A lot of small businesses have just one person in their IT "department" . Either that or they have another employee that has a different job function act as the in-house computer geek.

This is very dangerous. Many companies rely on computers way too much. Now you have just one person with all of the knowledge. We all know he/she is not documenting everything. Why would they? This means there is no job security for them. A lot of them use their personal email address when interfacing with vendors regarding licenses. They have all of the passwords in their head or a spreadsheet on their personal laptop.

Then comes the day when they dont show up for work, get in a car accident, find another job, or you have to fire them. Now what?

It does not have to be stressful. You should have more than one person responsible for this critical piece of your business. You may not have the luxury of hiring two people. You could designate another trusted employee to work with this lone ranger. Either that or consider outsourcing to a company that can help.

Think about this not only for the technical side of your business but for your accounting, sales, and other departments.

Labels: it staff outsourcing spiderhost

Most of us are prepared for a hurricane, right ;)

But most of us are not prepared for the more common reoccurring events that threaten our servers, data, email and business day. Here are 6 items to test TODAY!

1) Delete a file off of the server and ask your IT guy/girl to restore it. If you do not have confidence in them, back it up yourself first

2) Have a third party security company do an audit on your network. See if they can get to your sensitive data from outside of your office

3) Check to see who owns your domain name (i.e. spiderhost.com) . It should be in your company's name with a valid email address. Use http://www.whois.sc/ it is free

4) Go to wherever your server is and see if the backup tapes are sitting right next to the server. At the very least they should be in a fire proof and water proof safe. But they should be out of the office

5) Do you have a backup email server? What if your email service went down? Most organizations cannot run if email is down for 24 hours

6) Finally, do you have one IT person? This person has all of your passwords, vendor information, knowledge, etc... what if something happened to this person?

Test it! Have a backup!

Rinse and repeat

Labels: disaster hurricanes test it spiderhost backups

Here are a few easy ways to save money on technology at your office

1) VOICE

Get rid of those expensive copper/analog lines from your local phone company. You are probably paying $50+ a month per line. Signup with Vonage or Call Vantage for $25 a month for unlimited service

www.vonage.com

www.corp.att.com/voip/

2) Office Software

Ditch Microsoft Office and save yourself $300 - $400 per copy. Download Open Office from Sun Microsystems for FREE! Yes, FREE! No catch and it does work with Microsoft Office. No one will ever know

www.openoffice.org

3) FAX

Get rid of the fax machine in your office. It wastes power, paper and toner/ink. You can also get rid of the fax line you have plugged into it. Go with an online fax service that will take your fax and email it to you. You can also log into their control panel and download the fax. For a few bucks a month you get a toll free fax number. If you have sensitive data, get a second line just for you

www.efax.com

www.trustfax.com

Labels: spiderhost voip vonage callvantage efax trustfax openoffice microsoft office save money