Spam and Viruses On the Upswing

We have been seeing a fairly high increase in Client machines that are infected with various types of malware. It's not just us. The industry as a whole is seeing the same thing. It looks like for the moment the bad guys are winning. Current spam and virus detection tools are just not keeping up. This article confirms what we have been seeing.

Of course you still want to make sure that you have current anti-spam and anti-virus programs on all your computers. And make sure that users have a good understanding of how and where malware can come from. And let's hope that the good guys can get ahead of the game sometime soon.

Office 2007 SP1 Released

Microsoft released the SP1 update for Office 2007 a couple of weeks ago. We have installed the update on several machines and have had no problems.

SP1 addresses issues in all the Office modules. One of the most significant is a fix for an Excel issue that was causing erroneous calculations.

If you are using Office 2007, I would suggest you install this update. You can download the update here.

Our New Phone System

About a week ago we installed our new Microsoft ResponsePoint VOIP (voice over IP) phone system. Actually the phone system is manufactured by Syspine and the software running it is made by Microsoft. ResponsePoint is a phone system that is designed for small businesses. Although the marketing people say it can handle up to 50 phones (technically it can), right now it really fits the 5 to 15 phone scenarios fairly well. I believe that with upcoming software updates it will handle to needs of companies with 15 to 50 phones but not yet.

So what's cool about this system? Several things actually. First, our regular analog phone lines plug right into the system. Currently, it supports up to 8 lines right out of the box. Unlike traditional phone systems, the handsets plug in to a network connection. We just unplugged the network wire going in to our computer, plugged it in to the phone and then plugged another network wire from the phone back to the computer. This network connection allows us to do a bunch of things including connecting to Outlook.

The phone system is fully voice activated. On the inside, if I want to call someone I pick up the phone, push the ResponsePoint button and say "Call Gayle at Mobile". The system then dials Gayle's cell phone. If I say "Call Gayle at Work" it will call her at work. The system works the same on incoming calls. When the automated attendant answers callers can simply say "Ed" or "Ed Davis" and they will be transferred directly to my extension. Say "Operator" and you will be transferred to Ray. You can also ask for "Directory" which will list off all the people you can ask for. Want to know our fax number? Say "What is your fax number?" Of course you can also simply press zero for the operator or type in our extension number (mine is 101), but that's not as cool!

It took me less than an hour to set up the whole system with 7 phones and that includes taking everything out of the boxes! We are still playing around with the various operating options on the system to make sure it works the way we want.

So far we are pleased with the system. There are a few things we miss from our old system but one thing I don't miss is the cost of setting up a new phone when we hire or want to make a change. I can do that myself now and usually in 5 minutes or less!

I'll post more about the system as we become more familiar with it. Actually, we are the local authorized reseller of the system so if you would like to check it out, call the office number and say "Ed"

MS Office 2003 No Longer Available

Microsoft released Office 2007 in January of this year. They indicated that Office 2003 would be available until June. It's now November and we are finally no longer able to find Office 2003 in the distribution channel. This means that from this point forward Office 2007 is the only version of Office that we are selling.

Although the Office 2007 interface is quite a bit different than previous versions of Office, most users should be able to use it without much difficulty, other than a search for the location of certain functions that might have moved.

Office 2007 file formats have changed as well. The new file format is much better but it does cause compatibly issues with older versions of documents. This will cause problems for employees or outside people that share your documents. However, there is a switch that can be turned on to save files in the older format. This will impede some of the new features of Office 2007 but will insure your documents can be read and updated by all users.

We can provide an overview of the Office 2007 changes for our Clients. We have also been posting Office 2007 tips on our Answers website. This should not be a major issue for most users. We have been using Office 2007 since the beta versions and find it to be a very good upgrade. It's time to move forward!

Some Email Tips

We get lots of questions about email.  One of the most asked is "Why do I get so much spam?"  There are several reasons of course but there some that you may not be thinking about.  Here are a couple.

First, some Domains are just more prone to spam due to the nature of the business.  If you do business around the world and your email addresses are used by companies around the world, you will be more prone to spam.  If you sell products and/or services to your local market you will be less prone to spam.  Generally, there isn't much that you can do about this except to filter your email as well as you can.

We see companies that put email addresses on their websites.  This is one of the easiest ways for spammers to target you.  There are automated programs called bots that scour the Internet just looking for such addresses.  There are ways to handle information requests from your website that will minimize if not eliminate this issue.

We also see users using both Out of Office Messages and Delivery Receipts with their email.  While these functions can be very nice, they are another easy way for spammers to get your address.  You see, spammers will often send a bunch of spam to random addresses that they don't know are valid.  When they see an Out of Office Message come back they know they have a live one.  This known valid email address is like gold to them.  They can sell it to other spammers and make good amounts of money.  Then before you know it, your on their lists.

And of course using your real email address to fill out forms on the Internet is asking for trouble. The fix for this is to use a disposable email address on these forms if you need to fill one out.  That way you can kill the email account should you start seeing lots of spam come to it.

Spam is a pain in the neck.  And unfortunately, it's here for a while.  Spam filters do help.  They actually capture the majority of the spam.  If you see 10 spam items in your Inbox, you can be pretty sure that the spam filters have blocked an additional 90 to 95 from getting to your Inbox.  Taking some precautions can help.