NO!

OK, so saving IT dollars does technically save you money for your company if you look at the immediate cost.  Unfortunately that's where most decisions stop.  "Gosh, we're spending $2,000.00 a month on help desk, network administration, hardware, power...  Let's cut that to $500/month and we'll be saving $18,000.00 each year!"  Sounds enticing doesn't it?  Unfortunately you'll probably lose half of that due to wasting time on figuring out simple help desk issues, and you'll probably have some sort of large IT system error that costs you somewhere in the range of what you thought you were saving by cutting IT costs.

Instead of simply cutting cost by reducing services look at these factors on how you can reduce your IT costs to save money, but keep your company well supported and on track to reach its goals.

• Analyze your hardware.  Do you have more than you need, or is it outdated?  It could be costing you to have older hardware supported, repaired, or failing at your company.  Check with your IT company to make sure that the equipment does everything you need, and that it will survive until you are ready to invest in new equipment.  If you aren't sure what your hardware is capable of consult with your IT company, or department, to utilize it to its full capacity.  If you have a server but are still storing documents on your PC you should probably use what you have invested so much money in.
• Use Web Based Software.  (Wall Street Journal)Installing software "locally" (on individual machines) can be costly.  Using an online service eliminates the need to install software on your computer, is accessible from anywhere, and increases the availability, and often the efficiency, of your employees.
• Check your work-flow.  Many offices are taking unnecessary steps, and slowing down their processes, without even knowing it.  A good IT company, or department, can help you identify areas in which you can improve on work-flow through your technology.  Utilize your hardware, software, and goals to create a system that eliminates unnecessary steps, gathers needed information, and creates a system that will increase efficiency and decrease costs.
• Managed Services.  (CRN.com) It sounds odd, but there aren't many Managed Service Providers using the term "managed services." Rather, they market themselves as "outsourced IT departments." The terminology might be complex, but the concept is not: helping customers lower costs by monitoring and managing their IT infrastructure. In most cases, customers pay the MSP a recurring fee to take care of their IT needs. Because MSPs have more control over both their resources and the customer, the end user's costs are typically less than the traditional break-fix model.
  
  "It's pretty easy. We take responsibility for their network. My analogy is if you had a mechanic living in your garage, your car would run forever," said B.J. Farmer, CEO of CITOC Inc., a Houston-based MSP.

So before you put your IT budget on the chopping block invest some time and money into analyzing your hardware, software, work-flow, and IT services.  If you see an area that can be improved on consult with a local IT company that you trust, and find some areas that will save you money upfront and increase efficiency for your organization.

Online registration is not just a convenient tool for organizations to utilize; it’s a service your customers are expecting.  Think of how many times you’ve wanted to register for something, but you didn’t because you had to do something, no matter how simple, other than just filling out an online form.  I myself am guilty, and the Parks and Rec. volleyball team that never had a chance will never know the glory of victory because of it!

I want to help you see the benefits of an online registration system and educate you why you need to have this as an option.

Convenience:

The convenience factor of online registration is mind boggling.  With a web-based system your registration is available 24/7, anywhere there is web access.  You can send out emails with links directly to registration.  Your registration can be right on your website.  Your registration can be paired up with online shopping (think sports registration, travel, or event merchandise).  You receive immediate confirmation with details on what you just registered for, and it’s available for you to reference whenever you need it.

It’s truly amazing how convenient online registration is for your customers, but it’s even better for you.

With a good online registration system your registrant’s information will go directly into your database.  Now most online registration systems are just that, a registration system, but a management system that creates events and helps you run your program should give you the ability to access user information whenever you need it, make notes, market directly to them, even sign them up for recurring events if they request.  Without sounding too much like a sales pitch for our own registration system, ours does all of those tasks, and more.  Other conveniences worth mentioning are receiving instant feedback about how many people are registered, and being able to monitor your event’s registrations from wherever you are. 

Cost Savings:

While it may not save much money for your registrants, probably only a stamp, it will save you a lot of money, most of it being in the form of time saved.  Online systems that have an integrated database, such as ours, giving you access to registrant info.  The time it takes to file registrations is cut down to zero, it’s all automated so you don’t have to enter any data or file any papers.  You’re not using paper or paying for postage.  Automated messages save you time on follow up and confirmation.  Online registration reduces the amount of input errors, so no time spent fixing misread forms or explaining to people why there were registered for something other than they thought they marked down.  Start up cost is relatively low too.  Being able to pass on the cost of online systems to your registrants means you don’t have to pay to file data, pay for a huge program, or pay to create a new spreadsheet for every event you have. 

Reporting:

Most every organization needs reporting in one form or another.  Using online registration gives you real time reports so you can analyze trends in registration, income, participation, and other useful fields.  The access to the reports can be made public or kept private, but they’re accessible and available when you need them rather than having to sift through all of your registration forms, spreadsheets, or billing statements to create a useful report.

System Support and Security:

Whatever your system is, and whoever provides it, it should be supported by the provider.  If you are the one creating your registration system you have to figure out how to fix any issue that comes up, but if you’re using an online registration from, let’s just say us for fun, you are provided full support to address any issues or utilize any functionality that you aren’t aware of.  Along with the system’s support, your database should be kept in a secure location that you can only access if you have permission.  No worrying about paper documents or spreadsheets accidentally being removed, destroyed, or stolen.

Increased Attendance and Easier Marketing:

I know it sounds too good to be true, but by simply providing an online registration option you are increasing your availability and your odds that people will attend your event.  If more people attend it generally relates to positive results for your business, meaning cash, data or whatever it is you’re looking for.  And how about marketing to specific groups?  That’s made easy by being able to categorize your registrants for future marketing efforts.  If you utilize email marketing you can automate your marketing program to interact with them, saving you time and money. 

I hope this simple, poorly written, list of reasons to utilize online registration starts your journey towards increasing your abilities, saving you time, and simplifying your process.  But if that’s not enough info to get you excited to start thinking about providing an option for online registration feel free to email me, Cameron, at ITsolutions@intertechpro.com, and I’ll happily continue this conversation with you further.

Business Checklist

We’ve created this checklist for you and your company to analyze your current IT support and to determine if you are getting the best possible support.  These are basic items that you should have at your business to keep your server safe, up to date, and give you the access you need.

Œ       Corporate Antivirus software: to protect the server and all pc on your network. This should automatically update with new definitions each day and push these updates to all PCs on the network. It should also run daily virus scan on all PCs on the network.

Œ       Security updates to protect all PCs on the network. These keep all PCs up to date with the latest software and protects from outside attacks.

Œ       System Back Ups that run every day with a tape that is taken offsite and stored in a safety deposit box each week. All employee documents should be saved to the network server (not locally on their PCs) so that all documents are backed up each day and are recoverable should a file be lost.

Œ       Hardware Firewall and VPN to protect your network from outside attacks, and give all employees access to their work desktops and network recourse from anywhere in the world.

Œ       Exchange Email Sever, if you want to host your own email, use public calendars, be able to retain all communications within your organization.

Œ       Server Maintenance performed daily to ensure the daily backups are successful and verified, review critical logs, hardware review, network security review, security updates, and virus definitions, and much more.

If you do not have at least these actions being performed you need to contact your IT provider and request a list of services to find out what they are doing or contact us at ITsolutions@intertechpro.com or 1-800-376-9174 to ensure that your IT system is properly designed and supported. 

Phishing scams are one of the most successful ways to invade your computer, get your information, and steal your funds.  Since Phishing attempts are done so creatively and with such attention to detail you might have a hard time identifying if your email from a phishing scammer or if your social network connections are from a real person or a phisher, I have some very easy tips to avoid being Phished after the definition.

As defined by Wikipedia:

In the field of computer security, phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT administrators are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting public. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging,^[1] and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one. Even when using server authentication, it may require tremendous skill to detect that the website is fake. Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to fool users,^[2] and exploits the poor usability of current web security technologies.^[3] Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, public awareness, and technical security measures.

For more info you can go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing to read the entire Wiki entry, which is quite interesting.

