Apple’s much hyped iPad2 gave a boost to a now thriving ‘tablet computing’ industry. And with the upcoming launch of the iPad3, many business owners are wondering if this technology should be invested in or not.

The latest iPad is thinner, lighter and faster than the original and now boasts a front camera in addition to the rear-facing camera. Other manufacturers can also be found in the small, touchscreen computer market, including Samsung, HP, Toshiba, Motorola, Dell, Lenovo and Sony. They predominately use either Google’s Android software or Microsoft’s Windows.

But is this technology just for nerds, high flying corporate executives and people addicted to the Angry Birds game? If you’re thinking about a tablet computer, learn about its limitations and focus on what benefit it could add to your business.

With a tablet, you can read information on a screen much larger than your phone, without having the weight and start-up time of your laptop. You can browse through documents, emails and websites, check your calendar or find telephone numbers or directions. They can also handle small amounts of data entry easily, replacing your paper & pen at the meeting table. However, they would never replace your ‘full-function’ computer completely as they are not suitable for long hours of data entry, printing can be problematic and not all of your preferred software titles will run on them.

So, let’s look at how tablets are being used in the small business market:

Real estate – A great website is a realtor’s dream, enabling them to showcase multiple images of many properties. Add a good search function and you can narrow down your portfolio as you discuss the needs of the prospective buyer that’s in front of you. The tablet now gives you that website on the road, ready to hand to the prospective buyer for them to thumb through property images as you sip coffee between open home sessions.

Anyone in sales – As many small business sales meetings are conducted at coffee shops or at the buyer’s premises, see ‘Real estate’ above, but add the ability to showcase product presentations and customer testimonials during your meeting.

Competitions – If you are running a promotion where people have to enter their details to win, the tablet is a great device to have at fairs and trade shows. Let people enter their own details and save you the data entry. This works even better if your entry form is already on your website anyway.

Subscriptions & registrations – See ‘Competitions’ above, but think of newsletters, sports teams etc. In fact, this can apply to nearly anywhere that you need to get capture people’s information. Just make sure they’re not going to run off with your tablet!

As with any technology purchasing decision, you want to know that your investment is going to enhance and improve how you do business. Talk to your Computer Troubleshooter about your technology needs and whether a tablet is right for your business, or whether it’s just another gadget.

Audit – it’s a very painful word that conjures up images of the taxation department. If done correctly though, an audit of the technology in your small business should be quick and painless and yield you with some valuable information. Here are our top 5 reasons why your business would benefit from a technology audit:

1. Find immediate areas for improvement – If you’re thinking of replacing your computer, an audit may reveal that upgrading the memory would give you a significant performance boost. It could also highlight incorrect system settings or poor security configurations that could easily be fixed. With a clear picture of what technology you have, it might be easy to find some quick, inexpensive areas for improvement.
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2. Budget for longer-term areas of improvement – An audit may reveal out-dated hardware that should be replaced with newer, faster components. It could also highlight disks that are close to their capacity, but still have some spare space. You can then plan and budget to address these areas in the future, instead of having to react tomorrow to an unforeseen full disk.

3. Know what software is on your computers – If your employees are able to install software onto your computers, do you know what they have been installing? An audit will reveal if your computers have illegal file sharing software or other programs that may be relevant to their hobbies, not their work (e.g. share trading).

4. Know you have the correct software licenses – In some cases, it is a software manufacturer’s right to randomly audit your business and check that you have the correct license number and the right kind of license for their software. If you’ve taken on more staff since you started, or you’ve had employees installing software on your computers, an audit can reveal where your software licensing might need some attention.

5. Compile an asset register – Your business will have certain assets listed for accounting purposes. That audit may not include many of your IT devices that are under a certain monetary value. If a theft or natural disaster hit your business, wouldn’t it be great to have a full list of all of your technology components? Ask your I.T. guy to store a copy of your audit results, off site, in case you need to refer to that asset list to make an insurance claim.

The outcomes of your audit should be a comprehensive list of your I.T. assets and recommendations for improvement that fit in with your business plans (both short and long term). If your I.T. guy uses your audit as an opportunity to sell as much of his products and services as he can, call Computer Troubleshooters for an independent trusted second opinion.

