Your PC Team

Did you know your copier is secretly keeping an image of everything you copy, fax, or scan?  It’s true.  Most commercial copiers put in service in the last 10 years have a built-in hard drive that keeps an image of every copy, scan, or fax you put through the machine.

According to news sources, over 60% of business owners weren’t aware that copy machines had built-in hard drives.  While this document saving device may have practical application within your business, it has much wider negative implications when you trade in your copier or the lease expires.  If hard drives aren’t wiped clean, unscrupulous people can use free software, downloaded from the Internet, to pull each and every one of the documents that had previously been copied, faxed, or scanned.

You work tirelessly to protect the information stored on your computers, yet right in your office is a secret identity theft weapon lying in wait for your copier lease to expire or a trade-in to occur.  While the implications are huge for the loss of privacy, the bigger implication is in regard to identity theft and loss of personal information.

At Your PC Team, our copiers are rotated as any other business equipment; however, we take the extra step of scrubbing hard drives to delete all information before we allow the copier to leave our building.  We encourage you to remember to do this, as well, when you change or replace copiers in order to carry through on the vital step of protecting you, your company, and your employees’ sensitive information.

Below is the link to a CBS story regarding this and just how prevalent this problem has become.  While we all may be doing our best in protecting information, we are still not immune to identity theft and should continue to be vigilant in who we give our information to.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6412572n&tag=mg;mostpopvideo

For more information on how Your PC Team can help protect you from this, and other types of security risks within your organization, contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or call (404) 254-6638 today.

We can't officially confirm this yet, but we're hearing from all over that a bad McAfee for Windows XP update is causing computers worldwide to shut down. Apparently DAT update 5958 deletes the svchost.exe file, which then triggers a false-positive in McAfee itself and sets off a chain of uncontrolled restarts and loss of networking functionality. Yeah, wild -- Twitter is basically going nuts, and McAfee's support site appears to be down.

If you are a McAfee user, and would like to inquire about other software to secure your computers from viruses and spyware, call us today at (404) 254-6638.

Most business people would likely agree that securing and backing up their data are critical to their businesses. But many businesses are not employing the best practices for data security and backup. The following are the top ten things businesses must know about securing and protecting their business data presented in order from most common to least common practices of small businesses.

How many of these practices are you following in your business?

According to a survey of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the typical small business will experience a disruptive event lasting more than 24 hours on average, once every three years. These events can be computer viruses damaging networks or servers or floods requiring the evacuation of the office; relatively trivial events that commonly occur. So protect your small business against the certainties of disruption by putting in place good practices for protecting business data. It will give you peace of mind and help your business to operate more efficiently.

For more information on how Your PC Team can help secure your business data, call us today at (404) 254-6638.

When you're working in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, the F4 key will repeat the last command or keystroke you just did. It may not be immediately apparent what the advantage of this is, so I'll provide an example of how to use it.

Delete non-contiguous items
I use this one more often in Excel than in Word. Now, the example I'm going to use here is beyond simple, but hopefully you can see how it could be helpful, especially with longer lists.

Let say, in Excel, I have a list of people's names, and I want to delete all the men from the list, I could highlight the first name and delete the row, then use the F4 key to delete the other ones.

You may be asking yourself, "why wouldn't I just use the Delete key for all of them?" Well, there are two reasons, actually:

In Excel, the Delete key deletes the contents of the cell in the row, but not the entire row. To do the latter, you'd actually have to go up to the Edit menu and select Delete or use the Delete button in the ribbon (depending on your version of Excel), which is not as easy as the one-touch F4 solution.
 
If I'm using my right hand to highlight each row and move down the list, then I either have to keep moving it to hit the delete key, or have my left-hand cross all the way over the keyboard to keep pressing the Delete key. Again, that might not sound like a big deal but, for a long list, that could become rather uncomfortable after a while. With the F4 more on the left-hand side of the keyboard, it's just a little less awkward.

A note:
If you interrupt the repeated command with another action, the new one will become the one that is repeated. So, for example, if you're deleting a bunch of rows and, as you're going through the spreadsheet, you spot a typo and edit, that action is now the new command that will be repeated.

On April 13, 2010, Microsoft ended support for Windows Vista without any service packs. Without support, Microsoft will no longer be providing software updates, i.e. hotfixes and critical updates that protect your computer from hackers, viruses, spyware and other mailicious software.

To continue receiving support for your Vista PC, install Microsoft Vista Server Pack 2. To install SP2, click your Start button, select All Programs and then click Windows Updates. In the left pane, click Check for Updates and install the latest updates found.

For companies still using Windows XP (pre-SP3), Microsoft will be ending support for that operating system on July 13, 2010. To continue support after, please install Windows XP Server Pack 3. As there is no Service Pack 3 for Windows XP 64-bit, Microsoft will continue support with this version on SP2.

If you do not know which version of Windows you're running, select your Start button, and type 'winver' in the search/run box, and then press enter.

