Hello Everyone,

Please pay attention to this if you are a business owner or manager of a business. I just received this e-mail say that my company has won/received 2011 Best of <city> award in this case city is Beltsville and it looks very compelling and almost got me “the expert”. That is why I am posting this out.

After doing a brief research on the company https://www.uscaaward.com/Claim.aspx?cc=DBC-MM8B-ZDHH, I discovered that it was a scam. I Google them and found out that the Better Business Bureau (BBB) has posted this warning http://spokane.bbb.org/article/all-that-glitters-us-commerce-association-awards-to-biz-may-not-be-what-they-seem-11397

So the please and please don’t waste your hard earned dollars on scam that does not benefit your local community as they claimed.

Happy networking from yours truly

Computer consulting guru, See us on Facebook

Femi Dada

Smarthost Design Technologies LLC

Sound too good to be true? I assure you it’s not…

There is a fast-growing trend among small and medium businesses that is drastically increasing productivity, cutting costs, and driving more profit to the bottom line. Is it a new management style or marketing trend?

No – it’s telecommuting, which is a $5 word for allowing your staff to work from home or while on the road.

Sure it doesn’t sound very sexy when you first hear it, but when you see the bottom line impact it has on profits and productivity and talk to business owners who rave about how much money it’s saving them, you’ll start to see what all the excitement is about.

What Is Telecommuting And
How Is It Going To Help My Business?

Telecommuting is a fancy word for allowing employees to work from home, in remote offices, or while on the road. While this is not a new concept, recent advancements in remote access technology and security have made it very affordable and easy for even micro business owners.

The Ultimate Small Business Guide To Setting Up A ‘Work From Home’ Or Remote Network Access System For Your Staff

If you are the owner of a small or medium sized business that is thinking about implementing a “work from home” program for your employees – or if you want to install a virtual network to enable you and certain key employees and managers to work on the road or from a remote office – DON’T – until you read this eye-opening guide.

Our free report will explain in plain, non-technical terms best practices for setting up remote access for you and your staff, as well important questions you should ask any computer consultant to avoid making the most commonly made, costly mistakes made when setting up the technology for a work from home program.

Critical Facts And Insider Secrets Every Business Owner Must Know Before Installing A ‘Virtual Network’ To Allow Employees To Work From Home, On The Road, Or From A Remote Office

In this free report, you’ll discover:

• What “telecommuting” is and why so many small and medium sized businesses are rapidly implementing work from home programs.
  
• The single most important thing you MUST have in place before starting any work from home or remote office initiative.
  
• How one company saved $11 million after implementing a work from home program – and how you implement the same money-saving strategies for your small business.
  
• How one company slashed its turnover rate from 33% to nearly 0% – and increased productivity by 18% – all by implementing a “work from home” program.
  
• How to get a FREE “Home Office Action Pack” ($97 Value).
  

Download Your FREE Copy Now:

cforms contact form by delicious:days

Hello everyone,

Here is the Tuesday tip for 08-30-2011, Enjoy it.

In this video blog, I’m describing how small businesses could use email clients such as outlook and others to send email to multiple recipients without revealing the recipients email addresses. I hope it a good tip that help running you small business easier.

Femi Dada
Smarthost Design Technologies.

Please do not upgrade your Adobe reader if you received email to do so.

Over the weekend I received an email title “introducing upgraded adobe acrobat reader” asking user to upgrade their adobe reader software. After looking carefully at this email I realized that adobe usually would not send such email. Typically; upgrade notification are prompted when you open the application not notification via email.

Please do not click any link to upgrade your software if you received such email.

See sample below
————————————–

INTRODUCING UPGRADED ADOBE ACROBAT READER

Adobe is pleased to announce new version upgrades for Adobe Acrobat Reader

http://www.acrobat-reader-center.com http: (link have been removed)

Advanced features include:

- Collaborate across borders
- Create rich, polished PDF files from any application that prints
- Ensure visual fidelity
- Encrypt and share PDF files more securely
- Use the standard for document archival and exchange

To upgrade and enhance your work productivity today, go to:

http://www.acrobat-reader-center.com (link have been removed)

Start downloading the update right now and let us know what you think about it.

