2 Great Information Technology Support Tips

Keep current spam, virus, and spyware protection on all machines

Protecting your workstations is a serious IT Support Challenge. Problems caused by spam, viruses, and spyware cost US small businesses billions of dollars each year, and each instance can cause thousands of dollars in clean-up fees. The tools to defend against these malicious programs are not expensive, and will more than pay for themselves in productivity gains in the first month of use. Don’t put any new computer (including those of temporary visitors such as friends or vendors) on your network unless it has all of the appropriate protection in place. Unfortunately, the software alone won’t prevent every new attack – that will require your employees’ cooperation by following some rules of email and Internet use. Publish a list of IT Support tips employees should use to determine if they should open a suspicious email or attachment. Here are examples to get you started:

• Don’t open email sent from an unknown source 
• Don’t open any attachments from an unknown source 
• Don’t open attachments that have unusual file extensions such as .VBS, .SHS, or .PIF. Also don’t open attachments that have multiple extensions such as NAME.BMP.EXE 
• Make sure your Internet browser settings are at least at the Medium level 
• Don’t download files from suspect web sites 
• Don’t engage in mass email forwarding of jokes, chain letters, etc. 
• Don’t use your business email address to sign up for non-business websites, newsletters, etc.

Buy slightly ahead of the curve when purchasing hardware

You don’t necessarily need to buy the most cutting-edge software for your business, but it usually makes no sense to skimp on hardware. The fundamental hardware components that will have the greatest impact on performance include processors, memory, and hard drives. These components allow you to churn through the constantly growing software and data processing demands put on your computer.

The applications and amount of data being used on your computer are growing in size exponentially each year. If you don’t buy ahead of the curve now, you are going to shorten the useable life of the machine. Nobody enjoys trying to work on a slow machine. Everyone has had the painful experience of trying to do work on a machine that has to crunch for a full minute every time you ask it to do something.

How much does that lost productivity cost your business?

Contact CSM to Find Out if IT Support Outsourcing Makes Sense for Your Business

CSM has over 30 years of experience helping the world’s most challenging companies solve their most difficult technology challenges. We offer free IT Assessments and 100% Risk Free Trials. Contact us today to learn more!

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