I am sure some would argue that there are far fewer viruses out there. They would argue that these are just clones and variations on a far fewer number of original viruses written by a few exceptional people. This may be true but the fact remains that these clones and variations are dangerous.

 Cyber criminals are really smart. These viruses are for generating money. The viruses are engineered to look for patterns like social security numbers or credit card numbers. Even bank account numbers. Since all numbering is based on patterns it is not hard for a programmer to write a virus that will start recording when someone does something that the hacker deems interesting. These viruses can even upload your information to servers on the internet. Once a hacker has your information he can use it to steel your identity and cash or sell the information to others who use it for their own purposes.

 While all this is very scary information you are probably wondering what you need to do to protect yourself or what the odds are that you will actually be affected.
We will cover some very simple steps that you can take to protect yourself. As far as the odds go I have no realistic information. I can only tell you that for the unprotected computer the odds are very good that you will be affected in some way.

 I am going to refer to a well written 2001 article in SANS.org by Jon Willert.
Yes the article is 9 years old and some of the information about virus programs is dated. However, the information that tells you how to protect yourself is timeless.
I am going to distill the information to make it more user friendly to the SOHO user. But the content Jon wrote is going to be applicable for years to come.

The distilled version is basically this:
Do not depend on any one program to protect your computer. If the one program you depend on is compromised all your defenses are gone.
Good security is basically about having layers of security.

Layer 1.. Get yourself a good Anti-virus program. Install it and keep it updated and do full scans of your computer. AVG Anti-virus is a good free program and is in the top 10 AV programs in  Jon’s article. Here is a link to one of my posts that tells you where to get the free version. http://wp.me/sRk6M-freeav

Layer 2.. Utilize a software-based personal firewall. Windows comes with a built in firewall. Make sure it is turned on. Also many of the security and antivirus programs on the market come with a built in firewall. Make sure you install it if you are not using the windows firewall.

Layer 3… Utilize a router/firewall device for your Internet connection. Most internet connections these days are broadband and the providers supply you with something. Make sure the provider sets it up and ask if it is secure. If you purchase one yourself get a LinkSys. This product was purchased by Cisco. If you recognige the name Cisco then you know they are industry leaders.

Layer 4… Update your operating system with security updates. This one is easy just make sure Windows Updates is turned on. Windows usually nags you these days to this feature on. Just do it.

Layer 5… Update your applications with security patches. This basically means to keep your software updated. For most of this is Microsoft Office and is covered under the windows updates. However, if you use other software and the vendor telly you a patch is available you should probably install it.

Well, these are the layers that are applicable to the soho user. If you have questions please feel free to leave a comment.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN ABOUT BLUEHOST.COM
Click Here for Domain Sale! $6.89 .com

Small Business Web Site Design

  I am going to give you the secret to getting your website designed, hosted and published in record time and at the lowest cost you ever thought possible. Just think about this for a minute. We have it easy these days. Yes, we have many tools available to aide in Small Business Web Site Design. Many of the tools are free or very minimal in cost. Yet many small business owners do not have a website. I often ask myself why more small business owners do not take advantage of all the free technology and low cost services available. How many times have you seen business cards with e-mail addresses like something@yahoo.com or something@hotmail.com. Why do they use these non-branded e-mail addresses to promote their brand or service? Because it is free. Perhaps they did not know that they can get a domain name from godaddy.com for less than 12.95 per year. In some cases you can even get a domain name from Godaddy for as little as .89 cents per month. Listen up. Free e-mail comes with these accounts in many cases. For goodness sake if you do not want to use  Godaddy’s e-mail you can easily point your domain to Gmail.com and use a free Gmail account with your branded domain name. The instructions are on the Gmail.com site. I apologize for my rant. I just feel that with a little research everyone could have a branded website and free e-mail for their small business. So, if you don’t know where to begin, listen up and read on because I am going to do my best to point you in the right direction and give you a boost. For pure function there are very few steps to getting your web site up.

1. Get a domain name. There are many places that sell domain names. These places are called domain name registrars. Some are more expensive but have been around for a long time. They offer many services that you might not need. Domain name registrars like networksolutions.com are a little higher priced and cater more towards the big boys.
My favorite domain name registrar for buying domain names intended for small business web site design is Godaddy.com.

 Godaddy has low priced domain names and all the basics you need including free and low cost hosting packages for your domain name. Godaddy has a great control panel that is simple enough for the non technical user to use. Check it out. Domain Sale! $6.89 .com at GoDaddy

2. Get a hosting company. I would not spend more than 5.00 to 7.00 dollars per month. There are several companies that have good hosting packages that are great for small business web site design and hosting. Here is a discount link to Godaddy where I host this blog. I use the economy hosting plan and I have had no problems. Click here to Learn about 20% off Hosting at GoDaddy.com – World’s largest Web host!

