On Friday, 1st October, I had the opportunity to talk to the attendees at First Friday at the Canterbury Innovation Centre. Here I will summarise the presentation as well as provide those all important links to the products and services mentioned.
Back-bedroom or Back Office? Big IT for Small Budgets.
1. My PC is a Temple
The biggest risk to your PC security is the person sat at the keyboard. If your business PC is based at home, you need to get your children off it as soon as you can!
User Accounts
If possible, get them a separate PC (perhaps a nice excuse to buy yourself an upgrade?) but if you cannot do that, set up a separate user account for them. The same goes for staff in the office – give them separate user accounts. Ideally nobody, not even you, should be logging in as an administrator.
Passwords
Good passwords are vital, and having different passwords for different systems is both important but irritating. That’s where lastpass.com comes in. This plug-in allows you to store and synchronise passwords safely, along with easily generating strong passwords for each site.
Security Software
While free antivirus and security packages can be very good, they are not really appropriate for business use, as we discussed recently.
We highly recommend Eset Smart Security and Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware and use this combination on our own computers.
2. First impressions could be last impressions
Domain Names
Having your own domain name (even if you’re not ready for a website yet) makes a huge difference to how potential customers perceive your business. An ISP (such as btinternet.com or tiscali.co.uk) email address, or a freebie (live.co.uk, hotmail, gmail etc.) address does nothing for your image.
A domain name is cheap and easy to set up. And if you do already have a domain name with a website, there really is no excuse to use any email address other than one related to you domain!
Important things to consider when registering a domain include:
- Ensure it is registered in your name, not your web designer’s.
- If you’re not ready for a website, don’t be tempted to buy web hosting as it may not be the kind you need
- Having a registrar that allows you full DNS control without charging you extra can make life a lot easier in the future.
We highly recommend Daily for registering domains.
Telephone Numbers
Personally, I think nothing says “dodgy” more than an advertisement that only lists a mobile number.
Arranging a local (geographic), 0800 or 0845 number is cheap and easy. Some services are so well featured they may be able to replace the need for a full PBX in the future.
Take a look at the service offered by RingCentral Call Management UK – they have a 25% off discount running this month.
3. Email Hosting
Once you’ve got your domain set up, you could just forward your new email address to your old ISP address or other provider. You may now have an email system provided by your domain host.
If you are have a choice between POP3 and IMAP email, we usually prefer IMAP, with messages stored on the server. This makes it easier to set up multiple devices (whether that be more than one PC or a mobile phone) and then whatever changes you make on one device is mirrored on the others.
However, we much prefer either Hosted Exchange (available from HDG at around £9.99 per month) or Google Apps. These not only offer email but also Calendar and Contacts synchronisation. If you’re out on the road and someone in the office wants to make an appointment for you, suddenly your life is much easier. Your calendar is available on your phone and when you check it, you know it is up-to-date.
While there is a free version of Google Apps, the improved Outlook synchronisation, larger mailbox and 99.9% SLA with Premier makes the £33 per user per year well worth it.
4. Data
Sharing Files
As soon as you have more than one PC, keeping files synchronised between machines and users can become a nightmare. You don’t need a great big server though.
Simple file sharing in Windows is just that – simple. It’s a good starting point but it’s not perfect. There are many tools available, like Dropbox, Sugarsync and our favourite, Livedrive Briefcase, that offer automatic online synchronisation of a selection of folders. For many situations, this can be all you need.
The next step up is a server, but we recommend something a little more economical and efficient than most offerings. We really rate Windows Home Server for its low cost, ease of use and excellent system backup capabilities. The Acer easyStore Home Server range offers excellent value. We have combined these with offline and online backup solutions for a number of clients.
Backup
When backing up your data (which you must do!) always consider the weakest links. This is usually the backup schedule itself – so many people have the best intentions but do not backup often enough. A close second is the backup device. If the USB stick, DVDs or external drive you use for backups is in the same room (or even building) as your PC, it only takes a small fire to wipe you out completely.
Local backups have great benefits in speed and convenience, and you could consider something like the ioSafe range of fireproof and waterproof external drives. For most users though, you cannot beat the benefits of a good online backup tool.
The file synchronisation services already mentioned could be used for backups, along with services like Carbonite, iDrive and our very own HDG LiveDrive Online Backup service. At only £24 per year, we call it a “no-brainer”.
Especially if you go back to the link given to you at First Friday, as there you can sign up for the first year at half price!
A Microsoft Certified Professional with many years of large corporate experience and training, he now focuses on helping small businesses make the most of their IT.
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