World Backup Day has all the sounds of a greeting card holiday for the computer world. Backing up is always a good option so why do we declare a specific day just for backups? Well, awareness is a good starting point and we need to remind people to check and test their backups. Also, in the past, April 1st has been a target for some virus deployments so a backup check at the end of March also makes some sense from a preparedness standpoint. Besides, anything worth keeping is worth keeping in 2 places so let’s expand this to say backup and backup off site.

So we all know what a backup is and to check that it is working but is there evidence that we need to backup. I did some digging on the Internet and various sources all have different things to say about hard drive failure. I think the data in the Carnegie Mellon University study was the most sited but you can find others by Google and interpretations by the 100s. What I get from my quick look at the data is that the average user may have a 9% chance of drive failure in the first 5 years of use of any given hard drive. After 5 years of use it may go up to 25% chance of failure. The lesson here is keep data on newer hard drives.

Let me take a further step and say a few words about what we see in the field. Machines older than 4 or 5 years make up a bulk of our calls for urgent support or clean up. The software loaded on them keeps growing and their load is much higher then when they were put in service. So yes, drives take more of a beating just from virtual memory use and overall reads and writes. But the machine as a whole becomes less efficient as a tool in the work place. When that happens we get more calls for service and your total cost of ownership for that one machine starts to sky rocket.

So please, backup your data and have that backup off site. The cost of off site backup makes good business sense. But also, look at the machines or devices that store your data and decide if now is a good time to update and upgrade. Data storage grows as files sizes get larger and drives need enough free space to cover your future needs.

First, for small businesses I rarely see the point in upgrading prior to the first big patch, service pack, or month to two months of a new technology.  Waiting for the dust to settle applies to hardware and software.  There is a simple reason, most of our clients are not staffed to be testing environments and the cost can be a lot more than the price to upgrade.  The last thing you want to do is invest in something new, which is un-tested in multiple environments, and which will end up increasing your costs and possibly increasing down time.  There are a few situations where this would not apply but if you are in one of those situations you most likely already know that the product will work for what you need or that the risk is needed for your environment.

Second, your support options get much better after even a short period of time.  Companies releasing new technology plan for support but it seems that they too have a ramp up time.  Support for many products goes faster after they have seen the problem a few times and found the quickest way to handle the issue.  Aside from support offered direct from the company many users have found solutions, work arounds, alternatives, or solved conflicts and listed them online.  All of these factors reduce the cost of supporting your next have-to-get-it business tool.

Your phones are now essential tools.  The laptop you take home with you at night or over the weekend is also an essential tool. Backups are your number one priority, security patches are a needed, major version upgrades need to be considered (yes even smartphone apps), and OS upgrades should be done after reading reviews or consulting experts on the applications and hardware.

One more note here.  As an essential tool I feel the same about smartphones as I do work laptops, they are not for entertainment.  If you consider it a part of your work day and you would be lost without it for a day then please buy a dedicated computer, game system, or even smartphone for you or your family to use for games, social networking, surfing for fun, browsing pictures or videos. Many people tell me after the fact that their downtime, repair cost, and/or lost data would have been worth far more than the cost of a separate system for casual use.

Know your backup options, keep up to date on security patches, and use the internet for expert reviews and advice.  Of course, if you want help navigating the options, call us and ask.

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While Amazon and Apple battle it out over the name “Appstore”, I’m not really caring as so far Amazon has provided me with two pretty cool apps for free.  This is their gimmick to keep you coming back to their store once a day similar to a Groupon kind of site.

Regardless, the first free app they offered was Angry Birds Rio, which at the time of this writing is a pretty popular…all of the Angry Birds apps are I guess, but I’ll admit I’m not really into them…yet.

Today I went to Amazon and was amazed to see Shazam Encore!  This is the full version of the app with no ads and unlimited tags!  It took a matter of seconds for me to pop open my phone – click on the Amazon app and download Shazam Encore for free.

We are not in any way affiliated with Amazon, but I must say…on a personal level…I have been buying all of my music there and now they are making it incredibly easy to purchase apps for Android.

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I won’t take credit for what I found on CNN, but rather felt that I should continue to share the information that I came across.

Please be sure to read the CNN article as it contains a list of apps that are believed to contain malware.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/mobile/03/02/google.malware.andriod/index.html

Related articles

• Report: Google yanks infected Android apps (reviews.cnet.com)
• Malware Attack Highlights Android Market Security (gigaom.com)
• Google culls 21 Android apps to curb malware spread (electronista.com)

Ok – so I followed some of Blizzards instructions, but all it turned out to be was some bad spyware or adware conflicting with the game.  So my recommendation is as follows:

1.  First download and run ComboFix.exe – just search for it – easy to find.  Now I use XP 64bit, so that did not work for me.  If you can – run this first…if not just go to number 2.

