How Is Your Office ?

I’m sure by now everyone is familiar with Windows Update, but did you know that there is also an Office Update? Microsoft is constantly posting security updates to their software on their Update websites. If you don’t think that you have ever updated your Office programs, you probably haven’t. No matter what version of Office you have they require updating. Office 2003, 2000, 98, or even 95. If you have done the updates, but ever needed to reinstall Office you will need to run updates. If you have upgraded from another version, you will need updates. There is no way around it.

In the past it was pretty easy to do, but you had to do it manually. Much like Windows update, you would just go to http://officeupdate.microsoft.com. Once on the site the process is automated. The site scans your machine and determines which updates are necessary. The one snag is for many updates it requires that you put your original Office disc in while you are updating. Hopefully you still have that thing lying around somewhere. Office 2003 will ask you if you want to go to the Update site, once it is done installing.

Nowadays, Microsoft has made updating even easier by creating http://update.microsoft.com. The last time you went to Windows update it might have asked you to upgrade to Update. The beauty of this is that once you go through the initial hoops to upgrade, you will be covered for Windows and Office updates. One stop shopping!

Are Your Windows Clean? Part2

Last month we talked about cleaning up your PC from the inside. The first step is getting rid of the dreaded temp files. Once you’ve deleted them all, make sure to get rid of them for good, by emptying the Recycle Bin. Until you do this you have just been moving garbage around. This will be your trash day pickup.

The next useful tool to use is the Disk Defragmenter that comes as part of Windows. As files are added and deleted they are written to the next available spaced on the drive. This is not always right next to the rest of the information in the group. This means that the hard drive has to access many different sections of the hard drive to get you the information you want. Fragmentation will make the computer run slower than you want. This is where defragmenter comes in, like a caped superhero through an open window. Defragmenter rewrites the drive to put related information closer together. Remember that this may take some time to run depending on the amount of fragmentation, the size of the drive and the speed of the computer. My best advice is to run this overnight, because it tends to slow the machine to a crawl while it is running.

Another useful tool is Checkdisk. Checkdisk will examine the integrity of the file system on your hard drive. Often, running this tool will speed things up or even clear up odd problems you were not able to pinpoint. You will want to wait until you have some spare time to run Checkdisk. Error Checking requires full access to some Windows files, so it will not run until the next time you reboot. After choosing Check Now make sure to check both options, so that the tool may fix any errors it finds.

To get to both tools go into My Computer and choose the drive you want to run the tools on. Right click on C:, for instance, and choose Properties. Go to the second tab labeled Tools. The tools mentioned above are listed as Error Checking and Defragmentation. Choose Check Now or Defragment Now.


Until next month…….Safe Computing!

EntecSystems
www.entecva.com
entecva.blogspot.com
Phone 800-716-2544

Are Your Windows Clean?

Whether your computer is a few years old or brand new, you may notice that it’s not as fast as it once used to be. This can be due to any number of factors, but it helps to clean up your system every once in awhile. I’m not talking about spraying it with 409, but cleaning out the “junk” that accumulates the more you use your computer.

The biggest villain of the software world is Temp files. These files are created when installing programs, creating new documents, etc. Most of these files should have the decency to clean up after themselves, but like a teenage boy they seem to leave junk all over the place. So there is nothing left to do but clean them up yourself. You’re thinking, “I don’t know anything about software, how am I gonna do that?”

The easiest way is to go into My Computer and choose the drive you want to clean up. Right click on C:, for example, and choose Properties. Click on the button that says Disk Cleanup. It will spend a couple minutes calculating and then it will suggest what you can cleanup. In most cases you can safely have it delete everything it finds. This will help, but probably didn’t get all your temp files.

The next thing to do is run a Search for files and folders and type in “*.tmp”, without the quotation marks. You should be able to safely delete everything it finds. Anything with the extension .tmp is a file you wouldn’t be able to open anyway. Now you will want to check and see if there are any remnants in your Temp folders. What? More Temp files? Well yes. Typically there is at least one Temp folder in Windows. The first place to check is on the root of C:. In other words, when you open up C: in My Computer, look for a folder called Temp. If so delete everything in it, unless you specifically saved something there yourself. The last place to look for a Temp folder is under the Windows folder, also on C:. Once again anything in here can be deleted.

Next month we’ll talk about some other things you can do to speed up your pc.

Until next month…….Safe Computing!

