What is Managed IT Services?

You may have heard the term Managed Service Provider (MSP), or Managed Services and wondered what it is or why you should care?  The concept behind Managed IT Services is to proactively take care of your IT infrastructure to help mitigate or prevent IT disasters.  Not only does it help prevent IT disasters, it saves your business from ongoing IT problems by proactively taking care of your network infrastructure.  Ideally with the right setup and proper planning 80% of IT problems can go away with Managed IT Services.   So what is Managed IT Services?

Managed Services provides you or a Managed Service Provider with the tools required to monitor and fix your IT infrastructure. These tools let you know about issues before they become expensive problems.  A Managed IT Service Provider is like having your very own IT staff, but without having to pay for full time employees.  The tools make an IT person’s job easier, and those benefits save you money in the long run.  Think about driving your car, you wouldn’t want to drive very far if you didn’t have a gas gauge would you?  Or not knowing when you need to change your oil or have an engine problem?  Manage IT Services provides you with a gauge and the tools required so your IT equipment doesn’t “run out of gas”. 

The cost for having managed services outweighs the costs of not having it.  How well could your business run if you lost your data, if your server crashed, or you lost all your e-mail?  How fast could it recover from a backup?  Is your data backed up?  Are you properly patched for Security updates from Microsoft or other software such as Adobe Flash or Java?  Is your firewall really securing your network?  Do you have a preventative maintenance plan to keep your computers running smooth? These are all questions you should have an answer to, and if not, Managed Services will help make sure you have the answer, solve all those issues, and more.

Pricing for Managed IT Services vary, but it usually comes in a few different flavors.  One is a monitoring only plan.  This puts software on your machines to monitor your network, server and PC’s, then alerts you if there are problems.  The monthly cost for something like that is $5-$10 per desktop and $25-$50 per server, and then whatever the providers hourly rates are for fixing issues.

The next tier is a more proactive approach, this includes all the monitoring tools, plus provides security patches, such as Microsoft Updates, and Patches for other software like Flash and Java, usually provides antivirus software and management, desktop optimization, priority service for when problems arise, discounts on labor, and backup solutions for your data, e-mail and servers.   A more proactive plan can help solve 80% of your IT problems, which saves you money in productivity, IT costs, and overall workplace moral.  The Cost for a plan like this would run between $19-$29 a desktop and $75-$250 a server. 

The next level of Managed Services includes everything plus labor.  This does all the monitoring, patching, security, backups, and software management, all at a fixed monthly price.  Prices for this usually run about $79-$130 a desktop and up to $500 per server.  There are no extra costs for labor with this plan, and some providers even include hardware warranties for select products.  Going with this plan gives you a fixed cost for your IT service needs.

Why Managed Services?  Manage IT Services helps make your business run smooth and saves you expensive problems in the long run.  You no longer have to dread calling the IT person and paying them to fix your problems.  If you choose a plan with the right Manage IT Service Provider most of your problems will be fixed already and you can focus on growing your business, not fixing fires.

This guide will help show you how to make a photo book. There are many different ways for you to make your own photo book. You could go to a local hobby shop and pick up a picture album  and put all the pictures in that way.  Or you could create a more customized look by choosing an online photo book company to design your picture book.  One of the best online photo books is Mixbook. Most online companies such as Mixbook allow you to pick a design template and customize each page with how you want your picture book to look.  If you go with the online route here are some helpful tips to making the most of your time.

1.      Narrow down the photos you plan to use.  For a 20 page book pick somewhere between 1-5 photos a page, this will leave you with roughly 80 to 100 photos to choose from.

2.      Edit your photos using your own picture-editing software.  Microsoft Paint, which comes with most versions of Microsoft Windows, will allow you to edit photos, resize them and crop the image to how you want it to look.  If you need more advance photo editing there’s a free tool called Gimp which can be downloaded and installed.  It lets you take red-eye out of images and some other neat tricks.  Adobe Photoshop is also a very great tool for editing, but it can be tricky to use.  There are many guides online for Photoshop though for most common editing tricks.

3.      Duplicate the photos you plan on using into one folder so it’s easy to upload.

4.      Mixbook has easy to use themes and templates where you can customize the photo book how you want.  You can pick it for special occasions, holidays, and more.

5.      Create a backup of your photos.  This can be done by copying them to a flash drive, external hard drive, or using an online backup company like IDrive.  Using an online backup will also save other documents and files you may want to keep.  It’s always important to have a backup, you never know when your hard drive might crash and you lose everything

6.   Once your pictures are figured out and backed up you can easily start creating your picture album on Mixbook and have a nice album ready for any special occasion.

7.   You may also want to make sure you have a good antivirus program, especially if you plan to copy your pictures between computers.  One good program is AVG, it's free and allows you to scan flash drives.  This way you can help make sure you don't transfer viruses to other computers and make sure your pictures are virus free.

Which Wireless Router to Buy?

There is no one answer fits all, but this guide will help you make the right choice for your needs. You can get great deals on wireless routers here. The main routers out there that you can buy are 802.11 b/g or the 802.11 a/b/g/n with dual band 2.4ghz or 5ghz options and higher speeds with up to 600mbs of bandwidth.

The 802.11n wireless standard is the latest and offers the fastest speeds with longest range, however you need an 802.11n wireless adapter to receive the benefits from this.  If you have older devices you won’t see the benefits, but the routers come that have 802.11n come with the pervious technology so they are backwards compatible.  If you have an 802.11n adapter and router you will receive the most benefits from this kind of device.  The 802.11n at 5ghz will go through walls easier than the 802.11n at 2.4ghz or 802.11g.  So if you have a lot in the way between your device and the router, you’ll want to get an 802.11n router.