  Another great hosting provider that I really like is Bluehost.com. The prices are very reasonable and I am currently hosting one other website at BlueHost.com. If you plan to host more than one web site then Blue Host is probably for you. They have a great deal on unlimited hosting packages. Check it out. CLICK HERE TO LEARN ABOUT BLUEHOST.COM

3. Decide if you want to build a website from scratch or do what many are doing and use the free WordPress from Wordpress.org. Both Godaddy and blue host offer a free installs that do everything for you except enter the content that you want to publish. If you are not familiar with WordPress it is a complete blog and content management system. There are over 1500 free themes to choose from. You can publish a single page or pages or a series of articles like I do (or both). It took about 30 seconds for my WordPress to install on BlueHost and a few minutes on Godaddy.
Yes, I have web sites hosted at both Godaddy and BlueHost. I was searching for a good low cost hosting company and I am currently using them both. Soho-411.com is currently hosted on Godaddy. Also remember that you can host your web site anywhere you want. I have other domain names that I purchased from Godaddy but host elsewhere. Remember that control panel that Godaddy has that I told you about? Well it allows you to point your web address to any hosting comany you choose.

CLICK HERE TO SIGNUP FOR WORDPRESS HOSTING AT BLUEHOST.COM

4. Not Required but Highly Recommended…. If you choose to go the next step and design your sight for the best customer experience you might want to read this e-book.  There is a free sample chapter you can download to help you get an idea what this e-book is all about.  Click Here to download the free Chapter!

Good Luck and please don’t forget to update us with you experiences with different hosting companies.

Windows XP Slow Startup?

My Windows XP Professional Computer was running very slow. I know I have added a lot of junk to it over the past six months but still I thought it was toooooo slow.
I am an IT professional so I know several tricks of the trade like defraging the hard drive, making sure the swap file is correct, making sure I always have at the very least 30% free disk space for the OS to move things around in, etc.None of my normal routine seemed to help so I do what all IT people do I began my research with Google.
One great source of information that I have found while doing my research is a set of E books with the Title Computer Secrets Unleashed!
This E book is jam packed with information that will help you get the most from your PC or Laptop.

I will briefly go over the major points of what I discovered during my research.
Windows XP is designed to boot up within 30 seconds. Of course any additional software / services that you install will add time to the boot.

According to one source I read it could take up to 2 minutes if you have lots of software and many services running. Of course the CPU speed and other system components have an effect as well.

During my research I read all the usual things like a symptom of spy-ware and viruses is a Windows XP slow start-up. BTW many people recommend Kaspersky anti-virus. Personally I have had very good results with the free version of AVG.

You can read more about AVG here
http://soho-411.com/soho-intro/soho_basics/freeav/

If your computer just slowed down after visiting a site that claims to do a free scan then you are probably infected with some type of malware. You can learn how to almost instantly remove Malware here http://soho-411.com/helpdesk/removing-malware/

OK. So the other factor we all think about is RAM. Random Access Memory. This is where your computer stores all the data it is working with. RAM is much faster than the hard drive but in the old days it was very expensive so it was kept to a minimum. Now days RAM is much less expensive. You should have at least 1gig of RAM these days.

The second major cause of a Windows XP Slow Startup (After spyware infection) would be all the services that get installed on your computer over time. These services can be installed as part of programs and they may still linger after the program is uninstalled. Some cool widgets we find on the internet like Weather Bug also install services that are always checking the parent server on the internet to see if there is new weather news for you. Also software like Browser tool bars, Adobe updater, java updater, and many more all install services that check the internet to see if there are updates for the software.

Sometimes you can also have a corrupted registry. I feel that the registry is the Third major cause of Windows XP Slow Startup. Other experts may disagree but the registry constantly grows. It rarely shrinks. It takes time to load all those services we mentioned and it also takes time to load the registry. In any case the registry is written to when new programs are installed and it is not always properly cleaned up when the program is uninstalled. I find this happens often with trial software that people install and then uninstall when the trial expires. So the registry really might not be corrupted but it might be really cluttered with unneeded entries that interfere with other applications.

Remember the E book I told you about
Computer Secrets Unleashed!
I found this book after quite a lot of research and I wish I would have found this E book before I went to all the trouble.

I hope you check the book out and purchase it for your SOHO environment. You will save tons of money by not having to hire a computer person every time something happens.

Is your Computer Slow?

