Category Archives: IT Consulting

Keep Computer Network Safe

How To Keep Your Computer Network Safe From Crippling Pop-ups, Viruses, Spyware, & Spam, While Avoiding Expensive Computer Repair Bills

  • Do you constantly get hammered by pop-up ads that come from nowhere and interfere with using your computer?
  • Does your computer network run slow, act funny, or crash unexpectedly?
  • Are you getting tons of spam from unknown senders?

If so, then the computers on your network are probably infected with malicious programs that could end up destroying your files, stealing your company’s confidential and financial information, and rendering your computer useless.

 

Don’t Be A Victim To Online Crime!

 

Cyber criminals lurk everywhere and are constantly finding new ways to harm you. Even legitimate websites have sophisticated methods of snooping into your private information using cookies and spyware. If you want to make sure you aren’t their next victim, read this guide and discover:

 

  • Computer scams, threats, and rip-offs that you MUST be aware of.
  • Surefire signs that you are infected with spyware, malware, and viruses.
  • Sneaky, underhanded ways cyber criminals access your computer, and how you can stop them dead in their tracks.
  • The absolute worst type of program to install for your network’s health; if you or your employees go to these sites and indulge in these seemingly innocent activities and you’re practically guaranteed to get infected with vicious spyware and destructive viruses.
  • The single biggest cause of expensive computer repairs – and how to avoid it.
  • 6 Simple steps to keep your computer safe from pop-ups, viruses, spyware, malware, and expensive computer repair bills.

Provided as an educational service by:

Group 4 Networks

Keep Computer Network Safe

How To Keep Your Computer Network Safe From Crippling Pop-ups, Viruses, Spyware, & Spam, While Avoiding Expensive Computer Repair Bills

  • Do you constantly get hammered by pop-up ads that come from nowhere and interfere with using your computer?
  • Does your computer network run slow, act funny, or crash unexpectedly?
  • Are you getting tons of spam from unknown senders?

If so, then the computers on your network are probably infected with malicious programs that could end up destroying your files, stealing your company’s confidential and financial information, and rendering your computer useless.

 

Don’t Be A Victim To Online Crime!

 

Cyber criminals lurk everywhere and are constantly finding new ways to harm you. Even legitimate websites have sophisticated methods of snooping into your private information using cookies and spyware. If you want to make sure you aren’t their next victim, read this guide and discover:

 

  • Computer scams, threats, and rip-offs that you MUST be aware of.
  • Surefire signs that you are infected with spyware, malware, and viruses.
  • Sneaky, underhanded ways cyber criminals access your computer, and how you can stop them dead in their tracks.
  • The absolute worst type of program to install for your network’s health; if you or your employees go to these sites and indulge in these seemingly innocent activities and you’re practically guaranteed to get infected with vicious spyware and destructive viruses.
  • The single biggest cause of expensive computer repairs – and how to avoid it.
  • 6 Simple steps to keep your computer safe from pop-ups, viruses, spyware, malware, and expensive computer repair bills.

Provided as an educational service by:

Group 4 Networks

Keep Computer Network Safe

How To Keep Your Computer Network Safe From Crippling Pop-ups, Viruses, Spyware, & Spam, While Avoiding Expensive Computer Repair Bills

  • Do you constantly get hammered by pop-up ads that come from nowhere and interfere with using your computer?
  • Does your computer network run slow, act funny, or crash unexpectedly?
  • Are you getting tons of spam from unknown senders?

If so, then the computers on your network are probably infected with malicious programs that could end up destroying your files, stealing your company’s confidential and financial information, and rendering your computer useless.

 Don’t Be A Victim To Online Crime!

Cyber criminals lurk everywhere and are constantly finding new ways to harm you. Even legitimate websites have sophisticated methods of snooping into your private information using cookies and spyware. If you want to make sure you aren’t their next victim, read this guide and discover:

 

  • Computer scams, threats, and rip-offs that you MUST be aware of.
  • Surefire signs that you are infected with spyware, malware, and viruses.
  • Sneaky, underhanded ways cyber criminals access your computer, and how you can stop them dead in their tracks.
  • The absolute worst type of program to install for your network’s health; if you or your employees go to these sites and indulge in these seemingly innocent activities and you’re practically guaranteed to get infected with vicious spyware and destructive viruses.
  • The single biggest cause of expensive computer repairs – and how to avoid it.
  • 6 Simple steps to keep your computer safe from pop-ups, viruses, spyware, malware, and expensive computer repair bills.

