What's coming next?

Okay you love gadgets and therefore you may have received the latest iPhone 4S for Xmas. But rumours are circulating on the net that Apple’s next-generation iPhone (the iPhone 5 maybe) is set to launch in the last quarter of 2012.

Information is being drip-fed about the look and feel of the device, but it is important to keep in mind that details are yet to be confirmed. However early reports suggest the latest iPhone is likely to use the same type of rubbery plastic found on their bumper cases as built-in protection on the iPhone case, adding it to the front edge of the phone. This is said to perform a two-fold use. First, it will serve as a bezel, connecting the glass face to a new aluminium back plate. Second, the purpose of the material will be to cover a renovated antenna system that the new iPhone will use, doing away with any need for a plastic insert above the antenna. In addition, reports suggest the upcoming iPhone will have an aluminium case not unlike that found on the iPad2, as well as a larger, 4-inch display.

So this time next year you may be walking around with the latest latest iPhone.

Happy New Year!

Richard

We are open until 5pm on the 23rd December as normal.

We are open on Wednesday the 28th, Thursday 29th and Friday 30th December – usual business hours.

We open in the New Year on Tuesday 3rd January and resume normal business hours thereafter.

Out of Hours Support:

Normal hours of operation throughout with the exception of Christmas Day and Boxing Day and other Public Holidays.

24 Hour Support:

Open all year round.

Thanks

Support Team (supportteam@ancarb.co.uk)

Social Media has significant benefits

Here at Ancar B I have been tasked with developing our Social Media strategy. Following consultation with one of the experts in this field we have devised a way forward – all I need to do now is get on with!

In the meantime, I came across some research that summarised the business benefits of social networking that I thought would be of interest and that I’d like to share with our blog readers.

Marketing & PR – If Facebook were a country, it would have more inhabitants than the USA. As a result it is an attractive target for company marketing and PR. However, social networking goes beyond  traditional ‘push’ advertising by opening up a two-way channel between customers and companies. It is therefore a great source of ideas, feedback and a viable option for customer service. It can even provide a route to market for some businesses. Gartner (the independent IT research specialists) estimates that 50% of enterprises will be micro-blogging by 2012.

Employee motivation & morale – For many IT literate employees social networking tools have replaced email and the telephone as the primary means of communicating with friends. Those bright young graduates you want to recruit may not work for your company if you destroy their social lives by banning Facebook. They see access to these services as something close to a basic human right.

Recruitment – Their online relationships can have a business benefit too. For example, a vibrant social network around your company can make it attractive to new recruits and help them settle in more quickly. Similarly, it helps HR with recruitment. For many users and companies, LinkedIn is a kind of CV exchange.

Networking & support – Employees use their networks and online connections to get support for their work. It can act like an informal technical support or training system. For example, some IT people turn to online Q&A forums to solve tricky/unusual technical problems. It can also create a strong sense of community and cohesion within a company providing mutual support and exchange of ideas. I can certainly vouch for this when a client recently enquired about the possibility of wireless scanning using an Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station (you can’t by the way, only wireless print).

Brand enhancement – Companies like Microsoft encourage their staff to create blogs and interact with customers, informally mixing support, market research, PR and brand promotion.

If you would like an introduction to an expert in Social Media and help with devising a strategy, please call 0845 077 8883 and we can make an introduction.

Thanks

Richard

http://uk.blackberry.com/serviceupdate/

If you need any further help installing Blackberry Solutions, or need Blackberry Support, please get in touch.

Thanks

Support Team

If you have problems, the ISP will often deny there is a fault.   If you have ever had to deal with a connection problem yourself, you will know that once you have waited in a queue for half an hour the usual call centre spiel goes like this:

• “Your router must be faulty, change it and try again”
• “The extensions and filters must be damaged replace them and then try again”
• “The problem must be internal, it all looks fine from our end”

It’s enough to make you want to go back to dial up!

And why do they do this? – So they can avoid putting some real effort into resolving your problem.  Have a quick think, if they request a BT engineer to investigate further then they have to be prepared to pay the massive call out fees!  It is cheaper in the long run for them to lose the customer…

In addition to this, they do not care about anything past their router.  If the service is up and you can’t get one of your laptops or phones working on the wireless, but other devices are OK, then they will give you the simplest get out – “it must be a problem with your device, and thats not our problem!”

So, how can you avoid the time wasting and poor service?

Ancar B provide ADSL Broadband across multiple internet service providers and LLU’s.  We choose the provider that can offer the best quality of service in your area – not the most profitable.  We back this up with our excellent and personable Helpdesk Facility who can help you configure equipment, assist with connectivity problems and have direct access to the escalation teams at each of our ISP partners to help resolve any issues with service as quickly as possible.