We’re working on making Adobe Acrobat Reader better all the time !

Copyright 2011 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Adobe Systems Incorporated
343 Preston Street
Ottawa, ON K1S 1N4
Canada 

————————————–

Regards,

Femi Dada

With security breach prevalent in today’s business environment, it’s essential for small-mid size (SMB) business to know how to go about ensuring the necessary security procedure and policy to protect business information and most importantly to keep their customers information secure.

As a member of Computer Technology Industrial Association (CompTIA), I came across this paper written by Dancho Danchev of windowsecurity.com and after reading it I think it will make a good place for SMB to start in putting together an information security policy to implement company wide security policy.

And you may be asking why another document, why can’t I just tell my employee that the policy is XYZ? Well and sorry you can’t because research show that most people are unaware of the threats that exist with the use of technology and telling them also does not help. What helps is a document that illustrate the what, why, where, when and how each employee can work together to prevent and secure company, business and clients data. Here is the link to the document. Please download and start securing your business  and private information today.

If however you need help with putting this policy together, you can contact us at 301-576-1122 or your IT services provider for help.

Happy networking

Femi Dada
http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=3435122

Hello fellow business Owners and Managers,

Let’s face it, dose your business have a reliable business continuity plan? Let me put it in a lay man’s term. Does your business have a backup plan that you can recover to while your office, server, computer is not working or operational. I am not trying to exaggerate the criticality of these issues, too often as I meet small business owners and managers and leaders, most of them does not have a reliable backup solution. Most are still stuck with local/ on premises tape and disk backup solution that is a recipe for disaster. Please see these pictures http://www.wusa9.com/news/article/147116/77/Georgetown-Waterfront-Floods-Why-Werent-Flood-Walls-Up on (WUSA) new reports.

Now let me tell you. I call the one of restaurants there where I worked during my earlier days in Georgetown DC and could not get through because the power were out and for good reason the power were shut off. But I was perplexed to find out that all those restaurants are shutdown. I mean I can’t even make a reservation if I wanted to. It’s Good Friday and Sunday is Easter Sunday, what about the Easter celebration and mother’s day coming soon. This is the beginning of the busiest season of the year, what is going on? I guess the management company fail to pull up the levees.

Now, as you know I don’t own a restaurant in the harbor, but it happen that one of my client’s parent company is located there. Sorry I can’t name the restaurants. And to make things worst my company is not the one managing their IT Systems (computer systems) which leaves me wondering if they have the necessary backup and disaster recovery solution to help recover their clients and customer information, data, and vital company information located on those computers and server systems.

So, let me ask you once again if you own or manage a company or business. IS YOUR NETWORK, COMPUTER, SERVERS and VITAL COMPANY DATA SECURE FROM DISASTER?

If you can’t say YES without second thoughts I advise you to contact any computer consulting company in your area and ask them about business continuity and disaster recovery solution.

I have been working with businesses for about 6 years now delivering solution that helps mitigate such disaster from remote online secure backup, to remote worker implementation and I would be happy to offer you a no obligation assessment (get to know us offer) so that I can assess your company disaster preparedness plan. If you would like to take me up on this offer use our request form here and I myself or one of our engineers will get to you soon and schedule an appointment with you.

Read more about what you can do to get your business ready in my previous blog post.

–Femi Dada
CVIO

Smarthost Design Technologies LLC

Watch out for phishing emails

There has been an email data breach at one the industry’s leading marketing services firm named Epsilon. Epsilon provides email marketing services for majority of the name brands you have come to know; from Best Buy to banks such as Citi Group and others. It was stated that email addresses were compromised and the effect have already stated.

How does it affect you? Just today I have received several emails from phony companies trying to get information from me. One of them claimed that I have been approved as a partner and asked me to login into my partner account. If you received such emails, please do not try to login into the redirected site. If you do you will be giving your login and password information away to the bad guys and gals.

What can you do to protect yourself? Careful, careful and be vigilant. When you received email from people you don’t know, be careful to make sure that it is a legitimate email. Secure your companies email systems by using a smarthost, or email proxy system that scans and filter your company emails before it reaches your company servers. Compare the URL in the email to the redirected site URL.

