A new approach in computer services delivery in Vancouver BC

After dealing with a lot of clients complaining about their past unreliable computer consultants we decided to commit ourselves to delivering fast, affordable computer network support with 100% Money Back Guarantee.

Yes, really, money back... There is not even one IT company in Vancouver BC which guarantees IT support services with no contract (there is one offering a guarantee for contracts though)

We've created a new website to promote this new approach to Computer Services of our IT company in Vancouver.

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Why is it dangerous to download software from unknown sources?

I can't imagine a company where employees don't download small software either for their personal use or for completing tasks assigned.

But how dangerous is to download software from unknown sources?

Actually it is dangerous and big companies with IT security departments strongly prohibit this. We are trying to make our clients on network maintenance contracts understand this risk and also prohibit software download for employees without prior approval.
Well, it is not a popular measure but what is popular for users among security measures? :)

The reason is the software could be tampered. In other words there are guys out there who take a known software, add a piece of spyware like a key logger and repack the software and then offer it free on a peer to peer network.
You install that and suddenly all you type on your computer will be sent to those guys who packed the software for you... Everything, including your password from the on-line banking, your e-mail password, etc. How does this sound to you?

Why Keep an Up-To-Date Anti-Virus and Anti Spyware installed

These days viruses are not as dangerous as they used to be. But you never know. There are still virus attacks coming from spam, data and music files, web sites, and even e-mails from friends, so you cannot afford to not be protected.

At a minimum, if you are a home user or small business I recommend you buy an inexpensive but in the same time one of the most efficient and easy to use anti-virus products on the market like AVG Anti-Virus from Grisoft. Click here to learn more about AVG. You'll be glad you did!

AVG Anti-Virus will automatically notify you when new updates are available every time you log on to your computer making it easy for you to stay up-to-date.

I would also advise you to NEVER open suspicious looking e-mails or attachments. Actually if you have an antivirus like this installed you don't have to worry, but it's good to be careful. You also want to make sure anyone else using your computer knows this as well. When in doubt, delete it immediately!
Finally, avoid downloading music, free software, or other files from unknown web sites. One of the WORST types of sites to visit are peer to peer file sharing sites such as KaZaa. These web sites are breeding grounds for viruses and you are practically asking to get infected.

Business Awareness - Back-Up Your Files

According to IDC (www.idc.com) roughly 80% of small businesses and home office PC users have crucial data that is not backed up on a regular basis. All too often this happens because business owners are “too busy” to perform backups.

Dear business owner, your business critical data is constantly at risk due to hardware (harddisk) failure, human error, software corruption, viruses, theft, and physical disaster.
The only way to make sure you are protected from loosing your files is to make sure you have a good, reliable back up.

And at least once a month TAKE A COPY OF YOUR BACKUP OFF-SITE, in a secure place of course, to the bank, to your home, or get a on-line backup service to backup you data off-site
If you just do the backup and for some reason both the server and tha backup get stolen (because we all know they are in the same place in the same room), or it's a fire in the building, your business' chances to survive without critical data are minimal.

Business Awareness - Firewall needed

Small business owners and home users tend to think that because they are “just a small business” or “just a home user” no one would waste time trying to hack in to their network, but nothing could be further from the truth.

The idea is that, OK, they don't care about your data, but how about installing a small e-mail server for sending tons of spam from your computer? Or how about installing a program to attack a website? If you remember the days when Yahoo or Microsoft Update site were down, back then millions of inffected computers worked together to attack them. All you will notice is that your computer is a bit slower than it used to be.

Plus there are thousands of unscrupulous individuals (mostly kids looking for fame) out there who think its fun to disable your computer with malicious code. These guys strike randomly by searching the internet for open, unprotected ports.

You have a few options to protect yourself. First, if you are using XP or Vista, set up the software firewall that is included. This is not 100% bullet proof but it will protect you from outside attacks. What this firewall is not doing is protecting you from inside, for instance if you click on some pop-up and install some malicious software, this will be free in conecting through your firewall with his creators initiating the connection from you computer.

