IT Support

If you depend on your computer network to run your business (and who doesn’t?), you’ll want someone treating your data as securely as they would their own.    Not knowing what’s going on behind the scenes should scare the crap out of you. It is NOT unreasonable that your IT company is monitoring your network 24/7/365. Stop paying for substandard support. It’s important for you to interview your current company to ensure they are up to your standards. This will help you determine if it’s time for a change (so you can sleep at night). The top 3 questions to ask include: “Do you provide detailed invoices clearly outlining what we are paying for?”       If your auto draft is just sending a traditional monthly payment without explanation, something isn’t right. Each invoice needs to show what services each dollar covers, just to ensure you aren’t being nickel-and-dimed outside of what’s covered in your contract. “Do you provide status reports on new projects?”       Or if they’re working on an in-process project? It’s on them to provide updates and give you ETAs on when work will be completed.   “Do you offer guarantees on services?”       Any IT company should back its services 100%. Any updates, additions, subtractions, etc., should not be an additional charge and should be guaranteed to work the first time, without having to submit an additional ticket.  We are offering a free report with 13 additional questions to ask any IT company to make sure you have hired the best choice for services. It also includes cost-saving strategies. To know more about it, you may call us at 774-504-5558 or book a 10-minute discovery call using this link https://calendar.app.google/jSA1tteBxFJKnJkX6

