Ways to Keep GREEN During the Holidays

Choose LED Christmas lights.

LED (light emitting diode) Christmas lights use 10% of the energy of typical incandescent Christmas lights. They are safer than the typical lights, as they do not generate heat. LED lights are inexpensive and beautiful, and when you use LED lights to decorate around the office or in a display window you could be saving your business up to 90% on holiday lighting costs.

Keep Christmas lights on a timer.

Implement a timer so that lights shut off after business hours or at sunrise. This is a simple and effective way to cut down on holiday electric bills Email holiday cards.Save paper and money by e-mailing holiday cards and Christmas party invitations. At www.hallmark.com, you can find a variety of free card and invitation choices, or you can get creative and design your own!

Reduce holiday waste.

Serving food on reusable plates and glasses will cut reduce waste and save money. Get the office on board and create your own green party kit. Suggested items needed are a large transportable bin; a collection of lightweight, non-breakable dishes; and cloth napkins.

Recycle.

Always Recycle.

Purchase recycled products.

If you must use disposable products, go with recycled and biodegradable products. When you buy recycled products, you’re helping to increase the demand for them. 

Use carbon neutral shipping. 

Whether you’re shipping gifts or business related items, consider carbon neutral shipping. UPS and several other retail store offer this option. By using the carbon neutral shipping option, you demonstrate your commitment to protecting the environment, and it enables you and the recipients to share in that commitment together.

Remember, a little GREEN goes a long way!

Keeping Your Data Safe during Holiday Travels

Keeping Your Data Safe during

Holiday Travels

The last thing that you want to happen during your holiday travels is to have your data compromised by hackers. There are ways to protect yourself from a hackers attack and tools available to you in case they do. Below is a short list of tips to consider before you head out for the holidays. 

Possibilities with Bluetooth

Connecting to Bluetooth while traveling makes you vulnerable. When you activate Bluetooth, you open possibilities of being seen by hackers. Hackers can see networks that you connect to, and then imitate them and trick your device into connecting to their Bluetooth devices. After connecting, hackers can then infect you with malware, enabling hem to steal data or spy on you. When connecting to Bluetooth be cautious and don’t keep it on all the time.

All Devices Need Remote Security

Traveling can make you a target, so have a plan to protect your data in case a device is lost or stolen. You can install software, such as Meraki Mobile Device Manager or VaultLogix Mobile, which will track, and, remotely lock and wipe your devices. Apple, Google, and Windows also offer remote security for their devices. However, they are more difficult to remotely track, wipe, or lock computers.

Keep Your Bank Account Protected

During your holiday travels could possibly be the worst time to have your bank account jeopardized. To help avoid this always be sure the latest updates on your banking apps are installed and avoid shared networks. In the event that you absolutely must use a public computer to access your account, make sure to clear browsing history and cookies and DO NOT click on any links, they could be malware.

You Need a VPN

A virtual private network (VPN) will keep you protected over Wi-Fi. You can create a secure connection over a shared network with a VPN, which provides a layer of security. The VPN also protects you from being seen or tracked across the Internet.

 Safe Travels!

Common Tech Problems and DIY Solutions

Problem: Cannot open an email attachment.

Possible solutions: The most common cause for this is not having the correct software installed. To see if this is the case, you can look at the file extension to see what program is required. For example, if the extension is .pdf, check to see if you have the most recent version of a PDF reader like Adobe or FoxIT. If not, you can download and install one, but, only from the software manufacturers trusted website.

Problem: Cannot access a file after a malware attack.

Possible solutions: The easiest way to recover files after an attack is to restore them from your backup.

Problem: Printer will not print.

Possible solutions: Check the obvious first, make sure there is enough paper in the tray, and ink or toner are not low. Once those two things are confirmed to be in order, here are a few tactics you can try. The first is to simply turn your printer off and then on again. Next make sure the printer is not offline by going to Start, choose Devices and Printers, Right Click on your printer, choose See What’s Printing, click on Printer and choose Use Printer Online. If it is still not working check the print queue for the status of any print jobs by going to Start, choose Devices and Printers, Right Click on your printer, choose See What’s Printing. If a print job’s status is Paused, Right Click on the job and choose Restart.

Problem: Print outs look faded or low quality

Possible solutions: Make sure your printer is not low on ink or toner. Check your print quality setting by going to Start, choose Devices and Printers, Right Click on your printer, choose Printing Preferences, click on the Paper/Quality tab and make sure EconoMode is unchecked.

Problem: Experiencing recurring problems with regularity.

Possible solutions: If you experience the same problems multiple times a week or even a month, it is time to have  your computer checked out by a professional. There comes a point when the problems are making your job hard and costing you time. The initial expense of a professional will pay for itself in reduced stress and a reliable computer experience.

