Perhaps because I’m a designer, one of the things I like best about Windows 7 is the Aero interface inherited and improved from Windows Vista. If you’re not familiar with the term “Aero” in this context, it’s the name of the Windows theme that gives your windows translucent borders, that sort-of glassy interface. When you install Windows 7, so long as your computer is adequately powerful, the Aero interface presents itself. Personally, I think it looks much nicer than the Mac OS interface, but that’s just my opinion.

Aero offers another feature called Aero Peek that lets you see a thumbnail of your window contents when you hover your mouse pointer over its icon on the Taskbar (as shown in the illustration). But, what if Aero gets replaced by the more blasé Windows 7 Basic interface? In that case, your window borders become solid, your Taskbar loses its transparency, Aero Peek disappears, and you experience a variety of other disappointing interface losses. This is unavoidable if your PC is not up to the task, older PCs and less powerful ones, such as a typical netbook, can’t use the Aero interface.

To know if your PC can run the Aero interface, check the Windows Experience Index. You can find this by right-clicking the Computer option on your Start Menu and choosing Properties. You will see a Rating label in the System section of the Properties window. The rating is shown as a numerical value, and must be at least 3.0 or higher to support Aero. If your machine supports Aero, continue on to see how you can enable it.

I noticed one day last week that Aero was missing, and the Basic interface was being used instead. To fix it, I tried the following methods to reactivate it. One of these may work for you:

• Begin by right-clicking the desktop and choosing the Personalize option. Try just clicking on one of the Aero Themes. Although this didn’t work for me, it may be all you need to do.
• Type aero into the search box at the bottom of the Start Menu. A list of matching objects on your computer will appear above the search box. You may see an option under the Control Panel to “Find and fix problems with transparency and other visual effects.” If you do see it, choose this option to open the “Aero – Troubleshoot computer problems” wizard. Step through the wizard and, if it can, the wizard will correct the issue or tell you what’s wrong. In my case, it didn’t fix the issue but told me to disable programs that used a “mirror interface.” Hm? What’s that? And what programs use a “mirror interface?”

A “mirror interface” is a special display adapter that dumbs down the graphics for use by programs such as remote desktop software. Examples might include VNC, LogMeIn, Remote Desktop Connection, and others. I decided I could live without this display adapter for the time being to see if I could restore Aero. So, I tried this option:

• Type device manager into the search box at the bottom of the Start Menu and press the Enter key. Expand the Display adapters portion of the list in the Device Manager window. Look for any adapter that includes in its title, “Mirror Driver.” In my case, it was a LogMeIn Mirror Driver. Right click the offending option and choose Uninstall from the pop-up menu. When your finished doing this, reboot your computer. Aero should come back upon reboot, but if not, try the first bullet option above to re-invoke it.

LogMeIn may need its mirror driver back someday, but I’ve since tested it without the driver installed and LogMeIn still works (without reinstalling the mirror driver). So, I think I’ve won this battle. I’ll update this article if I encounter any additional issues with Aero.

Craig Samson

As we head into the end of the year our attention turns to family and the holidays, but as anyone who has ever owned a business will tell you, it’s also time for tax planning. Yes, at a time when most of the world is winding down, the entrepreneur in the room is thinking about how to minimize his taxable earnings. Doesn’t that just ooze ‘Happy Holidays’! It actually can! But first you need to take advantage of the Section 179 depreciation deduction and buy yourself a gift!

Early in my career, working in telecommunications, the last couple of weeks of the year were fantastic! It was so quiet. Clients and prospects pushed off meetings and proposal discussions, giving way to long lunches and daytime Christmas shopping. By the 15^th, everyone was saying “see you next year” as we wound down, reorganized, and prepped for the New Year. 

Moving to technology, boy was I surprised, the busiest time of the year is December! There seemed to be a big push for hardware and software quotes with strict deadlines for delivery before year’s end. I was truly surprised by the flurry of sales activity. I couldn’t understand the urgency. What was driving them to buy? 

Fast forward to when I started my own IT firm. As year-end rolled around our accountant advised, “It’s time to buy the company some gifts.” I thought he was crazy. We were trying to build the business, why was I going to spend money. He explained that by reducing profits with legitimate expenses you can reduce your corporate taxable burden. So, programs like Section 179, make year-end a great time to buy.

