Newsletter Archives

• Choosing a web-hosting service: The ins and outs

  Posted on August 16, 2020 at 20:15 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums
  

  SMALL-BUSINESS WEBSITES

  By Will Fastie

  The heart of the Web consists of millions of web servers, constantly streaming out trillions of webpages.

  Relatively speaking, web servers are simple affairs — but choosing whose servers will host your website … not so much.

  Years ago, a brilliant programmer I know once quipped that he could build a web server with just 12 lines of code. He was probably correct: for an exceptionally simple website, one containing nothing but text-based HTML, serving up pages is nothing more than requesting a file from the server and rendering it in a web browser.

  Today’s websites are, of course, far more complex.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.32.0 (2020-08-17).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Small Business Computing AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Cloud services, SSL Certificates, Web-hosting services

• Choosing an email provider: Your biggest decision

  Posted on July 27, 2020 at 01:05 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  Small-business websites

  By Will Fastie

  Despite the popularity and widespread use of texting, email remains critical for business communications.

  Business email is universal, ubiquitous, and not necessarily tied to a specific person or phone number. Its long-form nature, broad capabilities, and nearly automatic communications archiving are unmatched by other forms of correspondence.

  All of which makes choosing an email provider one of the most important decisions you’ll make when establishing your business’s online presence.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.29.0 (2020-07-27).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Small Business Computing AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Business email, Email providers

• Patch Lady – Use the domain of remotewebaccess.com?

  Posted on July 24, 2020 at 08:59 CDT by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/de635d5c-1a89-43d0-a307-bdd7065560e1/domain-remotewebaccesscom?forum=winserveressentials

  As of yesterday the domain that Microsoft provides as a service to users of Essentials Servers is non functional.

   

  “Basically what has happened is the Nameservers against remotewebaccess.com have changed to a non-microsoft owned Namserver which doesn’t respond to the subdomains.  Not sure if Microsoft has had their domain hijacked or if someone has accidentally updated the nameservers against this domain.  Either way Microsoft has not responded about this yet”

  Edit at 11:24 a.m. pacific time:  Getting word that this may be fixed.  Can you guys check and let me know?

  Small Business Computing

• Six steps for securing your WordPress site

  Posted on July 20, 2020 at 01:00 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  SMALL BUSINESS

  By Nathan Segal

  There’s a good reason WordPress is the foundation for many small-business websites: it’s comprehensive, flexible, and relatively easy to use.

  But poor security practices also make these sites popular targets for malicious hackers. Fortunately, there are tools for protecting your WordPress-based assets.

  To make sure I have WordPress security set up correctly, I spoke with FortiPress creator Brandon Zundel, a WordPress security expert. Here are his suggestions.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.28.0 (2020-07-20).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Small Business Computing AskWoody Plus Newsletter, iThemes Security, Wordfence, WordPress security

• Getting the perfect domain name

  Posted on July 5, 2020 at 02:15 CDT by Jamie • Comment in the Forums

  THE BRAND

  Getting the perfect domain name

  

  By Will Fastie

  Visit a registrar, buy a domain name, and you’re done, right?

  Not quite. Those are the last steps.

  Before getting to that point, it’s important to understand what you are buying, whom you should buy it from, why domain-name registrars are important, what you need from a registrar, and — most important — what your brand will be. Your domain name will be with you for (hopefully) a long time, and giving the decision the time and thought it deserves can pay dividends into the future.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.26.0 (2020-07-06).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Internet, Small Business Computing AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Domain names

• Buying a refurbished computer can save you money

  Posted on July 5, 2020 at 02:00 CDT by Jamie • Comment in the Forums

  HARDWARE

  What to look for in a new-but-old computer

  You have to look closely at the offerings, and they aren’t ideal for every use case, but refurbished machines can be the way to go.

  By Susan Bradley

  Unless we have a specific need for an overpowered gaming computer, most of us can get along just fine with a machine that is a few years old. But one thing we should always look for is ample hard-drive space.

  A recent article from Ars Technica showcases what I’ve said for years: never purchase a laptop that has a super-small hard drive; you will immediately and forever regret the decision and fight with that small hard drive for the rest of the time you have it. For example, when I want to upgrade my 32GB ASUS laptop, I have to attach an external USB hard drive. It will still not do a proper feature-release install without it.

  But you don’t have to pay an arm and a leg for a decent computer. Machines that the vendors call “refurbished” can be perfectly fine for what you and I do on a regular basis. Furthermore, if you don’t mind a bulky machine, you can get what I consider to be a bargain with an old-fashioned desktop computer.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.26.0 (2020-07-06).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Hardware, Small Business Computing, Windows 10 AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Refurbished Equipment

• Eight ways to grow email lists for small businesses

  Posted on June 29, 2020 at 01:00 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  SMALL BUSINESS

  By Nathan Segal

  According to Maria Veloso, author of Web Copy That Sells, most small companies tend to put too much focus on one-time sales, even if they don’t intend to.

