| By Nathan Cope, Geeks to the Rescue
One of the most costly issues for your business is a computer that doesn’t work. It’s costly because …
- your staff can’t work,
- you may lose valuable business and accounting data,
- you may lose clients due to lost contact details, and,
- you may lose business due to an inability to respond to clients in a timely fashion.
Computer complexity is on the increase, and so are the problems associated with them. So here are five main measures you can take now to reduce frustrating incidents and costly issues:
1. Backup, Backup, Backup
The computer industry has the three Bs – backups, backups, backups! Quite simply, life without backups can cost you time and money. I’ve often had to tell people that, due to a failed hard drive, they have lost all their data. Some of these people have literally cried because they know that they have an overwhelming task ahead of them to attempt to recover or re-enter all the information they have lost.
There really is no reason to skimp on backups; they’re cheap to set up, they’re quick, automatic and they require little to no effort to run (with the cheap and capacious external hard drives available today, forget swapping CDs, DVDs and digital tapes). With a backup, if the worst happens and your hard drive fails, all your data is safe. And if you really need access to that data instantly, you can access it immediately via another computer just as if it were any other form of removable storage (eg, CDs, DVDs, thumb/USB/flash drives or even one of those ancient floppy disks).
The frequency of your backups is determined by considering how inconvenient it would be to replace data over a given time period. For example, if you could quite happily live with month old data, then you only need to back up once a month but if re-entering just two days of transactions is impossible, then you would need daily backups. Backing up every day might seem like the solution for everyone, but in some cases it is inconvenient and others it is beneficial to keep the older data for a certain length of time, anyway.
2. Check Backup Integrity
New hardware, software and the constant addition of data to a well-utilised PC can create changes that may alter the effectiveness of your backups. Consequently, there is no point performing backups if you don’t check their integrity on a regular basis to ensure that they actually worked and that they backed up what you thought they were backing up. Backup integrity checks should be scheduled at least once every six months.
3. Schedule Annual Physical Maintenance For Your PC
It’s common sense that the more a tool is used, the more often it needs maintenance. Computers are valuable business tools that need regular maintenance.
It is true that there is little physical maintenance necessary for a computer, but it is important to check the health of the hard drives (where all your data is stored) so that you can pre-empt failures and to ensure that the computer is running at the correct temperature. Computers hate heat, which is why they have so many fans in them. These fans draw air into the computer case to keep the internals cool, but with air comes dust and if this isn’t regularly cleaned, it acts as an insulator and stops the cooling effect. Two things happen to a computer when it gets too hot; it slows down (or just plain stops) and the life of the hard drive is significantly reduced (by as much as 90%). To avoid these issues, schedule annual physical maintenance for your PCs.
4. Install Security Software
Viruses, spyware, adware, Trojans, worms – these are all examples of malicious software (malware). It’s a complex field but to put it in a nutshell, you don’t want malware on your computer because it can steal personal or financial information, cause your computer to stop running properly or simply make it frustrating to use due to slow speed or constant warnings and adverts.
For any computer connected to the internet (or sharing data in other ways), you need security software to prevent the malware. The essential security utilities are firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware. The leading security software brands all have what is termed an “internet security suite” which packages all of these utilities together (plus others like anti-spam).
The individual security components can usually be purchased separately, too, in case you prefer to pick and choose the brand of each component. This usually just leads to confusion and consequently, a computer that is left vulnerable, so my advice is to stick to the security suites. All of the well-known brands do the job well, but some are harder to use or simply use more computer resources.
Do not fall into the trap of trying to save money by just buying the cheap “anti-virus only” option – you’ll only spend more money when you eventually have to get a spyware infection fixed.
5. Updates
There are three very important updates to consider:
- Windows Security Updates - One way that malware gets onto your computer is by exploiting loopholes in Windows (the operating system). You don’t need to know what these holes are, but you do need to ensure that you have the latest updates from Microsoft to “patch” these holes. A warning message usually appears if you don’t have your PC set to automatically get these patches, but malware attacks can switch off automatic updates (and the warning message) and leave you unwittingly vulnerable.
- Microsoft Security Updates - Your Microsoft Office software (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc) can also contain risky security loopholes but this is NOT normally set to be automatically patched and there is no message to warn you of this.
- Security Software Updates – Updates for your security software must be downloaded regularly so the software “knows” how to combat new malware. Updates are usually automatic, but most software asks if you would like to download “now” or “later”. On slow internet connections, these updates can be frustrating because they slow down your surfing while they download. For this reason people often reject the updates with the intention of doing it manually later. Invariably it ends up being much later and sometimes too late! The reason? New malware spreads rapidly via computers with no defences – that’s not just PCs with no security software but also those that had their most recent security software updates rejected. So keep in mind that rejecting updates is almost tantamount to turning off your security software!
6. Have a Software Register With All Your Software Recorded
Should your hard drive fail, it is possible to access the data immediately from backups, but software can’t be backed up in the same way because it must be reinstalled for the computer to be able to recognise it. So, the final method to help us reduce downtime is to have on hand a software register for each computer.
A software register should record all important software, where the discs to install it are physically located and any product or installation codes necessary to install it. When you have a regularly updated software register, if an emergency arises, there is no wasted time scrambling around looking for disks, calling software companies for security keys (if they’ll give it to you) or wondering what software was originally on the PC.
One final word of advice: software registers are probably more practically stored as a print-out rather than on the hard drive of the PC that they are relevant to.
For more information on what you can do today
to reduce downtime in your organisation,
contact Nathan Cope, Geeks to the Rescue on 0416 092 000 or email: Nathan@geekstotherescue.com.au
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