To me, one of the most shocking facts is that companies do not control their Internet access. There are wonderful web tools out there that will allow you to:

• Track who’s going to what sites
• Log employee activity in case you ever need evidence in a lawsuit
• Selectively block groups and/or individual users from accessing specific categories of sites

I find that the main reason companies do not use these tools is that the blocking scenario makes executives choose between yes to allow or no to block. Deciding between yes and no is easy when you’re thinking about some categories of sites. But there will always be several sites that are difficult to come to agreement about.

In order to get over the hump, it is important to start blocking the sites that everyone can agree to block. And if you have final say at your company, then you can decide which site you want to block. The point is, if you can’t decide on specific categories, you don’t have to block them right now. Just by setting up these tools, they increase your security. More and more websites are being infected with malware and that can result with you and your users becoming infected to something known as a drive-by download. These tools will do their very best to protect you from drive-by downloads.

Contact your IT department today and ask them to enable Internet blocking, logging, and tracking.

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Another useful tool is to have a blog. By the way, if you’re subscribed to mine, thank you! The idea of having a blog is to provide your readers with helpful information that they can gather online. In addition, your blog entries can be posted on the social media sites, including LinkedIn.

Just like always, one of the most important things to do in business is build strong relationships with your clients. These days, it seems like everyone is connected. Even my wife spends several hours a day on Facebook, searching the Internet, online shopping, and doing business. (And usually in that order. At least shopping is not number one!)

If you aren’t already, start using the Internet to build stronger relationships with the people you serve.

Please post your comments on this blog.

You may not be surprised that you can cancel those old T1 lines and get four times the speed for half of the price with a new connection.

This is also a reason to avoid those “long term” agreements for your Internet connectivity.

Two of my clients have experienced dramatically higher speeds for the same investment in the past week alone.

Please post your comments on this blog.

Be sure to tag your videos with keywords that will lead people to your products and services. Drawing traffic to your website through videos can make a big difference in your organization’s success in search engines.

Videos don’t have to look super professional either. You can even use videos made with a webcam, a cell phone, or a small camera such as the Flip camera. Even short, one-minute videos on your website can be very helpful. In fact, keeping the videos short can encourage more people to watch them.

Talk to your web design company today and get some videos on your website if they aren’t already there.

Please post your comments on this blog.

• PayPal API
• Google Checkout API
• Amazon
• Authorize.net API

Most of the API’s allow your customers to have the feeling that they stayed on your site and never left. Although, the final check out phase—when your customer enters their cardholder data—will take place outside of your web server. This can save you an enormous amount of money on your PCI DSS compliance.

Please post your comments on this blog.

Some smaller organizations have another company host their e-mail using hosted Exchange. Some companies outsource their CRM with companies like www.salesforce.com or crm.dynamics.com.

Many companies, large and small, use outsource payroll providers such as www.ADP.com , www.paychex.com , and payroll.intuit.com

Other examples of cloud computing include patient management and billing for healthcare organizations, document imaging, insurance company systems, accounting systems, and even ERP’s.

To some degree, even home users utilize cloud computing with services like Google Apps www.google.com/apps and Microsoft Office Live www.officelive.com.  Sites like www.snapfish.com can even be considered “cloud computing” because your images are being housed out on the Internet.  Facebook and LinkedIn are “in the cloud” too.

Some companies go to the extreme and put everything in the cloud including their servers, with no local servers of their own, using services such as www.vcit.ca.  In these cases, the company normally pays a monthly subscription fee per user and the hosting company maintains all of their Microsoft operating system and Office licenses for the company.  The outsourced company provides anti-virus, anti-spam, backup services, disaster recovery, e-mail hosting, and technical support for a flat monthly fee per user. This can be really nice—especially for smaller companies.  These services are usually based on Microsoft Terminal Server or Citrix Xen although the customer never needs to realize how the applications are delivered.

A few companies are toying with providing “in the cloud” anti-virus solutions and it will be interesting to see how those work out.

Many people use online backup to store their data in the cloud.

Drawbacks of using “in the cloud” services include:

• If your Internet connection fails, you cannot use the services.
• If you have a slow Internet connection, your services may be slow as well.
• If the “cloud” company goes out of business, you may lose access to your data forever.
• Security concerns—will the other company keep your data secure?

Advantages of using “in the cloud” services include:

• You do not need to install patches to the application—your cloud provider does that for you.
• If there is a disaster at your office, your workers can “work from home” or work on the road almost as easily as if they were “at the office.” This saves you a lot of time.
• You sometimes need less on-site support and/or may not need to hire more IT professionals in your organization.
• Providers in the cloud often have highly trained and highly qualified professionals taking care of the network—professionals who would otherwise be very expensive for you to utilize their expertise.
• Backups are naturally off-site and are often more secure than your own backup solution.
• Adding new offices, new users, and new applications is generally simplified.
• If users are on the road and their personal laptop malfunctions, it is often less dangerous for the user to access via a “hotel business center computer” than if they used the hotel computer to connect directly to your internal network.
• You may not need a server room and, if office space is cramped, that can allow you to have more room for your office personnel.

Also, it is important to mention that some companies elect to use Citrix Xen or Microsoft Terminal Services in their own corporate boundaries to create their own corporate version of a “cloud” and then enjoy some of the “best of both worlds.”

In case you are not aware, the concept of thin client computing is that the terminal in front of your users is not necessarily a huge robust machine constantly loaded with all the software a specific user needs to do their work. The idea is to have a main server, or farm of servers, that serve the programs out to the remote thin clients. Sound like the days of IBM AS-400, System 36, and VAX computers? It is. In addition, there are many benefits.

You can often save money on licensing fees, remote support becomes so much easier, deploying patches and controlling end users is much less labor intensive and is more effective, and there are great security benefits. Backups are a breeze since they are stored at the servers. Disaster Recovery Plans and Business Continuity Planning can be much easier when using thin client technology.

For that matter, your end users can use just about any device they want. I use Citrix from my PC’s using XP, Windows 7, my Macs, and even my iPhone. One of my clients is saving a ton of money – they have not had to replace a single thin client in more than 10 years – that is cost savings!

The one drawback is that you may need internet connectivity to work, but the internet is even available on many airplane flights these days.

Look into thin client computing. If it seems appealing, set up a trial run for a few users to see how well it works for you. Just be sure whoever sets up your environment is a qualified professional so they do it the right way!

In a recent webinar, an executive misunderstood me and thought I said “never let anyone in the company use Twitter!”

I use Twitter to provide tips to my followers—why would I tell people not to use Twitter? Two points about using Twitter effectively:

1. Make sure you get some kind of ROI.a. For company use, I prefer employees who are in marketing use Twitter to help market their company.

   b. Even better, search Twitter for your company and your competitors. Look to see what people are saying about you! Search for your products, services, and other related resources. This is very helpful!

   c. Some CEO’s find using Twitter a great way to stay in touch with employees, customers, and shareholders.

2. Watch the security.a. Those shortened URL’s may take you to a malicious web page without any warning that can infect your network.

   b. People can fool you into thinking you are going to a link recommended by someone you trust.

   c. Twitter is working on solving this problem, but the whole internet in general has problems with drive-by-downloads on sites people visit.

Learn more about Twitter—you may find that it can help you grow your business and server your clients!

http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/13/poneman-cybersecurity-breaches-technology-security-poneman.html?partner=email

Many thanks to don@soundtraining.net for passing this along – he provides excellent IT training.