For this reason there are a lot software firewalls included in Internet Security packages like AVG Internet Security, Norton Internet Security, etc which are protecting you both ways... but the price is answering to a lot of questions like "X program want to access the internet, Allow or Deny?" AVG is less expensive and is very good.

Ideally you want to purchase a router to stand between you and the Internet. What the router does is translating your internet address into an internal one so the router is now exposed on the internet and you have a private address taken from the router - we call this Network Address Translation (NAT) and this is actually a basic firewall which will stop worms and enhance privacy by discouraging scans on your computer.

6 Tips to Save Money and Improve the Performance of Your Printer

Did you know that all printer makers get more money selling ink, toners and paper than selling... printers? This is actually obvious, we all know that for a $300 printer you need 4 toners at $80 each, or a $120 inkjet printer needs two $45 ink cardriges.

These are 6 tips to keep some money in your pocket when dealing with printers:

1. Set the print quality to one of the lowest setting for day-to-day printing.
Most printers automatically default to the printer’s high-quality image setting to make sure the pages come out looking good. However, these clean, crisp, high-quality images require a lot of ink or toner which can cost you a pretty penny over the life of your printer.
For most print jobs, the lowest-quality setting will work just fine. When you need a sharper print job, you simply change the setting for that one document.
The path to change your printer’s settings will vary depending up on your printer and operating system.

2. Print more on every page.
This will not only save you on ink, but also on paper. All you have to do is reduce the font size in a document by a point or two and you could save reams of paper over the year. If you are using Microsoft Word, you can use the “Pages Per Sheet” option to get more printed on every page. When printing out web pages, cut and paste the text into a Word document and reduce the spaces and delete unneeded pictures.

3. Don’t let your printer for more than seven days without use.
Let sitting for long periods of time, the tiny jets in a printer cartridge can dry up causing print jobs to have white streaks or to not print at all. To keep your printer in good working order, simply print a full page of text with color or better a test page once a week because this way you'll use all three colors.

4. Clean your printer’s nozzles.
Faint output, unprinted lines running across the page, or simply no visible printing at all indicates clogged nozzles. Most inkjet printers come with a built-in nozzle-clearing function you can run. Check your printer’s users’ guide for more information as this will vary depending on the make and model printer you are using.

5. Refill your ink cartridges.
You can refill an inkjet cartridge several times before you have to throw it away. Refilling your own cartridges not only saves you money, but is also more environmentally friendly. Refilling your cartridge is easy for anybody; just make sure you don’t let the cartridge run completely dry before refilling it for two reasons:
First, if you wait until it’s empty, you may dry out the sponge contained in the cartridge rendering it useless. Second, you can damage the resistors (the circuitry on the cartridge).
When a cartridge runs out of ink, the resistors can overheat and burn out. Most printers will warn you of a low cartridge before it completely runs out of ink to prevent this from happening. At the first sign of low ink, refill or top off your cartridge to ensure a long life.

6. Turn off your printer when you don't need it.
Turning your printer off when you are not using it will also help prevent the ink from drying in the print nozzles. Some printers have a mechanism that seals the print head from outside air when it's turned off. Just be sure to turn off your printer using it's own power switch instead of turning it off at the power strip. This causes the capping mechanism to fully engage.

How to Buy a Laptop for Your Business?

Everybody wants to buy the best laptop brand and there are millions of opinions about which brand is worth buying. Anyhow, there are very few big name laptop producers who still produce their laptops. It is more cost effective for them to buy the laptop from companies from China, Taiwan etc. called Original Design Manufacturers (ODM) and just brand them. More about ODMs here.

What you should be looking at is not the brand name, but the warranty, features (especially the size, weight and the running time on battery) and price. The warranty in particular is very important for a laptop, from our experience the 3 year warranty laptops are by far more reliable than the ones with only one year vendor warranty.

Adding warranty from the retailer is not making the laptop more reliable, you get some peace of mind but how about the few weeks downtime if it’s crashing?
And by the way, the data on the hard drive is not covered in any way by the warranty, so you’d better have a good backup. If your laptop just crashed and you need the data from it contact us right away before sending the laptop to the warranty.
As a conclusion: Always pay for warranty and features not for the name.