Is your data backed up properly?

While much of the destruction to physical property caused by disasters such as Super Storm Sandy are indeed difficult if not impossible to avoid, the IT experts at DDKInfoTech, a division of the DDK & Company LLP, can now assist your firm in assuring the continuity of your system capabilities while protecting and maintaining access to the vital data you and your customers depend on.

Through both on-site and off-site equipment and data back-up systems, individually designed and tailored to the needs of DDK clients, DDK InfoTech's customer-customized information technology service can help you virtually eliminate the down-time and related productivity loss caused by computer terminal and back-room crashes and the accompanying data destruction associated with storms, floods, fires and other disasters, as well as the impact of human error.

To learn more about how DDK InfoTech services provides a natural, cost effective and highly efficient extension to DDK's accounting services, and how to receive a no-obligation analysis and price quote, please contact Raj Katyal, Director of IT Services for answers to any questions you may have or to set up a no-obligation appointment.

In less than an hour, we can tell you if your data management and back up strategy and equipment is sufficient to meet your needs and, if not, how we can help you rest assured: Knowing that your business can withstand something as simple as a short term power disruption or a catastrophic disaster.

Let us help you be prepared. Let us help you save money.

Call 212- 997-0600

DDKinfotech, a division of DDK & Company LLP, is a full-service IT support company.  We work with NYC companies that have little or no internal IT resources and augment the IT functions in larger companies.  To learn more about our services please visit our website atwww.ddkinfotech.com

The Clock is ticking - Windows XP and Office 2003 support to end soon

Microsoft has announced that they will officially end support for Windows XP and Office 2003. If you still have some PC’s running Windows XP and Office 2003 in your organization, now would be a good time to think about migrating them to Windows 7 or 8, and Office 2013.

What does End of Life really mean?

End of Life in the IT/Software world  means that the software vendor, in this case Microsoft, will stop providing support, security updates and patches for the software. Please do not think that your PC will shut down and stop working, the PC will still work, but it does mean that after the announced End of Life (EOL) date of April 8, 2014, you will be extremely vulnerable to both security exploits and down time.

Windows XP and Office 2003 are still being used by a lot of businesses. If you are one of them, then it means NOW is the time to start thinking about upgrading those PCs that are running Microsoft Windows XP and Office 2003.

Microsoft has released an update to Windows 8 to make it stable, and Windows 7 is  also a very stable OS.  Most software vendors that write applications have been working hard to make their applications compatible with Windows 7 and Windows 8.   Office 2013 is also a great option to replace the old Office 2003.

Even though many of the businesses and most of our Clients have upgraded their software to the newer Operating system and the newer version of Office , many Microsoft Office 2003 and Windows XP users remain. According to data from  from Naked Security, “Windows XP has almost a 39% hold on the desktop operating system market,” DDKinfotech expects this number to decrease significantly this year.

Is our business at risk if we continue to use Windows XP and Office 2003 beyond the End of Life date?

It’s time to move on — if not out of desire, out of necessity, since the lack of security updates after next year makes running either of these programs a real risk for business. For example, Microsoft Outlook is part of Microsoft Office where spam filters require monthly updates in order to properly function. Although Windows XP will technically be able to run in computing environments beyond April 2014, the privacy and safety of organizations could be compromised. Ultimately, data stored in these programs is no longer secure once update servers go dark.

We are thinking about waiting until the last day to upgrade

Considering the consequences of keeping Office 2003 and Windows XP after April 2014, it makes most sense to upgrade both as soon as possible. Personal PCs might be easier to update, while businesses will need to allow some additional transition time depending on the size of their organization. We anticipate that it could take anywhere from six to eighteen months to make a full switch from Windows XP to Windows 7 or 8. To successfully update PCs, Forrester Research explains that there are two basic options for migration: Doing the work in-house, or outsourcing the job to an IT firm (like Dataprise).

Some businesses might be hesitant to upgrade due to potentially high costs, but if they choose to do the work internally, volume licensing can help reduce the total price. Contracting a reputable IT firm, meanwhile, allows in-house admins to focus on critical data protection during the upgrade, rather than struggling to keep pace with demands for speed, often at the cost of security.