2.  Download and run Malwarebytes.  Again – easy to find – don’t want to over advertise anyone or leave someone out.

If the above two options do not work – here is Blizzard’s post, but please note that instead of removing folders like they suggest…I recommend cutting and pasting them to your desktop.  If that wasn’t the reason – then you don’t lose all of your settings:  http://eu.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_GB&articleId=24198

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In fact, this post comes after someone came to me for help with a machine that would not run any .exe file.  After doing my magic of cleaning the machine, I started to look for the cause.  I will not go so far as to say the absolute cause of this problem was Zwinky, but I will tell you that Myweb Searchbar was identified, by my software of choice for clean ups, on over 100 registry items and files.  I will also point you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwinky for a more detailed explanation.

What do I tell parents?  If you are paying for your “work” machine or primary home machine to be cleaned due to entertainment or social networking (game sites, following links from friends, random browsing of any old Internet site) by you or your kids you are causing yourself too much grief.  Buy a home machine for these purposes and do not use “work” machines or the computer you keep all your financial and personal data on. 

I am not saying that having a second or third machine in the house will save you money.  However, when it goes down you may not opt to call a professional for help as often since the use of the machine is not critical.  And, you will go a long way toward protecting your electronic personal data and identity.

Yes, anti-virus, anti-spyware, and other security software can help.  But you and your kids are both likely, while browsing or having fun, to click an OK or Accept when a warning pops up and you have just turned over your machine to the unknown control of rogue software.

And please everyone, backup, backup, backup.  Off site backup is a part of many security suites, hosted services, or just plain old use of flash or usb drives.  Today, there are so many ways to have automated off site backups that you should never feel your data could be lost.

The first thing that you need to realize is that the internet has become the first, and sometimes only, place that consumers go to research and sometimes even purchase their products. This means that companies need to change the focus of their advertising and marketing. On this all of our experts agree.

A website is fast becoming the point of initial contact for the consumer and the actual real physical location is becoming less important than the virtual one making how your website is put together that much more important. Here are 5 things to keep in mind when creating a website.

1. A Good Design

First things first… Design. I don’t know about you, but if I go to a web site that is not visually pleasing, it is a quick turn off. Now that’s not to say that every top website needs an incredible visual design — but if a site looks like it hasn’t been updated since 1994, it’s just not going to be associated with other great websites.

A clean and simple design is usually all you need. Bells and whistles are nice, but I’m one who tends to go with the “less is more” theory. You don’t want your design to be over crowded. You just want it to look good so it can stand out from your competitor(s) in the minds of your potential clients.

Think of it this way, your website is your online “First Impression” and First impressions are key. Although, a good design alone will not keep someone on your site — an eye-catching design will, at the very least, grab their attention long enough to take a longer look around.

2. Simple Navigation

It’s helpful to create an image of your ideal visitor and have them in mind when planning out the navigation for your site. You’ll want to be sure that the navigation is easy to spot and consistent throughout the entire web site. Make it obvious where the user should click both in terms of your primary navigation, as well as for links within your content areas.

Part of having an easy to navigate web site is ensuring that the primary means of navigation — links to the key areas of your site — are kept above the fold. Simply put above the fold describes everything you can see on the screen before having to scroll down.

Items to include here are your logo (which should link back to your home page), as well as links to the main sections of your site. If you can link to sub-pages here that is great, but in most cases that will over-clutter your design For example put “Home | About | Services | Contact” in a very easy to find location at the top of your site. Consistency is key here — be sure to place both your primary and sub-navigational links in the same spot throughout the various pages of your web site.

If you use images (or even flash) for your main navigation, it’s especially important to offer a duplicate set of navigation links in your footer. Even if you use text links at the top, the duplication is still helpful. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to find the content they are looking for on your site.

Often times the footer will link to additional information — such as Terms of Service — as well. Things that should be easy to find, but not necessarily something you want taking up real estate on the primary navigation area of the site.

3. Meaningful Content

You know the saying… “Content is King” — you might have a pretty web site which will catch someone’s eye, but if the content is no good, I will be willing to bet that they won’t  stick around for long.

When writing the copy for your web site, it’s important to provide helpful, knowledgeable information about your company, products, services, etc. If you’re running a blog, informative articles related to your area of expertise are incredibly helpful as well.

While it’s important to sell yourself or your company, you also don’t want to oversell, either. Particularly in a blog setting — people reading a blog don’t want to hear all about “me me me” — they want to know how you can help them.

