2008.1 February - Utilizing the Web for business in Rural Areas

The web can be a great way to promote your business and educate potential customers on the services you offer.

The most commonly stated problem we hear is that Rural means Dial up and it is too slow. We believe that the rural web is an untapped market because companies are not catering to the needs of those with dial up. Our design principals strive to create informative and educational web sites accessible to users on dial-up conections. People are not on your website to be entertained. They are there to make a buying decision.

Our Seminar teaches

• Fundamentals of web search placement
• Fundamentals of Simple efficient web design
• Fundamentals of understanding your market
• Fundamentals of Developing a Marketing Strategy
• Fundamentals of Implementation and Web site Promotion
• Fundamentals of monitoring web site traffic and implementing feedback
• Fundamentals of keeping your website current and active

The course includes Hand outs group discussion and one on one at the end for those who may be shy of asking questions the course time is roughly 3 hours and will be worth while for those who are thinking about a website for their business or those who want to improve or understand the web site they have better.

If you have a rural client base, contact us and let K-IT.ca Inc. help.

2008.2 March - Web Design Basics and Web Search Placement

How often do we hear something like: 'When I search my company name I am third on Google but I don't seem to get much business from my website.'

This is a direct quote from one of our clients. When we researched his problem it soon became apparent that his web site was flash based, with lots of noise and movement, but no content. It was all fluff and no fiber. Fluff is the stuffing that fills out a pillow but it is the fiber that makes it a pillow. The fluff just blows away.

You need content. You need full descriptions of your business. New customers are searching for a product or a service, and being visible only by name does no good.

If you are trying to attract new customers, who probably don't know you exist, your site must explain WHO you are, WHAT you do, WHERE you are located, WHEN you are available, and WHY they should choose your business.

Most people use the internet for research. If there is no information on your site, their researches will not include your site. Search engines rank sites based on content, and will rank a site high on the list if the content appears to be a best match to the search terms. Higher rankings are also acheived by increasing the depth of content on your site. The highest ranking is achieved by sites which actually try to educate the reader. The business which 'just wants to show a few pictures' should not waste their money.

Web design is not about appearance, but rather about function and placement. A plain site with lots of content will be more effective than a fancy site with nothing for the search engines to index.

Search engines, and users, like changing content. It your site is being actively expanded, indexing services will rate it as more pertinent than a site which has not changed in two years. Setting up an 'Ask the Expert' section, or an on-line forum where users can discuss various topics, is one of the easiest ways to introduce constant change. Incorporating a Web Log (BLOG) is another.

Finding ways to motivate your users to return frequently usually translates into better search engine positioning and more business generation.

A web site is not a magical formula, but rather a marketing tool. If you use your site effectively, it will help your business. If you ignore it, so will your customers.

If you feel you would like to discuss some web alternatives, please contact us. We will be more that happy to help.

2008.3 April - Disaster Recovery Planning and Business Continuity Strategies

At least once a month we have someone call us in a panic because their hard drive has failed and they are about to suffer a loss if they cannot recover their information!

Although we can help in most cases, data recovery is both expensive and uncertain. In each case we would rather have helped them to prevent disaster!

Is your Company prepared? If you lose your business information today, are you prepared to continue doing business tomorrow?

Disaster Recovery Planning is a 6 step process that will allow companies to be as prepared as possible for a Disaster. Whether it is a hard drive failure, natural disaster or man made disaster such as theft of computer equipment.

The K-IT.ca Inc. approach includes:

• Analysis of your business information use.
• Analysis of your information data and storage, with emphasis on availability.
• Plan for recovery or replacement of lost data.
• Plan for recovery of lost business function.
• Plan for business continuity during recovery period.
• Implemention and acid test of recovery strategies.
• Periodic review to accomodate business changes.

A disaster is both time consuming and costly. It means trying to recover your business information and continuing on with your day to day affairs. If your doors are closed, your competitors will be providing for your customers. Disaster planning and Business Continuity Planning are important. Today's customer wants service right away and are not willing to wait for you to get your problems under control. If your problems cause them problems, their solution will be to find some one else. Even if you provide a unique service, such as a community service, disaster can mean an interruption of essential services to those who cannot afford to lose your support.