For more information on this, contact Your PC Team at (404) 254-6638 ext 301 or email me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

In recent years, there has been an increased dependence on mobile and remote workers. This has prompted a need for providing secure remote access to network resources such as email, files, Web applications and internal Web sites. IPSec VPN has long been the technology of choice for companies looking to extend the productivity of their workforce beyond the corporate walls.

 These days, IPSec isn’t the only VPN option available.  More and more, organizations are looking at SSL VPN as a way to provide access to employees on the go.  SSL VPN offers secure clientless access using only a standard Web browser and an Internet connection.  Using SSL VPN, mobile, remote and temporary employees have anytime, anywhere access to resources on the corporate network - ideal for connections from work/home PCs, guest offices at remote locations, airport terminals and wireless Internet access locations.  IT professionals like SSL VPN because they don’t have to install and maintain a “fat” client on employee PCs.  Just as important, SSL VPN adds security with granular access and endpoint control based on corporate policy.

SSL VPN is available both as a dedicated hardware solution and as a feature on SonicWALL Unified Threat Management (UTM) firewalls.  While there are distinct advantages to having a stand-alone SSL VPN solution, there are also compelling reasons for an integrated solution including: 

• Lower total cost of acquisition – no additional hardware to purchase
• Simplified deployment – SSL VPN is integrated into the firewall
• Ease of management – no need to learn a new GUI

For organizations looking to enhance the productivity of their remote workforce or to extend network access to key partner and vendors, SSL VPN is an ideal solution.

To learning more about SSL VPN and Sonicwall Unified Threat Management firewalls, contact Your PC Team at (404) 2540-6638 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Are you having Exchange 2007 Connectivity issues and cannot seem to resolve them? Microsoft has release a new tool to help analyze and resolve connectivity issues at their new site, https://www.testexchangeconnectivity.com/.

Released earlier this year, the Microsoft Exchange Server Remote Connectivity Analyzer (beta) tests Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, Web Services, Outlook Connectivity and Inbound SMTP.

For more information on the Microsoft Exchange Server Remote Connectivity Analyzer, go to the MS Exchange Team Blog at http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/03/25/450908.aspx, or view a short video demonstrating the tool at http://edge.technet.com/Media/The-Remote-Connectivity-Analyzer-for-Exchange-Server.

Looking to upgrade your computer with Microsoft Windows 7 when it's released? Use this new beta Advisor software to check if you PC is compatible.

Easy-to-use for individual machines you control at work—or at home—the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor scans a PC’s system, programs, and devices to check if it's able to run Windows 7. After a few minutes, the report will let you know if the PC meets the system requirements, if there are any known compatibility issues with programs and devices, and provide guidance on upgrade options to Windows 7.

Microsoft Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor Beta
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=1b544e90-7659-4bd9-9e51-2497c146af15

Supported Operating Systems: Windows 7; Windows Vista; Windows XP Service Pack 2

For help checking your company network for Windows 7 compatibility, call Your PC Team at (404) 254-6638 today.

This tech tip will help Outlook 2007 users that want to monitor their quarantine during the day, with no need to go to Postini’s site and login.

The following is for Outlook 2007, it is assumed most users have upgraded.

1) Open MS Outlook
2) Right-click on Inbox and select New Folder
3) Call the folder “Postini Quarantine” or "Postini-Spam" (or whatever you chose to name it).
4) Right click the new “Postini” folder and select “Properties”.
5) Select the “Home Page” tab in the Properties window.
6) In the address window type the following URL: http://login.postini.com/
7) Select the checkbox labeled “Show home page by default for this folder”
8) Click “Apply” and “OK”.
9) Click on the Spam folder, login to your Message Center and optionally, select “Remember my Address and Password”
10) Close Outlook

The next time Outlook is opened and the Spam folder is selected, the Message Center should appear within the new Outlook folder that was created. This should make checking the Postini spam quarantine a bit easier.

To learn more about how Postini can help reduce your Company's Spam, call Your PC Team at 404-254-6638.

Recently, we had a client that uses the Sonicwall Global VPN Client and the Cisco VPN Client. They no longer needed the Cisco Client, so we uninstalled it and installed Sonicwall. When launching the Sonicwall VPN Client, it would never start Phase 1, and would not establish it's link.

After a long journey through the Sonicwall forum, and patching together a few posts, we were able to resolve this issue. Here is what it took for this instance. What you need to do may vary on the case.

1. Remove from the Registry:

HKLM\Software\DeterministicNetworks
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NdisWan

2. My Computer / Properties / Device Manager / uninstall LAN Adapter

3. Reboot PC

4. Run ftp://files.citrix.com/winfix.exe

5. Updated NIC Drivers from Manufacturer

6. Run ftp://files.citrix.com/dneupdate.msi

7. Install Sonicwall VPN Client

If you had previously installed the Sonicwall, you may need to run the Sonicwall Cleanup utility found at: ftp://sonicwalltac.gotdns.org/GVC.