For most of our clients, protection, upgrades and replacements, and problem-prevention were indeed very important over the last 12 months, and they will continue to be critical pieces of a strong technology foundation. Netbooks were overshadowed by the release of the iPad2 and the competing ‘tablet computers’ from rival brands. Mobile web access is still in its infancy, though social media sites like Twitter and Facebook have ensured that mobile phone browsers deliver a cut-down view of their main features. In the home technology arena, photo sharing websites flourished and the hype of the 3D television has started to fade behind the shine of new internet-connected televisions.

So what are the I.T industry’s biggest players excited about in 2012?

3D Without The Glasses – At a recent conference, brands like NEC, Samsung and Toshiba have paraded 3D television images without the need for you to wear special glasses. Unfortunately due to current cost, the target market is commercial advertising and not your living room.

Social Media Money – Facebook game users will be familiar with earning or buying credits for virtual upgrades or additions to their games. It’s thought Facebook may extend this to allow more businesses to use Facebook as a commerce platform for selling their goods. Twitter also may also add a financial component, as businesses seek to capitalize on the fans (followers) that they’ve attracted.

Location Based Services – When Google adds nearby businesses to your search results (Google Places), you know that location-based content is going to be big. Instead of wading through information that spans your entire city, perhaps this year it will be the easiest to find the ‘nearest’ product, service or special deal. Watch to see if advertisers target this ‘close by and ready to buy’ market.

Tablets Move Into Business – The tablet computer has developed a reputation for addictive games, but its portability means it naturally crosses over to your work desk from your coffee table. This year you may see more business-focused applications, especially those designed to assist sales teams. One day you may even see every realtor carrying one.

Cloud Computing – This is the one that the I.T industry is placing all of its bets on. Though still fairly quiet in the small business sector, larger businesses have already been strategizing how using other people’s servers could reduce their infrastructure costs. This year, more small businesses will attempt to figure out if paying for technology on-demand will be significantly more affordable than purchasing their own I.T infrastructure.

Contact your local Computer Troubleshooters to discuss how you can benefit from the advances in technology this year or for any of your computing needs.

If you answered your phone and it was Microsoft, telling you that your computer had a problem and they could fix it, should you believe them? What if they said they were your internet provider? Unfortunately this telephone scam leads innocent computer users to hand over their credit card details and allows an unknown person full remote access to their computer.

The caller pretends to be from some reputable internet provider or Microsoft itself, telling the victim they are following up on a report of a computer problem or virus infection that has been detected on their computer. They then direct the victim to visit a website to install software that allows the scammers full remote control of the computer. Then, they spend some time opening log files and other system areas to show where the problems are and convince you to pay a subscription fee for them to fix everything.

They now have your credit card details and full access to your computer and all of your personal information.

Computer Troubleshooters franchisees worldwide have seen a recent increase in this alarming scam, especially in the USA, Canada, the UK and Australia. Law enforcement agencies, Microsoft and other major technology companies have issued press releases warning of these calls. Stuart Strathdee, Microsoft Australia’s chief security adviser says “Do not be fooled. Microsoft is not cold calling consumers in regards to malfunctioning PCs, viruses or any other matter.”

In reality, Microsoft, your internet provider and other third-party companies do not have access to see any errors on your computer. They also can’t match your computer to your home telephone number.

If you or someone you know has fallen victim to this scam, call your local Computer Troubleshooter. We can thoroughly investigate your computer and remove all traces of their remote control software, to give you peace of mind that they can no longer access your system. You may also want to consider calling your credit card company, cancelling your current account, and requesting a new account number.

To combat these spammers, the best thing you can do is to spread the word to your friends, family and colleagues to never give an unknown person remote access to their computer. If you receive a call of this nature, simply hang up on them. Develop a trusted relationship with your local Computer Troubleshooter. They can use secure software tools to remotely monitor your computer for problems and give you the best advice on how to address them.

Google has recently completed a big change to its service in at least 5 years. This will impact how your website appears in the search engine’s list of results. The impact is being felt the most by small, local businesses who may have suddenly disappeared to page 2 or beyond of the search results.

The ‘Place Search’ sorts information around locations, making it easier to compare results in your local area. These results will automatically appear at the top (under the paid ads) if Google thinks you’re searching for local information. It’s important to note that as these appear before any other free search results, all other free listings are pushed further down the page. You can also click on the Places link to the left of your search results to see the Places listings.