  Which could mean leaving lots of repeat business on the table.

  Staying in contact with clients and customers is an important tool for small firms with limited marketing funds and resources. Subscription-based email lists are a relatively easy way to stay in touch. Regular, well-crafted messages remind customers that you have new products and services they might like to know about.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.25.0 (2020-06-29).

  Small Business Computing AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Contacting customers, Email lists, Marketing

• COVID-19: Protecting your customers

  Posted on May 11, 2020 at 01:05 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  SMALL BUSINESS COMPUTING

  By Amy Babinchak

  As an IT-services firm that often works directly with our clients, we’ve had to develop policies for safely returning to the field.

  Those policies aren’t just for our safety; they are also designed to give our clients the comfort and confidence needed to let us back into their offices. (This is a two-way street; we must be assured that the customer has plans for our safety, too.)

  This requirement isn’t unique to IT firms — every service business needs to establish post-pandemic plans for working with customers, face to face.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.18.0 (2020-05-11).

  Small Business Computing AskWoody Plus Newsletter, COVID-19, Office safety, Pandemic safety planning, Staff security

• Managing remote workers

  Posted on April 13, 2020 at 01:05 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  SMALL BUSINESS COMPUTING

  By Amy Babinchak

  These past few weeks have been difficult on everyone, but they’re taking an additional toll on IT professionals.

  These pros have been putting in long hours helping users get set up to work from home. For example, my techs have been working 14-hour days seven days a week to get the businesses we support back on their feet.

  Fortunately, we have some experience with remote work. My staff has always spent about 70 percent of their workday in their home offices and about 30 percent at our clients’ locations. Now they’re working 100 percent from home.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.14.0 (2020-04-13).

  Small Business Computing AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Management, Remote workers, Work-from-home

• RIP FTP: There’s a better way to share files

  Posted on February 17, 2020 at 01:15 CST by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  

  SMALL BUSINESS

  By Amy Babinchak

  Back in June of last year, I wrote about how Microsoft finally got its OneDrive cloud-storage service right.

  Today, I’m happy to report on the death of the classic, if somewhat cumbersome, File Transfer Protocol (FTP) — and how its end came at the hands of OneDrive for Business’s new Request Files feature. Let’s have a moment of silence for the ancient FTP’s passing.

  Fortunately, we might be able to put the last nail in FTP’s coffin — and rely instead on the new Receive files feature in OneDrive for Business (more info).

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.7.0 (2020-02-17).

  Small Business Computing AskWoody Plus Newsletter, FTP, OneDrive, Request files

• How we automated the Win7 ESU-purchase process

  Posted on February 10, 2020 at 01:05 CST by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  SMALL BUSINESS

  By Amy Babinchak

  At Harbor Computer Services, we specialize in providing IT services to small businesses with between one and 100 computer users.

  An important part of those services is helping customers modernize their business processes by effectively using applications and tools provided with their Microsoft 365 subscription. Often, this entails automating repetitive office tasks — an approach we also apply in our own business. Here’s an example.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.6.0 (2020-02-10).

  Small Business Computing, Windows 7, Windows Patches/Security AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Cloud services, MS Forms, SharePoint, Win7 ESU

• Patch Lady – forget that crypto one, worry about this one

  Posted on January 14, 2020 at 21:41 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  If you are a IT consultant or admin with an Essentials 2012 (or later) server, or use the RDgateway role and expose it over port 443 to allow users to gain access to RDweb or their desktops, forget that crypt32.dll bug.  This one is one to worry about.

  Impacts 2012 and above – so no impact to SBS 2011 or SBS 2008, yes to Essentials 2012 and higher.

  Essentials 2012 exposes RDgateway over port 443 and 3389 is not open to the web (well, not normally) but given that this is a pre-authentication exploit, all an attacker has to do is to throw that crafted request to port 443 rather than 3389 (assuming I’m reading this right).

  So if you patch SMB servers that use RDgateway, worry about patching those servers this time faster than you would normally do.

  https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2020-0609

  A remote code execution vulnerability exists in Windows Remote Desktop Gateway (RD Gateway) when an unauthenticated attacker connects to the target system using RDP and sends specially crafted requests. This vulnerability is pre-authentication and requires no user interaction. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could execute arbitrary code on the target system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.

  To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would need to send a specially crafted request to the target systems RD Gateway via RDP.

  (edit:  for anyone asking, 2008 R2 is not vulnerable and thus SBS 2011 is not vulnerable.  It’s only vulnerable on Server 2012 and later, remember SBS 2011’s base operating system drops out of support today)

  Small Business Computing, Windows Patches/Security, Windows Security Patch Lady Posts
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