Provided as an educational service by:

Group 4 Networks

Google Docs and Sheets

IT Consulting

Google has recently released two new apps for Android and iOS devices. The new apps are Google Docs and Google Sheets. A presentation app, equivalent of Microsoft’s PowerPoint is also on the way, called Slides. The two apps work great on both devices, they offer offline capability, in case you want to jot down an idea where you cannot get an internet connection on your mobile device. Both applications are very easy to use and offer a simplistic, not overcrowded design.

G4NS IT Support Toronto

However, Microsoft has released its Office Mobile apps for Android and iOS not too long ago. Both companies offer their apps for free, a huge plus. However, now it’s up to the user to see which companies app suits their needs. Respectfully, Microsoft Office Mobile wants to open and save files to their OneDrive service, whereas Google Docs and Sheets give the ability to save content locally on the phone or to upload to Google Drive.

It’s good to see two big companies release some essential apps such as these. Word processing and spreadsheet apps are very useful and a lot of people have trouble finding the perfect one for their needs. With the release of Google Docs, and Sheets, perhaps some people will find exactly what they are looking for.

Managet IT Services in Toronto

If you are interested in learning more about Google Docs and Google Sheets, feel free to contact Group 4 Networks.

 

 

About Group 4 Networks

We provide Toronto and GTA businesses with IT Support, IT Consulting and Managed IT Services at a fraction of the cost that they would pay a low-level full time IT Manager. Our team eliminates the hassle of dealing with the single knowledge and abilities of a lone “computer guy.”  What makes us unique is that we proactively manage our customer’s computer networks to eliminate many of the headaches and hassles of using computers to run a business.

We guarantee our customers a response within 60 minutes or less and are the only IT service provider in the region that offers a 60-Day 100% no hassle money back guarantee on our flat rate all inclusive service plans.

Office for iPhone and Android

 

We’ve talked about Office for iPad in a previous post. Office for iPad based on a

office

subscription model from Office 365. However, Microsoft has been nice enough to charge $0 for the iPhone and Android versions of Office. This means you can have a free, fully functional document editing application on your smart phone.

This is an example of some of changes the new CEO of Microsoft is making towards the company.

It is quite interesting as why the iPad version needs a subscription, when phones do not.

 

If you’d like more info on Office for mobile devices, and info how it could benefit your company, feel free to contact Group 4 Networks.

About Group 4 Networks

We provide Toronto and GTA businesses with IT SupportIT Consulting and Managed IT Services at a fraction of the cost that they would pay a low-level full time IT Manager. Our team eliminates the hassle of dealing with the single knowledge and abilities of a lone “computer guy.”  What makes us unique is that we proactively manage our customer’s computer networks to eliminate many of the headaches and hassles of using computers to run a business.

We guarantee our customers a response within 60 minutes or less and are the only IT service provider in the region that offers a 60-Day 100% no hassle money back guarantee on our flat rate all inclusive service plans.

 

Heartbleed bug

 

Heartbleed was the popular word of the internet last week, and it still is. What exactly is heartbleed though?

Heartbleed is a major bug within the authentication system for website which use OpenSSL to authenticate website logins. The problem is, a great majority of the internet uses OpenSSL as their authentication system.

The fix against this bug is to update the OpenSSL software on webservers. Major websites like Yahoo, Facebook, Google and plenty of others were affected, however they quickly patched the bug. After the fix is applied, users should change their passwords and make it complex.

Upon the discovery of this bug, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) temporarily suspended their online portion of the website. However, today it is reported that on average 900 Canadian social insurance numbers were stolen using the heartbleed bug.

How does heartbleed work though? Take a look at the image below. heartbleedexplained

 

 

 

 

To get more information on the heartbleed bug, visit http://heartbleed.com/

To test some websites, to see if they are currently affected with the heartbleed bug, visit https://filippo.io and enter the website address you wish to test.

In an upcoming article we will talk about password managers and how to choose a strong password and why you should do so.

If you would like more info on passwords, heartbleed, or internet security in general, feel free to contact Group 4 Networks.