Removing Malware

What Prompted this Repost of an Older Post.
I am an IT manager and no matter how hard I try to protect my users there is always a new threat. Sometimes it is a new virus and sometimes it is a Malware or other scam. If there is not a dangerous threat to combat then there is always some bandwidth issue or other nuisance my users are informing me about.
What can be done? Well besides virus protection, firewalls, and other best practice steps I have found that education is a very good defense. Most of my users can recognize an e-mail scam or e-mail carrying an attachment with a virus.
So I believe that in addition to trying to tell the SOHO community about cool open source and free software I should also be doing my best to educate.
Click to Download AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition
Click to Download Microsoft® Windows® Malicious Software Removal Tool (KB890830)

Removing Malware

is one of the most annoying problems users face when browsing the internet? I have found that occasionally no matter how careful you are you will eventually stumble upon or be redirected to a site that serves up malware.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“Malware, short for malicious software, is software designed to infiltrate a computer
system without the owner’s express consent. The expression is a general term used by
computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive,
or annoying software or program code.
The term “computer virus” is sometimes used as a
catch-all phrase to include all types of malware, including true
viruses.” informed consent.

OK so the anti-virus software should stop and prevent this right? Well it does in many cases but there are times when a sneaky web site will try to trick you into installing software or even make it look like your computer AV software has detected a virus and is informing you of it. You are asked to click OK to remove the virus or threat and instead you are really installing the software. At this point the popups start. You are being blackmailed at this point to pay some fee to have the malware removed. The software says that you need to pay in order to activate the software to remove the threat. In reality you are being told that the popups will only stop if you pay the ransom. Yes, your computer is actually being held in ransom. The popups are actually so bad that you cannot even use your computer any longer.

So what is a quick fix?

The first line of defense should be your Anti Virus software. Secondly, if you do get this malware there is a feature in Windows XP and Windows 7 called “Windows System Restore. This feature lets you roll back the computer to the way it was before you got the malware.

If you have XP or windows 7 you can check so make sure the system restore feature is enabled. By default it should be enabled.

For Windows XP click on start then right click on ‘My Computer’ and select properties. When the properties window appears select the system restore tab. Make sure the box that says ‘Turn off System Restore’ is unchecked . Also make sure the disk space usage slider bar is set to Max. See picture below.

Finally select OK. Now you can rest in the secure knowledge that you can roll back your system state at any time.

If in the future you notice you have malware operating be sure to restore your system state to a few days in the past. This trick has saved many hours of work for my IT Helpdesk Team.

1. To use System Restore to restore Windows XP to a previous state, follow these steps:
2. Log on to Windows as Administrator.
3. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click System Restore. System Restore starts.
4. On the Welcome to System Restore page, click Restore my computer to an earlier time (if it is not already selected), and then click Next.
5. On the Select a Restore Point page, click the most recent system restore point in the On this list, click a restore point list, and then click Next.
6. Note A System Restore message may appear that lists configuration changes that System Restore will make. Click OK.
7. On the Confirm Restore Point Selection page, click Next. System Restore restores the previous Windows XP configuration, and then restarts the computer.
8. Log on to the computer as Administrator. The System Restore Restoration Complete page is displayed.
9. Click OK.
10. If you successfully restored your computer to a previous state, and the computer is performing as it should be, you are finished.

Steps 1 – 10 above were taken from the Support.Microsoft.com site at this link.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306084

Save this link to this Post for future reference: http://wp.me/pRk6M-3L

Please leave comments about your experiences and tell us of any good Malware removal tools so we can share with all our SOHO users.

If you Hate Malware Join our mailing list

- I Hate Malware -

We will send you an e-mail whenever we have a new solution for removing or preventing malware.

To be added to the I Hate Malware mailing list.
Please make sure you enter all of the information

First Name, Last Name, and E-mail Address are all required. Thank you.

Defrag your hard drive

If your Computer is slow you might want to defrag your hard drive

As you use your computer reading and writing files. Creating, copying, moving and deleting documents. Your hard drive starts to become disorganized. Your computer’s operating system tries to keep files readily available but in it’s hast it allows the files to be fragmented. This causes your hard drive to need to work hard to reassemble the files to present then to your computer’s operating system so they can be displayed to you. You can think of this like a messy desk. At first when you keep everything out in the open it is faster to find what you need. However, when enough things get shuffled around on your desk you have to search for individual papers to reassemble them into the report or other document you want.

The software your computer uses to defragment your hard organized the individual pieces of a file back into one contiguous whole. The software does this for all the files that can manage and afterward tour computer is faster because it no longer has to wait so long for the hard drive to retrieve the information you want.

If you decide to defrag your hard drive you will find that it is a very easy task. However, the first time you defrag or if it has been a very long time since your last defrag it might take a long time. Just be patient and let the computer do it’s thing. Once the defrag is started you can even minimize the program and continue working as usual albeit slower than normal.

