Archive for the 'Small Business Tips' Category

Overview

In the late 90’s and even into 2000 and 2001, Norton Anti-virus was considered an excellent product. Unfortunately, the quality of the software has changed much faster than user perception.

According to the Wikipedia article on Norton anti-virus:

Despite its widespread adoption, it carries a reputation within parts of the computer enthusiast community as being slow and inefficient, ineffective, and difficult to uninstall. Some computer professionals have reported encountering machines infected with a virus despite having NAV installed and (in most cases) being fully up-to-date.

I completely agree. These are my anecdotal experiences with Norton Anti-virus.

The Short Story

Anti-virus should be effective, fast and mostly in the background. It shouldn’t pop up windows all the time asking you questions.

In short, dump Norton Anti-virus. I know it came pre-installed with a trial period. Just delete it. Get a decent product. Any of the following are cheaper, better and faster:

• Computer Associates eTrust
• F-Prot
• Norman
• BitDefender
• Kaspersky

Notice that I didn’t mention McAfee. It’s just as bad as Norton.

Performance

I consulted with one customer who was frustrated with “Word opening documents slowly”. They were using Norton anti-virus 2003.

I performed the following tests:

1. Open a test Word document. Time to fully open document: 2 minutes, 10 seconds.
2. Uninstall Norton 2003.
3. With no anti-virus installed - Open the same Word document. Time to fully open the document: 6 seconds.
4. Install Computer Associates eTrust Anti-virus. Open the same Word document - 8 seconds.
5. Remove eTrust and reinstall Norton Anti-Virus 2003. Open the same document - 2 minutes, 12 seconds.

I presented these findings to the client. Obviously they purchased a site license for Computer Associates eTrust Anti-Virus. They have been using eTrust for two years now - no performance complaints and zero virus infections.

Protection

I consulted with another customer who was suffering from an obvious virus infection. They were using Symantec (Norton) Anti-virus 2005. I booted a clean BartPE image and ran a full virus scan, which detected 12 virus files.

I moved these 12 virus files to a new directory and renamed them from *.exe and *.dll to *.bad. I also cleaned up the system registry to ensure that no virus was active or able to be started.

Here is where it gets interesting. I then rebooted back into Windows 2000, and made sure the Norton Anti-virus 2005 was fully up to date. I then performed a virus scan of my new directory that contained 12 identified viruses. Norton detected none of them.

I uninstalled Norton, and install Computer Associated eTrust and scanned the entire machine. eTrust correctly identified all 12 of the known viruses, and confirmed the rest of the machine was virus-free.

The client has been running fine without any re-infection for over a year since that time.

Summary

These just a couple examples. I have dozens more, but the story quickly becomes repetitive. I often find customers who have purchased a new machine and want to use the Norton Anti-virus for a year because they’ve already purchased it. I understand the emotion, you hate to “waste” your subscription. Trust me, it’s not worth it. You are more vulnerable and are using a bloated, slow and ineffective product.

At Fortress Computer Service, we work with many broadband customers and have experience with multiple providers in this area. If you have specific questions or need particular advice for your situation, please feel free to leave a comment below.

We do not have an exclusive relationship with any of these vendors and we are committed to recommending the best solution for your particular situation. Please contact us if you would like a personal consultation.

These broadband service providers are listed in alphabetical order. No preference is suggested or indicated by the position on this list. We attempt to maintain current information on all possible broadband solutions in Aubrey, Celina, Cross Roads, Denton, Gunter, Pilot Point, Sanger, Valley View, Whitesboro and the surrounding area.

Please let us know your personal experience with these vendors, good or bad.

