Welcome back, It’s a New Day!

Almost there, Spring is growing closer every day. This is a great time to review your technology needs and priorities. A good start would be to revisit or develop your business continuity plan and build a plan test calendar. Good planning is key to success and we are happy to help.

This is also the time of year when companies plan for equipment refreshes and a time for good housekeeping. Organized workplaces mean a healthy and happy work environment. Please feel free to contact us with any help you may need in accomplishing your goals.

Tony DeMarco
President, CorCystems, Inc.

CorCystems offers 24x7x365 Domestic Help Desk support for company employees needing computer assistance. Receive the support you need immediately including workstation and application troubleshooting, network / internet connectivity issues, desktop peripherals (printers, keyboards, mouse, monitors, etc), and so much more. We can answer basic “how to” questions as well as gain remote access of your computer so the issue gets solved in real time by one of our engineers. Calls are answered within one minute, no wait.

For more information, feel free to contact us to inquire how you can take advantage of this convenient support service. 

Social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter connect millions of like-minded people every day through the Web. But did you know they also can help your small business connect with customers?

"Social networking can help promote a small business in two ways," says Susan Barnes, a professor and associate director for at Rochester Institute of Technology's Lab for Social Computing. "Loyal customers can create small networks and provide testimonials for the business and employees can share information with each other through social networks."

More than half of all small-business owners believe social networking sites have a place in the business world, according to a 2008 survey by SurePayroll. And one in five companies has generated business from a social media site.

What's the appeal of social networking?

Are managed services a better choice than the way you are doing things now? Like everything else in your office, the answer will depend on how you want to measure it.

Your first step is to answer these four questions:

►Do your employees need to regularly enter data or retrieve information from a centralized server or database? The more they rely on this, the stronger the case for managed services.
►Do your employees rely primarily on e-mail communication with important clients, vendors and partners? Again, the higher the impact on your bottom line, the more you should consider managed services.
►Do you use e-commerce? You don't want that capability lost for a minute - period.
►Does your network go south occasionally? And, consequently, are your employees unable to use e-mail or access network data? One of the ways to justify managed services is to calculate the cost of your people sitting on their hands.

If you answered "yes" to one or more of these questions, you now need to talk to someone who can help you identify the specific issues related to your company. The difficult part is deciding who to talk to.

These are the four points you should consider.

As the amount of data being created continues to increase, and that info is accessed and shared by more people, SMBs can't afford to ignore the need for data protection.

Small and medium businesses are powered by information.
Should your business lose that information or even suffer an interruption in access, it can have serious consequences. When it comes to protecting their electronic data, some SMBs feel they are at a disadvantage because they lack the large budgets and dedicated IT staff that many large enterprises enjoy. While this may be true, that doesn’t detract from the fact that SMBs face the same fundamental data protection concerns as large businesses, as no business is too small to be immune to data loss. As the amount of data being created continues to increase, and that info is accessed and shared by more people, you can’t afford to ignore the need for data protection.

Regulatory reasons
Aside from good business practice, there may be more reasons to protect your data: regulatory obligation. Depending on the size and industry of your business, it may be subject to government regulations like HIPAA or Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), which require businesses to employ strong data management and security measures. HIPAA regulations outline security procedures and solutions that healthcare-related businesses should use to protect private patient data. If you are a publicly traded company, or if you do business with a public company, then SOX requires you to keep stringent IT controls over financial records, and have the ability to provide records that demonstrate that IT control if requested.

In addition, if your business processes, stores, or transmits credit card numbers, then it is subject to the 12 security requirements imposed by the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). The PCI DSS was created by the five major credit card companies as a way to protect card data by ensuring that merchants take steps to secure their IT networks and maintain control of the data at all times. The Standard explicitly requires use of firewalls, antivirus, network access control and network monitoring. Businesses that fail to comply face steep fines and could have their merchant account revoked.

The high cost of data loss
Failing to comply with regulations is costly. However, the cost of losing customer's data (and their confidence in your business) can be even costlier. A report by the Ponemon Institute LLC found the cost of dealing with a data breach rose by 30% in 2006. The study found that each lost customer record cost $182 on average. The average cost was derived from the activities surrounding a data breach, such as legal fees, audit and accounting fees, notification letters, phone calls and email. The loss in productivity while trying to recover the data is also a costly consequence. Ponemon's study also showed that lost customer opportunities cost companies $98 per lost record last year. These lost opportunities included turnover of existing customers and greater difficulty in acquiring new customers. In an era when data security is at a premium, customers are not very forgiving. If you lose your customer's data, you could very likely lose that customer. Ponemeon's report noted that many businesses don't improve their data security practices until after they suffer a breach—and that is a costly mistake many SMBs can't afford to make.

Read on

March 2009
In this issue:

Did You Know

Did you know that you can remove the “sent from my Verizon Blackberry” tag line when sending email from your Blackberry by logging into your Blackberry Internet Service (BIS) website and editing your profile? BIS sites vary by provider, here are some: Verizon       T-Mobile      AT&T

 * * * * * *

Did you know that you can make your laptop battery last longer?

While you can practically do anything on a laptop these days, many of these great features drain battery life and can eventually wear you battery down to only hold a charge for a few hours. There are a few simple steps you can do in your everyday use of your laptop to conserve your battery.

► Dim your screen – Your display is one of the most power-hungry parts of your laptop
► Change the power settings – Windows Vista, for example, comes additional power features that you can set to optimize battery life
► Switch off Wi-Fi – when you are not using your Wi-Fi connections, your battery is still being drained due to your Wi-Fi constantly looking for a connection, even if one isn’t available. When not using any network, you can turn the device off until needed again
► Turn off peripherals – USB sticks, webcams, and mice are prime examples of peripherals that can drain your battery since they power from your motherboard. When these devices aren’t in use, shut them off.
► Eject your disc drives - Having a disc spinning in the drive is a huge drain on resources, and many programs constantly do this.
► Invest in some hardware – Most laptops come with a 6 cell battery, however you can invest in an 8 or 12 cell batteries to increase battery life. There are power packs also available which are units that adaptors for most laptops and mobile phones come with to recharge your batteries.
► Disable features – built in features are great but put heavy demands on your system that are unnecessary when working on the move. (For example, Windows Sidebar or Aero)
 

* * * * * *

Behind the Scenes

CorCystems is not only here to protect your organization’s most valuable assets, but also to preserve your employees’ time. Let CorCystems anti-spam solutions be your answer in improving the availability of your business email while blocking spam and viruses before they reach your network.

Please contact Susan Lindine, Business Development Manager, to inquire on how a redundant nationwide network can improve the availability of your business email while blocking spam and viruses before they reach your network.

If your computer is lost or stolen, how are you protected?
CorCystems offers LoJack for computers; A computer theft recovery service that tracks and recovers lost or stolen computers. You can further protect your assets and information by insuring your equipment to be safe. The LoJack for computers includes proactive data security so that organizations can avoid the potential lawsuits, fines, public scrutiny and loss of business that a lost or stolen computer can cause. Actively protect your computers with active monitoring and 24/7 recovery. The program also includes theft recovery; stolen computers protected by our system can be tracked and recovered by law enforcement officials and if they fail to do so, you get paid up to $1000 per computer; and data protection. You have ability to remotely delete sensitive data on missing computers and produce an audit log of the deleted files. Contact us for more information on how to protect your equipment.

To contact us for more information on the above mentioned services, click here.

* * * * * *