Secure / Encrypted Email

The number of emails sent over the internet grows each day. Likewise, the number of email sent containing sensitive information grows each day. The safety of the information sent over email is becoming a very hot topic at businesses – especially those transmitting sensitive information, legal information, business secrets, etc.

There are already legal requirements for some medical organizations that transmit sensitive patient information. Surely, as the internet continues to develop, and abuses continue to grow, you’ll hear more and more reports of stolen email, stolen information, stolen passwords, breaches of email security and so on.

Securing email has become easier. There are devices that we can easily insert into a business network that will encrypt email leaving the building. Encryption makes the email and its contents unreadable to anyone but the end user – the end user that has the correct “key” to decode the email. Called Secure Mail Gateways (SMGs), the devices analyze all email leaving the building and encrypt any email that we tell it to. You can encrypt all email, just email from certain users, or emails from any user on an email-by-email basis.

The appliances, once setup, run themselves and require very little maintenance.

Have an IT question? Email questions@tseed.com – we’re happy to help! Past Articles: tseed.blogspot.com

Kurt Simione is the owner of Technology Seed, LLC (www.TSeed.com). We provide IT Support, Business Phone System Support and Website Design to businesses across the country. 603-537-2700.

Network Vulnerability Assessments

We've been doing network vulnerability audits for a long time, but never really got around to publicizing it. Recently we've had LOTS of call for thsi service.

You can read about our network vulnerability assessments and reports, but in a nutshell, we go through your entire IT infracture and tell you what's secure, what's not, and how to fix it.

It's that simple.

We'll provide you with an easy-to-follow, detailed reported telling about the vulnerabilities, how signficant they are, and how they could affect you.

Of course, we'll be there to help you fix the holes, should you need it.

Ask Technology Seed: Domain Names

Ask Technology Seed

Technology Seed supports the computers and networks of business and home users. Many business owners own the domain name relevant to their company (i.e. tseed.com). However, anyone can register a name for their own use (as long as no one else owns it and there are no trademark issues). Why would a private individual register a name for non-business use?

Consider this: Most of us do a lot of communicating via email - for work, for play, for family matters. Some of us are on it all day long. Suppose you have a comcast.net email address. If Comcast decides to change their email addresses (they get bought by another company, for example – remember Adelphia?), your email address changes and everyone that has your old address needs to start using your new one. This is often confusing and results in lost email.

Suppose you register a domain name for your family (simione-family.com, for example). You own that domain name and, as long as you own it, it’ll never change. You and your family can use those email addresses (name@simione-family.com) forever and not have to worry about them ever changing.

Web Hosting goes hand-in-hand with registering a domain name. When you register the domain name, you now own it, but it doesn’t “do” anything yet. You need to order web hosting, as well, in order to actually use the name for emailing etc.

What’s the cost? While there are many places you can register domain names, GoDaddy.com is a fairly inexpensive option with decent support. Registering a domain name is $9.99/year. Web Hosting (which is the service where you’ll setup your email addresses) is roughly $5/month. It’s not quite free, but not too bad if you have several family members who would like personalized, non-changing email addresses and wouldn’t mind splitting the cost.

Have an IT question? Email questions@tseed.com – we’re happy to help! Past Articles: tseed.blogspot.com

Kurt Simione is the owner of Technology Seed, LLC (www.TSeed.com). We provide IT Support, Business Phone System Support and Website Design to businesses across the country. 603-537-2700.

New Website Release: www.InformedMedicalDecisions.org

Technology Seed announces a newly launched website for the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making. Check it out HERE.

Ask Technlogy Seed: Netbooks

Technology Seed supports the computers and networks of business and home users. Netbooks are an interesting breed of laptop. They are typically ultra-portable and ultra small. They are fully capable, though not fully featured. It’s a delicate balance. Read on.

The term “netbook” essentially describes a laptop designed to surf the net, more or less. They aren’t full of bells and whistles, but they are inexpensive and contain everything you need to get online, check your email etc. Some have webcams built-in for those IM video-chats.

Size: Netbooks are designed to be very light and very small with screens as small as 8”-10”. If you have bad eyes, a screen that small might be difficult to look at. But, the small size and light weight (some are around 2 pounds!) make these computers very easy to tote around, travel with, use on your lap, etc. Keep in mind, the small size also means a small keyboard. These units are not a joy to type on. While they are certainly usable, if you do lots of typing, you’re going to want something a bit larger (or you can purchase an additional USB keyboard).

