The Case for Google Apps

As a small business, you’ve got a number of things on your mind. In our experience, #1 is usually about money: making more of it and spending less of it.  #2 is usually about the security of the data in your business, and making sure that your important information is secure and backed up.  What is that critical information?  These days a lot of it is email related, and frequently document related.  What if you could use a solution that was easy, inexpensive, and available from anywhere?  Other than making your life easier, where’s the downside?

I’m talking about Google Apps here.  Many of us have a gmail account, and find it a really convenient, easy-to-use, and well-designed product.  What if you could use gmail for your business account?  And if that gmail account came with a calendar that you could use for your whole business and share with all your employees just like you do with your personal gmail calendar would that simplify things?  What if you could have all of this and not have to have an email address that is stevesbadgerrentals@gmail.com which every employee in the company has access to?  What if you could be steve@stevesbadgerrentals.com AND have the gmail interface, excellent SPAM filtering, and calendaring?  And, what if that also came with Google Docs and online storage, so all your employees could keep their files in the cloud and access them from anywhere?

Google is offering Exchange-level office communications features, in the “cloud’ (really in Google’s distributed data centers) for very little money.  Starting from $5/user/month you can have all of this and not have to worry about hosting your own email, and backing up your own email, and managing your email server.  Nor do you have to put up with a standard POP email hosting plan from a provider that limits the amount of email you can store, and might or might not make it SUPER easy to access from anywhere, or to get on your phone so you don’t have to use their webmail interface. 

It has the potential to make you and everyone in your office more productive, and gives you a great opportunity to have your critical business data stored in the cloud with access from anywhere.  We see this as a win-win situation.

Tech Tips - Making a Secure Password

You may be guilty of it. If you use the same password for everything or other simple mnemonic password/formula you can greatly increase your risk to having your data and accounts compromised. It’s not always the end user that’s responsible for leaking a password to a malicious party. Sometimes companies in charge of storing such data get compromised, giving the attackers a litany of options to access your accounts, especially if that company or person stored other pertinent information. The solution to this is to be reasonably aware of whom and how you give/store your information, but also diversify login details.

It’s tough to remember a lot of passwords and usernames. With the amount of services available today a compounding factor is that everyone has different rules. For example, one service might require that you have a mix of alphanumeric characters, minimum 1 ‘special character’ or meet other complexity criteria in addition to strict character count requirements. You may even have to refresh the password every so often. 

Our recommendation would be to generate a complex formula for your passwords that includes mixed case (Upper/lower case letters) alphanumeric characters with special characters (Ex. # % & * ) of at least 8 (critical credentials should have more) characters that changes per login; this will satisfy most password rule requirements. How should you go about this? It’d defeat the purpose for us to provide you with a formula, but there’s no set rules on this. Be creative, the more creative you are the better (as long as you can remember what you make up). Once you’ve got a formula down, check out the passwords forecasted integrity on this page and take note of its comments/suggestions. Apply the formula to several different services that you use regularly and take note of the results to see how secure they are and how compatible it is for the services that you use. 

Of course, the most complex password in the world won’t prevent infiltration of an account if for example, you have a keylogger installed on your computer, someone sees you type the password, etc. You still have to be very aware of all the other aspects of informational security IN ADDITION to having good passwords.

While maintaining secure passwords won’t be a non-issue in the near future, there are developments such as OpenID designed to reduce the amount of headache involved with logins while increasing security. There are other solutions such as KeePass if you need to as well.

Backup and Encryption

Backup, backup, backup…you hear it all the time. “Is your data backed up?” “When did you last backup your data?” And perhaps most frustratingly, after your hard drive fails (computers gets stolen, fire, flood, alien abduction), you ask yourself “WHY DIDN’T I BACKUP?”  Our excuses are running thin as to why we don’t backup these days, especially with today’s backup solutions becoming more accessible and easier to use. It used to be “it’s difficult”—then, software came along like Acronis that makes imaging your machine easy.  “I’ve got nowhere to store it” fails as an argument with USB 2.0 drives falling in price again (after the Thailand flooding pushed prices up). “What about off-site storage in case of theft/fire/alien abduction?” is now an easily answered question because of the vast number of different options available to us these days, including options that can give you an added level of security via encryption.