About Group 4 Networks

We provide Toronto and GTA businesses with IT SupportIT Consulting and Managed IT Services at a fraction of the cost that they would pay a low-level full time IT Manager. Our team eliminates the hassle of dealing with the single knowledge and abilities of a lone “computer guy.”  What makes us unique is that we proactively manage our customer’s computer networks to eliminate many of the headaches and hassles of using computers to run a business.

We guarantee our customers a response within 60 minutes or less and are the only IT service provider in the region that offers a 60-Day 100% no hassle money back guarantee on our flat rate all inclusive service plans.

 

Managing Passwords 101

pass

 

A good, strong, complex password is what is needed on the internet these days to prevent your account from being compromised. Most, if not all websites encrypt the passwords for user accounts when it’s stored in their database. An encrypted password cannot just be read as a normal word or sentence. The password appear as gibberish. Even if a hacker would get their hand on your encrypted password, it takes considerable amount of computer power to decipher the password. This is where password complexity comes in. If a password included the use of special characters such as $, @, &, %, numbers, letters with capitals, it’d be way harder to decipher.

For example: “blogpost” as a password is weak, it has no complexity, it could be cracked, and guessed within minutes. However, “Bl0gp0$t” is harder to decipher as there are a lot more variations of the password which the cracker would have to guess.

Password managers such as Keepass are great tools. A password managers sole purpose is to remember your usernames, passwords for specific sites. They also have builtin tools such as random password generators, which create complex, meaningless passwords which get stored in the database.

From the manager you search for which website you’d like to login to, and you could copy and paste the credentials into your browser.

Password managers are secure, and you’d only need to remember one password, the manager will remember the rest. Some other managers besides Keepass are LastPass, 1Password, and DashLane

If you’d like more info on password complexity, feel free to contact Group 4 Networks.

About Group 4 Networks

We provide Toronto and GTA businesses with IT SupportIT Consulting and Managed IT Services at a fraction of the cost that they would pay a low-level full time IT Manager. Our team eliminates the hassle of dealing with the single knowledge and abilities of a lone “computer guy.”  What makes us unique is that we proactively manage our customer’s computer networks to eliminate many of the headaches and hassles of using computers to run a business.

We guarantee our customers a response within 60 minutes or less and are the only IT service provider in the region that offers a 60-Day 100% no hassle money back guarantee on our flat rate all inclusive service plans.

Windows XP end support

IT Support after XP

 

As you may already know, Microsoft has officially ended support for Windows XP. If you have machines that are still running Windows XP, you may wonder how this will impact your protection and system security. To help address your questions, we’ve crafted a blog post that addresses a few important things we think you should know.
You can find the post here:
https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/blogs/what-endpoint-protection-customers-need-know-about-windows-xp-end-support
Should you find that you have other questions or if you need technical help, please contact the Customer Support Team: [email protected]

Sincerely,

The Group 4 Networks Customer Communications Team

 

About Group 4 Networks

We provide Toronto and GTA businesses with IT SupportIT Consulting and Managed IT Services at a fraction of the cost that they would pay a low-level full time IT Manager. Our team eliminates the hassle of dealing with the single knowledge and abilities of a lone “computer guy.”  What makes us unique is that we proactively manage our customer’s computer networks to eliminate many of the headaches and hassles of using computers to run a business.

We guarantee our customers a response within 60 minutes or less and are the only IT service provider in the region that offers a 60-Day 100% no hassle money back guarantee on our flat rate all inclusive service plans.

Time’s up on Windows XP

Some experts have questioned whether Microsoft will really end support, bug fixes, and security patches for Windows XP on April 8, 2014, as it has previously announced. My guess is that Microsoft will stick to its guns. And so it’s finally time for the XP holdouts to join the real world.

About Group 4 Networks

We provide Toronto and GTA businesses with IT SupportIT Consulting and Managed IT Services at a fraction of the cost that they would pay a low-level full time IT Manager. Our team eliminates the hassle of dealing with the single knowledge and abilities of a lone “computer guy.”  What makes us unique is that we proactively manage our customer’s computer networks to eliminate many of the headaches and hassles of using computers to run a business.

We guarantee our customers a response within 60 minutes or less and are the only IT service provider in the region that offers a 60-Day 100% no hassle money back guarantee on our flat rate all inclusive service plans.