To be listed in the Places results, you need to have a free Google account and claim your own Places listing. It’s a simple process and only takes a few minutes:

1. Visit Google Places (http://google.com/places) and click the Business Owner link.

2. Log in, or if you don’t yet have a Google account, you can sign up for free. Make sure that you use an email address that will not change as it’s permanently tied to your Places listing.

3. Take the time to completely fill in your business information, not just the required fields. If your business only provides onsite services and you don’t want to display your address, you can choose to not show your address on the listing. Specify your operating hours, accepted payment methods and add any additional details (such as on-site parking or years in business). It’s also recommended that you add photos and video links.

4. Google will then seek to verify your listing by sending you a PIN number, either via a postcard mailed to your listed address (within 3 – 4weeks), a recorded message phone call to your listed phone number or an SMS to your mobile phone. Enter this PIN number into your listing and it will then show as an owner-verified listing, which will also help with its ranking.

Your Places listing is not the only thing that Google takes into consideration when ranking the Places results. You also need to make sure you have a page on your website containing your physical address and phone number, as well as employing other search engine optimization techniques on your website.

Talk to your local Computer Troubleshooter if you need any help claiming your listing in Google Places or any other technology needs.

If you were looking to employ someone, you’d carefully check their reputation and their references. Email providers are now becoming just as cautious about who they accept emails from, in an effort to prevent large volumes of unsolicited commercial email (spam) from moving through their servers. They’re turning to ‘blacklist’ services, to see if you’ve developed a reputation for being a known source of spam.

There are numerous blacklisting services on the internet, which use various methods to build up a list of known spam sources. One such method is a ‘honeypot’ – pretending to be an unsecure email system, which attracts spammers and spamming software. The blacklisting server then adds the internet IP address of where the spam came from, to the blacklist. Email providers check this blacklist before accepting email and if the sender’s server is on that list, their email may be rejected before the recipients even see it. This is different to spam filtering which actually checks the contents of the email itself.

Unfortunately, your own business can become blacklisted if one of your computers picks up a spamming software ‘bot’ or malware. Like a virus, this malicious software installs itself onto your machine and starts sending out spam emails through your internet connection, however it may not be detected by your anti-virus software. You can very quickly become identified as a spam source and blacklisted, which will prevent legitimate emails from being sent from your own local email server.

The first indications of blacklisting are usually email failure error messages when you try and send a message. They commonly refer to rejecting your email for ‘policy reasons’ and may or may not mention spam or blacklisting. Email addresses that you’ve previously communicated with successfully may now start to reject your messages.

To tackle this, the first step is to confirm which blacklisting services you appear in. Some services even provide a link in the email failure message with further information on why you were blacklisted, when it happened or the possible cause. The infected computer then needs to be identified, removed from your network and thoroughly cleaned. Your email server should also have its configuration checked to ensure it’s not an ‘open’ relay, allowing emails to pass through it which did not come from you and are not destined for you. Once you’re sure your network is completely clean, you can ask to be ‘delisted’ from the services you’ve been appearing in. Some services will action your delisting request as soon as they receive it, whereas some will take days or weeks and some services even request a payment to speed up the process for you. The key to successful delisting is to make sure your computers are completely clean first. If you make multiple requests to be delisted and you’re still generating spam, the services will start to ignore your requests and you’ll remain on the blacklists.

Of course, a better option is to prevent spamming malware from entering your network in the first place, so always be cautious about what you download from the internet, what email attachments you open and what website links you click.

Talk to your local Computer Troubleshooters about how to protect your network or for help if you think you’ve been blacklisted

If you’re thinking about starting a business, then technology might be the very last consideration on your mind. With a long list of tasks in front of you (like getting a logo and stationery designed, finding an office, and working out your marketing plan), you may just requisition your home computer to start running your new business.

New computer or your home PC? – For a while, your home computer may be adequate to handle the necessities of your business. However, if your computer time is conflicting with the children’s need to surf the internet for their homework, it may be time to consider a dedicated business computer. Study any system specifications carefully and check the manufacturer’s websites. Many ‘cheap’ retail deals are superseded models, cannot be upgraded easily or may not connect to a bigger computer network, which will all be important as you grow. Also, talk to your accountant about any tax benefits that may be gained from leasing instead of purchasing your IT assets.