Please contact K-it.ca today and one of our Consultants will meet with you to develop a plan which will meet your needs and fit your budget. Call us today, before disaster strikes!

2008.4 May - Recession Proof Computing

There is a strong, and very effective, push by software and hardware providers to have you upgrade your computers and programs to the very latest technology. The question you must ask is ‘Do the computers I am using do the job?’.

Upgrading your computers and software is an expensive process, and the benefits usually do not justify the cost. Work is delayed not only by the change of equipment, but by the learning curve that you and your employees require to become familiar with a new environment.

Yes, new computers are more powerful, but the single factor which limits their rate is usually the rate of input. People do not type faster on new machines. Raw computing power no longer makes much of a difference in business. If your machines appear to be slow, have them optimized. The most common reason for poor speed is unnecessary software taking up your resources. Optimization will usually result in a dramatic improvement in performance

The one benefit to upgrading is the reliability of new equipment; however this is only significant if you neglect equipment maintenance.

The number one cause of computer failure is dust. About once every three months (more often in a dusty location) you should use a hand vacuum to remove the dust from the inside of your computer cabinet. Never set a computer on the floor. Raising it a couple of inches will significantly reduce the dust pulled into the cabinet. Excessive dust acts as an insulator allowing components to overheat. Control the dust, and the components will likely last longer than you need them.

The other major cause of failure is poor power from your local utility. Brown outs and power surges are common even in urban areas today, and can literally blow sensitive components in your computer. Invest in a small Un-interruptible Power Supply (UPS) which will protect your computer from surges and brown-outs. It will also give you a chance to safely save your work and to shut the computer down properly if there is a power failure.

Protect your computing investment. Prevent loss with regular maintenance and monitoring. If you need more computing power, purchase additional used computers. Invest in maintenance. If your budget is fixed, develop redundancy to protect you from failures, and look very seriously at backing up and archiving your business information.

A wholesale upgrade to new equipment and software is usually not the best course of action, and in most cases is a waste of money. Computers have a realistic effective life span of 6 years or more. All things being equal, the software you have today will continue to work on those same computers as long as you continue to use them.

Contact K-it.ca Inc. and we can help you re-allocate your Information Technology spending. You can preserve your IT investment at a fraction of the cost of an upgrade. We offer cost-effective solutions for pro-active maintenance, remote monitoring, and recovery planning. Contact us today.

2008.5 June - Content Management

Content Management is the new catchword for websites. It refers to a website developed within the context of a web based application, and permits the user to add, edit and delete content on their own without having to call the developer to add or change a page. Several Content Management Systems (CMS's) are available, and each has its strengths. Our own site is based in the Drupal CMS.

If you wish to keep your clients up to date on what you are doing, or wish to involve your users, allowing them to post comments and suggestions, then you should look at using a CMS. The range of user-centered applications include forums, web logs (blogs), co-operative authoring (for user manuals), event announcements and enrollment, on-line schedules etc., all of which will exhibit rapid changes. However, if your site will remian fairly static, with few changes over time, it is better to have a more traditional format.

Using a CMS requires that you commit your time to working with the site, keeping it current and responding to users. It will also require a learning period to become familiar with the way it works. If your goal is to avoid having to spend the time, then you will have to delegate the task to a staff member, and the costs must be compared to the cost of using your developer to do the same thing.

Businesses which use the internet to stay in touch with their clients should consider a CMS, and use it to maintain communications with their existing, and potential, customers. Continually changing content will improve search engine placement, and will prompt people to visit your site again to find out what is new. Every CMS in common use today includes RSS (Really Simple Syndication) which will broadcast changes to your site to everyone who has subscribed to the Feed. Look for the RSS logo .

Content Management is the ideal way to keep contact with your customers if you are willing to devote the time to maintian the site. For an typical site, setting aside an hour a day is not unusual. Very active sites may require staffing.