Axcess Internet

http://www.axcessisp.net/

Blue Wireless & Data

800-306-3176
http://www.bluewirelessdata.com/
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Cool Access

972-226-9511
http://www.coolaccess.net/
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Cool Access DNS Servers:
66.60.64.32
66.60.64.33
66.28.0.45

Partnership Wireless

http://www.partnershipwireless.com/
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SmartBurst

940-239-0885

http://www.smartburst.com/
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SpeedNet

Jason Carpenter
SpeedNet Services, Inc.
800-847-5231 x 4040
402-998-4111 (fax)
jcarpenter@speednet.com
http://www.speednet.com/
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Speed of Light Broadband

P.O. Box 131
Little Elm, TX 75068
(972) 292-2627
http://www.solbroadband.com/

SOL Broadband DNS Servers:
72.48.94.10
72.48.94.15

SuddenLink

http://www.cebridge.net/cebridge/ctl?vo=pager&page=home.vm

I saw a spreadsheet once that looked really cool and professional. It had a dark header row with white text. The data was black text with a white background and the grid lines were a light gray. When the grid lines are a light color, they become useful for highlighting the data rather than competing with it. Once I figured out how to crawl behind the menus and find this fancy formatting feature I was hooked. I want to share it with you.

TIP: Pull up an existing spreadsheet that you want to spiff up.

1. Highlight the all the data fields. You can exclude the header row for now. We’ll treat that with a separate look.
2. On th menu bar select Format|Cells. The Format Cells dialog appears.
3. Select the Border tab. It looks like a complicated screen but you’ll get the hang of it.
4. From the three squares on the top select Inside. This means you want to show interior gridlines - all but the border around the data. Notice that two crossed lines appear below in the preview window.
5. Now let’s pick the color of the grid lines. Click the dropdown under color and select grey 40%.
6. Click on each line in the preview grid and change them to the gray instead of black. Notice when you click on the line again it disappears. It’s like an on/off switch. click it it’s on, click it it’s off. You can change the line size and color very easily. The lines on the outside of the square represent the border of the entire Excel table. The two interior lines represent the grid lines inside the table.
7. Play with all the settings and see how they look. Play with color and line width of the border and the interior grids. It’s really not hard once you know where things are and you’ve had time to experiment.

Here’s a good Excel template you can experiment with: Expense Voucher Template
Have fun!

Here’s a question to ponder. How many minutes in your lifetime have you spent sizing columns in Excel? Move…where’s the skinny cross arrows? No, not the fat plus thing, no, not the down arrow - I want the two skinny arrows so I can size my column. I’m getting those ##### things in my data fields. I think the spread sheet is cussing at me. I feel the same way. What? There’s an easier way to size columns? Tell me!

I discovered this great tip watching my partner at work. I couldn’t believe how easy it was and how much time it saved. How did I miss this cool feature after 10 years of working in Excel.? Oh yeah - WIKIWIL (pronounced wikeewill), what I know is what I like. I’m finding what I don’t know might save me time. OK, I’ll share it with you now. Don’t blink or you might miss it.

TIP: Place your cursor in the header column on the right border edge of the column you want to size. Wait until your cursor changes to the two skinny cross arrows, and… double click. That’s it! The column automatically sizes to the largest entry in the column.

I felt really stupid when I saw that. But now I’m greatful and use it all the time. What a carpal tunnel saver! Try it out.

We’ve seen it happen over and over again. A client calls in a panic with a crashed hard drive. Nine times out of ten they don’t have a recent backup. With some nifty tools and detective work, we have restored our client’s data. Those are the happy ending stories. Occasionally, the news is not so good. Valuable data is lost forever in the electronic bit darkness. When we deliver the news to our client that all their data is not recoverable, we immediately see in their eyes the value their data had and the angst they feel for not keeping it safe.

Computers are a fragile thing and it’s a wonder they work at all.  Many people’s core business and personal activities revolve around the data that’s stored there.  Why do we treat something so important with such flippant neglect?  I think it’s because we don’t think it will happen to us. We’ve managed to get by without it. Don’t be a victim to this type of thinking. There’s a high probability that it will happen to you so protect your valuable data by backing it up on a regular basis. Once it’s gone, you can’t get it back.

With the advent of flash drives and DVD burners, most people can make copies of their critical files right at the desktop.  Disk storage is relatively inexpensive today and alternate disk storage devices are easy to implement.  Don’t wait another day.  Determine which data is critical and get on a regular backup schedule.  Just do it!