Earlier in the month I alerted my readers to the new Mass. regulations designed to prevent identify theft. (201 CMR Ch 17.00) You can read the post by clicking here.

The specific dates by which businesses in the Commonwealth are asked to comply has been revised. The latest information available on compliance can be found by clicking here, but I’ve summarized the new deadlines for compliance as follows:

1. General compliance has been moved from January 1, 2009 to May 1, 2009.
2. Third party service providers (your vendors) must be contractually bound to be compliant by May 1, 2009, and obtaining written certification from these vendors has been extended to January 1, 2010.
3. Laptops must be encrypted by May 1, 2009.
4. The deadline for encryption of other portable devices is extended to January 1, 2010.

Please feel free to contact me for advice on how to quickly get your systems up to date and compliant.

-Paul

***
Paul LaFlamme
President & CEO
Centrend, Inc.
508-347-9550 x115

Everybody wants to conserve energy, either to save money or for the potential environmental benefit. Whatever your reason may be, managing power settings is a simple thing to do with your PC to reduce energy consumption.

To enable the “Power Management” features of your PC’s operating system, you’ll need to first understand what each setting really does. Then , you can set the computer to regulate “sleep” after time intervals for your monitor, hard drive, and system (if you don’t know where to find the settings, contact me and I’ll be happy to explain, walk you through or put you in touch with a technical consultant).

Typical time intervals are:

a) Monitor … set to sleep in 20 minutes

Many people use screen savers, however it is important to remember that a screen saver is not an energy saving measure. When the screen saver is activated, the monitor is still drawing normal power. The power management feature of your monitor is truly the best method of conserving its energy usage.

b) Hard drives … set to sleep in 30 minutes

Your PC’s hard drive is constantly spinning, ready and waiting to quickly read and write information. Using the power management feature to control the hard drive’s power consumption means that, after a set period of inactivity, the computer’s operating system will tell the hard drive to stop spinning until it is needed again.

c) System … set to “standby” or “hibernate” in 90 minutes

Using Microsoft XP as an example, when in standby mode, your monitor is automatically turned off, your hard drive is stopped, and the PC uses less power, and all of your open applications remain open. You can return to work by “waking up” the PC rather quickly. It’s much quicker that a full boot up.

As you might guess, hibernation takes that a step further. Once again, using Microsoft XP as the example, pretty much everything is shut down, monitor, and hard drives. An image of your open work is copied to a special file, and the PC is almost completely shut off. It takes a little longer to start back up from this mode, but less time than a complete boot up.

Most operating systems’ power management feature will allow you to require a password to restart after the computer “falls asleep". The standby mode is good for break time or when you are temporarily called away, and the hibernation mode is best suited for extended times away from the PC, like overnight and weekends. Certain programs that run in the background, such as automatic data backup programs, may or may not function in standby or hibernation mode and should be checked for operability.

If you have questions about any of this, please don’t hesitate to contact me at Centrend. In our next tip, I’ll talk about when and why you would replace a perfectly good computer monitor to save energy.

- Bill

***

Bill Bowman
Senior Technology Advisor
Centrend, Inc
1-888-558-9550 ext. 135

Do you have a long wait when you first fire up your PC?

In follow up to Paul’s previous post “PC Running Slower“, I’d like to share a nice tool I’ve been using for over a year that helps my machines start faster. It’s called “WinPatrol", it’s clean (no spyware/adware/malware), and you can download it for free from BillP Studios (http://www.winpatrol.com). It’s great for keeping track of all those little programs that over time accumulate in your startup script, thus causing your PC to take longer … and longer … and longer … to start up.

WinPatrol alerts me every time any program attempts add itself to my startup list or list of services that run in the background. I can then choose to allow the addition, if it is a trusted program, or prevent the addition if I’m unsure or know that it shouldn’t be added.

In addition to monitoring behind the scenes activity, WinPatrol also has a simple user interface that allows you to review and control the list of startup programs already installed. You can even set up a delayed start schedule for the programs you need. By prioritizing and spacing out the startups over a longer period, essential programs can be ready to go more quickly. This means you’ll be up and running faster.

-Bill

***

Bill Bowman
Senior Technology Advisor
Centrend, Inc.
508-347-9550 x135

This just seems to fit under the category of common sense, but it deserves mentioning because so many of us forget about the simple solutions. If you want to save energy, turn off your printers and other office equipment when not in use. Create a company policy regarding all your office equipment and power usage.

Printers, especially multifunction printers, sitting in ready mode, consume energy just waiting for a print job. Shut them down at the end of each day or shift to conserve power.

