The Nerds of Lethbridge gathered today to join the City of Lethbridge, Downtown Lethbridge BRZ and Heart of Our City to launch the new Downtown Lethbridge free wireless network. This network was built and is maintained by Nerds On Site. This project is one of the first in North America, and will become a template for cities for the future. Phase #1 is now complete, and we are very excited to be working with the City on Phase #2, which includes two large downtown malls, an 8-story office tower, two museums, and 7 small business already interested in being part of this new phase.

Thank you to Trever Hollian and Erik Eckert for being part of today’s press conference!

UPDATE:

Here are some links to news stories about this initiative

CJOC FM – Free Wireless Internet in Downtown Lethbridge

Country 95 – Groups Launch Free Wireless Internet Downtown

Lethbridge News – Free wifi downtown

[this post is from Nerd Dennis Houseknecht]

High profile breaches do not necessarily result from sophisticated attacks. Many of them are the result of fairly simple social engineering or phishing attacks. These can usually be prevented by educating users and making them aware of these kinds of threats.

You would think that a major bank and credit card provider like Citigroup would have excellent security. After all, they have a lot at stake.

Recently, they lost MILLIONS of dollars as the result of a programming error that is in the OWASP top ten.

This is a well known vulnerability that is easily detected and fixed. A simple scan of the web application would literally have saved Citigroup millions. Go figure. Security is an investment, and sometimes a darned good one.

Many businesses invest in locks, security systems, and maybe even security guards. How much are they investing in protecting their valuable data?

Yesterday, we reviewed some of the benefits of a cloud server, and today we’d like to discuss some of the options you have with a Nerds On Site managed cloud server.

Operating System
We support many different operating systems in order to meet as many of your needs as possible. Currently, we support Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Windows Server, Oracle Enterprise Linux, OpenSolaris, Amazon Linux AMI, Ubuntu Linux, Fedora, Gentoo Linux, Debian and SUSE Linux Enterprise.

NerdCare Support
For Windows cloud servers, our NerdCare Support team can fully manage your server. Contact us for more details!

CPU Cores
Choose between 1 and 8 CPU cores. With a cloud server, you have the choice in processing power, and the ability to increase the number of CPU cores your utilizing as your require.

RAM
We know that some business need a lot of RAM to accommodate some database systems and specialty software. That is why we offer RAM starting a 0.6GB up to 64GB of RAM.

Storage
Storage is essentially unlimited, so it is up to you how much storage you need at any given time. We do have a minimum of 30GB to start, but you can easily expand your server into the terabyte range quickly!

Bandwidth
Bandwidth is the total amount of data your transfer in and out of your server in a given month. Your server will be hosted on Amazon’s state-of-the-art network, and thus your network speed will always be first rate.

[this post is from Nerd Dennis Houseknecht]

If it seems to you that malware is on the rise, you are quite correct.

If you think that mobile devices are not a target, you are quite mistaken. Here are a few of articles highlighting the security threats of mobile devices:

Fake AV for mobile platform detected

400% increase in Android malware

The progress of IT threats in 2010

26 trojanized apps pulled from Android Market

Auto-dialing Trojans migrate to Android devices

Android is the most vulnerable, because it is such an open platform. That said, there are sure to be attacks against other platforms at some point – even against the tightly-controlled Apple IOS

Nerds On Site recently started selling Cloud Servers to our clients, and you may be wondering what a Cloud Server actually is, and how you can use it to increase the productivity, profitability and pleasure in your business. In this article, we will try to explain the definition of a cloud server, and in tomorrow article we’ll go over the different options in our offerings.

Scalability
A cloud server’s greatest strength is its flexibility and scalability. A cloud server has the ability to increase or decrease it’s resources depending on your needs. For example, if your business is just starting out, you may want a cloud server with a minimal amount of storage space, but as your business grows, you find that you need to increase your storage capacity drastically. In a traditional model, you would need to purchase a new server with an eye on your storage needs for the next 5 years, thus increasing your upfront start-up costs greatly. With a Nerds On Site cloud server, you will only pay for what you need today, and can easily increase any of your resources at any time in the future, thus growing your cloud server with your business!

Value
Because a cloud server can be purchased to meet your existing and current needs, and then grown to fit new needs in the future, you only pay for what you need. This gives you business an incredible value, especially when you consider the future expandability possibilities. A cloud server finally brings about future proofing for your business, and all for the best price possible.