They don’t call you back, they don’t text back, and when you get time with them, they are disheveled, rude, and uninterested, doing barely enough to keep things going. This sounds like a bad date…and it’s one that many businesses are on with their current IT guy. You have a problem, need a password, the Internet is down, you have site problems, need a new computer [insert any part here] and you “submit a ticket” only to wait hours, days, or even weeks to hear back, much less get the problem resolved. The #1 complaint businesses have that causes them to “break up” with their current IT guy is that he simply wasn’t responsive. Just like you wouldn’t stand for this in your personal life, you shouldn’t stand for it in your professional life…especially when you’re paying them!!! If your current company doesn’t have a response-time guarantee, you’re probably on a bad date. Most IT firms offer a 60-minute or 30-minute response time to your call during normal business hours. Be very wary of someone who doesn’t have a guaranteed response time IN WRITING – that’s a sign they are too disorganized, understaffed, or overwhelmed to handle your request.  A good IT firm should be able to show you statistics from their PSA (professional services automation) software, where all client problems (tickets) get responded to and tracked. Ask to see a report on average ticket response and resolution times. Also, any good IT company will answer their phones LIVE (not voice mail or phone trees) and respond from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. every weekday. But many CEOs and executives work outside normal “9 to 5” hours and need IT support both nights and weekends, so ask about their guarantees for after-hours issues as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5dFilcmY4w Technology Tips By Centrend Podcast: Episode #5 With the scarcity of computers right now and the need for additional computers for remote working and remote learning, many folks are dusting off their old Windows 7 computers. The problem is, you may not remember the password to it. In this blog entry, I show you how to recover a Windows 7 password, without a recovery USB stick. While it’s not ideal to use Windows 7 computers as they are no longer under support and may have unpatched security vulnerabilities, it may be necessary to get you through the pinch. The first step is to click the bottom right corner to shut Windows down. Turn the computer on and immediately being rapidly pressing the F8 key.  A menu should appear like the one below. Use the arrow keys to arrow down to Safe Mode with Command Prompt. Press Enter and Windows starts in a special boot mode.  If the Administrator account had been already activated, we would see an option here to change users.  Since no additional account appears that we can switch to, we will be able to boot to alternate media and turn on the hidden administrator account! You’ll need media to continue. While modern Windows 10 computers don’t usually come with any media, many if not most Windows 7 computers shipped with either a DVD or a USB stick. If not, contact us and we can help you find media to use for recovery. Shut the computer off again. Insert your recovery media into the DVD player or the USB stick into a USB slot. Turn the computer back on and this time rapidly press the F12 key for a boot options menu.  Note: Some computers don’t use F12. If F12 doesn’t work for you, watch your computer’s screen for a hint. It could be Del or F2 key for example. Use the arrow keys to select the media you inserted. This could say DVD or USB. Press Enter. As soon as you press enter, you’ll be prompted “Press any key to boot…” Press a key such as Enter to get the computer to boot the recovery media instead of your internal hard drive. You’ll see a message “Windows is loading files…” It will look like it’s a brand-new install of Windows 7.  Choose the default language, then click next. When the install/repair menu comes up, click Repair your computer. After a few minutes, you will be presented with a menu to choose the operating system. Click Next. Now for the recovery option, choose Command Prompt. When the command prompt opens, type the following and press the Enter key: net user administrator /active:yes You should get a reply that the command was completed successfully. Type Exit and press the Enter key and you’ll be back at the System Recovery Options menu. Click Restart to restart the computer normally. You will not press anything at boot-up this time. If you end up in Recovery mode again, remove the media and restart the computer to boot normally. Once you boot normally, you will see both the original user ID along with an administrator login that you can choose. Choose Administrator to log into that account. You won’t be prompted for a password because we didn’t set one. All we did at the command line was activate the account. It will take a few minutes for the administrator profile to be created. Once you see the desktop, we can set the password on the account we want to use with the computer. In this example, the name of the account is Mark. Click the start bubble at the bottom left, then go into the control panel. Next, go to User Accounts, the Add or Remove User Accounts. Click the account name you want to reset the password on. Now you can click either Remove the password or Change the password. Now restart the computer and you will be able to get right into your usual user profile again! Be sure to either disable the administrator account or set a password for it to keep your computer secure. If you get stuck at any part of this process, give us a call or submit our consulting form for a quick free assessment of your situation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyyB-OWr3So Technology Tips by Centrend Podcast: Episode 4 I love working with a whiteboard. In fact, I can think of no technique more effective for brainstorming a project than getting a team of folks to share ideas in front of a whiteboard.  In 2020, we are forced out of the office, but the need for project collaboration and groupthink doesn’t stop. Enter the digital whiteboard. A powerful team collaboration tool that lets you collaborate with up to 50 participants that can be located anywhere in the world. For this walkthrough, I’ll be showing you Google’s Jamboard. There are other tools, but this one is one of my favorites, and to get started, all you need is a Google account. Go to jamboard.google.com.  If you’ve used Jamboard already, your previous jams will be listed. If you’ve never used Jamboard or want to start a new jam, click the + sign in the bottom right corner. Experiment with the drawing tools on the left side. For example, select the pen tool and freehand draw shapes: You can then use things like the Text Tool to draw text on the whiteboard – either stand-alone or on shapes you’ve already drawn. You can also click the underlined A at the top bar to select a font color for the typed text. You can freehand draw shapes, just like on a real whiteboard. If you make a mistake, you can use either the eraser tool or the undo button to undo the last action. Here’s a really handy tip for you. If you want to draw a straight line, you can hold the shift key as you draw. Who needs a steady hand with this technology? You can type text, then rotate that text by clicking and holding on the top left of the text box. With the text rotated, you can still reposition it anywhere on the canvas. One of my favorite things about Jamboard vs. other whiteboard apps is the built-in image searchability. Instead of having to go to the internet in a new browser tab, find an image, save that image somewhere, go back to Jamboard, and import the image (remembering where you had saved it), you can do all this right inside Jamboard in just a couple clicks! First, click the Image Icon, then click the Google Image Search tab. This lets you search in the browser. Click the image you like and then click Insert. The jam is private until you share it. Sharing it unlocks the real power of this collaborative tool. To share, click Share in the top right. Then enter the email address of whom you’d like to invite. You can have them View only if you are presenting, or make them an editor if you want them to add and change the drawing. In the example below, I’ve added a technical consultant from Whiz Kid Support, our residential division of Centrend, to add the remote user part to our diagram. As they add elements, you will see their icon and initial appear. Usually, you would be on a video conference or at least a phone call while doing this, but you don’t have to be. You can have multiple pages on the whiteboard. To get a new whiteboard in the same file, click the arrow to the right of the whiteboard page marker in the top center of the screen: You can also click the shape icon and draw perfect shapes. Like this: Finally, the laser pointer is great for presenting ideas and talking about specific whiteboard areas in detail. You select the bottom tool from the left side toolbar, and then you can use this laser pointer effect to draw attention to an area of the whiteboard without actually drawing on it: The jam board software works on almost any internet-connected device such as an iPad or Android tablet or phone. On touch-enabled devices, you can draw on the device to draw on the board, and everyone will see your changes! As you can see, a digital whiteboard is a powerful, practical tool for team collaboration. There’s also a physical jam board for when you have some collaborators on-premises while working with remote team members at the same time. You can learn more about the physical jam board by clicking here. If you need help deploying this technology in your organization, please reach out for a free consultation. We can offer equipment, training, and consulting on many whiteboard solutions.   