Arstechnica recently did a great write up comparing SpiderOak  to some of their competitors (box.net, dropbox, and sugarsync). They mainly discuss encryption options which are important for businesses who want to ensure that their data is seen by them and nobody else.  If a business that is going to upload a backup of any of  its data, it is CRITICAL that the data is encrypted, not only on the server, but during transmission, as well.  While that may not seem all that important if you’re just uploading photos of your kids or family events, what if you want to upload backups of your tax data, or your family’s social security numbers, or a password document that you keep around, or any number of other items that you would want to be and remain private?  Encrypting your data is imperative to keeping your data as secure as possible. It’s also important to have faith in the online provider that you choose for backing up your data, making sure that they treat your data as you would, and that they are committed to that.  Some online providers have had issues where what they advertised about the security of your files wasn’t quite what they were providing, so it is crucial to do your research and find the best solution for you.

Now we are not suggesting that you HAVE to use SpiderOak, but we are saying that you HAVE to start thinking about backing up your data now (while you still have it) rather than wait until something goes wrong and wish you had backed up your data.  With all the online options available to you (and of the 4 listed in the article the minimum amount of storage they offer for FREE is 2GB) there’s no reason not to sign up for an account today, and start backing up your important information to the cloud so you have it…just in case aliens steal your computer.  

Tech Tips - Kick Your Computer Into Shape

No one likes a slow computing experience. While people are sometimes too quick to point out hidden viruses or other unseen activity in an attempt to make sense of a problem, our experience says the most common issues are related to the below.

• Poor web browsing experience - Perhaps one of the most rudimentary of uses of a machine, it ought to be something machines excel at. The problem may not be you or your machine at all. While most ISPs generally monitor factors that may relate to customer Quality of Service, they don’t typically respond unless a customer vocalizes a complaint. A problem with the noise on DSL/Cable lines or defect with provided equipment, or internal equipment may be the cause. Typically, if your machine runs your programs and projects OK this means you might want to try an online diagnostic like http://speedtest.net. While these online diagnostics are far from conclusive and aren't the whole picture they can help give you an idea of the what you’re actually getting VS. what you’re being billed for in terms of speed and begin the process of evaluating why your needs aren't being met.

• Slow boot up/Launching of Programs - The common causes of this are many.
• Not enough memory - Memory (aka RAM; not to be confused with hard disks or other ‘permanent’ storage) is where your OS, programs, and projects ‘load’ for quick access. However, not having enough can bring the system to a screeching halt. To make up for the memory you don’t have, your computer uses what’s known as Virtual Memory. Essentially, Virtual Memory is an area of your computer’s hard disk reserved to make up for physical memory to spill over to. While this allows you to continue using the machine when you use up your memory, hard disks are awful for performing the quick read/write operations that were intended to be done in RAM. Adding memory to the point where the machine no longer has to use Virtual Memory is what causes the performance boost you might have seen after you’ve upgraded. It's also why you might experience a significant difference with a fresh install; you're simply using less memory than you were previously. Does adding more memory always make your computer faster? Not necessarily, once you’ve added to the point where Virtual Memory is barely used, adding more doesn’t make any difference other than lightening your wallet unless you think your hardware requirements will change. The amount necessary varies per machine, per user and can change over time as software and the user change.
• Too many things starting with the computer - Some people like to have their calendar application or maybe their email launch with their computer. This can be a great convenience if used judiciously. However, too many programs can make the startup process slower and also compound the issue of having low amounts of memory. These processes can also tie up the CPU and hard disk. It’s not always programs that you intend to start with the machine that can cause issues. Frequently installed applications have components that make their way into your machine’s startup process. This is another reason not to simply click ‘next’ when installing software, understand what the check boxes mean and what you’re agreeing to; it saves a lot of future headache.
• Slow media - Hard Disks come in all speeds and capacities. Frequently users of 5400RPM Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) can benefit from an upgrade to a 7200 RPM drive or an SSD. Spindle speeds (RPM), cache siz, etc. aren’t the only metric to determine how well storage will perform, but faster speed storage can offtimes lead to significant performance increases, especially if you already have all the memory you need but you've addressed the above 2 points and it still isn't as fast as you'd like.
• Process Specific Performance - If you're a photographer, you might edit huge projects that seem to take forever to respond to the operations you'd like to perform. If you edit video, your special effects and projects might take forever to render. It may be that you've exceeded the capabilities of the CPU or graphic card or you're not taking advantage of available industry solutions to your problem, especially if you've addressed the other points. For example, those involved with video might benefit from a graphics card that supports the CUDA architecture or even Intel's Quik Sync, depending on what you're doing. The basis of these technologies is that of course, modern processors are fast, but a lot of of the calculations aren't highly complicated requiring advanced processing that can only be done on a 'smart' CPU. Rather lots of very simple calculations need to be done and doing those on a lot of 'slower,' 'dumb' but more abundant processors yields better results. Generally the software vendor is the best place to start to see if you're missing out on something that might be of use in this respect. It may also simply be a matter of needing to retire a machine.

