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Swiftec's Bits & Bytes
Volume 3, Issue 4, April 2007

We can help you with: Purchasing Assistance Backup / Recovery Training Computer Maintenance Security Wireless Internet Web Hosting Web Design Thought of the day A clown who defends himself, has a fool for a client. Hire a professional to do what they do best! Our address is 292 Main St, Suite G1 Northborough, MA 01532 508.393.3090 Reseller
		Security Breach - How to Hire a Consultant - Shopping Carts- Create your own newsletter Spam Free email tags - Community Events (new) How to get the most out of your computer With the release of Vista, we have recommended waiting until the summer to purchase a new machine (if you can). By then, the first major service pack will have been released and more companies will have software that works with Vista. Until then we recommend memory upgrades to bring computers up to the 1GB (gigabyte) mark. This is the cheapest upgrade and the only practical upgrade to most machines in use today. This may extend the useful life of your computer another year or two! Tell us the brand and model of your machine and we will let you know the cost of the upgrade. Security breached at TJX, Greater Media, Starbucks, Bowling Green Police Dept, VISA/Firstbank, and the list goes on... Security can be quite simple. There are plenty of devices that can make it harder for intruders to access your network. Not only that, but not everyone needs to be protected at the same level. If you have a small office (2-3 people) or you have non-critical client data on your network, then there are off the shelf products which will suit you. If you have a larger office or you have sensitive data stored on your machines, then you need an appropriate grade firewall to protect your client data. Either way, we can recommend a product for your situation. Please - at a minimum, purchase an Allied Telesyn, Linksys or Netgear router to provide basic protection. Leaving your computer connected directly to your modem is inviting trouble. How to hire a computer consultant - crash course Our promise to you. We will create a more detailed document on what to look for when hiring a computer consultant. Time and time again, we are finding people with certifications and no experience, or they are too far from their clients to service them. Here are some quick thoughts. The crash course in how to find a computer consultant is: When you leave a message, how long does it take them to get back to you? If you have a problem, what is their stated response time - do they come when they say? Geographically - how far away are they? (20 miles or more?) Will they provide you with an emergency telephone number for when YOU need it? If you have an issue - how long before someone is on-site? Do they only fix what is wrong, or look to see why it went wrong? Do you feel like you are being listened to, or "Yes Sir" 'd? Their is a reason why some businesses grow faster than others. Your business is our business! We do whatever needs to be done to help you succeed! We can help with equipment, vendors, policies and we explain it so you can understand. We are committed to the community and are quite visible with the Chamber of Commerce and multiple Rotary groups. Shopping Carts To shop or not to shop, that is the question. Is a shopping cart right for your business? Here are some quick questions to help YOU decide. Please answer YES or NO Do you have a product or good to offer people? (sneakers, handbags, car parts, etc) Do you have more than one of each? (i.e. 10, 50, 1000) Does your inventory remain relatively constant? (only changes once a year) Do you offer quantity discounts on items? Do you want to be able to sort/search on brand, style, model? Do you want to be able to drive traffic from search engines like bizrate.com? If you answered YES to most of the above questions, then you are a good candidate for a shopping cart on your web site. Three different software packages for shopping carts are included in our hosting packages (http://swiftecit.com/Web-hosting.html). Please contact us for more information. Newsletters and Mailing Lists Would you like to have a mailing list of your own and not have to pay a monthly fee to send one out? Take a look at http://www.phplist.com/. This newsletter as well as thousands of others are created using this software. This software is INCLUDED in our hosting packages (http://swiftecit.com/Web-hosting.html). Please contact us for more information. Spam free email tags (repeat from last month) To existing clients: We implimented much stronger filters to protect all of your emails. Here are some phrases you may see in the subject of your emails: {Disarmed} - indicates that the email contained html tags that are considered dangerous, e.g. iframe and form tags {Virus?} - indicates that the email contained a virus and has had the attachment removed. {Filename?} - indicates that the email contained a dangerous file attachment which has been removed. {Spam?} - indicates that the email is likely to be spam - you should filter these emails into a separate folder in your email client. (see link below) {Definitely Spam} - you will not see these as they are definitely spam. You can set Outlook 2003 to remove the spam you are receiving by creating a rule. An explanation may be found here: http://www.outlook-tips.net/howto/junkmail.htm. If you have further questions, please let us know. Feel free to send us comments or requests for future topics. You may also forward this email or link to someone else who may appreciate the information. The link for our newsletters is: www.swiftecit.com/news	Reward yourself! Click for more info Examples of previous awards! 4 hours IT Support 1 year Web Hosting 1 hour of Web Updates Dinner at Texas BBQ Lunch at Bertucci's Swiftec Promotional wear Click for more info Community Events Antique Appraisals April 10th 7-9:30pm St. Rose of Lima, Northborough Westborough Spring Festival April 28th Click for details Be a parent, not a pal April 30th, 7pm Algonquin HS Click for details Improbable Players May 8th, 7:30pm Westborough HS Click for details Northborough Applefest September 15th Click for booth information Send us an email to have your event listed here. Get Rid of Spam once and for good.