https://youtu.be/8S-6LXy57Cg Technology Tips by Centrend Podcast: Episode 3 These days, when we aren’t on camera in a web meeting, it seems like we are typing on our computer keyboards. Typing skills are essential to be productive and competitive. I’m going to show you some effective and fun ways to improve your keyboarding skills. Everyone, no matter their age, should seek to develop their typing skills as much as possible. The faster you can get your thoughts out and into the computer, the more productive your entire day will be.  In this blog, I show you several great online resources for mastering the keyboard. First, www.ratatype.com. Ratatype is a good learning tool. Many teachers send their students here, and the format is a lot like an actual typing course. If you choose to create an account and log in, the site will keep track of your progress and present increasingly challenging lessons. I find this resource invaluable for practicing those harder letter/symbol combinations that you don’t get to type often but slow you down when you do need to type them. Next, www.typeracer.com. I have to admit; this one is my favorite. It can be very entertaining! I’ve watched entire offices playing during their break time to compete for high scores! You don’t have to log in here either. You can go directly to Enter a typing race.  Like Ratatype, if you log in, the site will track your high scores. Do you have problems with technology and want things to run better? For businesses, call us at 774-241-8600.  For support for home users or individuals, visit www.whizkidsupport.com or call 774-778-2800.

Individuals and small businesses struggle with ways to increase the lifetime value of their PC hardware. ​ What can you do​ to keep your computer running strong like you?​ Extending the life of existing desktops and laptops to reduce your cost and lower your budget is critical in today’s economic climate. Families and companies alike are dealing with limited resources and need their computers to last more than a couple of years. The truth is a quality computer that is maintained will last several years – perhaps even a decade! So how do you make sure your PC investment lasts? The first factor is your buying strategy. Start with a quality computer build. If you buy the cheapest, bargain-basement computer off the shelf, you can’t expect it to last as long as a solid business-class or mid-range residential system. The reality is for a few dollars more you end up with hardware that will last six or more years. Assuming you started with a decent build to begin with, a PC tuneup will go a long way toward extending your computer’s speed and overall life. Here’s a list of things you should be doing at least quarterly to keep your computer running well: Proactively clean and defrag your computer Repair registry issues with your system Keep up to date with hardware drivers Your operating system should be updating regularly – make sure that it’s happening Maintain antivirus software (besides what the computer operating system comes with) Check for add-ons and other unwanted leeches that sap your computer’s resources Centrend can take care of all these things for your business with our automated tools. Give us a call! If you are a home user or solopreneur, visit our whizkidsupport.com site for affordable maintenance plans tailored to your individual needs.