To avoid being phished there are several key factors to look for.  (For an extensive list go here, http://www.antiphishing.org/consumer_recs.html)

• For Emails:  Is someone requesting personal info?  Is it urgent?  Is there a link in the email?  If there is a link don't use it.  Go directly to the website (google, facebook, bank...) and login there.  If there is no message there for you repeating the same info, it's a phishing scam.
• Online:  Avoid giving personal info unless it's through a secure connection.  You can tell by the lock in the address bar when you go to the website, clicking on it, and having it display the security certification. 
• Update your computer for security reasons.  Yes, updates can be annoying, but a large percentage of updates are to fight the ever evolving scammer community, and to keep your data secure.  These updates help automatically protect you from Phishers.
• Always report phishing emails.  You can send them to reportphishing@antiphishing.org and they database them to help fight future scams.

I hope this helps you keep your information safe and secure.  If you would like more help on how we can protect your entire workplace send us an email at ITsolutions@intertechpro.com and we'll analyze your organization's IT needs for no cost.

Every organization is aware of the importance of security – security of the building, security for employees and financial security are all a priority; however, an organization comprises many other assets that require security, most notably its IT infrastructure. An organization’s network is the lifeline that employees rely on to do their jobs and subsequently make money for the organization. Therefore it’s important to recognize that your IT infrastructure is an asset that requires top security. The question is, what should one secure against?

Spam

The No.1 enemy to all email users has got to be spam. Having your inbox fill up with useless messages that promote fake designer goods, bogus get-rich quick schemes and insinuate that you need to improve your love skills is not fun and is definitely not the reason for which you signed up for an email account. Unfortunately spam is a growing problem with research claiming that up to 94% of all emails that are sent are actually spam! That is a huge number when you consider just how prevalent email usage is nowadays. Spam presents an even bigger problem than just being irritating; it can also be harmful. Whilst some spammers do nothing more than direct you to websites to try and sell you things that you don’t need, there are spammers of the more spiteful variety who will include malicious links in their emails that when clicked on will download spyware, malware or other harmful files onto your machine. Therefore one of the first security solutions that you want to have on your server or workstation is anti-spam software.

Viruses

If a virus hits it’s always bad news. A virus can copy itself and infect other machines without the user even knowing that the machine has been infected until disaster strikes. If a virus hits the network then it’s likely to propagate to files on other machines that are connected to the network. Viruses can also spread via email, instant messaging, an intranet and other shared networks causing networks and machines to overload or crash. They can also capture keystrokes which is where the problem of security lies because passwords and banking details can be revealed in this manner. Viruses can cause major security risks and start a cycle of problems for an organization. Implementing an anti-virus solution can save your network and all your files and emails that could easily be lost and corrupted.

Malware

Malware comprises a variety of malicious software types such as Trojans, worms and spyware which will infiltrate your machine without you even realizing. Once your machine is infected it could easily spread to executable files on other machines that are connected to the network thus causing an IT epidemic. Whilst some malware is created simply to disrupt a system, other malware is used for financial gain. Spyware, botnets and keystroke loggers all have malicious intentions as they take control of infected machines and use them to continue proliferating the attack; they also track user’s login details for the sites that they use thus violating their privacy, as well as taking note of credit card details if the user buys something over the Internet. Furthermore if the user has an online banking account, those login details are also tracked and reported back to the host of the malware. Malware encompasses more than just viruses; however, an anti-virus solution is the solution to this ever-growing problem. Keeping your anti-virus up-to-date is key to keeping your machine clean and malware-free; failure to do so will leave you open to attack.

Network monitoring

Networks, servers, workstations – they all need to work seamlessly together for an organization to run its day-to-day tasks. If a server crashes, then the workstations are affected and people can’t carry on with their work. If the network fails the repercussions will affect the entire organization, and in turn affect production levels. So monitoring the network and servers regularly is a main task for any IT administrator; using network and server monitoring software this task can be automated with reports being generated on a regular basis. Server downtime equals business downtime which leads to a loss of profits – which all organizations want to avoid.

Vulnerability scanning and patch management

Vulnerability issues, patch management and network auditing are all security features that need to be addressed when dealing with networks. Leaving ports open is one of the most common security liabilities and attackers are aware of this. Scanning your network for open ports, machines that are vulnerable to infection is the first step to security. Once the scan is complete, patches must be deployed on all machines that are at risk of infection. By assessing your network and keeping up-to-date with all patches you greatly reduce the risk of security attacks occurring.

Written by Giselle Borg Oliver, August 3, 2009, care of www.gfi.com