Every modern home office and small business relies on technology, and thus a desk to put it on. Every office setup is unique, and personalized. Some are more messy or organized than others.

Thankfully monitors have become less bulky, and computers themselves have become smaller and take up less space. Some prefer to put them under the desk, while others place them on the desk for ease of access. Some use dual-monitors, while others do not.

One thing is certain, we can all be inspired by how other people are creatively using their workspace!

Here is the home office one of our Nerds (Kevin Lloyd in Edmonton, Alberta) What does your home or small business desk look like? Upload a photo to our Facebook fan page!

LifeHacker has a great post on how to better organize and upgrade your home office.

As a follow-up to Kevin’s previous article on Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) Vulnerability, I wanted to quickly provide an update as to how you can protect yourself and, if you just want someone to take care of it for you, that’s what our business is all about, and we’re here for you, of course (you may call us or request a call/service on-line).

Kevin’s article pointed out that disabling WPS is essential. However, it appears that in most cases that either there is no ability to turn it off, or the switch has no effect (in Linksys, for example). So if you want to secure yourself, here is a guideline of what you may be able to do to mitigate the problem:

• Locate the make and model of your wireless access point or router (whichever device provides your wireless services) and jot it down.
• Locate your router or wireless access point in this list of devices and review the status of vulnerability and vendor patch
• If you find yourself vulnerable and are able to successfully turn it off, that’s the best-case scenario.
• If you find yourself not having an option to turn off WPS, but you want to protect your network from potential intruder access, you have two options:
1. Turn off your router or access point (and therefore have no wireless usage at all)
2. Replace your router with a non-vulnerable unit

Apple Airport not vulnerable

Although Apple is so far been strangely silent on this, our own testing and that of others shows that WPS pin-based is only on if the light is Blue, which in turn is turned on using the Airport Utility. This is good security by design and is the reason why our recommendation for home and SOHO routers/access points should be replaced with Apple Airport devices. This recommendation is limited to areas that are typically served by one or two access points and do not require enterprise management functions.

Meraki not vulnerable

Nerds On Site has been a proud partner of Meraki, wireless network equipment provider of choice for SME and Corporate clients that require a little more than a SOHO wireless infrastructure. Fortunately Meraki products do not have WPS functions at all and therefore are not vulnerable to this WPS concern.

Why do I care if someone intrudes on my network?

I actually personally met a successful business person this week (let’s call him Bill) who admittedly didn’t care if his network was breached, until I pointed out the dangers (and I’m sure there are more):

• His network and Internet access could be used by a criminal to carry out criminal activities while Bill will carry responsibility as his Internet connection was used
• Casual sniffing of his activities online can be captured and in a short while enough data can be gathered to steal his identity or anyone’s identity using his network
• Any equipment that hosts data of any sort is much more vulnerable to attacks “from the inside” when your network is widely accessible

How have you secured your wireless network? Any other comments/questions?

Most routers released in recent years are at risk, due to a vulnerability discovered in the WPS (Wireless Protected Setup) feature. WPS makes it easy for people to connect their computers to their router without having to get very technical about it, but – it turns out – security was sacrificed for simplicity, as an attacker can gain full access to the network by using a brute force attack.

Millions of devices are potentially affected, and it could take a long time to fix them all. That said, the solution is simple: disable WPS.

You can disable WPS by logging into your router over the network and changing the setting.

There are many tools that are freely available to eavesdrop on network traffic, and can take advantage of this fault in WPS, and if a brute force attack is successful, intruders can connect to devices on a network, or monitor the internet traffic in hopes of learning passwords or other information.

This serious vulnerability was discussed in full detail on the latest Security Now podcast, hosted on the TWiT.tv podcast network. As soon as show notes are made available, we will link to them in this post.

WPS is often activated by pressing a button on the router, allowing Windows to quickly and easily connect to the wireless network and automatically figure out the relevant settings, requiring only a PIN and the wireless password.

If you’re unsure of how to disable WPS, refer to your router manual, or ask a tech-savvy friend or professional (such as a Nerd) to help you turn it off.

Hopefully vendor will quickly provide software upgrades to rectify the problem, and the newer products will have rectified and correct this flaw in WPS, making it safe to use again.

The larger an organization grows, the more people are involved in making things happen. Many will agree that they spend too much time in meetings – time that could be better spent actually being productive and getting work done. In a recent news article, Google explains how it runs meetings like a hungry startup, rather than a 30,000 person company.

–Every meeting must have one clear decision maker. If there’s no decision maker,  or no decision to be made — the meeting shouldn’t happen.
–No more than 10 people should attend.
–Every person should give input, otherwise they shouldn’t be there.
–No decision should ever wait for a meeting. If a meeting absolutely has to happen before a decision should be made, then the meeting should be scheduled immediately.