If your business uses the internet to communicate with your customers, contact K-it.ca Inc. to discuss your requirements. We can help you define your requirements, and the costs involved, not only for development, but for the maintenance of a sustainable web presence.

2008.6 August - Business Security and Wireless Networks

The convenience of a wireless network for your business computers must be weighed against the potential damage to your business if it is compromised.

The recent media excitement over the theft of credit and debit card information from TJX Companies, BJ's Wholesale Club, Office Max, Boston Market, Barnes & Noble, Sports Authority, Forever 21 and DSW has brought wireless network security into sharp focus. Eleven individuals have been indicted, one facing life in prison. But, as perspectives clear, the retailers are being asked why their security was flawed, and part of the blame for the losses will come to rest on the firms as they are required to compensate their customers for their carelessness.

For more information, read http://idtheftblog.wordpress.com/2008/08/06/feds-crack-largest-us-identi....

The theft of 41 million cards was not difficult. The software necessary to find and join the networks is available to the public! Even weak encryption is easily broken using a laptop or a hand held computer (PDA). Once they are in the network, the thieves can install hacking software on the business computers, and sit next door to collect their information. If your business is responsible for personal information of any kind, network security is your responsibility, and being a victim yourself means little to your customers when they suffer a loss.

Wireless networks have become common in both retail and office environments. They allow rapid network reconfiguration, as well as mobility within the work space. Wires can be inconvenient if you wish to move a computer. However, hard wired networks are still the most secure. Most wireless networks are self-installed, and the individual, at best, may pick up a copy of "Wireless Networks for Dummies". The section on encryption might as well be encrypted. It was not written to provide understanding for the layperson, so it is bypassed, and everything seems to be working... Oh well!

Nine major US retailers have a combined liability in the hundreds of millions of dollars because they were careless.

Most who penetrate your wireless network will use it to surf the web and to check their email. (You pay for their bandwidth.) All it will take is one malicious penetration, and your business will be compromised. If you handle sensitive information, you must secure your network, either by using a hard wired system, or by using wireless technology with competent encryption.

If you are unsure of the security of your wireless network, then it is probably not secure. Proper security is nether complex nor expensive. Improper security can destroy your business. Contact K-it.ca Inc. for an assessment of your network security, and we will be happy to help.

2008.7 September - Password Control

Passwords are used to control user access to information and to prevent unauthorized use of resources. They are a necessary part of business today, and should be under careful control.

We are always surprised by the cavalier approach most businesses have toward passwords. Most passwords in use are dictionary words, easily remembered, and just as easily discovered by a third party if they know anything about the individual and their personal interests. We regularily have to block attempts to log into our servers using lists of popular passwords.

Passwords should not be taken lightly. Most software has the ability to reject weak passwords, and rules should be established. If you can, require that passwords be at least 8 characters with a mixture of upper and lower case, and at least one numeral.

In a business environment, no user should have the ability to change their own password for business critical functions. Assigning passwords to users means that access to business information is maintained even if the user is unavailable, and changing a password to control access if a user is terminated is easily done.

Passwords should be changed frequently if the information they protect is sensitive, and should be changed immediately if there is a chance that your systems have been compromised, either by an intruder or through the loss of a computer or a data storage device. Business today has a legal requirement to protect the personal information they maintain on their clients and employees, and failing to meet that obligation can have serious financial consequences.

We are also aware that many business owners have delegated critical operations to employees, who are using personal passwords with programs such as Simply Accounting. If the employee dies or quits, the owner does not have access to his own accounting information. What is normally a business difficulty can have disasterous consequences without proper control.

Password control is one of the Best Practices pivotal to maintaining proper information security. Contact K-it.ca Inc. for an assessment of your security requirements.

