Organizing a Small Office Computer Environment

If you are in the world of small business then you already know that one of the hardest things to accomplish is staying organized while doing business.  It doesn’t take long for things to clutter up and take over the office.  This remains true for computer equipment.  Not so long ago, a small business in the town of Mercersburg, Pa contacted Ryan’s CCS for some house cleaning in their computer department.  When we arrived there, this is what we found.

In the image above you can see that the computers are located at the feet of where employees would be sitting, thus making good for being kicked and damaged.  The workstation to the far left is the point of sale (very important for a restaurant) system.	In the above picture this is the result of a sloppy Point of Sale installation from another company.  The Cat-5 wires were ran up from under the floor, however with no consideration for trip hazards and the holes were so small that some of the wires were beginning to wear down to the wire.
	To the left is a battery backup sitting on top of the P.O.S. System and barely sitting there also is the a router and a switch that controls the Internet and sales workstations throughout the restaurant.Anyway’s, we couldn’t believe the disaster that was awaiting this well established business, and knew that needed to do something right away.   What isn’t seen in these pictures as well is a inkjet printer and radio equipment is located behind the desk.  The solution Ryan’s Computer Consulting Services came up with was to simply leave only the monitors, keyboards, mice, and speakers at the desk, then move all other equipment onto a shelve across the room, out of the way and easily accessible.
Below is the end result of a long day rerunning wires and installing KVM (keyboard, video, monitor) cables.
	As you can see on the left, this is the end result of re-routing wires under a very historic building.  We wall mounted anything that could such as the router and switch.  The printer is easily accessible and not in the way of travel or backing into it with a chair.  The radio system was also relocated (upper right shelf.)  The KVM switch the allows the user to use a single monitor and keyboard for the POS system and the company data system is attached to the shelf and no longer at risk of coming loose from accidental jars and kicks.
On the right, this is all all that is under the desk now.  Now, the computer users can stretch there legs out without worry of kicking a computer.  The battery backup here is to keep the monitors working in the event of a power outage.  All wires are zip tied and organized.

How  To Setup a Home Network

If you have multiple computers in your home, setting up a wired or wireless network will prove very useful in your daily applications.  There are many advantages to having a home network, some of which have not been widely discovered yet, and some being used in may homes across the world already.  The scope of this article is to help you understand what you may need to setup a wireless or wired home network.  To learn how to do all this yourself, please purchase the “Wireless Home Networking for Dummies” and/or “Home Networking for Dummies” books on our How to Books page.

To start off, a network is simply a technical term for having more than one device (or computer) connected to each other by means of a wire, air waves, or in the future some other form of communication.  Since you reading  this article you are on a network called the Internet.  The Internet is a huge structure of computers interlinked to one another, hence the words World Wide Web.  On a smaller scale, you may have a desktop computer and a laptop computer in your home.  They are two separate computers, but you desire to share the Internet, files, printer, and devices.

Advantages of a Home Network:

•  Sharing files between computers

•  Sharing a printer connected to another computer or another device

•  Sharing a single Internet connection

•  Playing video games

• Home Server:  Allows for all data to stored and centrally accessed from any computer on the network.  Some examples of this concept would include a central music/picture/movie collection to provide playback to computer  or home entertainment center.  This is more advanced feature of home networking, and is not covered in this article, however if your are interested please give us a call.

Home networking isn’t complicated on the surface as far as the hardware needed goes.  The setup of these devices can prove challenging depending on your setup.  In this example we are going to assume that you have a desktop computer, a laptop computer, and a printer.  We know that there could be many other devices that could be in the mix, we just want to get your brain rolling with ideas by showing you some simple applications.  This network assumption is also under the thought that you want to share your Internet connection from your DSL or Cable modem to multiple computers.