Some photocopiers and computer peripherals have energy management features built in, so they may have the ability to shut down on their own. Check to be certain that the settings are properly made to conserve energy usage at your office.

In the next Simple Energy Saving Tip, we’ll talk more about the programmable “Power Management” features avaialble with most PC operating systems.

-Bill

***
Bill Bowman
Senior Technology Advisor
Centrend, Inc.
508-347-9550 x135

A client called me today in a bit of a panic. She was doing some online banking early this morning and when she was through, she clicked the “log out” button on her bank’s website.

A message immediately popped up on her screen with a warning that read something like this: “You are about to be transferred to a site that is not secure. Are you sure you wish to proceed?” Because she had been doing online banking, she was afraid to transfer to a site that isn’t secure for fear her information would be compromised.

When she started her online session she knew enough to check to see that instead of http:// before the web site address she saw https:// and also knew that the padlock was closed, indicated that the web page is secured. (See image, below)

In this case, her browser was just letting her know that her encrypted session was done and she would now be going to a site that is not secure. I assured her that her information was safe. I also told her that she did the right thing - she didn’t know what was going on for sure, so she closed the browser and didn’t take a chance.

Even when a site indicates HTTPS:// and the padlock as shown above, you could still be vulnerable to web based scams. I’ll soon post a primer on how to know if the site your visiting really is secure and whether the site is really under the control of who you think they are. Stay tuned!

-Paul

***
Paul LaFlamme
President & CEO
Centrend, Inc.
508-347-9550 x115

Ask any good contractor and he’ll tell you… You can’t have too many tools in your toolbox.

If you’re like most of our customers you think of your computer as your toolbox and the programs you install are all the tools you’ll have available to you when you sit down to do work. Like you, I like to have a lot of software installed.

The problem is, left on its own, the more software that gets installed, the slower your computer gets. Over a surprisingly short period of time, the computer gets slower and slower till it’s drastically slower than it was when you bought it.

To run efficiently with all the things I have installed, I have to periodically maintain the machine to keep its performance up. The proper maintenance required goes far beyond running disk defrag and deleting web cookies.

If your computer is running slower than when you first bought it, contact us for a fast and inexpensive tune up that we’ll do on site at your location. Also keep watching my technology results blog for computer tips. We’ll soon be adding video and “live tutorials” too which will walk you through simple things you can do around the office PC to keep things running a little more smoothly.

-Paul

***
Paul LaFlamme
President & CEO
Centrend, Inc.
508-347-9550 x115

Whether you are a business of one employee or a business of thousands, effective January 1st, 2009, you will be required by Massachusetts law to take very specific and very serious steps to secure electronic forms of personal information you collect about Massachusetts customers, employees, and vendors.

You can read the full text of the law by clicking here.

HR and Payroll departments are traditionally very careful to protect personal information that is in written form; photos of drivers license, personnel files with social security numbers on them, etc… With the prevalence of electronic data capture and storage extending to all departments of the organization, this new law is requiring businesses to pay strict attention to what information is being stored, where it is being stored, and whom is allowed to access it.

Briefly, here are some key requirements of the law that you should be aware of:

1. Administrative Control - Means keeping unique user IDs and passwords that are not easy to guess, locking out user IDs with too many bad login tries, and assess and investigate hacking attempts
2. Antivirus and Antispyware protection - Make sure your machines have modern protection that updates regularly and protects you from the latest threats that attempt to steal information
3. Software Patch Management - Keep up with software vendor’s security patches for your Operating System(O/S) and other programs you run
4. If you have a wireless network, make sure the network is encrypted to prevent “snoopers”
5. Restrict terminated employees access upon their dismissal
6. Encrypt the data located on backup devices such as external hard drives, CD/DVD media and tape. This media can be stolen without being missed. If the data is encrypted, the thief will not be able to read the data.
7. Keep a computer system inventory - don’t lose track of retired equipment or equipment left vacant by someone that has left your organization
8. Monitor and audit access to your systems and backups on an ongoing basis

In short, you need to know what you need to do, know how to do it, document what you’re going to do, and then actually DO IT.

If you need help determining your level of compliance with this new regulation, please contact me for a free audit and assessment. We’ll quickly determine where you’re at and what action you need to take to avoid problems.

Your plan must be written down and your employees must be trained on how to safely work with both physical and electronic records. If you need help creating a plan and training your end users, I strongly recommend speaking with Frank Aubuchon of Aubuchon & Associates. Frank can be reached at (508) 478-7085.

-Paul

***
Paul LaFlamme
President & CEO
Centrend, Inc.
508-347-9550 x115