Features: Netbooks are missing some familiar features. Most don’t come with CD/DVD ROM drives which makes it difficult to install software from CD, watch a DVD movie, burn a CD etc. However, you can purchase an external USB drive or share a CD/DVD drive from another computer on the network. Consider, though, that many software titles nowadays are downloadable directly over the internet. You can download Microsoft Office directly from Microsoft’s website.

Price: The price is the nicest feature of these units! You can buy a fully functional netbook for as little as $275! That’s a fully functional computer for < $300 – that’s awfully hard to beat. At that price, they nearly become throwaways (or hand-me-downs) after a year or two, if something goes wrong.

We use a few of these units at Technology Seed. The price is tough to beat and the portability is unmatched. Stop by the office if you’d like to see one.

Have an IT question? Email questions@tseed.com – we’re happy to help!

Past Articles: tseed.blogspot.com

Kurt Simione is the owner of Technology Seed, LLC (www.TSeed.com). We provide IT Support, Business Phone System Support and Website Design to businesses across the country. 603-537-2700.

Music-On-Hold, Business Phone Systems Online Store

Technology Seed has launched a new online store for Music-On-Hold and Business Telephone devices. Our MOH devices are priced VERY aggressively - Check it out!

Ask Technology Seed: VPN

Technology Seed supports the computers and networks of business and home users.

What is a VPN? VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. VPNs give us a way to connect to the information at our office when we’re not there. With the popularity of high-speed internet access in homes, VPNs, in recent years, have become a very popular means of getting work done on the road.

There are two main types of VPNs. The first is a Remote Access VPN where one computer is “dialing” into the corporate network from a remote site (home, hotel etc.). All that’s required is a fast internet connection at both ends (corporate network and remote user) and some setup. In this scenario, a user connects to the VPN, accesses the information they need, and disconnects.

The second type is a site-to-site VPN. A site-to-site VPN allows you to connect two entire networks together over the internet. For example, if you have offices in Houston and Boston, a site-to-site VPN connects all of the computers together all at once. It’s an “always-on” connection – there is no dialing-in and disconnecting – the two (or more!) networks are always connected and can access information from either office.

Have an IT question? Email questions@tseed.com – we’re happy to help! Past Articles: tseed.blogspot.com

Kurt Simione is the owner of Technology Seed, LLC (www.TSeed.com). We provide IT Support, Business Phone System Support and Website Design to businesses across the country. 603-537-2700.

TSeed's New Ad Spot

Technology Seed launches it's new advertising campaign with a 60 second ad spot on WTKK 96.9 FM (Boston). Listen to the new spot HERE!. As always, we appreciate your ongoing support and business. Kurt Simione www.TSeed.com

Website Release: IMEC

Technology Seed is proud to announce the launch of it's newest website design: IMEC (www.imecamerica.org).

IMEC is a non-profit, volunteer-based, 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to provide doctors in developing countries with quality medical equipment to improve health care for the poor. For the past 14 years, IMEC has worked with over sixty other humanitarian organizations to revitalize hundreds of existing, impoverished hospitals with donated surplus medical equipment and supplies that are organized into complete medical departments, delivering them to over seventy countries around the world.

Looking for help with your next Website Design Project? Contact us at www.website-design-boston.com.

Ask Technology Seed: UPS

Technology Seed supports the computers and networks of business and home users.

After the ice storm recovery, I figured I might as well write something that might be useful to all of us who have been reminded how much we depend upon our consistent supply of electricity! How do we protect our PCs from power outages and power spikes?

Uninterruptable Power Supplies (UPS) are, essentially, batteries for your PC. They serve 2 main functions. 1) To condition the power coming into your PC and 2) To allow you time to save your work if the power should go out.

Power conditioning. The electricity coming into your business or home isn’t perfect. There are spikes and low voltage conditions. Either one can negatively affect your PC – in some cases a change in voltage can ruin components. Generators are particularly tough on computers. The power coming from a generator is rarely consistent. Plugging your PC into a UPS ensures that you’re always providing the correct voltage to your computer.

Power outage. If the power goes out and you haven’t saved that spreadsheet, you will lose your work. Maybe you’ve been there before?! Having your PC plugged into a UPS gives you time to stop working, save your document and shut down properly. A UPS is not designed to allow you to continue working. You generally have only a few minutes of runtime before the battery runs out.

