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In This Issue
Virtual Servers
Social Engineering
Free Office Software
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Backing up your
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Customers expect to be able to
access your business via the web…and why not?
It is an inexpensive sales tool available anytime…
Is
your Wireless Network Secure...?
Your Business or Home wireless
network should display a ‘lock’ symbol indicating it is secure, if not you
may be leaving your data exposed. Contact FITS if you are not sure sales@FileBankIT.com or (416) 640-2874 …
Question of the Month:
What company is
involved in the development of openoffice.org?
Send your response to info@FileBankIT.com before
Feb. 15, 2010 to be eligible to win a $10 Tim Horton’s Gift Card.
The winner of last issue’s prize wants to
remain anonymous: – Enjoy the Book.
Thank-you for your responses and yes, you can win more than once. J
Q: - Where do you volunteer?
A: - A Toronto Area Shelter
Contact Us:
http://www.filebankit.com/
Info@FileBankIT.com
David Mielke
– Sales and Service Mgr.
(416) 640-2874
For more FileBank Services See:
FITS is
featured in 
January Community
Spotlight - FileBank
proudly supports:
Women's Centre of York Region
See FileBank’s website for a related
article on the positive impact of community involvement for business.
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The Small Business Benefits
of Virtual Servers
Virtualization is a process
whereby multiple servers or workstations are run within a single computer. Even for smaller businesses the benefits of
Virtualization quickly add up.
Virtualization moves your
business in a leaner, environmentally green direction, as well as providing a
disaster recovery component second to none.
If in the future you require your Virtual Server to run additional computer
environments, they may be added without additional hardware costs. Benefits Include:
Equipment Consolidation – Reduce hardware costs by consolidating all
your existing servers into one single piece of hardware. Each virtual machine will see its own
hardware and can only see the other virtual machines through a Local Area
Network (LAN) connection.
Business Continuity or Disaster Recovery - Each virtual
server/workstation exists as a single large data file. This file can be
easily copied onto external media for backup purposes. The image does not
require complicated rebuilding and is usable almost immediately.
Power and Cooling Savings - You will require power and cooling for only
1 machine instead of the several that exist now. Welcome to lower operating costs and a
reduced (greener) footprint.
Safeguarding from Malware/Virus
- Should a virtual machine become infected with malware or a virus, simply
delete the existing virtual machine files and replace them with a copy from
the backup. Downtime is limited to the time it takes to copy the clean backup
system over.
If your
business is looking to upgrade or introduce a server - Contact
FITS Sales@FileBankIT.com (416) 640-2874 for a no-obligation consultation
Socially Engineered Intrusions -
Watchdogs
Social engineering is the art of gaining access to
areas (buildings, networks, data etc.) by leveraging human psychology, rather
than using brute force. This can be
accomplished in person or using any number of available communication tools
(email, telephone, websites etc.).
Human behaviour is always the weakest
link in any security program. Most
people aren’t trained to recognize a social engineer's tricks and tend to be
polite and helpful when it comes to business dealings (we are trying to look
after our customer’s needs after all).
Examples of intrusions could be someone posing as a
service provider (in person, they may be in uniform or appropriate business
dress); an email intrusion can appear from your System Administrator (or
similar authority) asking for credentials such as passwords to ‘fix’
something, (or from a financial institution, PayPal or eBay asking for your
account information). Social
networking sites have opened a host of new avenues, "Have you seen this
video/photo of you?”. ‘Friends’ sites,
who have been hacked, can ask for information or money to get them out of
trouble, “I’m stranded while on vacation and need you to wire some money”.
A
sophisticated intruder will attempt to blend in and look like they belong or
they may take on the role of an authority figure whose instruction requires
your immediate attention and unquestioning compliance. These types of intrusions are difficult to
defend against as they constantly change in form, however a few basics should
be introduced at your company to get you on the right track to better
security.
A little bit of paranoia goes a long way regarding
security matters. Get all your staff involved in the security process –
include training seminars and keep staff up to date or refreshed on the topic.
Make good security part of your company culture (a company newsletter or
internal website can serve as a reminder) Management should demonstrate good
security as an example and reward good security behaviour by the employees –
little rewards (a thank-you or chocolate treat) often go a long way.
For more information on security steps to safeguard
your business or home computers contact FITS.
(Sales@FileBankIT.com or 416 640-2874)
Free Office Suite at OpenOffice.org
For those of you
looking for a viable alternative to Microsoft Office for your home or
business computer, OpenOffice.org (OOo) offers up an office software suite
for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and
more… all at no charge. Yes really, as
in ‘no-strings attached’, free.
What’s more, the software runs on all major
computing platforms - Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, Sun Solaris, and Apple
Mac. The idea is essentially Sun Microsystems attempt to reduce the dominant
market share of Microsoft Office by providing a free and open alternative. As
the software is built by the open source software developer’s community,
anyone can look at the programs and suggest improvements or fix bugs.
OOo uses the
standard OpenDocument Format (ODF) as its default file format, however it
allows you to open and save files in many different formats, which means it
can open any Microsoft Office file as well as a host of others. It has the look and feel of Microsoft's Office
2003 and contains most (if not all) of the features you have in your current
suite. As an added bonus it also includes a built-in PDF converter… I’m hard
pressed to find a feature that this software doesn’t have and there are a
multitude of add-ons to download if you so desire.
On the down-side, the program does have occasional problems converting file
formats exactly as they appeared in the original (conversions can be tricky),
it may be slightly more demanding of your system and produce marginally
bigger files however, with a newer version due out this month (updates appear
about every 3-months) a lot of the reasons to dismiss this product are fast disappearing.
Whether
you are a ‘poor student’, small business trying to reduce your costs or just
looking for a product that isn’t Microsoft, OpenOffice.org is a comprehensive
product that seems to be continually improving itself and from what I’ve seen,
is well worth a look.
Getting your OOo suite
is as simple as downloading and installing all components in a single
operation. With over 100,000,000
downloads of this product already I thought you might like to know. For more
information on OOo go to http://www.openoffice.org/
When in need of expert computer advice contact FITS at
Sales@FileBankIT.com
or (416) 640-2874 and stay focused on what your business does best.
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