How can we ensure that we will not run into problems during the upgrade?

Redmond Magazine recently surveyed their readers, and found that 95% have installed Windows 7 despite 76% still having XP. About 41% have started installing Windows 8. Gartner’s VP of Research, Michael Silver recently explained that “we expect more than 15% of midsize and large enterprises will still have Windows XP running on at least 10% of their PCs after Microsoft support ends.”

Why? Well, we believe that some organizations have already attempted to migrate to Windows 7 and failed because they didn’t take the time to analyze their applications well enough or didn’t really communicate the plan effectively across the organization. Poor planning makes a terrible bedfellow for IT upgrades.

The bottom line? The potential for security risks and organizational failure after Windows XP and Office 2003 support ends significantly outweighs the necessary expense and effort that the transition requires. In other words, better safe than sorry.

ABCs of Business Continuity

Let DDKinfotech teach you the ABCs of Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery?  Any further questions, call us today for a free consultation.

Are you measuring your website traffic?

For any business to be successful in its inbound marketing program, website activity must be measured and translated into meaningful data for management.  This is called Website Traffic Analysis.  You should be able to analyze and show a  full customer picture across your website.

When DDKinfotech starts working with a Client, one of the most common question asked is which web analytics tool to use.  There are number of options available, depending on the needs and what sort of information you are trying to gather from  the data set that you collect from your website.  However, for most small businesses, Google Analytics is a great package, because of its ease of installation and it provides a wealth of information for no cost.

To help Clients understand the key data points to measure, DDKinfotech is providing below a list of top metrics to monitor on an ongoing basis.

1. Audience overview

When you login into Google Analytics dashboard, one of the first thing you will see is the Audience overview.  This section provides critical information on the number of Visits, Unique Visitors, Page Views, Pages Visited, average visit duration and bounce rate.   These metrics provide a good summary of how your website is performing overall. This is true because not only can you determine how many people are coming to your site, but also how much content they're looking at and how long they're staying. Both of these speak directly to visitor engagement.

If you're just starting out, the best thing to do is compare these numbers month over month to look for trends or changes in visitor behavior. If your inbound marketing program is effective, you'll see an increase in several of these categories.

2. Sources

This is another important metric. Sources refers to where, exactly, your site visitors are coming from.  This is one of the key metric, as it will help you determine just what platforms are best for reaching majority of your audience.   As an example, if you see that most of your site visitors are finding you on facebook, but nothing from linkedin, you know where you should be concentrating your social media campaigns.

3.  Content
Content is king.  Content Strategy is key for attracting new visitors and keeping existing ones.  Google analytics tool can help you determine how your content is doing, and if there are any gaps.  The average visit time will help you determine whether or not site visitors are reading your site content, this will be a good indication whether your site content is useful or not.

4. Landing and exit pages
This metric is located under the site content in the content menu.  Landing and exit pages are important metric because it lets you know where visitors are entering your site and where they're exiting. For businesses not leveraging a complex pay per click (PPC) or SEO strategy, the most popular landing page will be your home page. However, when and where site visitors are leaving your site can be very telling about your website and the associated content.
Beyond content exploration, knowing from which page visitors are exiting  will determine the overall bounce rate. If a high number of visitors exit the site from the same page it may indicate dissatisfaction with content or the lack of a clear call to action. It may also mean visitors were looking for a specific piece of content but became frustrated and left when they couldn't find it. If you notice a high concentration of visitors exiting the site from the same page, it should be a clue that you need to review that content.

Google analytics can provide powerful insight into any internet marketing efforts and optimization.  

Does your business have a Cyber Security Plan?

Why is a cyber security plan essential for a small business? If you are a small business owner, don’t think that hackers are not interested in you or your data. A recent story in Entrepreneur magazine, relying on data provided by computer security company Symantec, indicated that small businesses with one to 250 employees suffered 30 percent of all cyber crimes this past year.

End point protection is important

Any cyber security plan begins with an anti-virus software. This software is critical for small business owners. Anti-virus isn’t the only protection that is needed today, but companies that don’t have any anti-virus protection are setting themselves up for an extensive hack.