Notes: Many UPS devices have some outlets that are protected by the battery and some that are not. Make sure you’re plugging into the battery ones. Make sure everything you need to shutdown properly is plugged into the UPS. In other words, if the power goes out, and your monitor is not on battery you won’t be able to see what you’re doing! More expensive UPS devices have built-in controls that will automatically shut down your PC after a preset amount of time during a power outage. This feature comes in handy for businesses and home users when the power goes out and no one is around to shut down manually.

Have an IT question? Email questions@tseed.com – we’re happy to help! Past Articles: tseed.blogspot.com

Kurt Simione is the owner of Technology Seed, LLC (www.TSeed.com). We provide IT Support, Business Phone System Support and Website Design to businesses across the country. 603-537-2700.

Ask Technology Seed: Real-Time Blackhole List (RBL)

Technology Seed supports the computers and networks of business and home users.

How do we minimize junk email? A server, somewhere in the world, is setup to receive and hold your email until you ask for it. Comcast, Gmail, Hotmail are all the same - they all use servers to accept and hold email for their users. Luckily, there is a very effective tool for the IT folks running these servers to use to reduce the amount of spam their users receive: Real-Time Blackhole Lists (RBLs).

What does an RBL do? It’s pretty simple. Consider this – a spammer (or junk emailer) needs a server to send their junk email through. All email, junk or not, has to flow through a mail server somewhere. Spammers look for servers that are setup incorrectly (incorrect meaning they allow anyone to send email through them). Ideally, servers should only allow their legitimate email users to send email through them.

So, if you accept my premise that spammers need a server to send their email for them, then you can accept my premise that, if we know which servers they use, we can merely block all email coming from those servers. This is all the RBLs do –they maintain an up-to-date list of servers that spammers are currently using.

So how does the RBL list help us? Easy – when you setup a mail server you can tell it to check with an RBL when email arrives. So, if I send you an email from questions@tseed.com, your email server will check with an RBL to see if the tseed.com server is on the list as a spammer. If it is flagged as a spam server, it will reject the email. That’s it. Millions of junk messages are rejected in this manner. It is one of the most effective ways of blocking spam.

If you have a home email account (Comcast, Hotmail, Gmail etc.) you have no control over the RBL settings. You can assume (and hope!) that your email provider is using an RBL list to filter out unwanted emails. If you’re a corporate user and have an in-house mail server like Exchange, Kerio or others, call us to help you ensure that you’re using RBLs to effectively cut down on your junk email.

Have an IT question? Email questions@tseed.com – we’re happy to help! Past Articles: tseed.blogspot.com

Kurt Simione is the owner of Technology Seed, LLC (www.TSeed.com). We provide IT Support, Business Phone System Support and Website Design to businesses across the country. 603-537-2700.

Ask Technology Seed: What Is a Router?

Technology Seed supports the computers and networks of business and home users.

Nearly all businesses and most homes that have more than one computer and a single internet connection have a router (usually a wireless router if a laptop is involved). What’s a router? What does it do?

In their most basic form, routers are devices that share a single internet connection with multiple computers. That’s it. When you order internet service from the cable company or phone company, they provide you with service for one device. If you have multiple computers, that poses a problem. A router solves that problem. It takes that single connection and shares it with several devices at the same time. It uses a function called NAT (Network Address Translation) to keep track of who’s using what. For example, if there are two different computers on your network browsing 2 different websites, how does the router know which website to send to which computer? NAT keeps track of the computers and what each one is requesting.

Many home units come with wireless capabilities built-in. The wireless features allow you to securely roam (currently within a few hundred feet of the unit) with a wireless laptop and maintain connection to the internet. Some routers (even the home-based units) have other features available as add-ons that make them more appealing. They can act as firewalls to thwart hackers, strip-off viruses from email, filter out spam and provide other functions that your computer may not do effectively by itself.

Have an IT question? Email questions@tseed.com – we’re happy to help! Past Articles: tseed.blogspot.com

Kurt Simione is the owner of Technology Seed, LLC (www.TSeed.com). We provide IT Support, Business Phone System Support and Website Design to businesses across the country. 603-537-2700.

Ask Technology Seed: Windows Event Viewer

Technology Seed supports the computers and networks of business and home users.

The Windows Event Viewer can tell you a lot about how your PC is running. Most people, though, don’t know where to find it, or how to read it.

The truth is, the Event Log can be a bit daunting. It’s chock full of entries (errors and informational), many of which are downright cryptic. However, if you glance at it every now and then, you may stumble across a log entry pointing to the solution to a problem you’re having.