Faster speeds for wireless transfer can make a difference in transferring files, a hard drive usually maxes out at around 140mbs for transfer rates so going much above that won’t matter much, unless you have an SSD drive.  If you are downloading, the 802.11g standard max is 54mbs, so unless you have a higher than 50mb connection you may not see a difference either.  The further you are away from the router, the weaker the signal, therefore the slower the speed, so you still will get the best download speeds with 802.11n as that has higher bandwidth 150mbs up to 300mbs, so the further you get away, you’ll still lose bandwidth, but you start out at higher transfer speeds versus the 802.11g 54mbs speed.

To Sum it all up:

Browse Internet and Check e-mail, rarely download files or stream movies

802.11g  or better, most routers will meet your needs

Stream movies, browse the internet regularly and check e-mail, or gamer

802.11n

Heavy internet user, lots of downloads, active gamer

802.11n extreme with 300mbs +

One way to get the most of out a router is to get one with DDWRT Open Source firmware.  It basically turns a normal router into a powerhouse with features you find in $600 routers.  DDWRT is a very easy to use web interface for routers and offers very advance, but easy to configure options.  It’s very stable and you’ll rarely find yourself having to constantly reboot routers to keep your internet connection.  It comes with WPA2 security for enterprise or home use, as well as a firewall with the option for logs. Get great deals on DDWRT configured routers.

How to fix a computer virus

There are many ways to remove viruses from a computer, some work and some don’t.  This guide is the best way to fix a computer virus.  All the tools used here are free for non-commercial use. Use this guide at your own risk. You are responsible for making sure your data is backed up.  This guide will help remove all rootkits, spyware, Trojans, viruses, malware, and other malicious software.  If you are not sure how to do some of the steps please feel free to contact PC Link Solutions and we can remove the virus remotely for $79

Step 1.

Boot up your computer in Safe Mode with Networking.  This can be accomplished by repeatable tapping the F8 key on your keyboard as soon as you hit the power button.  If you have an OEM computer like Dell or HP, other models too, soon as you see the Logo show up on your monitor; start hitting F8 until you see Advance Boot Options.  Once you see Advance Boot Options, use the arrow keys to move up and down to select Safe Mode with Networking.  If you use Windows XP select Yes when it asks you if you want to be in Safe Mode.

Step 2.

Navigate to a website by opening up Internet Explorer (or other web browser) and download a tool called ComboFix.  If you can’t open up Internet Explorer hold down the Windows Key (the key with a flag on it by the ctrl and alt button) and press the letter R once.  This will open up a box for you to type in a command or web address.  Type in http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/anti-virus/combofix and click on the ComboFix Download Link, which is the first mirror.  ComboFix is a very powerful tool and will remove Rootkits as well as other viruses and malicious software.  It will also fix a lot of problems the virus caused, such as hiding all your icons and documents.

Steps to running ComboFix

1.Click OK if you see a message about real time scanner, you’ll get a 2^nd message about real time scanner so click OK to that as well.

2.Combo Fix will attempt to back up the registry.  Click no if you see a prompt to download Windows Recovery Console

3.Combo Fix will start scanning to remove viruses, let this finish it can take anywhere from 5mins to all night.  Usually only lasts about 20-30 minutes for the entire process.  It has around 50 phases so let it finish and let it automatically reboot your computer or laptop.

4.If Combo Fix detects a root kit it will let you know.  It will prompt you twice letting you know about the rootkit then saying Combo Fix will automatically reboot. DO NOT REBOOT THE COMPUTER if this comes up.  It needs to reboot itself.  Combo Fix will then reboot the computer and run a 2^nd time.  Let Combo Fix run and do its job.

5.The final stage in Combo Fix is preparing the log report.  Make sure to let Combo Fix do this before using any programs or doing anything with your computer.  I’ve seen it take 2 hours to complete a report before so it could take a while, but usually only takes about 10 minutes.

6.You don’t need to do anything with the report, but it lists everything Combo Fix did.

7.After the log is done reboot the computer and go back into Safe Mode with networking.

Step 2.

The 2^nd tool in the arsenal of removing malicious software, viruses and the like is Malwarebytes.  Download this tool from http://www.malwarebytes.org/ You don’t have to pay for it, but they do offer a subscription plan which will protect your computer in the future from getting viruses, so you may want to purchase it.  It can run alongside your antivirus software.  Make sure Malwarebytes is updated and you can do a full scan.  The full scan can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 5 hours, just depends on how fast your computer is and how much stuff you have to scan.  Once the scan is complete click View Results, then RIGHT-CLICK and do CHECK ALL.  This will make sure all items are checked.  Then click Remove Selected.  This will remove all the viruses it found.  After it removed the viruses you can reboot the machine to finish the process.

Step 3.

The next step is to run Super Anti-Spyware, this will also remove malicious software, similar to Malwarebytes, but it can find and remove things other programs can’t, so it’s a good idea to run this tool.  It can be found at http://www.superantispyware.com/ You will also want to run a full scan, then remove any objects it finds.  You can purchase the product which will keep your system protected alongside a good antivirus program.  Once the scan is complete and objects are removed it should prompt you to reboot the computer, so go ahead and reboot the computer.

Step 4.

Remove hijacked URL’s with hijackthis.  Hijackthis is a free tool and can be found http://free.antivirus.com/hijackthis/ Go ahead and do a system scan with log file.  Copy the contents out of the log file and paste them into this web address http://hijackthis.de/ then click analyze.  Remove any objects that have a RED X and review the objects that have a YELLOW X to see if it’s a program you use.

Step 5.

Run CCleaner  which can be found here and clean out temporary files to help speed up your computer.  Also do a registry clean, and fix objects it finds.  Make sure to ALWAYS BACKUP the registry when doing a Registry clean.  CCleaner will prompt you to do this.  After this is done reboot your machine and your virus Free!