Small Business Technology

Serene Computer Haiku

by Dave Peiser

Just when you thought you were going to throw your computer out the window, along come these calming words, that allow you to take several deep breaths, relax, release the stress, and move on to a better place.

"The Web site you seek cannot be located, but countless more exist."

 

"Chaos reigns within. Reflect, repent, and reboot. Order shall return."

 

 "Program aborting: Close all that you have worked on. You ask far too much."

 

 "Windows NT crashed. I am the Blue Screen of Death. No one hears your screams."

 

 "Yesterday it worked. Today it is not working. Windows is like that."

 

"Your file was so big. It might be very useful. But now it is gone."

 

"Stay the patient course. Of little worth is your ire. The network is down."

 

"A crash reduces your expensive computer to a simple stone."

 

"Three things are certain: death, taxes, and lost data. Guess which has occurred."

 

"You step in the stream, but the water has moved on. This page is not here."

 

"Out of memory. We wish to hold the whole sky, but we never will."

 

"Having been erased, the document you’re seeking must now be retyped."

 

"Serious error. All shortcuts have disappeared. Screen. Mind. Both are blank."

 

I am not sure of the source of these, but I hope they have improved your day. :-)

Using Remote Desktop Connection with a Mac

By Dave Peiser

One of my clients recently changed all of their client PCs from Windows to Mac (Leopard, 10.5.3), while keeping their Windows servers (SBS 2003 and Windows 2003 Server). With the change-over, it was necessary to keep some "Windows" functionality while using their Macs. In particular, they are running a terminal server with QuickBooks, Quicken and a database program that still need to be accessed by the client systems.

With a quick Google search, I learned that Microsoft had a free download of the Remote Desktop Connection program, specifically for the Mac world. This was a great relief, so I downloaded the released version of the software (1.0.3).

At first glance, all went well. There was no problem connecting/disconnecting with the server, and configuration was very similar to the Windows version. However, we had problems printing. One of the great features of Remote Desktop Connection is the ability to bring your printers with the connection, so that even though the server you are connecting into may be hundreds or thousands of miles away, you can easily print on the printer sitting next to you. No dice here. Local printers on the Mac were not showing up when connected to the server.

After a period of frantic web searches and deep soul searching about my commitment to the client that they would be able to do everything they needed to with the Macs, I realized there was a Beta version of the Remote Desktop Connection software on the Microsoft website. There were no comments about what the difference was with this Beta version (Version 2, Beta 3) from the released version, but I thought: I can't lose anything by trying it out. And the bet was spot on. With the Beta version, like magic, printing worked! Life was good again. :-)

Some Tips for Improving the Speed of Internet Explorer and Eliminating Error Messages

By Dave Peiser

Lately I’ve run into a number of situations where Internet Explorer is very slow or error messages are displayed every time the user exits. Some IT consultants might tell you to use Mozilla Firefox and stop messing around with Microsoft’s browser, but I see that as a last resort. There are a few things worth trying to improve the situation. Here is a list of things I do when troubleshooting slowness and errors:

1. Run a spyware scan – If you haven’t scanned for spyware lately, it is quite possible that a deviant program has made its way onto your system and is slowing things down. The best program I recommend is Spyware Doctor. Great free programs are available at www.download.com. Search for Lavasoft Ad Aware or Spybot Search + Destroy. One thing to note: there are a lot of programs that claim to clean up spyware but actually are spyware themselves, so don’t automatically trust any vendor pushing anti-spyware software.
2. If you’ve scanned for Spyware and things are still slow, disable all the Internet Explorer “Add-Ons” and see if this makes a difference. “Add-Ons” are small programs that run every time you use Internet Explorer, and they typically have something to do with bigger programs you’ve loaded on your system like Adobe Acrobat, a search program or antivirus program. You disable them by opening Internet Explorer and clicking on “Tools”. Then select “Manage Add-Ons”. Then “Enable or Disable Add-ons”. One by one, select an Add-On by clicking on it, and then click on Disable. Do this for all the add-ons and click OK. Close Internet Explorer and re-open it and see if this made a difference. If it did, then one-by-one, enable the add-ins until you figure out which one is causing problems. Or, just leave them all disabled, if nothing is missing that you care about.
3. One culprit of late with Internet Explorer issues has been Adobe Acrobat. I’ve worked on several situations (including my own computer) where Acrobat caused error messages to occur when using Internet Explorer. This especially seemed to be caused when two versions of Acrobat were installed – both the free Acrobat Reader and a version that allows you to create PDFs (Standard or Pro). The solution is to uninstall all versions of Adobe Acrobat, confirm no Acrobat Add-ons are still in Internet Explorer, and then reinstall just one version of Acrobat.
4. Another culprit is the Google Toolbar. I now have worked on two systems that had significant increases in speed with Internet Explorer after uninstalling the Google Toolbar. One system that was taking 30 seconds to load Internet Explorer was improved to a 1-2 second load. Amazing! Now, I don’t necessarily want to pick on Google. Other toolbars might do the same thing. I just haven’t had the chance to test this with other toolbars.

That’s my list. Please let me know if you have any suggestions to add to the list. (Click “comments” below this posting to make suggestions).

The Best Solution For Blocking Spam

By Dave Peiser

While my previous suggestion of using gmail to block spam is great for one or two email addresses, if you own or run a business with employees,then I believe you really need a solution that not only blocks spam, but also provides the ability to easily manage the solution for everyone. My recommended solution is MX Logic® Email Defense Service.