Hardware needed:

•  Router (wired or wireless)

•  Ethernet (Network Interface Cards) or Wireless Adapters for both desktop and laptop

•  Optional Wireless Print Server for sharing printer (or you can share it out through a desktop computer)

•  Cat-5e or Cat-6 Ethernet Cable (for wired networks)

Let’s define what these parts do.  A router is a device that first receives your Internet single from your modem and then splits it out to the connected computers.  It also can serve as a firewall to help protect against outside hackers.  Anybody from the old school can think of it as a fancy cable splitter to some effect.  Like a cable splitter that takes the cable signal and splits it out to multiple T.V.’s, a router does something similar for computers.  Routers come in two flavors, wired and wireless.  If you go with wireless, be sure to educate yourself on how to secure your wireless broadcasting, so you are not handing your Internet or data out to the world around your neighborhood.  Ethernet cable is the lines that run from your computer to the back of the router, if your wireless, air waves are your data transport.  The most common cabling for wired networks is CAT-5e type cabling.  CAT-6 is faster, but fragile and less forgiving with bends and turns.  Last but not least is the print server option.  This device is used more commonly in a wireless scenario, but does a have wired counterpart.  It will allow to have computers print to a printer without the printer being dependant on a connection to a computer.

Option A:  Wired

   1. Desktop and Laptop are connected with wires to the router

   2. Desktop is sharing printer so that the laptop user can print to the printer as long as the desktop

       computer is on.  A wired print server can be used in lieu of dedicating a computer for sharing.

       This method will require a wire to be ran to the location of the printer and a connection from the

       printer to the print server.

   3. Both Computers share data, print, and have Internet access.

   4. Pro’s:  Radio Interference is minimum.  Con’s:  Laptop is restricted to wire, printer is confined to

       desktop computer area.

Option B:  Wireless

   1. Desktop and Laptop have wireless capable cards installed connecting to Wireless Router

   2. Printer is being shared from Desktop like in Option A or is connected to a print server device to

        independent of desktop computer.

   3. Both computers can share data, print, and have Internet Access without the hassle of wires.

   4. Pro’s:  No wire restrictions, Laptop is very portable around the home, Printer can be set anywhere

       Con’s:  Radio inference can happen, walls and obstructions may cause lag with file transfers and

       Internet connectivity.

Conclusion:

Wireless connectivity is certainly the best way to go if you have a laptop and a desktop at home.  Most of the time interference is minimum.  However, if you use your laptop like another desktop not moving it from one place to another in your home, wired may be the more affordable option.  You can always upgrade down the road.  Keep in mind that there are many other configurations for networks.  They all vary per application and needs.  If you have any questions or would like us to install a home network in at your residence, please give us a call.

Designing and Creating a New Webpage (Website)   

If like many millions of people, you are thinking about designing a web site, however don’t have a clue where to begin.  This article will help you get on your way to success.  Web sites are created for many reasons.  Some reasons are personal and others are enterprise corporate.  Never the less, getting started isn’t difficult and designing web pages is easier than ever before.  So let’s begin.

•  First decide what your website is going to be about and what it will offer to its viewers.  You will need content (unique content), pictures, and maybe even video or audio.  Think of creative titles and subjects that you haven’t seen on the net yet.  Don’t forget most importantly what you will call your site (domain name) like “www.yourwebsitename.com.” No, you don’t have to have your web page perfectly designed be actually designing.  More ideas will come to you later.

•  Scribble your ideas down on paper, think about what you site might look like.  Sometimes seeing what others are doing that is already effective is a great place to start with design, while others simply like be completely original.  The best advice I can give is stay up with the times with a professional looking website, and not something that looks like it belongs back in 1995 when the graphic web began.

•  You will need something to design your site with.  If you go with a web host provider, then almost always (at least any good host) will have a full set of online tools and templates to get you started on your design.   Otherwise, there are many other design software out there such as Dreamweaver, WordPress, & Webplus.

