So your company is immune to the current credit crunch and you’re looking to upgrade some of the office computers. After the new computers are deployed you have one remaining problem- what to do with the old hardware. Whether you decide to recycle, I recommend using Elemental Inc., or donate your old equipment, remember to wipe the hard drives clean. Simply deleting files or formatting the hard drive will not permanently remove your data. A DoD (Department of Defense) 5220.22-M compliant application must be used to clean the drive.

Programs like DBAN (available for free download here) can be made into a bootable CD or USB flash stick. This is the best way to ensure your data doesn’t end-up in the wrong hands.

False Positives, Whitelists, Blacklists, Spam, Ham, Quarantine Mailboxes, tarpitting, etc. The terminology of email filtering can get a bit confusing. So I’m going to have a go at explaining the most common questions I am asked.

Q: Why do I get spam, I didn’t before? Spammers get your email address from websites (don’t ever put your address on your website in plain text), when you register at other sites (it’s best to have a specific “register@” email address so you can register without using your personal email address), and from other spammer address lists (once you’re on one list it’s only a matter of time before it spreads to multiple lists).

Q: I have a spam filter, why do I still get spam? The spam filter is a program, some are better than others, which scores each email which passes through. The scores are based on the sender’s email address, the senders email domain, the content of the email, the server it came from, etc. If the email reaches a certain score the spam filter will mark it as SPAM..

Q: What is a Quarantine Mailbox? When an email is marked as spam, the filter will send the email to a quarantine mailbox. The vast majority of quarantined email is spam, but occasionally a good email (ham) will end up in the quarantine mailbox- therefore it’s a good idea to check it once per day.

Q: The same person sends me an email, sometimes it’s marked as spam, sometimes not, why? The sensitivity of your spam filter is probably high and that person may have some issues which are affecting their score. Each email is scored individually- so it’s possible for the same person to pass through and then be rejected by the spam filter. I would Whitelist that person.

Q: What is a whitelist? You can whitelist an email address or an entire domain (e.g. @datatroop.com) so they are never caught in the spam filter again. It is the opposite of blacklisting an email address or domain.

Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, addressed the University of Penn grads this week. One of the words of wisdom he passed along to the grads was to turn off their computers and hang out more. “Our goal is to have you be as attached as possible. But know where the off button is. It’s possible to spend your life inside the computer.” I often wonder when the 2nd Amendment will be changed from the Right to Bear Arms to the Right to Bear a Blackberry. I’m sure at this point, the not yet founded NBBA could rival the NRA. Anyway, a nice summary of the commencement is found here.

The article goes on to say how Eric speaks with Brian Roberts (Comcast CEO) on a weekly basis regarding political and policy issues. Apparently they also discuss business strategies- now that’s the part that got me thinking. The head of Google, as in “Don’t Be Evil” corporate motto Google, discussing business strategies with We Are Evil and We Don’t Care- Comcast; that seems a bit odd at first.

Google’s open source, anti-monopoly, unbiased search philosophy seems to clash with Comcast’s packet shaping, bandwidth capping, use our products or your service will degrade business approach. But then you start to think about Google’s venture into the Google Apps/online storage business and you can begin to see the parallels to Comcast’s business model.

Comcast controls the pipeline for 2/3 of all broadband users and controls the speed at which many services they and their competitors offer is delivered to their subscribers. Google is a marketing company that wants to store your personal and business data.

Those conversations make a bit more sense now.

I recently finished reading Michael Lewis’ Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. It’s an excellent book about the Oakland A’s baseball team’s visionary General Manager, Billy Beane, and how he is able to succeed while only spending a fraction of what other teams spend. Beane’s philosophy was to question the formula which determines a player’s worth and reevaluate the data and process which leads to a team’s success.

Beane began to implement computer programs which would search for key stats to find players who would often be overlooked by player scouts due to size or speed. He found flaws in some of the most accepted statistics which were used to determine a players worth. And he developed his own formula for finding the most cost-effective way to build a winning team.

The thinking behind Beane’s philosophy reminded me of Data Troop’s Small But Smart Business plan. Finding a way to get big business technologies on a small business budget and reevaluating the status quo of how to run a small business. Using programs like Google Adwords as opposed to Yellow Book advertising, our 24/7 monitoring system (Elite Care managed service plan) rather than break/fix retainer contracts and off-site PBX systems are solutions which are slowly but surely catching on in the SMB market.

Every business is unique and each has various needs which can benefit from different technology solutions. But with all the available low cost options today it’s imperative to periodically reevaluate your use of technology and find a better way to run your business.

Say you change your voicemail each morning or feed the meter for your car- Outlook has a nice solution so you won’t forget. Here’s a quick little tip on how to setup a recurring reminder through Outlook.

1. In Outlook, click Calendar.

2. On the Actions menu, click New Recurring Appointment.

3. In the Appointment Recurrence dialog box, under Appointment time, click a start time in the Start list, and then click the same time in the End list. Make sure that 0 minutes appears in the Duration list. Otherwise, Outlook blocks out time on your calendar.

4. Under Recurrence pattern, click an interval, such as Daily or Weekly, and then select the options that you want.

5. Under Range of recurrence, click a start date in the Start list, and then select a stop option.

6. Click OK.

7. In the Subject box of the Untitled – Appointment window, type a name for the reminder, and then click Save and Close.

We all know about Windows Ctrl+Alt+Del when those applications or Windows itself stops responding, but how about some lesser known programs and devices.