Evaluating performance concerns and goals can be daunting. However, with a bit of thought and understanding of what it is you're doing and what you're expecting of the machine can pave the way to more productive computer. Be sure to drop us a line if you need help figuring your technology woes out.

Tech Tips- Updating Your "Legacy" Computer

It’s a pretty common occurrence among today’s contemporary industry to have antiquated (Legacy) machines still in service. You may have a computer that functions as an appliance for your business that drives machinery over Serial or has a piece of software that only operates on an old, no longer supported Operating System.

Generally, the reason businesses have these machines around despite the rest of the network being updated on a regular basis is that such transitions are problematic. Newer machines lack appropriate device interfaces, necessary OS for software packages to run, set up may be laborious/cost intensive and/or you simply never got around to it. Unfortunately, this style of non-proactive maintenance of critical systems greatly increases your exposure to loss. If the machine goes down and you can’t fix it, what’s your contingency plan? How will business be impacted and for how long?

One of the easiest ways to bring these machines up to 21^st century standards without having to start over is to virtualize the machine. Essentially, virtualization (which we’ve discussed before for other applications) is a computer within a computer.  Aside from offering decreased cost, easier backup, administration, maintenance, transition of systems and less energy use it can also be used to get these legacy system roles working on contemporary hardware.  This can greatly increase your business’s plasticity in the event of a failure and reduce the chances of failure occurring at all.

You can essentially ‘Copy’ an old computer and put it on a Host machine; a computer that ‘houses’ the virtual (Guest) computer. The availability of modern software solutions such as VMWare, VirtualBox and Microsoft’s Hyper-V mean there’s likely a solution available to suits your specific needs. Virtualization technology such Intel’s VT-D, features such as USB Passthrough, the ability to emulate Serial/Parallel commands, customizable virtual devices, etc. means that there are few environments that this doesn’t work. However, you MUST make the evaluation and transition while the current legacy solution still works, not after.

Of course there are some drawbacks. Generally, the abstraction involved in virtualization also means that there’s overhead for computations; you won’t be able to use the Host’s hardware’s performance to its full capacity. However, the host machine is typically many times faster than the machine you’re virtualizing for this purpose and the line between physical and virtual is diminishing at an exponential rate. There are also some instances such as the need for proprietary device/driver support that this solution won’t work due a limitation of hardware/software compatibility or other limitation.  

Employing the use of Virtualization if it fits the bill can save money and a lot of future headaches. Be sure to let us know if you’d like to discuss its applicability to your environment. 

Should You Upgrade to Windows 8?

With the release of Microsoft’s Windows 8 Consumer Preview, many people have now had their first look into the future of the world’s most widely used OS.  As a company that services both businesses and consumers, we have already been asked, should I upgrade to Microsoft’s latest and greatest once Windows 8 is officially released later this year? We downloaded and ran the consumer preview ourselves for review and the answer to that question is dependent on the user. 

There are several factors to consider before deciding to upgrade.  The first being what type of customer are you?  Are you a consumer or business?  In addition, how do you currently use your current OS?  Is it for work, play or a little of both?  Do you primarily use a desktop or do you have a laptop or netbook because you are always on the go?

