NowITWorks.net

East Hampton, Connecticut based technology company, Now It Works, announced today that it will become a corporate sponsor of The Entrepreneur Circle, a Connecticut based organization that offers peer advisory boards and educational opportunities for business owners, presidents, and CEO’s.

“We are thrilled to have such an innovative, emerging company take part in helping us provide additional programs to our members”, stated Mike Keiser, Co-Founder of The E Circle.   “We’re really looking forward to forging a lasting relationship with Now It Works”, he went on to say.

Chris Meacham, president and founder of Now It Works said “being a business owner myself, I saw the value of helping other business owners get the best answers and the best ideas that they can find. Becoming a sponsor of The E Circle was one way that we could give back to the business community and build strategic alliances with a number of high quality businesses”.

Now It Works’ sponsorship helps to provide further educational opportunities, expert speakers, social opportunities and the ability to learn from fellow entrepreneurs.

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Cybercrime is on the rise, according to a report released by Panda Security. Based on a survey of 1,532 American businesses and 7,083 global companies, the current rise in cybercrime is due to poor security practices.

• 36% of U.S. small businesses use free security solutions that are designed for home use

• 31% operate without any anti-spam tools

• 23% lack anti-spyware (yes, this is different from anti-spam)

• 15% haven’t gotten around to setting up a firewall

Over 50% of security breaches are from the Internet and/or email, with another 14% coming from infected downloads. The good news is that these breaches are preventable.

These risks can be minimized by having a dedicated IT resource like Now IT Works in your corner. A whooping 29% of small and medium sized businesses surveyed didn’t have any IT resources at all!

Hello readers! Thanks for sticking with us this week, despite our limited posts. It’s been another busy week here and that’s a good thing. Dale has been on-site for the last two weeks which has opened the door for Amie to handle some of the level 1 technical issues, such as virus removal and email set-up. We’ve also been fortunate enough to be introduced to  two new businesses that can certainly benefit from our services.

A big thank you to all of our readers and clients – have a great weekend and be sure to follow Now IT Works & tell your friends:

Now IT Works Twitter

Now IT Works Facebook Fan Page

Microsoft has decided to discontinue the sale of Windows XP by October 22, 2010.

Although they still plan to provide support for Windows XP until April 2014, if you are looking to purchase a new computer with Windows XP installed, you should reach out to your Account Manager as soon as possible.

All orders placed after October 1, 2010 will be dependent on the current inventory of Windows XP licenses.

Computers running Windows 7 are also available, and recommended. Look for our next update on how you can set-up Windows XP and Windows 7 to work on the same computer.

View the Microsoft announcement for full details about Windows XP End of Life for OEM partners at:  http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-xp/end-of-sale.aspx

We are pleased to announce the first winner of our quarterly Customer Survey drawing. The winner of a new Amazon Kindle is: Walt Perron from Benhaven School. Congratulations!

We appreciate all of the feedback we have received thus far. We hope our customers will continue to fill out these surveys to be entered into the next drawing, which will take place on December 1st, 2010.

Have a great weekend everyone!

“The temp accidentally deleted a file – can I get it back?”

A networking associate called the Now IT Works help desk one morning with that very question. He had a temporary employee in the office who was doing some clerical work when she accidentally deleted a file from the public folders.

How Now IT Works Was Able to Help

As it turns out, the temp didn’t delete the folder but simply dragged-and-dropped it into another folder on the public drive. Now IT Works can help you set high-level safeguards so that only certain employees are able to make changes, add or delete files to existing folders.

Also, your Windows-based server has the ability to monitor critical folders and log entries with the date, time and name of the employee who made the changes.

Clients who subscribe to our Blue Steel service can have this feature activated easily.

Over the weekend, many Fantasy Football drafts took place around the country. In honor of that, we’ve dusted off an old, but still interesting blog post about fantasy football and how it affects your business/office -

• The average fantasy football player spends an average of 1.19 hours per week working on their team, while at work. Companies lose about $45.22 in wages each week, per employee.

Example: If there are 5 employees within your company and they spend an hour each week on their fantasy football teams, after 17 weeks of play (not including playoffs), it would cost your company approximately $3,843.70 each season.

And let’s not forget that Fidelity had no problem firing four employees last year, all of whom were caught participating in their fantasy football league while at work.

There are services available to restrict internet usage during high-peak times; March Madness, playoffs. If you are interested in learning more, please contact a Now IT Works representative.

Did you know that web-surfing & personal communications accounts for 27% of the average work day?

The average worker wastes over 2 hours* each day checking their Facebook accounts, downloading music and communicating with friends. Without the proper precautions in place, they have the capabilities to install programs on their computer, some of which can carry viruses to your business network.

Not only can these applications put your technology at risk but lost productivity can cost as much as $1000 per month, per employee.

During your initial setup with Now IT Works, your Account Manager will review all of the necessary software it takes to run your business, along with the proper web surfing policy for your employees.

(*source: Salary.com)

After a lengthy break from the web, the Now IT Works team is back and ready to put our blog back on the map!

Here is what we’ve been up to:

• Our new employee Dale, the “man behind the scenes”, has been with us for a few months now, working on proactive monitoring and the execution of large-scale customer projects.

• Dispatch Manager Amie recently became a CompTIA Certified Project + Manager. She has been assisting with the planning phases of customer projects and utilizing these skills in her dispatch world as well.

• Our Now IT Works website is under construction! The new and improved site is set to roll out early this Fall. Be sure to visit us at www.nowitworks.com

• We have started sending Client Surveys after the completion of service tickets. If you are a customer and receive one of these surveys, be sure to fill it out and you’ll be in the running to win an iPod Shuffle!

A special thank you to all of our readers for sticking with us. Have a great weekend everyone!

Our help desk received a call one morning  from a prospective customer who was in a panic. He had just sent out a very important email from his phone, to a client and received a bounce-back notice that the email had not been delivered. When he got to the office, he learned that no one had access to Outlook so he called Now IT Works. 

As it turns out:

As a Now IT Works client, your servers are being monitored on many levels: