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We decided to publish all our articles
written for the local newspaper here to reach a broader spectrum of
readers who might find it usefull and get up to speed with their
knowledge of the IT world.
It is not that bad
come to think of it. A computer is
a computer is a computer, just like...
Just the other day
I bought myself a “monster” PC with specs that
require you to put a seatbelt on before starting
up...
What is so
difficult about that you might ask... have you ever walked around in
one of those stores with...
The year of 2008 is on its back and 2009 is lying
ahead...
Although almost each and every person I have asked
about their backups confirmed they know they should do regular backups,
most of them does not have an effective and structured backup plan...
Now that a fair bit of the population have
broadband and “always on” internet, we are all
targets for...
…in the wrong hands someone can create
havoc or steal information...
...your business might not survive the blow if you
do not have a contingency plan carefully worked out step by step what
to do in event of disaster.
1. THE
TECHNOLOGICAL JUNGLE WE HAVE TO FACE - Koos Greyling
It
is not that bad come to think of it. A
computer is a computer is a computer, just like a
car or washing machine. It still
takes you from point A to point B and washes your clothes (the car and
washing machine, not the computer...yet) with the only difference it is
now faster, more automated and sometimes even speaks to you!
The same applies to the computer or personal computer if
you like. You still write
documents, do maths with spreadsheets or for statisticians
Statgraphics, view and edit photos, do bookkeeping and whatever else
you used and still uses your computer for. The
difference? Much faster, the capability to multitask and sometimes a
different graphical interface. I will not bore you with the statistics
of exactly how many times faster and the amount of simultaneous tasks
possible; the only limiting factor being your budget or your
dad’s and no, you cannot play two high end games at the same
time...who would want to play two games at the same time anyways?
Having said that,
technology is improving and breaking barriers at a rate almost beyond
comprehension. Just about
everything we use are making use of a computer in some or other way.
All of which are making our lives easier because of
automation or the ability to complete so many more tasks in a day.
Technology enables us
to do our banking from home, connect CCTV cameras on the office network
and view the images from anywhere in the world, open doors with
fingerprint readers and or use fingerprint readers for “clock
cards”. Wireless or radio
links frees us from all those cables if you want to have a network at
home or in the office. With the
right software you can also make those ever important backups to a
remote location away from the office using a VPN through the internet
or a WAN. The possibilities are
endless.
Unfortunately together
with the technology came viruses, spam, spyware and hackers (somebody
that “hacks” into your computer or network to steal
data or just to annoy you by messing up your system).
Therefore it is of utmost importance to have antivirus
software installed. Also make sure
that the antivirus software updates automatically if you are on a
broadband connection or once a day when you use a dialup connection.
Together with that you must update Windows when that
annoying message tells you to do so. That
is mostly to plug security holes in your system and also bug fixes
Microsoft came to know only after the software was released.
If you do all this you are fairly safe against most of the
gangsters out there.
A computer is
just a means to an end just like your car or your washing machine.
If you service it regularly (your car also need a service
once in a while!) and do not abuse it, you can have a long relationship
with your computer.
2. THE EVER SLOWING PC SYNDROME -
Koos Greyling
Just the other day
I bought myself a “monster” PC with specs that
require you to put a seatbelt on before starting
up...
and now it is so slow
and sluggish that I find myself unbuckling every now and again to go
and make yet another cup of coffee while waiting for my favourite game
to start up. Or if you are a
corporate user, while waiting for the complex spreadsheet you designed
to impress the boss (or yourself) to open. I
am sure most (that is at least 90%) of you can relate to this scenario.
Fact is that you got
used to a fast PC and over time it slows down. And there is not much
you can do to prevent it from happening if you are like most users that
want to try out this new “tool” you came across on
the internet or install that cool screensaver with the beautiful
pictures. Even the very helpful
diary that sits on the desktop to remind you of your aunt’s
sister’s birthday. All
those “thingies” that you come across and just
can’t live without require to be always open/running to work
effectively. Before you know all
these extras that got installed after you bought the PC use up more
than half of your system’s resources. You
cannot expect the same performance from your system if you take away
half of its brain power!
The solution... DO NOT
install anything that you come across and you don’t really
need. The only software that is
required to be always running is your antivirus and antispyware
programs. That said, there are
quite a few antivirus packages that will also slow down your system and
as for antispyware software; most are actually spyware themselves. Best
is to do some research and ask a reputable IT consultant for help
regarding this matter.
