage to your system.

Strategies for Keeping Profile Sizes Down

Strategy #1: Remove Temporary Files

Many programs, especially web browsers, keep temporary files that are stored in your profile. Unfortunately, these programs don’t do the best job of removing those files when you are done. The best way to remove temporary files is to go in and do it yourself. We recommend downloading a program that allows you to evaluate the size of and delete temporary files on your computer. One of our favorites is TreeSize Free, by JAM Software (available at http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml). If you are using Windows 2000 or XP, look in the C:\Documents and Settings\username folder (username is your username), and if you are using Vista look in the C:\Users\username folder. Popular areas for temporary files to hide are in the Temporary Internet Files, Firefox Cache and Local Settings or Temp folders. Of course, always use caution when deleting files.

Strategy #2: Uninstall Old Applications

If there are any applications installed on your computer that you no longer use, uninstall them. These programs may keep data and configuration files within your profile and uninstalling will usually remove them. Never just delete files on your hard drive – always use the Add/Remove Programs applet in the control panel. If you don’t uninstall properly, you may be removing files and cleaning up disk space, but you won’t be removing the profile configurations, temporary files and shared files that are associated with the program.

Strategy #3: Run a Registry Cleaner Application

Just like deleting files ad-hoc, registry cleaners should be used at your own risk. We always recommend performing a full backup of your important files before performing a cleanup with an application such as RegCure (www.regcure.com). These programs will remove old entries and duplicate entries, compress your existing registry and even perform backups for you in case of a problem. It’s absolutely an option – but once again, use at your own risk.

Strategy #4: Delete Your Profile (this only works for local profiles)

This might seem like a huge hassle, but it really isn’t that bad. Keep backups of your most important configuration settings (such as web browsers, IM clients, office applications) and store your documents in a location outside of your profile (a flash drive or simply another area of your computer). When you see that your profile is starting to run slow and not cooperate, simply delete your profile and restart your computer. Once you log back in, a new profile will be created. You can then re-import all of your settings and continue on as if nothing changed, without the hassle of cleaning, debugging and compressing. This is a solution that I have personally used for quite some time and it works great – no wasted time trying to repair or re-install anything. Even if it does take some time to re-import all of your settings, it is guaranteed to take less time than troubleshooting all of the issues that will come as a result of these “bloated profiles”.

What’s the sudden hype with Conficker?

The reason why this strain of the virus is so highly publicized in the news is because it was only recently discovered, and is also somewhat mysterious. The worm itself has already infected millions of machines on the Internet, but none of them are showing symptoms. This is because it isn’t supposed to “wake up” and start doing harm until April 1st.

The truth is, not much is known about what Conficker-C is supposed to to do its infected hosts once it awakens. Most speculate that it will give a remote attacker control of your computer to do harm. Most dangerously, the attacker can take control of your computer and many others all at once and use them to attack other computers. This is known as a botnet.

How do I know if I’m infected?

The easiest way to tell is to try to access one of these websites:

• http://www.symantec.com/norton/theme.jsp?themeid=conficker_worm&inid=us_ghp_link_conficker_worm
• http://www.microsoft.com/protect/computer/viruses/worms/conficker.mspx
• http://www.mcafee.com

If your computer is infected, the virus will actually prevent you from viewing the site. In that case, you need to immediately take steps to remove it.

Websites with removal instructions:

• Microsoft - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/962007
• Symantec - http://www.symantec.com/business/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2009-011316-0247-99

How to Prevent Infection

Infection can be easily prevented. First, ensure that Windows has the MS08-067 patch installed. It can be downloaded (both for XP and Vista) from Microsoft’s web site - http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS08-067.mspx

Second, disable the autorun property. More instructions are available at http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/techalerts/TA09-020A.html

Third, it is reccomended that your computer have all of the latest software updates and your virus protection is up-to-date.

For More Help

More information regarding this virus is available from the US-CERT cyber alert database: http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/alerts/SA09-088A.html

If you require assistance with patching or removing the virus from your computer, please contact us or your computer administrator.

Secure Certificates Explained

Let’s look at this in a real-world scenario. Say you’re looking to buy a book on web design, and as such, you go to the king of online book retailers, Amazon.com. You select your book, add it to your cart, and click “check out”. You’re about to be taken to the part of the website that asks for your private information such as name, address and credit card number.

Once you arrive at this point, you’ll notice that some interesting things have happened in your browser. First, your address bar will show “https://…” instead of the normal “http://…”. The extra “s” denotes that we’re using the secure HTTP, or SSL protocol. You’ll also notice that somewhere in your browser, an icon of a padlock appears. This also signifies that you’re on a secure website. With most browsers, clicking the padlock will bring up the secure certificate details of that site.

So, what happened here? When you moved to the checkout portion of Amazon’s site, You connected to its secure website. In doing this, your web browser opened an encrypted connection to Amazon’s server, a process that prevents a malicious user from eavesdropping on the information you’re sending to Amazon, such as your credit card details. Once you’re connected, Amazon sends your browser its secure certificate, which is an electronic document proving its identity. Your computer verifies this document with a “trusted third party”, typically the company that Amazon bought their certificate from. Basically, this company is vouching for Amazon. Your browser is happy, and you proceed with buying your book.

Do I Need a Secure Certificate?

The quick answer is, it depends. If your website is purely informational and nobody is submitting data on it, you probably don’t need one. If visitors are submitting personal information to you, or if you’re running an online store, chances are that you need a secure certificate. Think about it this way: instead of typing in data on a website, someone is shouting the information to you on the streets of New York City, where hundreds may be listening. If you’re worried about others hearing that information, you need a secure certificate.

How Do I Purchase a Secure Certificate?

Many companies sell these services. We recommend VeriSign and GoDaddy. Both are extremely popular. Although GoDaddy’s certificates are priced significantly lower than VeriSign, there is barely any quality difference.

If you have any questions, or if you’re still not sure whether or not you need a secure certificate for your website, feel free to contact us. We’d be happy to help.