Geographical Options
Hosting a cloud server near your business or near your clients is important to reduce latency and load times. In essence, locating your server closer to your clients makes your online applications run faster. Nerds On Site leverages the Amazon cloud to provide you with many geographical location choices, including USA East, USA West, Ireland, Singapore and Tokyo.

Portability
One more great feature of a cloud server is it’s ability to move between data centers and geographical locations. While there are limitations on doing this, most requests can be accommodated.

Tomorrow we’ll go over some more of the options of our cloud server offerings, but if you are too eager to wait, get in touch with our team today!

“Your exceptional work is much appreciated! All the people that I have worked with from Nerds have been awesome!
Thank you so much! “
The Ageless Clinic

“Calling Nerds On Site was the best thing that our company did. Barry, Mark, Ryan and Rob are the best! With me requiring different needs, they all respond, fix, create and help quickly and all go above and beyond my expectations. I recommend them to everyone who needs help with any of their computer needs! Thanks Guys! “
Marlène Carmel – Marketing Coordinator
Office Pro

[this post from Louis Grigsby]

“After having a meeting with the Choctaw Indians of Mississippi, discussing wireless internet access solutions, they agreed to my proposal of 45 units, 45 five year licenses, and 45 Power over Ethernet (POE) connections. They agreed to the proposal! While finalizing this deal, I talked to the Director of the State’s Department of Parks and Recreation, and set-up an appointment to demonstrate the wireless capabilities of Meraki outdoors for people that visit the parks, such as using their smart phone to look up a plant…or bird…or the “splash page to tell the story of that special park their in”.”

This all came as a result of Louis introducing himself, having a conversation with them and identifying they had an issue with wireless connectivity, and arranging a meeting to discuss Meraki wireless solutions, as that is the product that best suits their needs.

Meraki is a partner of ours, and for good reason, they have excellent products that work really well for our clients!

[this post is from Nerd Kevin O'Reilly]

Late yesterday, a client called and needed desperate help with her Word Press blog (hosted elsewhere, but their business site is with us). Time lines were too tight for me to get up to speed, so I told her I would find a Nerd better qualified to assist. I send a distribution email to all Nerds, and then I had dinner.

When I got back a half hour later, I had to send another Distribution email to close the request. I had received replies from (in order) Dian Smit (from Vancouver Island, BC), Sarah Duemo (Niagara, ON), James Perih (from Winnipeg, MB), Jason Holtslander (Vancouver, BC), Anthony Berot (Toronto, ON), and Ben Wiper (Chester, NS).

When I contacted the client this morning to let her know, she said “WOW, that fast? I guess we did the right thing in going with Nerds on Site!” (her exact words)

That’s twice now we have over delivered and WOWed them. The first was with Jonathan’s (Hosting Team leader) help moving their business website in record time, because the previous hosting had given them ONE day notice of cutting them off.

Thanks to all Nerds for making ME (and NOS) look so good in the client’s eyes!

[this post is by Nerd Dennis Housecknecht]

These are US court cases, but it is an example of a battle that is, or will be, fought in every country. There is little in the way of case law to clearly determine who is liable when inadequate security results in fraudulent bank transactions. Who will pay when the money cannot be recovered? Until recently, many banks have chosen to cover the losses in order to avoid the publicity associated with these fraudulent transactions.

At this point, there is no hiding cybercrime or the associated bank fraud – it is in the headlines every day. Here are two cases where questionable security practices lead to large losses:

In the Patco case, the courts have decided that The Bank’s security was “good enough” and Patco is on the hook for the losses.

In the Experi-Metal case, the courts ruled that the bank was liable.

These court battles have huge implications for SME clients worldwide. Losses like this can threaten the very existence of an SME. This truly is the “Golden Age” for cyber-criminals, and these losses are becoming more common.

At least 90% of these crimes could be prevented if security were more of a priority. SMEs will spend thousands to prevent physical theft, but still have not come to understand the threats of cyber-crime. If you have an I.T. provider, have you talked to them about the growing problem of cyber-crime? Feel free to contact Nerds On Site. We are happy to have these sorts of conversations with our clients in an effort to make their business technology more secure and dependable.