Windows 8 is a significant leap from Microsoft’s previous operating systems.  Some say it is the biggest change since they moved from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95.  Taking into account the current environment where people own PC’s, tablets and smartphones, Microsoft looked to bridge these devices into a unified OS.  There are many elements of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 mobile OS that is built into Windows 8.  Most notably, the Metro user interface with its live tile based system.  What Microsoft has done is address the power PC user and tablet user all at once.  For the first time, users will be able to choose between a touch screen interface and a power-user desktop platform that runs legacy apps such as Office.  There is also SkyDrive, Microsoft’s cloud-based storage system, which will enable apps to synchronize data across multiple devices.

For consumers, upgrading to Windows 8 could be an easy decision.  Many simply want to be at the forefront of technology.  For those that are looking to upgrade their current PC or laptop within the next year, this could be a perfect time to jump into Windows 8.  If you have been holding off on purchasing a tablet because you’ve been longing for a device that could be used for work and play, Windows 8 may be for you.

For businesses, the decision to upgrade is significantly trickier.  Are you ready to make the financial and time commitment to upgrade every desktop and laptop within your organization especially if you’ve recently upgraded to Windows 7?  Will the software you are currently running be supported in Windows 8?  Will the learning curve to get acclimated with Windows 8 impact the productivity of your employees? These are all questions you will have to heavily consider to make a decision that best benefits your business.

TCM has been running the Windows 8 consumer preview since it launched and we like the potential of Microsoft’s new OS, yet have some reservations with the OS as it sits now replacing the “standard” windows desktop that so many users are comfortable with.  As the release of the retail version draws closer, there will certainly be questions from many of you on whether you should upgrade or not.  As always, we will be here to help you make the right decision for your situation.

Social Media for Small Businesses - From Us to You

Small businesses are turning more and more to social media to stay connected to their customers both personally and professionally. The Chip Merchant is no exception! Recently, we’ve been working on boosting our social media presence on Facebook. Twitter, LinkedIn, and our blog. We’re excited to have the opportunity to keep in touch with our customers and can’t wait to provide you with more tech news, tips, and the chance to get to know us as a company. While social media may not be something we've covered before in our newsletters, as a tech company and a small business, we realize the importance of social networking to consumers and small businesses everywhere.

Here are some social media tips for you and your business, as well as a look at our own social media experience here at TCM.

Facebook: Like our page at http://www.facebook.com/thechipmerchant

We're a team of tech enthusiasts, so we like being up-to-date on the latest tech industry news.  Facebook is a fun opportunity for us to share that news with our customers and to connect with you on a personal level. When you see us on your newsfeed, we want to provide you with the best the Internet has to offer, including articles, videos, and relevant news. Be on the lookout for deals in the future, too! Like our page and like posts you think are interesting and helpful so we can continue to provide you with the information and content that YOU want.

Tip: Use Facebook Insights for your company page! This free analytics tool keeps track of how many people your posts reach and how many people engage with the content you provide. These metrics allow you to optimize your page and the kind of content you post by showing you which posts get clicked on most and what times of day are prime for more interaction!

Twitter: Follow us here: http://twitter.com/TheChipMerchant 

Twitter is a quick and easy way to reach out to a lot of people at once, share news, and start conversations. We retweet important news stories, share articles that are worth reading, and frequently check trending topics for techies so we don't miss a thing in the tech industry! Have a quick question or comment for us? Do you just want to say Hi? Twitter is the way to do it! Follow us and @mention us and we'll get back to you with 140 characters or less.

Tip: Tweet and mention other Twitter accounts! Retweeting and mentioning other Twitter users are great ways to get people tweeting to you and about you. 

LinkedIn: Follow us here: http://linkedin.com/company/the-chip-merchant

As a professional networking site, LinkedIn is becoming the go-to social media outlet for B2B companies. We are working on our company profile to share our products and services with LinkedIn users. We're also working on our personal profiles so you can get a sense of our team's expertise and what we all contribute to the company. Want to keep up-to-date with TCM's services? Follow our company page! And, if you've had success with any of our products and services, feel free to recommend us! 

Tip: For your company page, make use of the Products And Services tab and give descriptions of what your company offers. The Analytics tool is also handy for getting an idea of how well your page is doing in relation to the pages of similar companies. For your personal page, make sure your profile is 100% filled out and request valuable recommendations from colleagues and business partners to boost credibility for yourself and your company. Also, one of the best ways to receive recommendations is to give them! Don't be shy about singing the praises of an old co-worker or a business you've worked with in the past.