Employee Education

Business owners need to make sure that their employees are aware of the need for deleting suspicious email messages, whether sent by known or unknown sources. Businesses must educate their employees never to click on the links contained in suspicious email messages. Anti-malware, Firewalls, intrusion protection and web filtering are some additional steps that small businesses can take to mitigate the risks that are prevalent today.

DDKinfotech has been helping small businesses mitigate the risks of cyber attacks.   Call us today at 212.997.0600 and speak to an expert regarding your Cyber Security needs.

A case for Email Archiving - Why your Email Need Protection and Preservation - Today

Why Email Archiving is Important

1. Protecting IP

Businesses today of all sizes need the value of their intellectual property to be maintained in perpetuity. They want to assure that their repository is 100% accurate, even if an employee accidentally or deliberately deletes their email.

2. eDiscovery

Many government agencies and regulations require certain stringent levels of security, permanence and auditability for business email. This includes FRCP, SEC, GLBA, HIPAA, HITECH, SOX, and more.

3. Compliance

Businesses need to cut the risk and costs of complying with discovery requests. They need their emails preserved and protected for the lifetime of the business. They also need it to be simple to produce emails to comply with legal requests or audits.

How Email Archiving Improves Protection

Email Archiving adds layers of protection beyond standard levels

System Downtime & Security, Spam and Viruses, Message Loss (Accidental & Deliberate) are Standard protection that's fundamental to your cloud service. Accidental and Deliberate deletions, Regulations and Litigation are threats that would require Email Archiving. Email Archiving offers protection against legal, regulatory and personnel threats that go beyond the data security and reliability you may already receive.
DDKinfotech specializes in Hosted Exchange Services. DDKinfotech's hosted Exchange 2013 lets your company communicate and collaborate more effectively than with any other email platform. Optionally we offer services that address Compliance and Email archival.
Contact us at 212.997.0600 to discuss how DDKinfotech can customize a Email Archive and compliance solution to meet your specific business needs.

Office 2010 Problems Caused by Microsoft Critical Update KB2589275

On Tuesday, September 10, Microsoft released a critical update that caused Office application files to become disassociated with the actual application. (See Microsoft KB2589275 – Critical Update for Office 2010 update: September 10, 2013)
Issue: Microsoft Office application icons disappear and are replaced by general MS Office orange icon.
If you have installed this update and are experiencing problems, the following three solutions can be used to resolve them:

1. Right click on the general MS Office icon that replaced the correct icon; select "Open with"; select the correct Office application; select "Always use this application"; the file icon will revert back to the correct Office application icon.
2. Uninstall the update and hide it on the Windows update website and/or blacklist it on the ITSupport Portal per the article above.
3. Run the command for MS Word with the /r parameter. Click on Start; Hit Run; Type “winword.exe /r”

Solution 3 should launch the application configuration and temporarily fixes file associations issue without uninstalling this update.
DDKinfotech's Managed Services Clients should not face this issue as we have blacklisted this update from being installed.