4. Separate Design from Content

Long gone are the days of using html tables for layout and design. The best developed sites use a combo of XHTML and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), which create a separation of design and content.

With use of tags you can create containers for various areas of text and images on your page. Without a corresponding CSS file you’ll see just the basics – text – which is what the search engines want to see, which in these times is most important. By linking to an external CSS file in order to separate your content from the design, it leaves your html page with mostly nothing but actual relevant text in your source code. The separate CSS file is what specifies the fonts, colors, background images, etc. for your site design.

 With this separation of content from design, the search engines no longer have to wade through all of the excess code to find out if your content is relevant, either. And with separate files, the content can load quicker, too – always a good thing in the mind of visitors to your site.

5. Statistics, Tracking and Analytics

There are many services that offer tracking of web site statistics which include information such as:

• How many hits does my site receive?
• How many of these are from unique visitors?
• How are people finding my web site?
• What search terms are they finding me under?
• What web sites link to me?
• What are the most popular pages on my site?
• Who is my average visitor (platform / browser / screen resolution)?

It’s actually quite amazing what kind of information you can keep track of with a good analytics program. Perhaps the most popular site for this is Google Analytics which offers a very robust (and free) tracking solution. If you want to monitor your web site’s performance and figure out how you can improve your site, having a good stats package is key!

Yes, I’m one of the 400 million members (at the time of this blog) that logs into Facebook everyday to see what my “friends” are up to.  Aside from the usual Farmville and other novelty games that seem to have taken over the site, I do find it somewhat useful to keep in touch with some people I actually know.

Today, however, I noticed something new when I logged in.  Apparently Facebook has incorporated something that they call “Open Graph” and it looks like this will pull information about the websites you are visiting and share all of the information with your Facebook friends.  Really??  Do we really want people we know…and more importantly don’t know, but have added them on because we need more people for our “mob”, knowing every intimate detail of our lives?

I did mention I log in, but I failed to mention that I don’t generally put out any posts or share intimate details of my life every moment from a cell phone so that all of my “minions” know what I’m up to at any given moment.  I really don’t need them knowing where I’m going when I’m not logged into Facebook!

I have read that there will now be “like” buttons scattered all over the Internet.  Great…more electronic litter.  Just what’s needed.

I’m sure there will be security measures in place, but it sure will be interesting to see what happens next.  I’d love to hear what opinions are out there about the next “big thing” on the Internet.

 

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• Facebook Takes Its “Like” Button Across The Web (paidcontent.org)

MasterCard and Discover are modifying their rules concerning the processing of debit, prepaid and gift cards thru online transactions. This post includes important information about the new requirements and the timelines regarding our support of the requirements, so please read it thoroughly.

MasterCard’s rule changes go into effect May 1, 2010, and Discover’s rule changes go into effect April 16, 2010. However, if you are using Authorize.Net; MasterCard and Discover have worked together to extend these dates until June 30, 2011.

What are the requirements?
MasterCard and Discover are requiring that all merchants support the following:

Balance response transactions
For prepaid and gift cards, once the card has been used, the remaining account balance will be transmitted along with the authorization response. The remaining balance must be printed on the customer receipt, displayed on the Web page or point-of-sale terminal, or both.

 Partial authorization transactions
When a customer’s transaction amount exceeds the balance available on their debit, prepaid or gift card, instead of declining the transaction, a partial authorization for the amount available to the customer will be returned. This will allow the customer to pay for the remaining amount with another form of payment. This is called a split-tender transaction.

Authorization reversals
An authorization reversal is a real-time transaction initiated when the customer decides that they do not want to proceed with the transaction, or if t

he merchant cannot complete the transaction for any reason. Authorization reversals free up the customer’s available balance on their debit, prepaid or gift card.

What do your merchants need to do to support the requirements?
The steps that your merchants will need to take to support the requirements depend on how they connect to the payment gateway. For example, if they connect using a shopping cart, point-of-sale device, or other solution, they will need to contact their solution provider to confirm that they will be supporting the requirements. If your merchants connect using a direct integration, they should contact their Web developer for assistance.

 Do merchants have to support the requirements?
MasterCard and Discover are requiring all merchants to support the requirements with the exception of merchants that exclusively process transactions via batch uploads, mail order/telephone order (MOTO), or recurring payment transactions. Your merchants should contact their Merchant Service Provider (MSP) to determine if their company is exempt, as their MSP is ultimately responsible for determining if the requirements apply to their business.

 

 

Once again, these requirements will not be enforced for MasterCard’ until May 1, 2010, and Discover’s on April 16, 2010. However, Authorize.Net merchants have until June 30, 2011.