Furthermore, Windows
(which most of us are using) needs free space on the system drive to
function at an optimum level. Make
sure there are at the very least about 5GB of free space available on
your system drive. These days hard
drives are not that expensive and it is easy to put in a second or
third hard drive for all those music, photos, dvd’s that you
got from... - I don’t want to know.
A cleanup and defrag now and again is also a good idea if
you want your system to perform at its best.
I
do not have enough space to discuss the various other solutions that
might help you, but feel free to contact us at Welcomp and we
will give you a professional opinion and the best solution to your
specific needs.
3.
THE ART OF BUYING A PC
- Koos Greyling
What
is so difficult about that you might ask... have you ever walked around
in one of those stores with Desktop and Notebook PC’s lined up row
after row and all with different prices, specifications and brand names?
Pretty daunting I would think! Why
do they manufacture such a wide range to choose from?
Couldn’t they just sell one model that will satisfy
everyone’s needs? Dare I
go for the cheapest or should I invest in a brand name PC with a
chassis that will get airborne with all those fans inside if not bolted
to the floor? Or maybe I must get
myself a notebook with an integrated webcam and a fingerprint reader to
keep out unwelcome guests.
Now
for the scary part – ask one of the sales people to help
you... if you’re lucky the person is helpful and honest and
will ask you the right questions to determine your exact and specific
needs. More often than not you
won’t be that lucky and end up buying the most expensive or
most impressive PC in the shop. If
you are on a tight budget like me, you will probably buy the cheapest
PC at one of the mega stores (you will regret it).
All good and well if that is (almost) what you wanted, but
after a month you switch on the PC one morning and nothing happens;
what now? This is where after sales
service with experienced technicians available are crucial.
Especially if you use the PC for you business.
Here
are a few points that you might want to jot down:
- Do
some research on what specifications you need in a PC
- A
notebook is only an option if you have to be mobile and need your PC by
your side.
- Brand
names are good but overpriced. The
no-name PC with good components will last just as long.
- RAM
(Memory) is cheap... more is better.
- A
40GB Hard disk is NOT enough. Go for at least 80GB and preferably
160GB.
- NEVER
tell a sales person you don’t know a thing about computers!
For some it is like “A License to
kill”
- Ask
about after sales service and labour rates and terms.
- Make
sure to compare apples with apples.
- If
you buy second hand, make sure the Windows license is included. (Look
for the sticker with the license key). Otherwise
it is illegal!
- Find
a reputable dealer that will help you get the best buy possible at the
moment.
4.
THE YEAR OF 2009 AHEAD OF US - Koos
Greyling
The year of 2008 is on its back and 2009 is lying
ahead with much uncertainty if you are like me suffering from the
sudden change in winds in our and for that matter the world economy.
(At least oil/fuel prices are plunging).
Before
I continue, I just want to apologise to readers who missed my article
in the first week of December. A
contract client had a crisis and I could not finish the article in
time. Yes, I know I should write in advance and it is happening nowJ, so look out for this space every first week of
the month!
I am quite certain you have realised by now that
owning a computer and more so having a business (which implies having
at least one and probably a network) is the same as owning a vehicle as
I described in a previous article. The
thing is going to break at some point and needs regular maintenance if
you want to keep it going as long as possible with minor expenses.
Now I have to repeat myself...”you might think
we just want to milk you for that very last cent, but doing regular
maintenance and upgrading your system components once a year will
actually save you from having to buy a new complete system at a price
only the rich can afford”(are there any of them left?).
Enough of that, what else do we need to look out
for? Virus and antispyware will
always be with us and now and again a nasty one catches even the well
prepared and protected of us. Like the new DNS changer Trojan.
Have a look at the article @ http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/networking/?p=774
if you want to stay updated and want to be prepared.
If you stick to the rules and update regularly or check
now and again that the auto update actually works, you should be as
safe as you can possibly be.
For anyone who have the urge to buy “nice
to have’s”, there are quite a few and more will be
developed in the year to come.
Vista has been with
us for a few months now and if you have a server, you might have heard
that Window Server 2008 is the new horse to yoke before your...new
server. Developers are
not left behind as they too have something new to play with in
Silverlight, Visual Studio and SQL Server 2008 and quite a few others.