If we can help you get your Internet connection working just the way you need it to, then that works better for you and for us!

Call for more details or a quotation.

Introducing our new Helpdesk Portal:

• Log Support Tickets – directly into our helpdesk systems ensuring you get the fastest response possible.
• Submit New User Requests – to ensure we get your new member of staff up and running in good time.
• View & update Existing Tickets – to help keep you and us in the loop at all times.
• Manage Your Contact Information – to make sure we can get in touch with you as quickly as possible when you need a call.

The Portal is Live Now and you can access it through our website homepage at www.ancarb.co.uk, just click on the Helpdesk Portal button to the right hand side. Fill in the very brief registration form to gain access.

Don’t want a Helpdesk Portal – Don’t worry. You can still email us directly at supportteam@ancarb.co.uk. You can also still call us on 0845 077 8883 or 01924 511118 and log a support ticket by phone. ]]> http://www.ancarb.co.uk/blog/2011/01/12/new-online-helpdesk-portal/feed/ 2 http://www.ancarb.co.uk/blog/2010/11/10/how-safe-is-your-data-and-can-you-afford-to-lose-500k/ http://www.ancarb.co.uk/blog/2010/11/10/how-safe-is-your-data-and-can-you-afford-to-lose-500k/#comments Wed, 10 Nov 2010 14:19:56 +0000 Richard.Payne http://www.ancarb.co.uk/blog/?p=262 Continue reading →]]> As 2010 draws to a close, it is worth reflecting on the significant legislation that has affected the IT industry over the past year. One key area concerns the new fines under the Data Protection Act, which from April 2010 gave the Information Commissioner’s  Office the power to fine organisations that lost people’s personal data to the tune of £500k (gulp!)

Many firms think they are not at risk because of the size of their business and information assets. Most think that large corporations with more assetts are the only ones at risk. That is not true.

Firstly, sensitivity of information applies to the quality and not the quantity of information. Secondly many firms do not have the expertise to address security, particularly IT Security, in the same manner that large corporations do and are therefore more exposed.

We always seem to read news items of laptops containing personal information which has been stolen from vehicles or left on a train (remember the MOD laptop left on a train with details of counter terrorism measures). Few organisations will willingly admit that confidential data has been lost or stolen. Most data loss in not actually through planned criminal activity, but carelessness, the actions of disgruntled employees or an opportunistic third party.

The ICO (Information Commissioners Office) has formed the view that in future, where such losses occur and where encryption software has not been used to protect the data, enforcement action will be pursued.

Laptops or course are not the only items at risk, your emails, mobile phone or PDA could contain sensitive information about your clients’ businesses that should be kept confidential. The ICO also recommends the portable devices like USB Keys and Portable External Hard Drives, used to store and transmit personal information, the loss of which could cause distress to individuals, should be protectied using approved encryption software which is designed to guard against the compromise of information.

In addition, personal information, which is stored; transmitted; or processed, in information, communication and technical infrastructures (for example, in  a client server network scenario), should be managed and protected in accordance with the firm’s security policy and using best practice methodology.

Ancar B has recently conducted some work on behalf of a client in this area and took the following measures to enhance security for the client:-

• Introduced a strong password policy for the server and client PCs.
• Applied encryption settings to the backup solution thereby encyrption data stored on backup/DAT tapes removed from site.
• Introduced encrypted USB keys, where data needs to be transfered from one user to another using this method.
• Applied encryption software to laptop computers that run the risk of being stolen or lost when taken off site.
• Reviewed the used of encryption software for the sending of email.

So if you are concerned about your data and don’t want to incur a fine, think long and hard about the information you store and, if you require assistance, give us call.

Thanks

Richard

Universal Serial Bus (USB) was developed and invented by Ajay Bhatt while working for Intel and is a specification to establish communication between devices and a host controller (usually a PC).  It was is intended to replace the many confusing varieties of serial and parallel ports.

USB can not only connect computer peripherals such as mice, keyboards, digital cameras, printers, personal media players, flash drives, and external hard drives – it can also power them!  For many of those devices USB has become the industry standard connection method.

Although it was originally designed for personal computers, it has become commonplace on other devices such as smartphones, PDAs and video game consoles. As of 2008 about 2 billion USB devices are being sold per year, and approximately 6 billion total sold to date!!!

Standard connectors?  Not always…

Despite its original simplicity many companies have adapted their own proprietary connectors, so not all your devices will use the standard formats.  Therefore we recommend you keep your original cables in a safe place.  Here are some images showing the standard connections:

Supported Operating Systems

Windows 98 was the first OS to support USB connections right out of the box. Since then, virtually every OS on the market is USB enabled. Support for Windows 95 has since been added and third party solutions have been created for support in NT 4.0.