Here are some helpful tips for when your application freezes or a device :

Outlook 2002-2007
Problem: Outlook does not respond to commands or crashes
Answer: Start Outlook in Safe Mode by holding down Ctrl when you click on the Outlook icon. In Outlook click on Help > About Microsoft Outlook and click the Disabled Items button. Here you will see the items which Outlook disabled so it could open in Safe Mode. Either reinstall or remove these add-ins.

BlackBerry device
Problem: BlackBerry device constantly locks-up
Answer: Power off the device and remove the battery for 2 minutes. Doing so will not delete any settings, applications, data, or personal information on the device.

QuickBooks
Problem: You can open the program but can’t click on any buttons/tabs
Answer: Hold down the Ctrl button when you click on the QuickBooks icon to open the program

iPod
Problem: iPod doesn’t respond to any commands
Answer: Hold down the Menu and center dial button (simultaneously) for six seconds until the Apple logo appears. You will not lose any data or preference settings on iPod.

“Social Networking: The Ugly” is the third installment of a three part series which looks at how social networking websites (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc) are affecting businesses today.

A few months ago while preparing for a sales meeting with a potential client I performed a Google search of their company name to find out some information. One of the first results I came across was a MySpace page for one of their employees. Normally it’s not a big deal -most people reference their employer on their MySpace page, but I seriously doubt the business owner would appreciate the company’s name associated with the frat party pictures and profanity laced blog entries on the same page.

With the sudden popularity of people blogging/posting about their lives, both professional and personal, employers are almost forced to see what kind of (unwanted) publicity their company is getting. A handy tool for this job is www.Wink.com which compiles online profiles from all the different social networking websites for you.

Last year there was a story about a bank intern (pictured above) who called out sick for a “family emergency”, but the next day he posted pictures from the previous nights Halloween party- which kicked off an email exchange and a bunch of unwanted publicity for Anglo Irish Bank. More recently there have been teachers, police officers and even judges all fired due to ill-advised MySpace and Facebook postings.

The First Amendment ensures freedom of speech but at the same time employers have to protect their company’s online image. To quote Warren Buffet: “If you lose dollars for the firm by bad decisions, I will be understanding. If you lose reputation for the firm, I will be ruthless.”

Google is set to rid the world of the PC, knocking off Microsoft and a slew of other companies along the way. The Google Drive or “GDrive” is an online data storage service (not yet available or even confirmed by Google) which allows users to store all of their data online and access it from any device which can connect to the Internet.

Sounds simple enough. Remove the data from your local hard drive and put it up on the Internet. In the industry (sniff, sniff), this is what they call “cloud computing”. Your data is up in the clouds.

The up-side to the “cloud” computing setup is the convenience factor. Having all of your information (documents, pictures, contacts, etc) only an Internet connection away is a big time saver. No worries about transferring data, data backup, or losing data. It’s all online safe and secure in the Google data centers.

The down-side, and it’s a big one, Google will know everything about you and everyone else. The GDrive is a wet dream for advertisers. Google started as a search engine and will soon become the biggest marketing database everrrrrrrrrrr.

I’m not one for conspiracy theories, big brother paranoia, and can’t remember the last time I said “the man”, but something ain’t right about turning over all of my information to Google land.

Microsoft was often criticized for monopolizing the PC software industry and that they wanted all of your money. Google doesn’t want your money, they want your brain.

“Social Networking: The Bad” is the second installment of a three part series which looks at how social networking websites (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc) are affecting businesses today.

Downtime comes in all shapes and sizes, from computer hardware failures to company-wide network/Internet outages to employees abusing their Internet privileges. According to MacWorld, Internet abuse is now the leading reason for employee disciplinary action. Social networking web sites (MySpace, FaceBook, etc) have gained in popularity to a ridiculous degree over the past two years and are generally the most visited, non-work related web sites.

Most business owners and office managers I speak with want to trust their employees and don’t want to look over their shoulders all the time. Obviously you want a healthy, trusting relationship with the people working for you, but you have to protect your bottom line at the same time.

First and foremost, an Internet acceptable usage policy should be implemented- just as you would an employee handbook or a non-compete agreement. Most companies don’t mind employees using the Internet for personal reasons during lunch or breaks- but there has to be a policy in place so the message is clear about what is acceptable and what isn’t.

Next I suggest an Internet Web Filter (like our Frontline) for every office we service. You can block the most offensive sites (pornography, gambling, etc) but you can also run reports on Internet usage- and generally most managers are shocked at the amount of time their employees spend surfing the Internet.

The Internet is evolving towards a more social gathering place, where it used to be slanted toward research and shopping, employers would be foolish to let this take a stranglehold on their business.

“Social Networking: The Good” is the first installment of a three part series which looks at how social networking websites (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc) are affecting businesses today.

One of the most challenging and important tasks a small business owner is faced with is hiring good employees. But how much can you actually learn about someone from a resume, background check and an interview?

Many companies are now adding social networking sites to their screening process in order to find out the true personality of their candidates.

Rather than visiting each site to perform searches or filtering through Google’s search return on a candidate’s name, Wink is a site which compiles all the social networking sites’ profiles for you. You can perform searches using name, location and interests, but also there is a “Careers” field so you can search by the type of position you’re trying to fill.

Wink can also be used to see how your current employees are representing your company on social networking sites. I’ll take a closer look at this later in the series.