1). Back-up your data to an external hard drive or have an outside company back-up your data for you . Monsoon season is notorious for causing power outages and can result in the loss of your important data. We recommend backing up your PC every night and implementing the use of a surge protector.

 2). Avoid keeping your PC in areas that are exposed to the high temperatures. As with any electronics, the heat can take it toll on your PC. We recommend placing your PC in a well ventilated/cooled area during these hot summer months.

3). Rid your PC of all the dust that it collects over time. If you have ever opened up a computer, you would know that tons of dust settles inside & in time it could affect the PC’s efficiency. There are several products you can purchase that can help you “Spring Clean”.

 4). Keep your PC up-to-date with the latest Microsoft critical updates, virus protection, spy ware cleaning & disk defrag.

An operating system is the software on a computer that manages the way different programs  use its hardware, and regulates the ways that a usercontrols the computer. The operating system does not include Microsoft Office software that includes programs like outlook, word, excel and PowerPoint. These programs are installed on the PC via installation disk or download, and are additional “accessories” outside of the operating system.  

What does all this mean?

If you recently upgraded your PC to Windows 7 operating system, you may still be running an older version of Microsoft Office

 What is the difference between a server and a pc?

The main difference is the operating system placed on the machine. Server operating systems are designed from the ground up to provide platforms for multi-user, frequently business-critical, networked applications. The focus of such operating systems tends to be security, stability and collaboration, rather than user interface like a normal PC operating system would include.

 Want to learn more? Contact MTI Today.

 The worm lures victims by utilizing a link embedded in a spam IM message. Once clicked, the link leads to a so called image file, but in actuality it is a malicious payload. From there the malware begins to work its magic installing numerous files that compromise the Windows firewall.

 The malware continues to install further malware and/or captures passwords entered using Internet Explorer or Firefox.

The worm copies itself to network shares from the infected PC as well as USB sticks or other external drives. Any unprotected system with the Windows auto run feature turned on – basically almost every PC – will find itself infected as those drives are moved from PC to PC.

 MTI recommends prohibiting the use of personal USB drives in the workplace as well as anti-virus and anti-spyware/malware protection.

 There is a “Today” follow up flag, a “Tomorrow” follow up flag, a “This Week”, a “Next Week” and a “Custom”. Obviously, if you use a “Today” follow up flag (which is the default), it will remind you today. If you set a “Tomorrow” follow up flag, it will remind you tomorrow and so forth.

 In addition, Outlook now allows you to categorize your contacts I.e. personal, customer, vendor etc. Now you can search for a contact by category instead of scrolling through a massive list of contacts.

Stay tuned for more Office 2007 tips and hints.

 Another series of patches addresses vulnerability in Windows, XP, Vista & Server 2007 that if not corrected, could be used o hijack a PC if “a user opened a specially crafted .avi file containing an MPEG Layer-3 audio stream.

 In all, the patches fixed five flaws that were flagged “important” by Microsoft, another one was tagged moderate and last 5 were deemed critical.

 Need help installing the latest updates on your machines? Contact MTI today.

 Utilizing normal household products such as Windex can actually damage the protective surface on the monitor.

 MTI recommends purchasing a cleaner made specifically for electronics. They are relatively inexpensive and safe to use on most electronic devices.

Broadband.gov is a new internet site that allows you to test your bandwidth; this is the rate data can be transferred back and forth between your PC and server of the website you are trying to access. 

Often times, Internet service providers promise you certain connection speeds and more often that not you are getting significantly less than what has been promised. Testing on a regular basis can help you pinpoint certain times of the day when latency occurs and determine what you are actually getting for what you are paying in terms of connection speeds.

 Need help testing your internet connection speeds? Contact MTI Today.

 Companies may either own their domain name or rent it from a 3^rd party source. It is important for a company to keep track of who owns their domain name and when it expires. Letting a domain name renewal lapse can cost your company use of the web address pointed to your site indefinitely.

Finding Info about Your Domain:

 Visit any hosting site like go daddy or network solutions and lookup your domain name. It will provide information on who owns the domain name (unless the owner has selected to keep this information private.)  If you have a certain domain name in mind that is not currently available, check periodically to see if it becomes available and purchase it when it does.

 Thinking about a future company or branch of your company or just want to change your domain?  Start researching available domains and purchase ones you like now, they may not be available tomorrow. 

 Need help purchasing or obtaining information about your domain? Contact an MTI representative today.

MTI Tech Solutions would like to share some helpful tips that will help keep email SPAM out of your inbox.

1). Utilize a third party Spam filtering service:

 The complexity of spam is a never-ending and an up-hill battle. Many companies try to handle Spam issues themselves often wasting valuable time and money doing so.  MTI Tech Solutions recommends outsourcing this function to a company who offers an independent solution to focus  solely on spam filtering.

2).Consider creating a general company mailbox for all inquires to go to for all your current & prospective clients and vendors: i.e sales@companyxyz.com or orders@companyxyz.com Use this email box as the general email for the main mailbox on your website or for ordering products.  Not only will this decrease junk email to all boxes it will provide a unified mailbox for general inquiries

 3). Implement a company policy that prohibits users from entering their work email into third party sites not affiliated with work related activity.

Many sites request your email address, to inundate it with spam & sales solicitations. Require all employees to use personal email addresses for items that are not business related.

 4). Delete old email accounts that are no longer in use or no longer necessary.  Have you let an employee go?  Do you still need their mailbox functional for new mail? If not, we recommend deactivating their email account.  Any emails that you may need from your account can easily be backed up for later retrieval of old messages.

Need help with cleaning up Spam? Contact MTI today.