EntecSystems
http://www.entecva.com/
entecva.blogspot.com
Phone 800-716-2544

Twenty First Century Telephones

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is the new wave of phone systems both at home and at work. Previously, the majority of corporate IP phone systems were geared toward Enterprise level clients. Now companies like Cisco are providing IP phone systems intended for small to medium size businesses.

The benefits of an IP Communications Express solution include cost savings and ease of use. This system can reduce operating costs by having a single platform to manage and maintain. Both data and voice are consolidated on the same infrastructure. Another key feature is reducing the cost and effort of Moves Adds and Changes (MAC). This process is much less complicated than in a traditional phone system and requires no outside help from a phone provider. Also, this solution is easily replicated across all of a company’s locations. This reduces the complexity of the environment for network administrators. Companies can also save money by avoiding toll charges to their branch offices by routing calls over their QoS (Quality of Service)-enabled Wide Area Network. In addition the IP Communications Express system can be programmed to deliver many of the commonly used key system or many PBX features.

Cisco Call Manager Express provides call processing for Cisco IP phones in small to medium businesses. Cisco Unity Express offers voice-mail and auto attendant features for IP Phone users also using Call Manager Express. Previously anyone interested in a Cisco Voice over IP phone solution was obligated to purchase a system that was designed around an Enterprise configuration. With Cisco’s Unified Call Manager Express system a custom solution can be created for up to 240 users and up to 100 voice mailboxes. Users can now deploy IP Telephony to their small sites and branch offices through a method that is easy to deploy, administer and maintain.


Until next month…….Safe Computing!

EntecSystems
www.entecva.com
entecva.blogspot.com
Phone 800-716-2544

Can I Return this SPAM to the Supermarket?

If you have an email account of any sort, whether it be work, home or free like Gmail, you have encountered Spam. I don’t know how many people need loans, Viagra, or free Ipods, but it must be working on somebody or the marketers would stop. Since Spam isn’t going away anytime soon, you will have to deal with it. Luckily most businesses have some sort of Spam filter in place. It may be a piece of software or even a third party like Postini.

If you are sitting at home, you don’t have that luxury. This means either choose an email account that has quality filters in place or create your own. Create your own? If you are a Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express user (and most of us are), then you can set up your own junkmail filters. Take a look under Actions in the toolbar in Outlook and you will find customizable options that allow you to configure the filters to your taste. Outlook includes a junkmail folder that you can check regularly to make sure that wanted mail isn’t being rejected. If you do receive something you don’t want you can right click on the message and select junkmail-add sender to blocked list. From now on anything coming from this sender will be forwarded automatically to your junkmail folder. In this way you can manage Spam yourself without spending extra money on software.

Another way to cut down on Spam is not to give away your home email address. As a rule I only give my home address to family and friends. If you must give way your addresses to a company or to complete a download, then use a secondary or free account for this. That’s when Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail come in handy. These accounts may become a mess of Spam, but you’ll keep your home account as clean as possible.



Until next month…….Safe Computing!

EntecSystems
www.entecva.com
entecva.blogspot.com
Phone 800-716-2544

Are Strangers using your Wireless Connection?

You just setup a wireless connection at your office and it was easy. Just take the Wireless Access Point out of the box and hook it up. Add a wireless client adaptor to your PC or laptop and Voila! It works. It really is almost this simple, but is your new wireless network secure? Is someone you don’t know stealing your internet connection?

There are a number of ways to secure a wireless network that are included with the Wireless Access Point at no extra cost. The problem is that they are all turned OFF by default. The most common method is to use WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy). This involves creating a key on the Access Point that must also be entered in the wireless client in order for a PC or laptop to connect to the network. A newer form of this is called WPA. Another common method is MAC filtering. What the heck is a MAC? MAC or Media Access Control is an address burned into wired or wireless network card so that it can be uniquely identified. Unlike an IP address, this is burned into the actual card so it cannot be changed. MAC filtering will allow you to specify exactly who may or may not access your wireless network.

One more tip. When you turn on your Wireless Access Point your network will be named something really clever like Linksys or Netgear. This name is called the SSID (Service Set Identifier). The two best things you can do with an SSID is to first rename it to something else. Second, turn the SSID broadcast off. This way strangers not only can’t see your network, they can’t guess it very easily, either.

These suggestions are not everything that can be done to secure your Wireless LAN (WLAN), but offer a good start. Your local IT professional should be able to help you plan and implement a solution that is right for you.