Why? For just a couple dollars per month per employee, the Email Defense Service provides comprehensive, layered protection against a wide range of email-borne threats.  The service blocks over 99% of spam, so that rather than sifting through 50 or 100 or 500 spam emails each day to check if maybe one good email came through, all you have to do is check a daily email report from MX Logic that lists a few emails the service isn’t sure about. All the emails that are known spam are automatically deleted and you never see them. Only good email comes into your inbox.

The service scans all email for viruses, worms and spyware. Phishing emails are blocked. You can set the service to filter content and attachments. And a recovery service is optionally provided, that will hold all your mail if your email server goes down or your internet connection goes down – and then all the email is released to your email server as soon as it is available again.

You can also filter out-going email if you want.

I like this service because it is easy to use, has very little setup to do, and minimal maintenance. All, while doing exactly what you purchase it for – automatically removing spam from your email, so that you and your employees can use your time for productive, profitable activities.

Interested in learning more? Click Here.

Technical update to my last post regarding using Gmail to filter spam

By Dave Peiser

Today, I tried following the advice from my March 21st post with a different customer, and noticed one  thing that needs to mentioned. I noticed a problem after setting things up: when my customer replied to emails, the emails had the gmail address as the "From" address. This wasn't good, because the "From" address should be their name@companyname.com address. The solution to this was to modify the email account settings (Tools/Account Settings) and put the name@companyname.com address in the field labelled "E-mail address".

A Quick, Free Method for Getting Rid of Spam Email

By Dave Peiser

I've been spending a lot of time lately looking for the best solutions for getting rid of spam, also known as junk email. It's obviously a plague on all who attempt to communicate with email, unless of course, you work for a big company that has spent big bucks to keep the stuff off your network.

For a number of years I've recommended client-based solutions; i.e. install software on your PC that looks at all incoming mail and puts the bad stuff in a separate folder or deletes it for you. I am now, however, convinced that the only way to deal with spam is to get rid of it before it gets to your computer or network.

There are a lot of services now available, for low cost, that will clean your email of viruses, spyware and junk email, before sending it on to you, and I will talk about that in a future post. Today, I will talk about a free solution that I implemented for two customers this week. And, that free solution is Google Gmail.

One of my clients, who has their own domain name, that I will call companyname.com for explaining what I did, was set up to use a POP3 type connection for downloading email into Microsoft Outlook. Their email hosting company was doing an awful job filtering out spam. In particular, they had an info@companyname.com address that was on their website for years, and was bombarded with junk. For the info account, I created a Gmail account with the address info.companyname@gmail.com. I set their info@companyname.com address to forward all email to the info.companyname@gmail.com address, and then set Microsoft Outlook to download email from the Gmail account. Incoming spam went from 500 per day to zero!

For another client, who was using Microsoft Exchange Server for their email and was downloading email with a POP3 connection, I needed to take one additional step. Gmail requires an encrypted connection when downloading email, which is not possible using the POP connector in Exchange. So, I created a new account at their web/email host, and set the Gmail account to automatically forward to this new account. Then set the Exchange POP connector to download from the new account. So now, email comes into the publically-known email address, gets sent to Gmail for cleaning, and then gets sent back to the private email address that is brought into Exchange and Outlook.

By the way, I need to thank June Mattiza at the Media Collective for this suggestion.

Cheers!

Getting Email on a BlackBerry

by Dave Peiser

When my clients tell me they want to get real-time email delivered to their phone or PDA, the one and only product I recommend is the BlackBerry. Why? The BlackBerry is just light-years ahead of other products with both the user interface for managing email and with the technology for delivering the email to their devices. Add to that a well thought out “back-end” software platform for managing anything from one to thousands of devices.

The following is a summary of what is available, regarding synchronizing email, as well as contacts, calendar and other organizer info when using a Blackberry:

1. You use Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express, and email comes in using a “POP3” type connection. Or you get your email online with Yahoo! or Gmail. Or you don’t currently have an email account, or want a new account just for Blackberry-delivered email.

This is the easiest setup to do, and many business owners should be able to get this done without an IT guy like me.

What’s available?

• Wireless email via the BlackBerry Internet Service – email is sent to the BlackBerry in parallel with the email being sent to Outlook. So the email you receive on your BlackBerry also shows up in Outlook. You can receive and reply to emails, but the replies do not make it back into Outlook.
• Synchronization of your inbox, sent items and deleted items with Yahoo! email accounts.
• Full synchronization via a usb cable connection: Using a cable to connect the BlackBerry to your PC, plus BlackBerry Desktop Software, your email, contacts, calendar, memos and tasks synchronize with Outlook. You can also transfer files between your BlackBerry and PC.

2. You use Microsoft Outlook, and email comes into Outlook using a Microsoft Exchange Server.

What’s available?

• You can sync email, contacts, calendar, memos and tasks wirelessly. Smaller businesses (up to 30 users) can use BlackBerry Professional Software (previously called “BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express”), and there is no cost for one user. There is a charge for additional users.  With over 30 users you need to use a program called BlackBerry Enterprise Server. These programs are very similar in capabilities. Here is a link to a comparison of BlackBerry products. Both of these programs need to be installed on a Windows server (2000 or 2003). With up to 10 users you can put it on your Exchange server. Ideally, it should be installed on a separate server from the Exchange server.
• Optionally, a program can be loaded onto users’ PCs that allows them to customize the synchronization settings.