Ah ha, now I understood why my clients bought so much in December.

Technology is a great option when you need to reduce profits. The items have a large enough price tag to make a difference on your Profit and Loss statement and Uncle Sam allows companies to claim it as an expense rather than capitalizing and depreciating these assets. I am not a tax lawyer, but it’s my understanding that this year the Section 179 benefit is up to $250,000 (but it cannot surpass a company’s total taxable income). If you had a great year this could allow for some significant upgrades.

So if you’ve been putting off some IT upgrades, now might be the time to buy. Get yourself something nice, you deserve it. In the meantime, I will be waiting to hear from you.

Brian Doyle

Common Scenario: I’m called in to consult with a company looking for IT support. My meeting is with…let’s call him “Andy.” Said company has the “latest and greatest” security devices already in place:

1. Firewalls with content filtering, intrusion detection and gateway security.
2. Upgraded servers running Windows 2008 with Windows 7 (or at least Vista) desktops.
3. Anti-virus, malware software, anti-spam and a variety of other network security services are in place.

So I ask, “What can I do for you today?”

The usual reply? “Well we’ve recently had an issue with (insert issue here). Which should never have happened since we’re so up-to-date.”

The “issue” is often viruses, spyware, concerns about employee surfing habits, safeguarding intellectual property, etc. At this point I ask if I may be permitted to review their documentation on the issue. The predictable blank stare is all the answer I need.

First, it’s important to state that Andy’s predictable blank stare is not an incorrect response. It’s understandable. He’s busy running his core business. His day-to-day does not, and should not, involve IT issue documentation! Additionally, it is a classic misconception of the traditional IT user that a suite of security products insures security.

The reality? Security is not solved by products alone, but rather the continual management of these devices and expert interpretation of monitored data. I explain to Andy that security threats are lurking everywhere. Hackers are continually looking to beat the very hardware and software built to keep them at bay. But, there is a solution!

At Fandotech we provide managed services that shift the responsibility of your environment’s security to us. We perform the on-going tasks necessary to support the hardware investment. Ultimately, we are the crucial “add-on” to the hardware and software; providing the checks and balances to secure your company’s most valuable asset, your data.

I assure Andy that Fandotech can provide:

1. Active monitoring of all IT assets for fault and performance issues which could potentially affect the computing environment.
2. Email defense services that stop threats before they enter your environment by eliminating them at our data center, not yours.
3. Management of backups, log files and all running services; providing scripts to automatically restart critical services in the event of a failure and alert our Technical Assistance Center (TAC) to any failed backup jobs.
4. Anti-virus services to insure all virus definitions are up-to-date alerting the TAC in the event of a virus intrusion for remediation and follow up.
5. Firewall management including intrusion alerting and response.
6. Monitoring of web surfing habits of internal users.
7. Scheduled firewall penetration testing and firewall vulnerability assessments.
8. Microsoft patch management.
9. Monthly and on-demand reporting of all subscribed services and trend reporting data.

Andy responds, “Wow. That would sure give me peace of mind!”

“At the end of the day, ‘peace of mind’ is kind of our core business,” I say.

Brian Doyle

I remember the first time I read in the Wall Street Journal (1999) that “doing wireless was like putting an RJ-45 Ethernet jack in your parking lot.” The implication was that the company’s most sensitive information would be readily accessible if someone simply drove into the parking lot and had a wireless card. The presence of wireless would allow a would-be hacker to spend the night draining your company of its valuable information. We were clearly forewarned. And it did in fact happen – over and over again!

When I was asked how to prevent security leaks for a Fortune 500 company, the first question to answer was, “who are we protecting ourselves from?” We identified several classes of potential threats and determined their relative ability to penetrate our security from lowest (1) to highest (5): 1. Hackers, 2. Corporate Espionage, 3. Disgruntled employees, 4. Careless employees, 5. Domestic and Foreign Governments.

It is true, that wireless link into the parking lot is a high risk element in your security and the same is true for the Internet access. But there are many affordable techniques that are readily deployed to ward off the Hacker trying to penetrate these defendable portals. They are typically looking for easy targets and do not waste much time trying hardened sites.