It has become essential to take measures to protect your business PCs from numerous threats encountered these days. Threats to your business and business productivity are more pervasive than ever. Hackers use various techniques that make Malware protection extremely difficult.
1. Use Endpoint Protection:  Use antivirus software from a reputable company.  Also, make sure that Endpoint protection you are using has Malware protection and Spyware protection built in.  As long as you have a valid subscription, your antivirus will automatically update from the Internet. Most Virus Protection companies push updates several times a day. Malware on the Internet entices users to download free Security software, so make sure that you are downloading  Security software from a reputable company and not some malware that poses itself as Security software. If you are not sure you should discuss this with your IT department or someone knowledgeable.
2. Keep your Operating Systems up to date: Operating System vulnerabilities are released on a regular basis and most are addressed through regular updates. You should regularly check for updates for your operating systems. At work check with your techs to see how they handle this. Most IT departments use Management software to push Operating system updates to all the computers.
3. Remove all Unnecessary software: Remove software that is unnecessary or not needed. This will reduce the attack surface, this is extremely important on servers. Make sure you backup any data before removing any programs.
4. Backup your data: Make sure you have current backup all the time. In case you were attacked by a virus, or your system crashed or a piece of hardware in your computer failed, you will have a backup to revert to.
5. Be very Wary of Unexpected Emails and Attachments:  Be very very wary of emails from people you know and you don't know. If you receive an email from someone you don't know, especially if it is sent to a group of people, immediately delete it. If the email is coming from a source you do know but it is unexpected and has attachment and or links that you don't recognize or are not expecting, more than likely that person's email account has been compromised and the hacker is trying to spread the attack to you, as your contact was in the person's email account.
6. Don't click on Internet Links you don't recognize:  Web links can connect you to websites and webpages that may be hosting malicious software which will infect your system without your knowledge. Only click on links from a source you know and trust. The easiest way to find out whether a link may be illegitimate is to hover your mouse over the link to see where it is taking you. Most email programs offer a preview of the actual link when you hover over.
7. Passwords: Enable passwords and use strong passwords. Do not use same passwords for all the services that you use. If you use different passwords for different services at least not all your accounts will get compromised if a hacker was to get hold of one of your passwords.
8. Keep Applications Updated: All PCs have software such as Java, Flash, Adobe Reader installed these days. These software are essential to carry out transactions and activities on the Internet. There have been known vulnerabilities in these software. Keeping these applications up-to-date is essential and will protect you from many vulnerabilities.
DDKinfotech specializes in Managed Services. Our Managed Services lets you focus on growing your business, instead of worrying about IT. Our Managed Service Offering comes with Antivirus, Spyware, Malware protection, OS Patch Management, 3rd Party Patch Management, Asset Management and system monitoring. Also, included is our secure remote access to your office desktop.
Contact Us to schedule no obligation, free Assessment, Click here

Shoretel DID hitting Voicemail Directly

I was experiencing an issue with a phone where when someone called a user's DID it would hit their Voicemail.  Checked all the settings and the Call handling and everything was setup correctly where the the call should hit the Voicemail after 5 rings.... Confusing!!

Workaround to fix the issue, was to create a new Route Point in the Director.   First I had to remove the DID from the user's profile.  Then I created a Route Point for the DID and under Call handling I Call Forwarded the DID to the user's extension.  This seemed to have resolved the issue.

Steps

1. Login into the Director
2. Under Call Control Go to Route Point
3. Click on Add New 
4. Type in a name for the Route Point
5. Accept the default extension number or type one that is not in use
6. Enter the user's DID that is giving trouble
7. Under Call Handling  Call Forward Always to the User's internal Extension.

Please note, this is a workaround to get the problem resolved.

How to Telnet into a Shoretel Phone

Yes, there is a way to telnet into a shoretel phone?  Well, when would you ever use this useless piece of information?  Probably never.  I had to do just this yesterday at a site where the phones were setup using Static IP addresses as there is no DHCP server.   User complained that the date and time on the phone was wrong and I just knew that the tech who setup the phone probably put the wrong IP address for SNTP server, so i had to figure out how to fix the issue without standing in front of the physical phone.

When you need to telnet into the phone it has to be done from the ShoreTel HQ server.  You will also need to have the IP address of the phone that you need to telnet into.  This information can easily be gathered from the Director.  Login into the Director and on the Navigation go to IP Phones => Individual IP Phones.

Once you have the IP address of the phone that you need to Telnet into

1.  Login into the ShoreTel Server
2.  Open up a Command Prompt, and change the directory to x:\Program Files\Shoreline Communications\shoreware server  (x is the drive letter where your Shoretel Software is installed to)
3.  Type "phonectl -pw 1234 -telneton xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx".  If you kept  the default password then it is 1234, otherwise type the password that you are using in your environment.   (Please note xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP address of the phone that you are trying to telnet into.
4.  You should now be telnetted into the phone, if the telnet fails try Steps 1 through 3 again.

If you found this Post useful please use like button below ( is that too much to ask) and or +1 on Google+.  Thank you!!

Unfortunately, I was not able to set the SNTP server on the phone via telnet, there is no command for it.  If anyone knows a command to set or change a parameter via telnet please post here.   If you just want to simply view the configuration on the phone, after you follow steps above and have telnet connection type:

printsysInfo, this will show you the running config of the phone.