In order to defrag a hard drive on Windows7 navigate to ‘My Computer’ Right click on the drive you are interested in defragmenting and select ‘Properties’ and you will see something like this:

Next select the ‘Tools’ Tab and you will see something like this:

Next Select the Defragment now… button and the following screen will appear:

 If you select Analyze disk you can see the status of your hard drive. If you select Defragment disk it will analyze the disk and begin to defragment it. You can even schedule the defragment process to run on a schedule.

Once you select the defragment disk button just sit back and let the computer do it’s thing.

Anyway, here are a few external video laptop video cards.

Hope you find the links useful.

This little baby is a great adapter for a second Monitor for your laptop.

Well since I am doing the research myself I might as well share what I am learning in the process. Here is a link to an interesting blog post I found. I do suggest that you read the article. The title of the article is “Still Trying to Figure out if Twitter is Important to Your Business”  The author is apparently on the fence about this. However, it appears to me that the real benefit to the SOHO business person is what Google is doing to archive all this Twitter Tweet. ha-ha . Google apparently can show you the top visited web pages that contained information on a particular twitter tweet thingy. Since most of these web pages are blogs that allow you to post it would appear an ideal place to speak up and put your information in front of a bigger audience.

Please return to this page often as I will continue to put links here when I find useful information.

If we follow the general outline from the first article we should now be talking about automation of your business processes. When we think of automation we generally tend to think it is about Robots doing the work of humans. Like the Automobile plants where Robots spray paint cars and weld parts together. Yes this is automation. However, automation takes on many forms. A spread sheet where you enter numbers and a calculation is performed for you is automation also. We don’t always think of this as automation because we are so used to spreadsheets in our day to day business lives. However, if you think about it, it is truly automation. Even though you have to enter the numbers the spread sheet is programmed to do the calculations for you as soon as you enter the numbers. You can also change the numbers and see what the outcome will be. You do not have to do the calculations your self. This comes in handy for doing budget analysis. Most small businesses have some sort of budget spread sheet and they often juggle numbers around so they can get the most efficiency out of their cash flow.
 I gave the above example so you would start thinking about the automation of processes you may already have in your business. This is a preliminary step in seeing what other processes you can automate and integrate into a streamlined process that will leverage Technology to help you become more efficient. More efficiency could be used to allow you to accomplish more for your business or it could be used to free up some time so you can finally take that much deserved vacation you have been waiting for since you started your small business.

After reading the above you probably want to start making a list of things that you need to automate. Prime candidates are processes that are repetitive and accomplished in exactly the same manner each time. This could be preparing brochures and mailing them. A good way to automate keeping in contact with your clients is fax blast of your brochures. I am finding more and more that e-mail is just too flooded with spam for most customers to take seriously. Unless of course you can send millions of Viagra letters each day so.
OK, enough of the sarcasm from me, ha ha . Seriously, I think people are starting to respond much better to faxes these days especially from trusted business contacts. There is not much fax spam and you do not have to worry about your e-mails getting caught in someones spam filter. Also most fax systems give you a delivery report. You will know if a fax was successful or not. If it was not successful you will know if the number was busy or just not a good number. This helps you maintain a clean contact list.
In one of my shorter post I listed a few fax services .   These are fax services where you can e-mail a document prepared in a word processor and the service will fax to the telephone numbers you provide. Many services are very cost effective. If you get the right CRM (Customer Relationship Management tool) you can possibly automate faxing to your customers on a regular basis. An example would be that you decided to run a special offer to customers who have purchased something from you in the past 3 months. You want them to know this is a special offer exclusively for them to show your appreciation for their support. You create a document in your favorite word processor mention the produce or service, the special offer for instance 20% off, and give them a special coupon they can cut out or mention. You query your CRM for customers that meet your parameters and the system faxes to each customer that meets your requirements and alerts you if the customer has no fax number for you to fax to. In this case you would e-mail or better yet make contact with the customer personally by telephone number and mention the special offer and request their fax number. Once this is all programmed in your CRM you can have the special run once each month (or whatever periodicity you want). This would be an automated process that runs with the need for human intervention.

Got the idea? Simple you say but these CRM softwares are expensive.  Not true. Some are expensive but if you tale a few minutes to do a search on google you can find many free and low cost alternatives. You just need clarity on what you are trying to accomplish.

BTW. I would appreciate your comments and suggestions. Also if you have needs for your small business let me know. I will try to take the most common request people make and blog  about it and hopefully an answer will appear to your question or need.

Thank you for reading. Remember this blog is for the technically challenged. There are very few dumb questions. Feel free to ask about whatever you are interested in.

Also just like the previous post in this series, I believe that the subject of automation is just too deep for one post to cover it. I think I will also need to revisit this topic and expand it. Perhaps I should make each one of the key topics we are discussing a category on this blog and hopefully others will read, benefit, and share their success stories with every one and we can all benefit from the knowledge of what worked for others.