Data Transfer Rates

• Low or Normal Speed        1.5Mbps
• Full Speed                           12Mbps
• High Speed                          480Mbps (USB 2.0)
• Super Speed                        4800Mbps (USB 3.0)

Note: Not all USB 2.0 devices are certified for High Speed transfer rates. Look for the USB High Speed Logo to ensure maximum capacity.

Did you know…?

Up to 127 devices can be added and controlled by a single USB port and your devices can be up to 30 meters away from the controlling computer system!!!

Well here you go!

Small Business Server 2003

• Post 25 – SMTP
• Port 80 – HTTP
• Port 443 – HTTPS
• Port 444 – CompanyWeb,
• Port 4125 – Remote Web Workplace, Remote desktop from RWW
• Port 1723 – VPN

Small Business Server 2008

• Port 25 – SMTP
• Port 80 – HTTP
• Port 443 – HTTPS
• Port 987 – CompanyWeb
• Port 1723 – VPN

What is it? In brief, backscatter is the influx of Non Delivery Reports (or NDR’s) into a victim’s Mail Server (or MTA).

What is an NDR?

Mail Transfer Agents support a service called Delivery Status Notification (DSN) which allows end users to be notified of  the status of an email, such as the successful or failed delivery of email messages.

A non-delivery report is a status message sent by the recipient or interim email server that informs the sender of a email message delivery failure. There are several issues that can trigger an NDR, the most common are when the recipient of the message does not exist or when the destination mailbox is full.

Smarter Spamming?

Email servers offer a simple measure against SPAM by only accepting emails that have a valid source domain.

i.e. The domain exists.

Spammers are aware of this and have a simple way of bypassing this check which is to mimic email addresses from a valid domain.

Spammers use several methods for harvesting email addresses from the web. One method is the use of “Web Spiders”. Spiders crawl the Internet and web sites for email addresses that can be added to a database to be both a recipient, and used as a valid email address for sending spam.

From SPAM to Backscatter

So now you’re in the database, you’re likely to be targeted for the receipt of SPAM, and unfortunately it’s likely that a Spammer is going to use your email address at some point to send a batch of SPAM emails.

Even though you’re not the true source of the emails, you are the legitimate owner of the “Senders” address. As such any Non-Delivery Report is going to be returned to you.

So depending on the frequency of abuse, or indeed the size of the attack, you could potentially about to receive thousands of Non-Delivery Reports thanks to a spammer.

Can it be stopped?

Unfortunately it is easy to mimic someones email address, however there are measures to firstly prevent you being the source of such a violation, and secondly reduce or prevent the influx of backscatter.

The “Sender Policy Framework” or SPF have introduced additional DNS Records (SPF Records) that allow you to specify who is allowed to send email from your domain (Mail Servers). This way, if an email is received by a mail server from a source other than defined in your SPF record, the connection will be dropped and the email will not be processed.

Note: Googlemail, Hotmail and Microsoft are already implementing policies whereby if an SPF record does not exist, your email may be rejected.

Other options include disabling all catchall or wild-card mailboxes. When this feature is disabled the spammer has to match your exact email address and not your domain, so your mail server will not be accepting non-delivery reports for email addresses which do not exist on your mail server.

It is also recommended that you configure your mail server to reject during SMTP transmission rather than bounce email messages which cannot be delivered. Email servers such as Microsoft Exchange, Postfix, Sendmail and Qmail have patches to improve the behavior to create less backscatter.

A better solution

Using an external host to relay and filter your inbound email can prevent the receipt of SPAM and Backscatter, as well as reduce the loads generated by SPAM on your local mail servers.

Be low are a few more resources to give a little more information on the subject.

The Backlash!

The source of a Backscatter attack is no the SPAMMER, but it is the servers that are not configured to reject emails for invalid email addresses. These servers, although they’re the victim of an actual SPAM attack are now being listed on a UCE Blacklist (http://www.backscatterer.org/), which in turn gets your outbound email rejected due to your server being listed on a Black List.

As you can see, it is important to configure your email and DNS services correctly to ensure your neither the subject of a backscatter storm, nor listed unknowingly in a Blacklist.

Other Resources

Open SPF – http://www.openspf.org/
SPF Record Creator – http://old.openspf.org/wizard.html
Microsoft Sender ID Framework - http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/safety/content/technologies/senderid/wizard/
Reducing Backscatter on Exchange – http://www.avianwaves.com/Blog/default.aspx?id=31