2009.1 January - Global Distributed Denial of Service Attack Causing Major Problems with Internet

As a hosting provider, K-IT.ca Inc. has been experiencing slowed web page connections since the middle of January 2009, and the problems seemed to be escalating. When Bell Canada's services were disrupted by a power failure on January 27, we moved our sites to a backup location until the service could be restored. We found, to our disappointment, that the page requests being made to the backup servers were being responded to almost instantly by the web servers, but the name resolution for the web pages was showing a delay of up to 2 minutes before the request reached the web servers. When we looked at our name servers, we discovered that we were being victimized by a DDOS attack.

We restored our primary servers the following day, and the DDOS attack increased in intensity, to the point that our servers became inaccessible by Friday evening. We have now restored service and have taken measures to block this DDOS.

This DDOS is insidious, and attacks the infrastructure of the internet. Nameservers form the backbone for all internet servers, be they email, ftp, web servers etc. Without nameservers to look up the address of the resource you are requesting, nothing will work! When you configure your account with your Internet Service Provider, one of the first things you do, either manually, or automatically if you use an installation disk, is to tell your computer what nameservers the ISP provides for your use. Every request you make for a web page, or to send email, first goes through these nameservers.

How Nameservers Work

When you request a web page (eg http://k-it.ca/content/newsletters) through your browser, that request must be routed over the internet to the correct IP address. Your browser first sends the domain (k-it.ca) to the name server. The name server then makes a request to one of the ROOT nameservers around the world (there are many!) for the IP of the name server responsible for the .ca top level domain. In this case they will be directed to the nameservers at the Canadian Internet Registration Agency. The ISP nameserver then asks the .ca authority for the IP of the nameserver responsible for the k-it.ca domain, and CIRA will direct the ISP to our nameservers. Your ISP will then query our nameserver for the IP of the web server, and that IP is returned to your browser. Your browser then sends the full page request directly to the web server, and the web server returns the page directly to your browser.

The strength of the global nameserver network is that the nameservers are free to talk to each other, and requests can be distributed to even out the load. All this talking back and forth happens very quickly, and the majority of the delay in web page service is typically due to data volume from the web server.

How this DDOS is Disrupting Service

When a nameserver is set up, it is provided with a list of ROOT nameservers, and its program will occasionally update this list. The list is massive, but stable, and does not have to be updated often. If a nameserver loses its list of ROOT servers, it can request the list from another nameserver, which triggers both nameservers to update their list. The one receiving the request will use its own list to request a fresh list, and it will then send the fresh list to the server which made the original request. This very polite system has kept the nameserver network functional for a long time. These requests are usually only made on nameserver startup.

Another polite feature of the nameserver network is the fact that a nameserver under load can ask another nameserver to do the lookup, and the results can then be returned to the client machine by the overloaded server more quickly.

This DDOS attack is sending requests out to nameservers, requesting them to retrieve ROOT server lists from other nameservers, and exploits both the above polite features. The latency on a single ROOT server request can be as long as five seconds, and when your nameservers are receiving over forty requests a minute, it is understandable that legitimate requests are being delayed, and even dropped, by the nameservers. They are brought to their knees by the attack.

What K-IT.ca Has Done

The short term solution is to block the offending nameservers at the firewall, but this breaks the way the internet is supposed to work. If one of these nameservers receives a request for one of our hosted domains, or if we receive a request for one of theirs, the nameservers must be able to communicate with each other.

The ROOT server requests, if legitimate, should also be responded to, and so we cannot simply block that type of request.

The solution we have implemented allows a remote nameserver to make a ROOT server request, but we log the request. If another such request comes from the same source within 3 days, the server is blacklisted for three days. This way we hope to maintain the network, with only minor interruptions of communications.

If your nameserver logs are showing multiple repeated requests for   query: . IN NS + ,   and you are interested in our corrective measures, contact K-it.ca Inc. and we will be pleased to help.

2009.2 May - Viral Marketing Isn't!

The term Viral Marketing has given the internet a bad name in the eyes of the public. They look with suspicion on any product or service which is promoted through websites or by email. In many cases justifiably so.