Luckily you don’t have to worry too much about
any of these, for it will take some time to iron out errors and
incompatibilities. Thus if you
don’t have time to play around or have a business to run, it
is better to stick with the proven technologies and software for the
time being. A good excuse to cut
the budget!
Then on the hardware side CPU’s will
probably double their effective speed if not more, hard drives continue
to expand in size and fixed chip size increases and becomes cheaper. As
for gadgets...there will always be new gadgets and improvements on them.
Have a look @ http://www.thegadgetshop.co.za
or http://www.gadget.co.za
On the other hand if you have children who want to
stay “with-it” with games or you are a gamer
yourself, I have no other solution than to buy as big and fast as you
can. Anything less will frustrate
you or not even install the latest games. Think Quad Core CPU, 4GB RAM
or more, 500GB harddisk, 512MB Graphics adapter, 5.1 Sound,
19” wide screen LCD and a nice joystick.
O yes and lots of cooling!
5.
THE IMPORTANCE OF EFFECTIVE BACKUPS
- Koos Greyling
Although almost each and every person I have asked
about their backups confirmed they know they should do regular backups,
most of them does not have an effective and structured backup plan.
Even in this era of technological advancement your
ICT strategic plan must include contingency plans for failing hard
drives. It is not a matter of
“if it happens”, but “when it
happens”. Due to the
mechanical nature of hard drives it is bound to fail at some point.
The new solid state hard drives might prove to be more
reliable against mechanical failure, but there is still the risk of
negligence, virus infection, theft and fire. There
is actually a fair chance that at some stage you will face the disaster
of a failed hard drive where all you business data, family photos, or
the book you took so long to write were stored. Some
data are crucial to the daily operation of a business and some are
plain sentimental. Whatever the
case might be; you should have a backup copy which can be successfully
restored in the shortest time span possible. And
don’t forget to test from time to time if the restore
actually works!
There are a range of possible scenarios... in
essence you must balance the price you put on the importance of your
data with the finances available at your disposal.
Bear in mind that according to statistics, a large
percentage of businesses that lost all their data eventually had to
close their doors. A sound backup
plan is as good as an insurance policy.
The most elementary backup strategy is to save a
copy of said data onto a flash disk (or memory stick as some people
refer to it). Because of the danger
of losing or mislaying a flash disk and the size constraint, it is not
really a viable solution. The next
doable solution is to copy data to an external hard disk.
Even this is not considered sound enough if your data is
really important. Because
of the possibility of theft or fire at least one recent backup copy
should be stored off site (away from the premises).
If your backup is relatively small you can get away with
one external hard disk onto which you copy all data every night at
close of day. For bigger businesses
this is not viable because of the time each backup takes.
Here you have to alternate between two disks with one
offsite while the other are connected. This
is still not the ideal way because a manual procedure is required ie
changing the disks daily and believe me, it does happen that the
responsible persons forgets, is sick or on leave and the disks are not
switched. You might have to rush
for a meeting or crisis management and forget about the backup.
The next more reliable method is doing backups
online to a backup server away from your premises.
This is done utilising specialized backup software that is
set up to backup according to a schedule and encrypt the data to ensure
no one without the password can read your data. This
is done via a secure connection between your server and the backup
server. Because of bandwidth cost
only data changed from the previous backup are sent to the backup
server minimizing bandwidth usage.
There is one more level, but only big enterprises
like banks will want to use nothing less. This
is where the backup server is located in a physically secured data
centre some of which are literally underground and indestructible.
Unless you have thousands of transactions per day,
it is good enough to take a daily backup. Otherwise
you might want to consider shorter intervals or even real time backups.
Only you can assess which plan is right for you, as
long as you have something in place before disaster strike...
6.
HOW SECURE IS YOUR DIGITAL MEDIA? - Koos Greyling
So,
you have installed your operating system, presumably Windows or some
flavour of Linux, and have set the password on your user account to
keep anyone from reading/stealing/misusing your data.
At home it might not be that crucial, but at work you
simply cannot use a computer without the most basic method of
protection... yes, your logon password IS only that: basic protection.
