Just like an entrepreneur needs a lawyer, a banker, and an accountant, he should also seek the services of a strong IT consultant.  Having the local random geek or geek service (with a fleet of similar vehicles driven by twenty-something’s) is a kin to borrowing startup money from your parents.  it will help out in some cases, but for the heavy hitting you need to go to the bank — or get a professional.

Why? Take a look at the following signs.

1.) Your technician has no understanding, and seeks to gain no understanding about your business.
In order to make sure technology works effectively for you, your technician should have a firm understanding of exactly what you and your team does. This will allow him to better implement solutions to make your process more efficient, profitable and/or reliable.  This also lets him seek out new technology to continue the process.

2.) Your technician does not stay informed about current events, technological or otherwise.
Information technology, is greatly expanded by advances in science and technology, and equally refined by government law and regulation.  ‘Net Neutrality greatly effects the Internet and telecommunications as a whole, and HIPAA has changed the ways many medical providers and insurance carriers do business.  An informed technician can do more to keep you prepared for any future changes.

3.) Your technician does not offer an emergency response
This is elementary for many bigger offices, in a small office it goes double. Smaller offices often don’t have a spare computer, or printer.  Imagine having the computer down when it’s needed for building a quote, or worse yet, writing checks. Just imagine how much stress it would add, and now pretend it’s tax season.  Having emergency response  will remove these stressors.  and even if it’s not a quick fix, you will be able to make an informed decision.

4.) You do not know where your CDs are (reinstallation media)
In most small to mid size companies, computers will come with an install disk for your Operating system, such as Windows, Mac OS or Linux.  Often computers will ship with drivers as well. Having these handy along with your Intuit Quickbooks, Microsoft Office and/or other software CDs can save you time if the computer prompts you for these discs.  Also, if you need to rebuild a computer, and you need to reload software, you can give the package to your tech. Be wary of a computer technician who will not give you these CD’s, or who claims that he doesn’t have such discs to give you. If you’re paying for software, you should have the ability to reinstall software.

5.) The technician won’t give you passwords for accounts on your computers.
Would you give your plumber your only set of keys to your house?  Your technician has free reign to do whatever he wants with your system if this is the case.  You should be able to have complete access to your systems  in the event you need it.

6.) Your technician insists on using big words.
Your technician is hired to help you understand and use your technology better. If his response to a question just does more to confuse you, he may just be looking out for job security.  A good technician should be able to judge your understanding and speak about the problem on your level, whether it’s novice or advanced.

7.) Your technician is NOT available during business hours.
Fly by night businesses often come and go, Your tech might be good in many other regards, but not having a tech who can answer concerns from your staff adds another responsibility to you, the entrepreneur.  You will have to call and arrange with him after hours, and then meet him at the office then.  Furthermore, how well can he understand your business if he can’t see it in operation (like point 1).  Finally, it comes down to resources, many part time ventures are quickly lowered in priority in the event of other obligations and opportunities.

8.) Your technician lacks normal business etiquette.
This point should go without saying.  A technician first and foremost should be a professional - He should be confident in his work and be personally vested in his craftsmanship.  As an entrepreneur, use that instinct which you have developed to see if he makes the cut.

Unplug it: If you can, shut down and unplug your equipment, this will make it impossible for lightning to damage your equipment.

Protection: Use of a surge suppressors is highly recommended.  They have whole house surge suppressors which can be wired into your breakers, as well as ones that resemble power strips.  Surge suppressors have the ability to absorb the surge before they damage your equipment.

Telephone and cable: The majority of lightning strikes affecting computer equipment actually hit telephone poles.  Telephone and cable equipment can be adversely affected.  Look for surge suppressors that can protect these as connections as well, and if you have DSL, look for a premium suppressors which will say that it supports it.

e-911: If you have telephone service from voice over IP (vonage), or from the cable company, Connecticut law says you must leave this equipment plugged in, just in case you need to call 911.  Disconnecting equipment momentarily to attach surge suppression is still okay.

“Batteries not included,” my previous entry, goes into more detail about how to know when to replace your surge supressor, and how to monitor battery backups as well.

1 Joule is equivalent to:
1 Newton-Meter
1 Watt-Second*
0.2389 Calories
0.737 foot-pounds
0.0009481 BTU’s

* Wattage = Voltage x Current

When a surge suppressor has to handle a surge for any reason, the excess energy gets drawn to special components in the surge suppressor to absorb the energy, it can wear out over time. When it does, the LED light under the switch generally goes out, the LED can fail on it’s own, but chances are slim. Consequently, when the light goes out, it’s best to replace the surge strip.