The marketing is not viral. It is the grass roots response to a product or service that exhibits the viral characteristics. We have seen it happen many times before the internet was even a dream. Take, for example, the Pet Rock, Hula Hoop, Cabbage Patch Kid ... Everyone had to have one! The public response to something inanely simple was completely out of balance with the marketing effort applied to it. Many crazes have been driven by technological advances. A stellar example of this is the invention of pantyhose in the late 1960's which made garters and stockings unnecessary, and made the mini-skirt craze possible!

All the internet has done is to improve the distribution of information. People are able to communicate more efficiently, and with a wider audience than ever before. The sudden successes of Hotmail and Gmail happened suddenly because of the ease of communication. They happened because they had a desirable product. We have lost sight of that.

If you have something that nobody wants, no amount of marketing, viral or otherwise, will save you. If you do have a desirable product or service, marketing is necessary to inform your potential customers, or nobody knows about it and nothing will save you. If your marketing is successful, and you establish a client base, you must deliver the value to the clients that your marketing promised, or nothing will save you. So we have the first three rules:

1. Create a product or service that you can differentiate from what is already available, and which will have value to your potential client.
2. Inform the potential marketplace about your product or service, and why they should obtain it from you.
3. Make sure that your clients are satisfied, and encourage them to spread the word.

If you are successful with these three steps, and your product or service has wide appeal, then the response in the marketplace will likely grow. If you encourage rapid communication, then the response might be considered 'viral'. But the very first thing you have to do is the same as everyone has had to do in business for all time. Create value, and deliver it at a fair price, then be prepared to meet any demand that may arise from the response.

Too often we hear of people saying that they tried to advertise something, and the advertising didn't work. Today we are hearing the same thing about viral marketing. Let's get real here! Either the product was already widely available, there was nothing to offer to the market, or the advertising did not inform the correct people. Or worse, the demand exceeded the ability to supply, and potential clients were disappointed.

If we have something to sell, we should not get caught up in technique and lose sight of the basic principles. Once our product or service is established, and we know our demographics, then informing our market about it is necessary. Choosing the right medium is crucial, but the public is not stupid. If we start to apply so-called viral marketing techniques, and they perceive that we are more interested in method than integrity, the efforts will fail.

We need to get back to basics, and to let the public determine its own crazes. And yes, feel free to use this article on your site!

2010.1 November - Oh My God! Can You Recover My ....?

This is the most disheartening type of call we get, because in most cases the answer is No.

With increases in the storage capacity of the devices used today, losses of data are becoming tragic. And the real tragedy is that this sort of disaster is completely preventable.

You should ask yourself:

What happens if I lose my hard drive or my computer?

Most people operate with a single machine, and keep all their information on the hard drive. Hard drives fail, and computers get stolen. Are you willing to lose everything if this happens to you?

Can I use an external back-up drive?

Most external backup drives today have capacities which far exceed the capacity of your computer's hard drive. Many have fallen into the habit of keeping their information on the backup drive to free space on their computer. If all of your music, videos, photos, games, etc are on your external drive, where is your backup?

Is the data on my USB Memory Stick (SD card, Compact Flash Card) secure?

No. This type of memory degrades over time, particularly if the information is erased and written over many times.

Are you safe from disaster? You should follow one simple rule: No matter what, I have another copy of everything.

To protect yourself, develop a plan to maintain multiple copies of all of your information. A single backup copy is not sufficient, because if you lose your original, you now only have one copy.

For complete protection, follow these simple rules:

1. Keep everything you are currently working on on the hard drive of your computer. If you wish to make copies on a thumb drive, do so, but the original should be on the hard drive.
2. Copy your hard drive to an external hard drive daily. Start the copy as you leave the office for work, or when you go to bed for the night at home. You will need two external hard drives.
3. Once a week, you take the external drive you have been using to another physical location, where you have been keeping the second drive. Bring the other drive back, and use it for the next week. This way you retain a remote backup which is never more than one week out of date.

Should disaster strike, protect your backups until you have restored your computer. If one of your backup drives fails, replace it immediately. Yes there are more stringent and complex methods to prevent disaster, but these steps should protect most people from tragedy.