You can read more on this email breach at http://www.scmagazineus.com/epsilon-aftermath-reaches-canada/article/200078/

To learn how you can secure your business email systems and protect your customers data from reaching the wrong hands call us or contact us today.

Have a nice day and safe surfing.

Femi Dada

Smarthost Design Technologies LLC

Hurricane, tornado, fires, plane crash, terrorist attacks, earthquakes, tsunami, and nuclear pollutions are just some of few new threats a business we have to face. What and how is a business supposed to prepare for such threats?

Over the past few days we have all seen the images on CNN and other news media outlet, it’s shocking and I am in disbelief of what I saw on the CNN, Cars, houses, farms and business shock and tossed around leaving destruction everywhere along it path. I am with such sympathy for the people affected by such destruction, In fact the whole issues of the resent Japanese earthquakes and tsunami compelled me to search the internet and read up on the dangers of nuclear disaster and other related disaster and the threat they pose. Although, I am thousands of miles away on the East coast of US and I found myself worrying and waking up at night thinking of nuclear contamination and the treatment with iodine. I went online and lookup iodine treatment for radiation poising and wondering what a person, family or business should do or can do to prepare for these types of threats. I finally find the Rready.Gov website and their suggestions are pretty good and a good place to start preparing once family, business for disaster and recovery readiness. They even have a section for children too.

As an Information Technology consultant, my company provides technology services to small and large companies and in a knowledge based economy where information is the greatest asset a business has, then keeping that information secure becomes prominent to success of the business. As I look for information to help our clients be ready here are some valuable quote that I can across

“Every business should have an emergency plan. It can save lives, company assets, and your entire business” http://www.ready.gov/business/index.html

The http://ready.gov website is a good place to start getting your business ready and an entire section is dedicated to protecting your business investment which brings me to a component that every business should have and that a Backup Disaster Recovery (BDR)system. Having one is essentials to the survival of your business period.

Stay focus and get ready.,

If you will like to learn more about my company and how I am taking action to secure our client’s data and information you can read more about my company at smalrthostdesign.com http://smarthostdesign.com or contact me at 301-576-1122 Ext 101.

Who is this? The COKE Guy holding the Pepsi CAN? Or is it the change promised. Actually, I am not a politician nor do I like debating politics. I just like to help our client get the best out of their existing technologies, whether a router, a switch, Private Box exchange (PBX) or Key Phone System, Backup and Disaster recovery, small business server and more…

This is me wearing my Daughter’s Christmas present showing of my love for Coke, but as you can see I am holding a Pepsi can. How does this relate to Technology?

No it does not. I am just having fun. Have some fun too.

WARNING: Recently I have noticed this Phishing Attack trying to prey on webmail users

This Femi Dada from Smarthost Design Technologies and I posting this blog notice to inform you, our clients and others about the most recent attack preying on web mail users.

As you know Tis the season for web hoax attack, while you are getting in the merry mode to celebrate the Holidays. The bad guys and gals likes to take advantages of your low guard and giving mode in the holiday season.

Here is what you can do to prevent Phishing email hoaxes from compromising you systems

1. Don’t open emails it you don’t recognize the sender
2. If you receive email from Facebook, Twitter and other Social networks directing you to click; don’t click. Go to Facebook or the corresponding Social network and log in instead to view it’s content
3. Implement some email filtering, Outlook has a built it filter, other have it too, but you have to ensure that you enabled it to prevent you from these hoaxes
4. Remember, no legitimate IT Help desk, computer consulting team or company would request your password via email in such manner (see image)

1. And finally look at the email carefully and pay attention to the “sender to” and “sender from” address, you will notice it is usually sent to some kind of generic, group email and domain name. When you see these red flags, notify your network administrator or computer consulting company/personal and if you don’t have any this expertise delete the email and don’t open it.

I hope this helps makes your holiday one step less stressful, and as always if you need a reliable, efficient fast to respond and trustworthy computer/network consulting company in the Washington DC/Baltimore area, call us Smarthost Design Technologies at 301-576-1122 and me or my team of certified engineers would help you figure out the best thing to do. Stay safe this holiday and Merry Christmas.

Regards

Femi Dada
Smarthost Design Technologies LLC