Centrend cares about our employees’ and our customer’s safety, and we’re doing our part to reduce the spread and flatten the curve. Read on to learn what we are doing to keep safe and keep our customers’ information systems running well. We are practicing social distancing and utilizing our extensive remote support and remote management tools to maximize efficiency and safety for our staff and our customers. We’ve limited our travel and on-site visits to only the essential times when we must be physically on-site. For the safety of our staff and our customers, projects requiring us to be hands-on at the customer’s location have been deferred until after the crisis is over, and the restrictions are lifted. Since Governor Baker’s announcement that only critical businesses would be allowed to operate, Centrend expanded our support hours and has been working tirelessly to implement secure remote access solutions for our customers.  We can help with secure, remote access, training on video conferencing tools, or support for your remote workers. You need your staff to work remotely and keep your business operating as best it can. We can help. Starting in Mid-April, Centrend will offer free consultation and free set up of remote access solutions tailored to your unique business environment. Stay tuned to our blog for more information. You can also give us a call at 774-241-8600 or submit the short form below. 

Are you trying to cobble together pieces of disparate systems that weren’t meant to talk to each other? Are you hopeful that connecting mismatched data sets will breathe life into your IT Systems? Don’t Frankenstein your IT! Read on to find out what I mean. You know the story of Dr. Victor von Frankenstein, right? He was a promising young doctor who was so devastated by the death of a loved one that he became obsessed with bringing the dead back to life. He worked feverishly to create a creature out of body parts and spends the rest of his time trying to decide if his creature can be trusted.  Is a maddeningly similar experiment taking place month after month, year after year in your own workplace?  Do you spend countless hours piecing together systems that have never talked to one another? Have you seen or even fallen victim to your company’s “separate islands” of information? If this sounds like your business I can help you break out of the scary, torturous pitfalls of information segmentation!  Contact me using the phone, email, or form below for a free consultation. Meanwhile, Happy Halloween!!

While any Chromebook, PC, or Mac can be used for email and web browsing, it’s all the other activities that determine what is right for you. Read this article to get some insight into the advantages of each option. They are all computers but Chromebooks run the Chromium operating system whereas PCs run Windows (typically) and Macs run Mac OS. Which one is right for your particular use, depends on how and where you’ll use it and what you will use it for.  Below I’ll describe key considerations when you choose a platform, then I’ll highlight the key advantages each platform has over the others. Key Decision Factors Do you want to run specific programs that require one of the platforms? How important is portability? Does it need to start up fast? Will you always have a strong internet connection? Will you use it for long periods of time and need a full keyboard, mouse, and large screen? Advantages of Chromebooks: Chromebooks start very fast  Chromebooks are secure against malware and viruses right out of the box Lots of free, easy-to-use software (Google Apps for example) which minimize your expense. Video streaming on Chromebooks works great  Chromebooks require little or no maintenance and can be wiped to factory defaults in just a few clicks Very easy to set up – you need a free Gmail account and an internet connection Long battery life and highly portable Advantages of a Windows PC or Mac: Don’t need an internet connection all the time Can attach just about any screen Have more ports for connecting printers, scanners, etc Very strong processors and graphic cards Applications are wide-ranging and powerful though some are quite pricey Very tight security is readily configurable with VPNs, Next-Gen antivirus software, etc. In short, you can do a lot more with a Windows PC or Mac but it will take more work to set it up and your cost of ownership will be higher.  If you need help deciding what is right for your small business, We’d be glad to offer a free consultation to discuss. If you are a home user or solopreneur, visit our whizkidsupport.com site for great free advice along with programs tailored to individual needs.

Many users leave their computers on all the time so that they can receive automatic updates and security patches. This is a great strategy but leaves users with the question, “How long can you go without restarting your computer?” Read on to find out. During use, programs open and close, background system processes filter network traffic, and your software updates regularly. When you reboot your computer, think of it as giving the machine a good night’s sleep. To your computer, the reboot is a Fresh Start that frees up memory from leaky applications and ends processes that are no longer needed. Rebooting also allows the system a chance to apply essential security patches that were downloaded during working hours.  Allowing, or even forcing a reboot is recommended to clean everything up. How often we recommend you reboot, depends on your operating system. If you are using Windows 10, for example, weekly reboots are adequate while Windows 7 may need to be rebooted more frequently.   The by-product of rebooting is that It not only speeds things up but can fix nagging, pesky problems that only a reboot can cure. So the next time a technical support person asks you to reboot, please don’t be insulted! They want your system to run well and not waste your time and money.