Emergency Prepareness

Recent record rainfall in our area led to flash floods and record river levels, which damaged businesses, homes and agriculture. Add to that our 'normal' spring tornado season and here at DCR the topic of emergency preparedness and business continuity  is at the forefront of our minds. While  statistics vary between different agencies, generally speaking they are as follows:

43% of businesses without an emergency plan never reopen

50% of those experiencing a computer outage of more than 10 days, are out of business within 1 year

75% of companies without a business continuity plan, that experience a disaster, fail with 3 years

No one wants to be a statistic, so the question is how do you prepare for an emergency? There are many resources available to help you including those at the following links from the U.S. Small Business Administration and FEMA. https://www.sba.gov/content/disaster-planning  & https://www.fema.gov/protecting-your-businesses 

Following are three basic questions you need to consider:

1. For what level of emergency or disaster do I want to prepare?

Some examples to consider are: a short term power and/or utility outage lasting from a few hours to 1 day; or an extended power and/or utility outage lasting 1- 3 days; or a long term power and/or utility outage lasting in excess of four days and possibly coupled with damage to your facilities.

2. What are my priorities in each situation?

Typically, there are three areas most businesses consider priorities; payroll, continued revenue generation and communication (phones and/or email). These priorities differ from business to business and you may have other priorities in addition to these three.

3. What resources are needed to address my priorities?

What staff members, equipment or services are needed? How will you communicate? What vendors do you need to reach?

Having a written Business Continuity plan (also called a Disaster Recovery Plan or Emergency Plan) requires thought, planning, testing and time. It cannot be completed in one meeting and a good plan should include regular reviews and updates. Every business has some level of emergency preparedness that fits their budget and business goals. 

DCR offers services to aid in establishing a plan as it pertains to computer hardware, software, network infrastructure, power and backups.

Contact us at 918-436-1830 for more information. 

Budgeting for GREEN in 2016

Shorter days, colder nights, and higher energy bills will soon be upon us. In the United States, energy bills are on a steady climb with nearly a 20% increase since 2005. This year, be proactive about saving money by budgeting and cutting costs. You can start making differences as soon as TODAY and here’s how...

Be realistic about energy-saving

According to American Express Open Forum, businesses today should be able to cut up to 10% of their energy usage with minimum effort.  Businesses that set realistic goals, such as the 10%, are most likely to succeed.

Set a benchmark

Before changing existing practices, know what your monthly and annual energy usage and cost is now. This way you can calculate actual savings. Another option is, calculating how much energy different products use in your office.

Turn equipment off

The average annual cost to run a single monitor 24/7 is $36.60 and $295 to run a copy machine 24/7.  Just by turning the copier off when your office is closed your calculated savings is about $225 a year.  Powering equipment down when not in use is one of the easiest ways to save energy. Check with your IT Professional before setting power off policies for computers and infrastructure equipment.

Window Treatments

Solar heat gain through windows contributes to one-third of a building's cooling load.  Adding window tint (aka window film) or professionally installed solar screens, can reject up to 79% of solar energy and save up to 30% on cooling and heating utility bills.

Rethink your lighting

Turn lights off when not in use or install motion detectors in low-traffic areas around the office so the lights are only activated when people are present. Make better use of natural light, by shifting desks towards windows and removing any barriers or cubicle walls that might be blocking windows.  Invest in energy efficient bulbs, such as LEDs. While more expensive up front a longer bulb life will result in cost savings. See the table results below.

Cybernetics - Solid State Drives (SSDs)

Decision makers may spend time comparing the performance of one computer or server to another before purchasing it, but, what about the speed of the storage system? Think about it like this. You’re getting paid to haul a valuable load of cargo from inside one warehouse to inside a second warehouse. The faster you complete this task the more you get paid.

The truck you use is the server. The warehouses are the storage system. You have invested in a fast, reliable truck so your set. Right? Except the doors on the first warehouse are hard to open, the load you need to pick up is stacked behind other material that has to be moved before you can get to your load and when you get to the second warehouse there is a guard that wants several pages of questions answered before he will let you unload. Was it the truck that slowed you down?

Just like the valuable load was stored in the warehouses, your valuable data lives on your server's storage space. Get a fast, reliable server, but, choose slow storage space and your performance may not be what you expect. Solid State Drives (SSDs) are attractive as storage devices for two fundamental reasons - they are incredibly fast and they are extremely reliable.  Their speed is legendary; since there is no latency due to moving heads and waiting for the disk to spin around. SSDs are literally hundreds of times faster than the best rotating hard drives. And since they have no moving parts, their average time to failure (MTBF) is measured in decades.

An obstacle to the widespread use of SSDs is the cost. Yet, there is one company with SSDs that are nearly the same cost as the fastest hard drives.  According to data from SAN manufacturer Cybernetics, on a cost-per-gigabyte basis their SSDs are a little over 1/3 more than 15,000 RPM hard drives.  Since SSDs deliver upwards of 500 times the performance of fast hard drives, the price differential becomes almost irrelevant.