Until next month…….Safe Computing!

EntecSystems
http://www.entecva.com/
entecva.blogspot.com
Phone 800-716-2544

Safety on the Internet Highway

Just about everyone who has a pc has internet access these days. So, unlike the old days, almost everyone is part of the internet community. Like real communities, the internet has a lot to offer; some good and some not so good. You probably already know about the good, so this article is going to focus on the “not so good”.

Navigating the internet is a lot like navigating the highway. You may be able to drive for years without seatbelts, airbags and anti-lock brakes, but I wouldn’t recommend it. On the internet the operative phrase is “anti”: antivirus, antispyware and antispam. The other critical piece of protection, security updates and patches is not an “anti”, but is just as important.

Let’s start with the easiest to do, which is Windows Update. If you have a Windows operating system, then updates are as easy as the click of a button. In the newer versions of Windows, like 2000, 2003 and XP there is an automatic updates setting in the Control panel. By setting it to automatic it will download updates on a daily basis and even reboot the machine for you when the update is complete. If you have equipment you would rather reboot on your own, then your best bet is “Download updates for me, but let me choose when to install them”. This way you will see a little globe in the taskbar next to your clock. Just clicking on this will let you complete the critical updates your pc requires. Microsoft tends to put these out at least once a month, so be on the lookout.

Equally important is having Antivirus software on all your computers. There are several good products available, with Symantec and McAfee being the most popular. These programs are easy to install and maintain. The key is to follow up and make sure that the virus definitions are up to date. Antivirus with obsolete definitions is almost as bad as not having the software. New updates will be available weekly as a rule unless there is an especially bad outbreak that justifies a special set of definitions.

Next in importance is antispyware. Spyware has become an increasingly destructive problem in recent years. Adware and Spyware can cause constant nagging popups and slow your entire PC down to a crawl. One easy way to prevent spyware is to always be aware of what you are agreeing to. Downloading those cute icons or that clever shopping program may be what has done you in. Always pay attention to the message that you are saying “yes, I agree”, before you say yes.

The good thing is that even if you already have spyware/adware on your computer, there are a few free tools that you can download to clean up this nuisance. Some will even run in the background and help prevent these critters from doing their dirty work before they get a chance. AdAware is probably the most thorough for eradicating the stuff you have already collected. It is available from www.Download.com, a reputable download site. Another program is Spybot, available at the same site. The newest player in the antispyware game is Microsoft. The advantage to their program is that it runs continuosly in the background and tries to stop trouble before it happens. It will also update itself and run a scan daily. Like the other programs it can be run manually, when you suspect trouble. Microsoft AntiSpyware is available from www.Microsoft.com .


This brings us to the last Anti-; Antispam. If you have an email account of any sort, whether it be work, home or free like Gmail, you have encountered Spam. I don’t know how many people need loans, Viagra, or free Ipods, but it must be working on somebody or the marketers would stop. Since Spam isn’t going away anytime soon, you will have to deal with it. Luckily most businesses have some sort of Spam filter in place. It may be a piece of software or even a third party like Postini.

If you are sitting at home, you don’t have that luxury. This means either choose an email account that has quality filters in place or create your own. Create your own? If you are a Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express user (and most of us are), then you can set up your own junkmail filters. Take a look under Actions in the toolbar in Outlook and you will find customizable options that allow you to configure the filters to your taste. Outlook includes a junkmail folder that you can check regularly to make sure that wanted mail isn’t being rejected. If you do receive something you don’t want you can right click on the message and select junkmail-add sender to blocked list. From now on anything coming from this sender will be forwarded automatically to your junkmail folder. In this way you can manage Spam yourself without spending extra money on software.

Another way to cut down on Spam is not to give away your home email address. As a rule I only give my home address to family and friends. If you must give way your addresses to a company or to complete a download, then use a secondary or free account for this. That’s when Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail come in handy. These accounts may become a mess of Spam, but you’ll keep your home account as clean as possible.

Remember that “anti” is the operative word when using your computer on the internet. Almost everyone has a PC these days, but you don’t receive a detailed instruction manual with the machine. Following a few relatively simple and inexpensive tips should help avoid any major internet related disasters.

Until next month…….Safe Computing!


Mike Fonseca is a Network Engineer with Entec Systems, a computer consulting business based out of Richmond, VA.