Blog Get the latest here: http://blog.thechipmerchant.com

We’ve had our blog for a while, and our Tech Tips are a monthly staple in our newsletters. We're working on stepping up our game to bring you more quality information for consumers and small businesses. Comment on our blog posts if you have something to add or if you want more clarification! Add us to your RSS feed so you won't miss a single post from us!

Tip: Tag or label your posts! Not only will it make your blog easier to navigate for people who want to learn more about your thoughts on certain subjects, but they can also get your blog to pop up more frequently in search results for those keywords on Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. 

Tech Tips – UPS Delivers Uptime

Uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) can save critical machines from losing power in the event of an outage.  They essentially operate like a laptop’s battery; when you pull a laptop’s power cord out of the machine while it’s running, the operation of the computer isn’t interrupted up to the limits of the battery capacity.

While they’re generally too cost and space prohibitive to have on every workstation on the network, having them with critical network components (such as servers, NAS units, firewall/routers, and modems) can help preserve some level of connectivity. This can be crucial for keeping phones up during outages, especially as the transition to VOIP based phones becomes more and more common in small businesses. It will also allow servers that are in the middle of backing up data to finish or at the very least terminate the operation properly, reducing your chances of database corruption and otherwise mitigating the consequences of technological down time. How a UPS might fit into your environment varies greatly depending on what you and your network do, so there’s no catchall application.

Of course as with any battery operated system, the length of time they can provide power is not unlimited. Along with planning for the impact of such outages, you’ll need to consider the draw of the equipment attached to it and how long it reasonably needs to be up. This will help you balance the return on investment potential with cost. Luckily, there are UPS’s of varying costs that can make sense for just about any budget.

Think about how you or your business works. To what extent would an outage affect your operation and what would be the consequences? Uninterruptible power supplies could be the solution for you. 

Tech Tips – Making Use of Solid State Drives (SSDs)

SSDs aren’t new, but with the recent spike in platter Hard Disk pricing due to flooding in Thailand they’ve been an increasingly common choice in our builds. Depending on your use of the machine, it may make sense for you too even as pricing on Hard Disks (HDDs) come down.

The main difference between HDDs and SSDs is what your data is written to and how. In Hard Disks, data is stored on rotating, disc shaped magnetic platters. A moveable arm moves the head to read/write to various sections of the platter, akin to moving the arm on an old school vinyl record player to the desired location of your favorite track in the old days

There are a couple of problems with this. Needing to move the arm to read/write the desired data takes time and you can only read/write to one area of the disk at once. If you have a big file, program or other data stored or written to different parts of the disk, your head will be seeking all over the place (see: Fragmentation) to access or write the requested information. The end result is you waiting longer for your computer to boot, your programs to launch and your projects to be saved to your hard drive.

SSDs offer a different way of reading and writing data. Instead of moving assemblies based on physically moving platters and heads you essentially have something like a memory card that you’d use in your cell phone or digital camera… just on steroids. A digital controller directs data to the various ‘sections’ of the non-volatile, nonmoving storage ‘chips.’ Since there are no moving parts there’s no physical lag as with a hard disk spindle and head. With modern SSDs, it’s possible to saturate SATA 3/6 Gbit/s with real work. In other words these drives may outperform or nearly outperform the capabilities of the computer it’s connected to. This is not altogether a bad thing. Often people's feeling that their computer is "slow" has a lot to do with the hard drive that's in that machine and it's having to move around to save/store/find data.

While the reliability of SSDs vs HDDs is subject to controversy and we won’t get into that here it should be noted that ANY data of any importance ALWAYS needs to be backed up. Theft, physical damage, accidental deletion, etc. are all real possibilities that can occur irrespective of the storage media and their inherent qualities.

Of course, with the good comes the bad. Currently, SSDs on a per capacity basis are nowhere near as cost effective as HDDs. While the gap is closing at ever increasing rates the technology is still far from a mainstream product, so volume and competition haven’t driven the prices down quite yet. However, for those of you who don’t need a lot of space (or have other places such as a NAS to store the bulk of data), or are willing to pay for that space to be as fast as possible SSDs offer some huge advantages that you should look into.