Voice over IP – When considering a phone number for your business, take a look at your Voice over IP options. The quality of this technology has improved significantly and it can provide great local, national and international phone rates. Today’s systems can plug into a standard cordless phone and your internet connection, so your computer doesn’t have to be turned on for you to make and receive calls. It makes a fantastic ‘second line’ for businesses that run from your home. You can have your office phone answered outside of business hours and still receive personal calls on your standard home phone line.

Internet domain name – Once you have decided on your business name, look at registering your internet domain name. This will prevent someone else from registering it. Having your own domain name (like marysmith.com) will give your emails a more professional look and enable you to have a simple webpage established. Don’t think you have to spend a fortune on a comprehensive website before your first day of actually doing business. As long as your contact details (phone number, email address, fax number, and location) are easy to find and you have some great information about why your business is different from your competitors, you will be giving the search engines something to find. This is much better than an ‘under construction’ picture or no internet presence at all. Use your domain name in your email address to look much more credible than someone operating from a free email account (like myname@gmail.com). You can still use your internet provider for your email service. Make certain to check what protection they have in place against email viruses and spam. Remember to include your website and email address on all of your stationery and marketing materials.

Email marketing – Investing in an email marketing program provides you with a great communication channel to keep your business in front of your future customers on a regular basis. Supplement your email marketing with monthly newsletters and occasional special offers. Get permission to store your customer’s email address from the day they start doing business with you and you’ll build up an impressive database.

Talk to your local Computer Troubleshooters about how to make the right technology decisions that match the needs of your new business.

Being a proud Canadian, the best way to describe the battle between Google Apps and Office365 is that of a classic center ice, “rock ‘em, sock ‘em” hockey fight. Why hockey fights? I just found this analogy to be more interesting than any theme that includes getting voted of an Island or “going to Hollywood”. The gloves are off… here we go. But before we get to the fight itself, a little background is needed.

At first, they played in the same league but really, Google’s arch rival was not Microsoft, but Hotmail. Microsoft had some rivals such as a few Linux based IMAP servers or even Lotus Notes. But when it came down to it, Microsoft pushed the other players around and didn’t have a lot of competition. Back then Microsoft Exchange was an on premise server and a very expensive server option. Google with its Gmail offering was battling Hotmail for the consumer email market. Competition drove innovation and Gmail came up with some great offerings such as larger mailboxes and Google Docs.

Then, in the board rooms (although possibly decided in the “ping pong room” or the “arcade room”) at Google headquarters, they realized that they were pretty good at making mail servers and storing email. It was at that moment they realized they could make $50/year from users in businesses by allowing companies to use their own Domain. I doubt that Microsoft was all that nervous at this point. Google was starting to squeak into the playoffs, but really, they were not a real contender for the big prize.

Microsoft was definitely a little slow at realizing businesses did not want to spend huge capital dollars on in house servers, not to mention the high cost of supporting these servers. Meanwhile Google had some very large “Free Agent Signings” with one of the biggest – 30,000 employees at the City of Los Angeles moving to Google Apps. Suddenly Google was moving from pretender to contender. Microsoft started to take notice and started to spend money.
Microsoft finally released the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS). However, it was clunky and not overly reliable. But BPOS was definitely the start in the changing identity of team Microsoft. The fans had quickly realized that team Google was more interesting, and more fun than team Microsoft. But the change to BPOS definitely brought Microsoft back to the game and the battle was on. It was not just any hockey fight, this was a bench clearing brawl. Exchange vs. Gmail, Sharepoint vs. Docs, Communicator vs. Google Chat, Forefront vs. Postini. Microsoft new they were in tough.
Then the off season came. Microsoft trained hard. When the new season started Microsoft’s cloud team was now Office365, built on the 2010 suite of products: Exchange, Sharepoint, Lync, Forefront… and any long serving hockey fan will know, when you have a Lync (Link) on your team, you have a good chance of winning any hockey fight.

Where are we today? The crowd is definitely standing, as the combatants are at center ice and they are throwing haymakers at each other. Office365 has now got the jersey pulled over Google’s head and landing both body blows and left hooks. Google looks to be a little wobbly on their feet. But this fight is going to go on for a long time to come. I’m certain Google will come back with a few new tricks.