Now
that a fair bit of the population have broadband and “always
on” internet, we are all targets for the underworld of the
internet! They now have another way
to spy/get into someone else’s PC without sitting in front of
it. The fact that there are an open
line for you to connect to the outside world, means that the outside
world can use that same open line to connect to you without you even
noticing. To be able to have a
connection to the internet, legitimate traffic has to be allowed to
“know” your whereabouts which are undoubtedly also
used by the unlawful! Luckily
manufacturers of ADSL modems has incorporated a thing called a Firewall.
A Firewall can block all traffic to/from the Internet
(including your own) or only allow what you tell it to allow.
First and foremost you have to enable it. At
default it is usually not enabled. Then
you set it to at least block all incoming traffic and only allow
outgoing traffic. You can also
specify what type of outgoing traffic are allowed.
Bear in mind that your Firewall is also protected
by a password which are unfortunately the same for all ADSL modems of
the same brand. By not changing the
default password chances are good someone will notice it and break into
your system. This is where the
importance of a strong password cannot be stressed enough.
By strong enough I mean not an easy password with 3 or 4
characters and not a word found in a dictionary. If
it is very simple one can actually guess the password, but there are
software that can do a “brute force attack” by
simply trying out every sequence of characters and known words.
Thus using a password of 7 or more characters which
include numbers, lower and upper case and special characters will make
it virtually impossible to “crack”.
If you stick to the rules of security you can
safely use the internet even for shopping or banking... happy surfing!
7.
SECURITY ON INTERNAL NETWORKS -
Koos Greyling
Your
business have grown (probably not in this economic environment!) to
such an extent that you now have ten or more PC’s with one
acting as the server for all the other to use the same resources and
/or peripherals. I will not
elaborate in this article on when and why you need a network and a
server. If you have a network you
will already have gone trough the pain of researching your options and
financing it.
I
hope part of your research included securing your network…
firstly you should have a password policy which stipulates all users
must have a strong password which is also enabled on the screensaver. It
is like a PIN number…in the wrong hands someone can create
havoc or steal information under your name. Users should also be
restricted to only the resources they need to do their work.
(Should someone from outside or within get access with a
compromised username, they are restricted to that profile.)
All of this is controlled from the server.
The administrator password for the server/domain must be
strong and known only to one or two responsible persons i.e. you and
the person administering the network. Undoubtedly
you will have an internet connection for at least e-mail, banking and
SARS transactions. This
implicate that each and every PC on the network is exposed to all the
risks of the internet. Despite
having antivirus- and spyware software on each networked PC , a person
can still get access to your system from the outside.
A hardware firewall
(hopefully) included on your ADSL router and software firewall on the
server will keep those guys out. It
is advisable to use two network cards in the server.
One for the internal network and the other for the
external network being the internet. For
Windows you would use “ISA Server” and for Linux
“Squid” controlling network traffic between the
internal and external connections. Configured
correctly this should be sufficient to keep the bad guys out while
controlling the environment in which users are allowed to do what are
required from them without abusing the system.
8. DISASTER RECOVERY PLAN - Koos Greyling
Why should I plan for
Disaster? That seems a bit negative
thinking mister planner! Almost
like an insurance broker that sketches the most horrible scenario
possible to get you thinking why didn’t I take out that
policy ages ago... well I am sorry for reminding you of that
possibility, but if it does happen (and with ESKOM around to blow all
our electrical equipment with power surges it does not seem far-
fetched) your business might not survive the blow if you do not have a
contingency plan carefully worked out step by step what to do in event
of disaster. Disaster
don’t have to be the total wipe out of town or your premises
burning to ashes (although you have to plan for that too).
A power surge right trough that brand new UPS straight
into your 10 year old server with ALL your business data destroying
pretty much everything inside is not that far-fetched.
To be up and running with a new server and ALL data
restored exactly the way it was in two hours is actually possible...if
you planned for it. Yes,
it does mean it will cost a pretty penny to have everything in place
for that to happen, but you can have a plan that suits your budget that
might take a bit longer to be up and running, but at least it is a plan
and you and everyone in your company will know what is expected of them
should DISASTER strike!
The ultimate would be
to have a backup PC or server identical to the production model which
can be restored to the previous days’ state from your off
site backup stored on our server or from our off site backup should our
server also decide to take part in the disaster. You
might just need to go home and fetch the external disk with last
night’s backup and copy it to another working PC.
Each situation is different, but not less important.
Do the right thing and start planning...
Contact us at Welcomp
for a consultation and more info. |
