MyOrderDesk by PagePath

If you’ve been an email user for any period of time, you’ll have received your share of spam. Most are easy to identify, but some may have struck you as odd or a mistake. For example, on more than one occasion I’ve received notices from various banks telling me I had to update some information. Now I’ve gotten many emails from my bank, but the problem here is that I was never a customer of any of these banks that claimed they needed an update from me.

This type of email isn’t technically spam, but is known as a “phishing” attack. It’s purpose is to trick customers of those banks into providing their login details. They do this by designing the email to look like it’s from the bank but instead of the link in the email taking them to the bank, it takes them to a website designed to look just like their bank. The difference is when the customer tries to login they’ll most likely be presented with an error message telling them to try again later but in fact their user name and password will have been forwarded to the scammer running the fake site.

There are a number of software packages that purport to block these attacks, and while they can help they shouldn’t be relied on for truly sensitive information. Whenever I receive a email tied to an account with sensitive information (bank, broker, credit card, insurance, etc.) I skip clicking on any links within the email and instead manually navigate my browser to their home page in order to login.

This is just one example of a “phishing” attack. If you’d like to learn more about it, check out this Wikipedia article.

William Jens is a Software Developer at PagePath Technologies. PagePath was founded in 1983 and is headquartered in Plano, Illinois. PagePath’s MyOrderDesk is an eCommerce solution that combines, Web-to-Print, automated proofing, pricing, reordering and more. It seamlessly integrates into a printing organization’s existing website or can be used as a standalone site. MyOrderDesk is known throughout the printing industry as the leader in Web-to-Print software.

Let’s face it, you almost need a PC in order to run a small business these days. From communicating with clients in email to managing your books, a computer is a necessary evil. Yes I called it an evil because your computer lives in a very hostile environment- the Internet. A computer basically does what it is told and unfortunately thousands of unscrupulous people are telling it to do bad things. How do you keep it safe? There are many ways, but I’m going to focus on one area- the web browser.

There are a handful to chose from but they pretty much do the same thing- allow you to surf the web. And what you have to be careful of are the multitude of add-ons and plug-ins and tool bars available. There are some that I would consider a necessity: Adobe Flash, Adobe Acrobat, Java, Microsoft Silverlight to name a few. These allow you to access the content on almost any web page you visit.

For your business PC this should be good enough. But alas, there are tool bars for almost every search engine, plug-ins that let you play games or stream music, plug-ins which offer to optimize your PC or Internet connection. These are not required in a business environment, so don’t install them! Not only could they slow your PC down, they could also cause conflicts with other programs or even be malicious. I have been called several times to help friends and family that somehow have downloaded viruses or spyware. They usually masquerade as anti-virus programs or toolbars that will make searching easier. If you are running your business from a PC it’s best to keep it lean and mean and only run the software you require.

Phillip Grandsard  is a Software Developer at PagePath Technologies. PagePath was founded in 1983 and is headquartered in Plano, Illinois. PagePath’s MyOrderDesk is an eCommerce solution that combines, Web-to-Print, automated proofing, pricing, reordering and more. It seamlessly integrates into a printing organization’s existing website or can be used as a standalone site. MyOrderDesk is known throughout the printing industry as the leader in Web-to-Print software.

Hopefully by now everyone recognizes the importance of doing periodic backups. Many of us learned the hard way by losing something we needed. It may have been due to an accidental deletion, equipment failure or something worse. Several years ago around Christmas, my father’s metal stamping company suffered a major fire that took out the entire office space but left most of the manufacturing area untouched. He and the rest of his staff spent much of their holiday time scrambling to get temporary office space setup and figuring out how they were going to do business. They knew enough to backup their data. Unfortunately, they left the backup tapes in the office. They did have a plan to send tapes offsite, but human error stepped in and the most recent tape was left onsite. Eventually they were able to rebuild most of their data but this is the last thing you want to deal with in a time of disaster.

My point here is that your backups don’t protect your data unless you can do a restore. With that in mind, ask yourself a few key questions.

When was the last time you tested restoring critical data and when is it scheduled to be tested again?

• Who’s responsible for this and can you see the results?
• Do you know how long it will take to get your critical data back in working order?

Are your backups treated like the invaluable resources that they truly are?

• Are they rotated offsite in a secure fashion (ideally encrypted in case of theft)?
• Do you keep backups over a period of time in case you need to recover data from long ago? Not all data loss is immediately apparent and even backup tapes can fail.

What is your restore plan if critical equipment is missing? For example:

• Backup system is unavailable (e.g., broken tape drive).
• Equipment using that data is unavailable (e.g., server hard drive failure).
• Physical location is gone (e.g., fire, flood, etc.).

Don’t put blind faith in the “Backup Success” message generated by your backup software. Setup a process to periodically verify that your most critical data can be restored and build a plan to address the various scenarios that would require data restoration (e.g., file deletion, equipment failure, catastrophes).

William Jens is a Software Developer at PagePath Technologies. PagePath was founded in 1983 and is headquartered in Plano, Illinois. PagePath’s MyOrderDesk is an eCommerce solution that combines, Web-to-Print, automated proofing, pricing, reordering and more. It seamlessly integrates into a printing organization’s existing website or can be used as a standalone site. MyOrderDesk is known throughout the printing industry as the leader in Web-to-Print software.

This will be remembered as a landmark year for computer operating systems. In 2009, Apple’s new Snow Leopard system is slated to debut, and Palm will offer an all-new smart phone system called Palm WebOS.

Those with a first look at Snow Leopard say it tweaks the original Leopard operating system, with significant improvements of interest to developers.

The official release of Microsoft’s Windows 7 will affect more users. It will show up in new computers this fall, and Vista upgrades to Windows 7 should be available at about the same time.

The new system solves many of the compatibility and performance problems of Vista. When Vista was first released, it didn’t work properly with accessories, such as printers, until vendors made software fixes.

For Windows 7, developers were told to enforce a rule that “if it works in Vista, it will work in 7.” Upgrades from Windows XP, however will not be supported, according to Business Week tech expert Stephen Wildstrom.

The Wall Street Journal’s Walter Mossberg is enthusiastic about 7. Even in test form, he says, it “leaves Vista in the dust,” and is a pleasure to use.

It has fewer nag screens than Vista and is faster. Mossberg says it could be a serious competitor for Apple’s current Leopard system. He doesn’t know how it will compare to Apple’s coming Snow Leopard.

Windows 7 has flashy, multitouch screen navigation. Borrowing from Apple’s OS X, it has a simplified task bar at the bottom of the screen. It shows a single icon for every program you have open. There is a simple option that let’s you put an icon into the taskbar.

Vista’s Mail, Calendar, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker and Address Book programs are removed. To get similar free programs, you have to download them from Window’s Live service or alternatives from another company.