While your looking for dead power strips, it’s also a good idea to look for battery backup problems. Smaller battery backups are roughly the size of a large surge suppressor and contains a battery. They often have indicator lights to let you when the battery needs to be replaced. In your home, battery backups may also be more common than you think. if you have digital phone service (such as, through the cable company), the equipment often comes with a battery backup of it’s own. Alarm systems also rely on battery backups to keep everything monitored while the power is down. Manufactures recommend replacing these batteries every two years.

One of the most critical places for a battery backup, or an Uninterruptible power supply (UPS) is your Server. When power is unexpectedly lost to a computer, the information on it’s way to the hard drive will be lost, and this can include more than just unsaved documents. A computer is capable of handling data much faster than the disk drive, so the information is stored in memory buffers so speed up the process. When power is lost, this buffer is lost too. If important files are damaged, this can prevent your computer from booting up.

These UPS’s do more than just keep a machine powered up. The models that we recommend for servers or for network equipment use Automatic Voltage Regulation. This means that the unit looks for irregularities with the power signal coming in and normalizes it. The clean power is less likely to cause wear-and-tear on the power supply than unregulated power. The advanced communication in these units can also be used to notify system administrators of the outage, keep a record of power events, and even shut down the system properly if the battery runs low.

With clean reliable power in, your equipment is sure to give you worry-free use.

Spam is a generic term for unsolicited messages, getting it’s origin from a Monty Python sketch. “millions of pieces of Spam”. It creeps into our inbox trying to get us to buy products, view specific websites, or anything else that can be commercialized. The occasional virus may still find it’s way to you as well. Spam doesn’t appear randomly, you may have been added to a mailing list by entering your email address on a less reputable site. Some free websites sell their member lists to offset their costs, and other sites exist for the soul purpose of collecting email addresses. Tools similar to what search engines use also help Spammers in their effort. They will gather anything that resembles an email address on a given site, and any other site that it may link to. In short, if your email address appears on a web page in plain text, you may start getting spam. One source, often forgotten, is chain emails. Some email chains have hundreds of addresses attached to it, making a spammer’s job easy.

Avoiding it:

Like the flu, avoiding it is much better than trying to get rid of it. Here are a few tips to keep a clean box spam-free.

1) Create a separate email address that can be used on the Internet for anything that requires registration for some “free” service, or to get more information about a product. Use this address for any sites that are questionable. This includes lesser known online merchants, online bulletin boards, forums, newsgroups to name a few. Some safe places to use email will include your bank, Major companies which you have an existing account with, and government websites.

2) Use the check boxes during online account creation for “email opt-out”. Often the check box will be in favor of sending email. Read the wording and choose whichever option sends the fewest possible messages, sometimes no messages at all.

3) Take a few seconds before you forward that chain email to clean it up some. When viewing the original message, copy the actual content into a new email, leaving the addresses behind. This makes the message cleaner, and will actually protect the addresses in the original message more than you. If you friends “downstream” do the same, your chances of your email being seized by a spammer are much smaller.

4) If you have a website, use a dedicated email address on that site, as opposed to your primary message, or an online response form which generates an email automatically.

Handling Spam:

Some items which you believe are Spam are easy to stop. Any reputable company will remove your address if you ask them to. Are you getting emails from Apple or WalMart? Maybe you get them from Bank of America. If the name isn’t familiar to you, you can run a web search using a major search engine to learn more about the company.

Check the suspect message for directions to remove yourself from the mailing list. Only follow these directions for reputable companies. Spammers also use this as another trick to gather email addresses.

Many other messages may still be flooding your inbox at this point. If you use a client (a program like Outlook, Outlook express, Thunderbird, or MacMail, They nay have mail filtering capabilities. This cannot stop spam completely, but is a big step forward. Unfortunately, spammers seemed to be engaged in an arms race with IT professional and program developers. Spammers want to keep spreading their message, and everyone else wants to keep your inbox clean.

Talk with your website host. If you have your own website, and your email address is associated with your site, then your webhost will likely have control over your email server as well. Each host is different, but they will let you know what options you have if spam is a major issue for you. Moving your email to a more secure server, or enabling block lists to help keep junk mail out.

Some more resources may be found below:

http://www.mall-net.com/spamfaq.html
http://www.scambusters.org/stopspam/index.html
http://www.spamhaus.org/