Millions of employees have suddenly dispersed to their homes in an attempt to stay safe and productive. Unfortunately, many home offices were not designed for comfortably working for eight or more hours at a stretch. Also, many homes and apartments do not have the same physical protections and roominess that we find in our cubicles and offices at work. This is leading to accidental coffee spills and laptops being dropped off the corners of tables at the absolute worst time in history for these types of accidents to take place.

Due to the Windows 7 operating system end of life, desktop computers and laptops have been getting steadily harder to procure for the past year or so. When Wuhan China locked down due to Covid-19, many hardware providers were effectively out of business. To make matters worse, major distributors, like Tech Data and Ingram Micro, have maintained less inventory in recent years and are now, themselves, on partial lockdown due to Covid-19. This has culminated in the perfect storm for hardware procurement. Most of our favorite hardware models are on backorder for weeks or months. Even our backups (less popular models) and safeties (retail) are now quickly running out of stock.

What’s the answer? Don’t break your computer!  Physical damage to an older computer or mobile phone is to be avoided at all cost. Don’t take extra risks balancing your computer on a stack of books on the corner of your dining room table, even for just a second. Use extra caution when taking your phone out of your pocket because getting a new one activated, even if you can get your hands on a replacement, is next to impossible in this environment.

If you’re planning hardware purchases in the next 6 months, please talk to us now so we can develop a strategy. As always, give us a call at 317-733-2388 if you have questions.

You’ve likely heard that hackers are coming out of the woodwork to take advantage of all the novice remote employees. After all, it’s no secret that home networks are generally less secure than their office counterparts. So, the question is, “can your office network be at risk from the actions (or inactions) of home users?” Hopefully, we all know that the answer to this question is, “yes.” If not, THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION IS “YES!”

Let me just state first that if you are one of our vDESK customers, then you are safe and that this article does not pertain to you. For those of you who are not vDESK customers, please let the above statement sink in. vDESK is the solution that allows you to sleep at night in situations like this (and the countless more ordinary ones).

Ok, so you’re not a vDESK customer and you still want to be secure in a work-from-home scenario. Let’s first look at why there are risks. What’s the difference?

Well, at least we’re all in this together. There is certainly disagreement on where we go from here, but we are all here together now. By here, I mean we’re all immersed in the mess that the novel Coronavirus has wrought. Regardless of your politics, religion, color of your skin or number of genders you believe there are, we are all doing our best to do our jobs from the comfort (confinement) of our homes.

At Promethius, we’ve had this ability for years and most of us have taken advantage of the opportunity from time-to-time. I doubt, however, that many of us will look forward to that opportunity for quite some time in the future. I have had the opportunity to speak with lots of our clients, vendors and friends during this unique time and most of us seem to be in pretty good spirits, all things considered. Sometimes we need a change of pace and it can be a bit of a relief knowing that we have to do it and that the rest of the world has to do it too. Our hearts go out to those who suffer from illness, to those separated from loved ones and to those who have lost their jobs.

If there is anything we can do to help you, as a friend and neighbor, please give us a call. These are weird times, but maybe it’s our opportunity to get back to being neighborly. I don’t know about you, but I’m finding that I have a little more time on my hands these days. Of course, we’re still here and available to help as your friendly neighborhood IT vendor as well. Just let us know how we can help!

Maybe a better question is, “Do passwords matter?” I’ve seen password requirements become more and more painful through the years at the same time that the number of security breeches has skyrocketed. The reason is that investing time in hacking into the online application database is far more rewarding than brute-force hacking a single end user’s password. In other words, all the secure passwords in the world won’t do any good when a hacker (or state-sponsored team of hackers) can simply siphon my data out the back end. Providers and online vendors should care more, and we should make them care more by refusing to purchase from them until they can guarantee security. Instead, with every breech, they send more and more ineffective and inconvenient password complexity down to end users as if we are to blame for their bad coding.

If there ever was an industry that perpetually promises “New and Improved,” it’s the IT industry. I can’t think of another high-ticket item that loses value and performance as quickly as a computer does. Selling a two-year-old computer is nothing like selling a two-year-old car, for example. You get my point.

Moore’s Law (which states that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles every two years) has given us computing power which grows exponentially over time (which is partially why computers don’t hold their value, by the way). I think we all naturally assumed that because of this never-ending improvement, computers would eventually become nearly trouble-free.

HIPAA Compliance is “the elephant in the living room” these days. Companies that fall under its rules generally know it, but alarmingly few companies do anything to even assess their current adherence to the rules. It’s like they would rather not know.

I get it. I’m that way about cancer. If I never get tested, then I’ll never have to face a hope-crushing diagnosis. I’ll keep my head in the sand about my health, but I want YOU to check into your HIPAA compliance!

Gerald is a long-time owner of a substantial construction business, and like most successful business owners, he trusts his own wits and intuition in making business decisions. His keen mind is ultimately what got him to success, so why not keep betting on a winner? But Gerald also knows his limitations.

Last year his intuition was acting up a bit, and he was nagged by a persistent fear of losing valuable data. He finally decided to reach out to me to see if Promethius could audit his backup and disaster-recovery plan. Were there chinks in the armor? We would find out.

NOTE: I want to give you a bit of a warning before I start this article. My writing style is generally up-beat, jovial and fairly casual. Don’t let this style mask the fact that today’s topic is very serious. Please know that this article is written in a spirit of urgency and importance.

O.K. Now on to the article…

Virtual Desktops, sometimes referred to as “Cloud Desktops,” are the next major improvement vastly approaching the computer network landscape (actually, this new technology is already in production today – we use it here at Promethius). We’ve been in business for over sixteen years, and we think this technology will be the biggest “game changer” we have ever seen.

I gained a deep understanding of “disaster recovery” in the best situation imaginable. I was a programmer/analyst for Northern Trust Bank, and for two years worked diligently on our “Y2K” disaster preparedness plan. To say the least, banks cannot afford to lose their data. The fear surrounding Y2K gave me an almost unlimited budget and access to endless resources.

Like so many other organizations, we passed through Y2K without a single glitch. Rather anti-climactic, but I learned a ton about disaster recovery.