To access the Event Viewer, RIGHT-CLICK on My Computer (usually on the Windows desktop or the Start button). Then click MANAGE on the new menu that appears. The Computer Management window will open. On the left, look for Event Viewer under System Tools. Expand the viewer by clicking the “+” sign. The 2 logs you’re interested in are Application and System. You’ll see that error messages under either log are designated with a red circle. Double click one of them. You’re now viewing an event that Windows deemed an error.

What do the entries mean? When you read the error, some will be clear (i.e. errors about failures to write to the hard disk can indicate hard drive failure). Others (actually, many!) aren’t so explicit and will leave you scratching your head. Don’t worry and don’t lose any sleep, that’s what Technology Seed is here for! However, if you’re really curious, a Google search of some of the keywords or phrases from the error can help solve the mystery.

Have an IT question? Email questions@tseed.com – we’re happy to help! Past Articles: tseed.blogspot.com

Kurt Simione is the owner of Technology Seed, LLC (www.TSeed.com). We provide IT Support, Business Phone System Support and Website Design to businesses across the country. 603-537-2700.

Ask Technology Seed: Failed Hard Drive

Technology Seed supports the computers and networks of business and home users.

Email: Our PC is about 5 years old, has 120 GB hard drive and a Xeon processor. We'd like to fix it, rather than replace it, if possible. This weekend we upgraded the RAM (to 2 GB) and it rebooted with no problem. We then installed some software and again it rebooted as usual. Everything seemed fine, so we figured we'd clean it up a little and started a Disk Defrag. When we returned to check the progress there was an "Unmountable_Boot_Volume" blue screen error. My husband ran a test on the hard drive and there were errors. At this point, it seems that the problem is more than we know how to handle and we'd like a professional to check it out.

TSeed Response: The hard drive has crashed - it’s time for a new hard drive or a new PC. How do we come to this conclusion? 1) The PC is 5 years old. Under normal use, it’s certainly within the typical range for a hard drive (one of the few moving parts in the PC) to fail. 2) Unmountable Boot Volume: this error almost always indicates a failed hard drive. It can be a loose cable or failed motherboard, but in most cases, the drive needs to be replaced. 3) Gut feeling. Speculation tells me that they added more RAM to the PC because it was slowing down. While adding memory never hurts, when your PC gradually slows down over time, for no apparent reason, it usually points to an eminent hard drive failure. When drives fail, they generally do so over a period of time. Tell tale signs are a noisier than normal drive, and gradual loss of performance.

To resolve the problem we’ll install a new hard drive and reload Windows. If the drive failure was caught early enough we can usually recover all or some of the data off the old drive. Tip: The louder the drive is (think loud “clicking” noises), the tougher it is to recover the data.

Have an IT question? Email questions@tseed.com – we’re happy to help! Past Articles: tseed.blogspot.com

Kurt Simione is the owner of Technology Seed, LLC (www.TSeed.com). We provide IT Support, Business Phone System Support and Website Design to businesses across the country. 603-537-2700.

Ask Technology Seed: DHCP, DNS

Technology Seed supports the computers and networks of business and home users.

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a technology that makes it easy to configure the network settings on your PCs, printers, etc. This is normally a topic reserved for the business user but it’s of interest to any home user that has installed their own router.

Each computer on a network must have its own IP address (something like 192.168.1.1). That IP address must be unique on the network. Where does that IP address come from? DHCP is the “brain” that decides who gets what address (and a few other settings). DHCP has a pool of valid addresses to choose from. When a device requests an address (literally, it asks for one) DHCP gives out an available address from its pool. It then marks that address as “used” and will not give it out again until the expiration time for that address is exceeded. Expiration time: each address must be renewed after a preset amount of time. This helps to keep the list of used addresses current.

Domain Name System (DNS) is a technology that gives friendly names to unfriendly IP addresses. If you asked me for my company’s website, I could give you 75.150.108.153 (which is the IP address) or I could give you www.tseed.com (the DNS name). Clearly, the DNS address is a bit easier to remember!

If you have a server on your business network or a router on your home network, you’ve probably seen DHCP and DNS mentioned somewhere in the configuration - hopefully this gives you a basic idea of what they do.

Have an IT question? Email questions@tseed.com – we’re happy to help!

Past Articles: tseed.blogspot.com

Kurt Simione is the owner of Technology Seed, LLC (www.TSeed.com). We provide IT Support, Business Phone System Support and Website Design to businesses across the country. 603-537-2700.