And where does that need to be? Microsoft has a leg up on Google with their Hybrid model. You can have an in house exchange server communicating with Office365. This allows for redundancy and backup. This curbs the business owner’s fear of the cloud. But it is still very difficult to configure and takes a lot of support. Whichever team comes up with the cleanest, and easiest way to combine your cloud solution with your on-premise solution will be the clear favorite.

Recently, Google has been very busy implementing various changes to its privacy policy and to its search engine. Let’s look at these changes and how they may impact you.

You may have noticed the banner “We’re changing our privacy policy. This stuff matters.” on some of the Google sites you’ve been visiting. Now that Google is much more than just a search engine, it is consolidating more than 60 individual privacy policies across its products into a single one that promises to be “a lot shorter and easier to read.” Some products (like Wallet and Chrome) will retain their own policy for regulatory purposes and/or to help spell out that product in greater detail. Google believes this will allow them to consolidate your usage across their products and to bring you better integration with more relevant content.

Imagine a scenario where Google notifies you that you may be late for your meeting, because it combines your location, your calendar entry and the local traffic conditions. Sounds helpful, doesn’t it? And if your status on Google+ is often about horse riding, you may start seeing more horse riding videos in the Featured section of YouTube. The other side to this coin is that Google will have a much more detailed picture of you, enabling it to target you with specific advertising, which is a much more valuable commodity to pitch to advertisers. While Google still won’t sell your personal information, access to a tightly defined market will see advertisers running to Google to promote their products, as a targeted audience is much more cost-effective for them than a mass marketing approach.

To see your presence across the Google products and to access your personal settings, you can log into the Google Dashboard (https://www.google.com/dashboard/?hl=en&pli=1). To learn more about this topic, view Google’s official policy page here: http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/policies. The change goes into effect on March 1, and if you don’t agree with the change, your only option is to stop using Google’s products (with an account).

The other major changes impact website owners. Google will now lower your search result ranking if your site is packed with advertising ‘above the fold’ (in the top space before a reader needs to scroll down). It will also focus on how relevant your content is to your keywords – do you deliver a helpful website and a great user experience, or are you delivering some slick, copied sales pitch to promote an e-book on a different topic? More than ever, your website needs to focus on being relevant and recently updated. Webmasters also need to be aware the Google search results can now include content from other Google products, so items like your company’s Google+ page updates may also appear. This is good news for businesses who have embraced social media as it will add to their search results presence.

Talk to your local Computer Troubleshooters about your Google presence or any of your technology needs.

If your technology stopped working, would your business stop functioning too? Is your business totally reliant on the information stored on your computer systems or could you continue to deliver 95% of your products and services and catch up on the computer work later? No matter which end of this scale your business is at, you will fare much better during a major technology outage if you plan in advance, before it happens. This month we take some of the mystery out of Business Continuity Planning.

Business Continuity Planning (BCP) is the process of working out how your business will continue to function during a disaster. These threats to your business could include:

Flooding (severe rainfall) Fire Hardware failure Tornado/ Hurricane/ Cyclone Employee damage	Burst water pipes Earthquake Software failure Severed phone cabling Employee error	Burglary Influenza outbreak Internet outage Security breach … And many more!

BCP begins with identifying the possible risks and the impact they would have on your business. What functions would be affected if your main administration PC crashed? How long could you be without internet access? It’s important to evaluate the probability of these incidents occurring and the severity of their impact. This will help you to determine which incidents are the highest priorities to be addressed.

Next, you look at how these risks can be prevented, or the impact of them lessened. This could include copying data to a different site or having a laptop that has the same business-critical software applications as your administration PC.

Finally, you plan the actions that would be needed to help you respond when this incident occurs. Do you need to go to another site to get a copy of your data or bring the laptop in from home? Do you need to temporarily relocate to another site that does have internet access? Can you run a paper-based system until you can access your computers again? Think about who will be responsible for doing what and what resources they will need. This also needs to include any third-party suppliers of your business, like your local Computer Troubleshooter.

Your Business Continuity Plan should be examined, tested and maintained on a regular basis. This is to ensure it still reflects the changing needs of your business and also to make sure that the key parties within your business understand their roles in the process.

Whilst it may seem a little daunting, some forethought and planning will save you a lot of time, stress and money when things do go wrong. Talk to your local Computer Troubleshooters about the best way to keep your business running smoothly if you’re suddenly without your technology.