These rules sound like common sense”, says the article on Business Insider, “but they often disappear as companies get large and people call meetings more for political or ego-boosting reasons than to actually get anything done.

[this post is from one of our Nerds, Eddy Ezar]

I had a client who’s desktop died, and I was able to extract his hard drive and connected it to his laptop. He was so happy that he wrote the following comments in a survey and on twitter:

Did we happen to please you with our service? If so, how?
Eddy is GOD! Well, I exaggerate, but he’s amazing. How can I count the ways? Punctual, friendly, intelligent, works efficiently, and knows his stuff! I cannot say enough about him. Very satisfied!

Any other comments you wish to share?
Love you guys! Great company! Eddy is one of a kind! A nerd with heart!

Many people use a cloud synchronization service (like DropBox) to sync our files and data between computers. Some of us think that this also constitues a backup of our data, but that is not really correct. Data syncronization is not the same as backup, and SmallBizTechnology.com has 8 tips to help you see the difference between the two. To really protect your data, try NerdsBackup!

Read all 8 Tips: http://smallbiztechnology.com/archive/2011/12/synchronization-is-not-backup-confused-read-these-8-helpful-tips.html/.

Stop "putting out fires", and consider taking a more pro-active approach with NerdCare!

Sometimes we start doing work for a business because they contact us looking to resolve issues that they are having. As we are performing the work, we notice other problems, and offer to resolve those as well. At which point we introduce our 3 N’s business model in hopes of proving pro-active support and preventative maintenance (NerdCare), as opposed to only acting when problems occur, or “putting out fires”.

In some cases, we are simply on-site to perform routine maintenance, or to check on things, not because something needs fixing. However, many employees are so accustomed to that sort of service from other providers, or their in-house I.T., that they naturally assume there’s a problem, and panic a little bit.

When we say “Don’t worry, there isn’t a problem, we’re just here to do some routine work and check on things. Everything is fine.”, they are pleasantly surprised!

That can often lead to the question: “Oh, since you’re here, can you look at something for me?” We’re happy to! On that note, we even take the “little things” seriously, because we know that they can be nagging frustrations, and something people deal with on a daily basis!

image credit: www.levelplatforms.com. Examples of what monitoring can do.

Little things can easily turn into big things, so it’s important to address them early.

Taking this approach, along with our ability to monitor the health of your computers, allows our team to stay on top of things 24/7, and most importantly, *saves you money*. Let us worry about your technology so you can focus on your business!

Stop wasting time, money, and energy “putting out fires”, and consider NerdCare!

From the video below:

Minds working in a single direction, purposed mission have UNSTOPPABLE power…

Full transcription after the video:

Most of us have a couple of these (digits), and for many people their strongest digit of the five is their thumb. We’ve got studies that show that as strong as you thumb may be, your palm – your whole fist – is 40 times stronger than your strongest digit. 40 times stronger! So that’s 8 times five – 5 digits – 8 times the individual strength of each, together.

When it comes to the last little while, I spent some time in San Diego at a convention, and just finished up a board meeting a minute ago. The power of people working together is so much, SO MUCH more impressive, so much more overwhelming than individuals doing excellent work on their own.

WE, not ME, pays huge corporate dividend. Minds working in a single direction, purposed mission have UNSTOPPABLE power – once they get momentum, once they get moving. So, part of the daily, weekly, monthly, hourly discipline for each and every one of us should be the We not Me mind sight.

How can I spend more time, more of my efforts, more of my focus, working IN HARMONY with, as opposed to ‘on my own’ about. The consequences are far removed from even the very best of individuals hard at work. Together, there is a great deal more.

Good planting. Good harvesting. Good day.

According to a recent Business Insider article, 40% of small and mid-sized businesses do not have a data backup strategy and solution in place. Business Insider did a survey of their readers, and found that 40% of them used a cloud-based backup service like NerdsBackup. 47% did backup to a local backup device, such as a USB drive, which does offer a small glimmer of protection, but not much. You can read the article here: http://read.bi/tPxFba.

If your business is to survive a hardware failure, a cloud backup solution is critical. On-site data backups do not protect your business from theft, fire, flood or any other major disaster. Contact our team today to learn more about NerdsBackup and how we can protect your business!

[this post is inspired by James Perih, a Nerd in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada]

Quickbooks 2009 support is ending on January 31, 2012. If you have this version of Quickbooks, this is an ideal time to upgrade to the latest version, or create a plan to upgrade.

This also presents a good opportunity to consult with a Nerd to ensure that you upgrade to the edition that is right for you, as your needs may have changed, or there may be features that your business may benefit from that are not in all editions. Some factors may include usage, additional seats, or the need to perform data file or workstation upgrades to suit the latest program requirements.

If you are unsure as to what you should do, please give us a call!