The Corporate Espionage motivated hacker has more staying power. They have an identified motive and it requires various levels of monitoring to warn you when this type of person is working overtime to get into your records.

The Disgruntled Employee has gotten a lot of attention over the years and is clearly a challenging threat that needs to be managed. And trying to defend against National Agencies is a topic of growing concern and topic for another day.

It’s the Careless Employee that generally poses the highest threat where the typical corporation can improve security without breaking the bank. We have determined that access to information from anywhere is more important than the risk. Our managers, employees and officers all have laptops and home computers with “secure” access to routinely download all the corporate spreadsheets, customer lists and contracts, update these and upload them back again. This is done in virtually every company in the technology enabled world. The result of this style of information management is that your most critical information is now everywhere. Copies are on home computers, laptops and traversing the unsecured Internet. In most cases, if a copy of a document went out to a remote laptop, we do not have a clear record.

We only need listen to the local news for a clear example. Healthnet, a Shelton CT company, lost a USB disk drive. It took them over six months to determine that it contained the health records of nearly 460,000 customers. Now that’s not only embarrassing, it’s criminal.

So most reading this article will say, “But that’s the only way we can be productive. Isn’t there a reasonable way to continue the productivity without the risk?”

The answer is yes, we can minimize the risk. The key is to follow a philosophy we are promoting at Fandotech. Instead of using the Internet to distribute your critical information “to everywhere” make centrally controlled and stored information available “from anywhere”.

We now have cost effective technologies that allow us to design access to your information from anywhere without actually sending the files out. Products like XenAPP from Citrix can be configured so the trusted user can log into an audited port and be granted the ability to view and edit appropriate documents without moving the document out of the data center control. This provides clear custody and control mechanisms for the integrity of the document. The Citrix remote access technologies also allow for the download of information when truly required, but requires a “sign out” and “sign in” that deletes the remote copy of the document and makes an audited record of who, when and where the documents went.

Now information is version controlled, backed up and audited centrally. Think of the cost savings potential and restful nights of sleep knowing your data is more secure!

Information everywhere is a weak link in the security of your information. People are people and they will lose things or they will steal things. Centralized information management that is auditable will minimize embarrassing events and minimize your risk.

John Boyd

HootSuite offers a professional and consolidated collection of Twitter-related tools. It is a website that you log into from your web browser from anywhere, not a program that you have to download and install.

You can set up HootSuite to manage one or several different Twitter accounts. From its slick interface, you can easily create and customize multiple tabs of tweets, and each tab can have one or more columns inside that further organize tweets. Each column represents some grouping of tweets, such as your home feed, mentions of your company or Twitter account, direct messages to you, pending tweets (that you haven’t sent yet), sent tweets, and various keyword searches for things you’d like to monitor. You can easily control column width, as well as drag and drop columns and tabs to change their order and position.

As mentioned, each column features a list of tweets matching the criteria you selected. Each tweet is accompanied by the photo/avatar of the tweeps (Twitter users like you and me), the time, date, and source of the tweet, and a group of buttons that easily let you Favorite/Unfavorite, Direct Message, Reply, or Re-Tweet. You may also click on the tweep’s name to view their Twitter profile.

Above the conglomeration of tabs and columns is a collapsible box from which you can tweet directly (from any of the Twitter accounts you set up in HootSuite). You can type your tweet, select one or more Twitter accounts to issue the Tweet, choose what day and time you’d like the tweet to go out, and even use its URL shortener (like the formerly mentioned bit.ly – http://bit.ly) to shorten long web addresses. So, HootSuite can be used to queue up multiple tweets in advance—for several different Twitter accounts.

For the more intensively-inclined Twitter user, HootSuite offers the ability for multiple users to log into your HootSuite account and manage it with various restrictions that you control. Further, it graphically tracks statistics about your Twitter usage, lets you monitor your company brand, and embed your custom HootSuite columns in other websites.

HootSuite is an excellent Twitter tool that we’ve been using for a couple weeks now with great success. I keep it open in my browser all day, and check it from time to time to keep tabs on my Twitter life. Take a look at it and let us know what you think!

Craig Samson