•  Now, that you have your ideas down, and some content to start your first pages, you need a place or home for your new site.  There are two things you will need:  A domain and hosting.  The domain name is the “www.xyz.com” and hosting is where all the images, files, and content stay.  RCCS recommends ixwebhosting.com for the beginner or novice.  They provide many tools for the taking (free) and lots of options to grow on as your site grows.

•  After you get your site up and running, be sure to research SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tips and how to information.  It takes time and effort to get onto the search engines, you definitely want to learn how to satisfy their needs and human search results.

So you are ready to hit the world wide web with your new website concept?  From here you should head on over to ixwebhosting.com and check out their packages.  Domains are cheap and hosting is very (cheap) reasonable.  We hope and wish you the best of success whether it for business or personal.

Delivery Failure with E-mail Coming Out of Nowhere? E-Mail Spoofing  

As if spamming isn’t enough to be annoyed at, e-mail spoofing is a hot tactic these days.  This article will explain a little of how a spammer uses your e-mail address to send other spam and why you end up with a ton of delivery failure notices in your inbox.

The most common kind of spoofing is when a computer has been infected with a virus and randomly sends out spam while the user is away from the computer (idle time).  Most of the time this happens to computers that do not have the latest updates to the operating system and/or protection utilities (anti-virus, anti-spyware, etc.)   So, why is it you are getting the delivery failure notices?  Simple really,  your e-mail address is in some-body’s address book and the spammer choose to pick on your e-mail address send as many e-mails as possible under your name before it is flagged as spam or black listed.  So what can you do to stop it?  You can’t, but you can protect yourself and prevent it from ever happening on your computer….to bad for the computer sending it though.

•  Never open an attachment that you do not know who it is from or it seems odd and unlikely to have come from that person.

•  Put attachments into a special folder and have your anti-virus (up-to-date) scan it before opening.

•  Most virus’ spread themselves from an address book, so you are more likely to receive a virus from somebody you know, than somebody you don’t.  If you find that somebody you know has sent you a virus, be kind and let them know they are spreading virus’ and need to get their system disinfected.

Employee Internet and Computer Monitoring

Employers often wonder if it is legal to monitor their employees computer usage.  Well, the answer in short is yes and may be well worth the investment.  In this article we will discuss the pros and cons of monitoring your network computers in the office place.

Why is monitoring computer usage important in the workplace?

•  Wasting time:  email, shopping, instant messaging, and even job hunting.

•  Pornography:  Adult, Child, Sexual Harassment, all can stem from this.

•  Gaming

•  Peer-2-Peer file sharing

While all the above are damaging to the production of the employee’s time usage, some can lead to big lawsuits and fines such as file sharing.  File sharing has become a common place, however not all of its practices are legal.  The RIAA  (Record Industry Association of America) has really cracked down on piracy of music and other media that has not been purchased (licensed) to the individual or group.  Porn is disturbing to most people, however it is also the most common entry way for nasty virus, spyware, malware, and other infectious software.  So, ask yourself again why monitoring employee computers is necessary?  How can you afford not to?  Sometimes, unfortunately, employees may even download child related pornography which is very illegal in the United States and a Federal crime.  None of these acts should be allowed in the work place.

Some blocks in the road that may hinder the installation of a network monitoring software is existing Union contracts, company policies, etc.  It is much better that employees know that they are subject to be monitored at any given time.  Often this is first announced in a company memo or meeting.  After the software is installed, they will never know when their screen is being viewed or being recorded.  Many companies make it a policy that if certain aspects of  the policy is broken, then it can be grounds for termination of employment.  Being said like this keeps it serious from employer to the employee.

The only con with a monitoring program is really in the employee usage.  The software will record usage and text, so  if an employee is caught, he/shs is indeed caught with substancial evidence and no room to plead not guilty.   Thus, making it a much easier process to terminate the possition without nasty lawsuits being flinged.

So, how does one control or monitor computers on a network?

We recommend that you get in contact with the folks over at Pearl Software, Inc.  They will be glad to help you get connected with the right software for your business.  Their product lines are geared also for school and government as well as businesses.