SMB Nation 2012 Fall Conference – October 12th to14th

The SMB Nation 2012 Fall Conference is scheduled for October 12th â€" 14th in Las Vegas, NV.  This is the 10th year that Small and Medium business IT professionals from across the US and around the world will be coming together for this annual event.

 

During the three day event attendee's have access to:

  • More than 30 education sessions, with nationally recognized speakers, trainers and industry experts, who discuss timely topics and critical issues of technology
  • Industry sponsors at the exhibit hall who present the latest innovations for the industry
  • Unlimited networking and referral-building opportunities, including special events and the expo show floor

The dynamic agenda includes Keynote sessions and three tracks of breakout sessions; Geek Speak Track, Business Track and Community Track.  Each track is designed specifically to cover topics within the category, making it easier for attendee's to ensure they get to the sessions most important to them.  Some of the topics at this years conference include:

  • The Future of Successful Channel Parnerships
  • Windows '8′ Expert Panel
  • Beyond SBS: The future of Skill Based IT Pro Consulting
  • Fast-Fast Marketing for MSP's
  • Sales Training 105: Getting a Commitment
  • Why Innovation is Key for the Future
  • How to Effectively Package Backup with Your Service Offerings
  • and so much more!!!

Registration for the conference is now open and you'll want to hurry, because the early bird registration discount of $200.00 expires on September 14th.

For more information and a complete view of the conference features and agenda, click here.

We hope to see you there!



Eisenhower.me Puts New Spin on Productivity Apps

There are plenty of productivity apps out there to help people get more done. But at times, users can find that these apps mainly just help them organize and grow their to-do list, rather than cross things off.  Now a new app from Eisenhower.me aims to put a new spin on the old concept, to actually help users complete important tasks and set reasonable deadlines for the rest.

Using the Eisenhower Matrix time management principle, Eisenhower.me allows users to create new tasks and separate them by deadline and importance. If you're unfamiliar with this method, users evaluate tasks based on whether they're important or unimportant and urgent or not urgent, and then put tasks into different quadrants accordingly.

So for example, an important project that's due today would be put into the important/urgent quadrant, but an equally important project that is due the next week would go in the important/not urgent quadrant. Busy work and time wasters would go in the not important/not urgent quadrant, and thus would be either delegated or just crossed off the list altogether.

Using the Eisenhower.me app, users can actually set a timer to accomplish those important/urgent tasks and set deadlines for the important tasks that are not quite as urgent. It also allows them to assign tasks to others when the task isn't important or quite as urgent as other things on the to-do list.

For businesses that need help prioritizing, staying on task, and even delegating, this type of app is supposed to help you actually manage and keep your to-do list in order, rather than just watch it grow. Though it's not created specifically for businesses â€" owners, managers, and other professionals could definitely benefit from such an app.

The Web app is free and has been available for use for some time.  But the new iPhone app is designed to work in essentially the same way, and can even be synched with the Web app so that all your tasks match up. The mobile app costs $1.99 in the App Store.




Four Apps That Can Help You Make An Impact With Your Social Media Postings

Who has time to deal with social media posting and applications? We all know that social media is a gateway to tons of potential customers, and can be a gigantic spotlight that can cut through a pitch dark world of unawareness, bringing attention and fame. The only issue is figuring out how to make that spotlight turn the way you want it to.

But like I said…who has time? It's not just about updating posts on a business Facebook page or coming up with some original tweet that might garner customer interest. Anyone can do that and most of them unfortunately do; after all, when was the last time you read something pertinent to your needs or interests in any of those mediums? So, it's not just about taking time to post, it's more about coming up with the content in the first place. If you don't have time to post, how do you have time to research? Running around the Internet looking for pertinent news and topics to your business and your customers is like running through a sprinkler as a kid â€" you might occasionally get lucky with a cool spot, but most of the time you'll probably be miserable, aching for that next cool spot.

Since it is the Internet, there are certainly enough tools out there to help a small business along, but deciding on one might be difficult. I've found a few that you might want to take a look at, including a convenient one called ChatterJet.

With ChatterJet, your business gets an e-mail every morning that is stocked with four things â€" ‘Conversation Starters,' ‘Online Marketing Ideas,' ‘Industry Headlines,' and ‘Customer Leads.' The “so what” part is that each of these has a hyperlink that lets you immediately customize and post what you see. ChatterJet does all the research and delivers the content right to you, for $29 a month.

There are many similar tools on the market and I couldn't possibly cover them all in one article, but here are a few that stand out:

  • Crowdbooster garners information from Facebook and Twitter and then posts recommendations for action, including what customers of your brand type are talking about and whom you should consider communicating with.
  • Raven Tools is best used by small businesses with marketing campaigns in the works, but also provides search engine optimization (SEO) tools to help improve your site's visibility, starting at $99 a month.
  • Argyle Social is one of the higher-end social media monitoring tools at $300 a month for one user, but offers the interesting ability to “measure your social ROI” http://argylesocial.com/what-is-argyle/features/social-media-conversion-tracking-measure-roi (return on investment) to see exactly how social media affects your profits.

So, with these great tools, and many others that are out there, you can now ramp up your social media and create content that is going to go straight to the eyes of your target market.



Apple unveils new iPhone 5

Apple Inc. has unveiled the iPhone 5, saying it's thinner and lighter than the previous model, even though it has a bigger screen.

The new phone hits stores in the US and several other countries Sept. 21, but there's no release date set for New Zealand yet.

Apple marketing head Phil Schiller unveiled the year's most eagerly awaited phone at an Apple event in San Francisco.

The release is expected to help Apple recapture attention and revenue after it lost the lead in smartphones to Samsung this year.

Apple shares were up $4.42, or 0.7 per cent, to $665.01 in afternoon trading.

The first launch countries are Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and the UK. A week later, the phone will be available in 22 more countries, including Italy, Poland and Spain. Prices for overseas locations were not announced.

As expected, the iPhone 5 screen is taller than on the iPhone 4S, making room for another row of icons.

Schiller said the screen is 18 per cent thinner and 20 per cent lighter because of new technology that eliminates a separate touch-sensing layer in the screen. The new phone is made entirely of glass and aluminium.

The iPhone 5 will also come with the capability to connect to the fastest new wireless data networks, both in the US and overseas. That's another feature that was widely expected.

Sales of Apple's iPhones are still strong. Samsung Electronics Co. benefited from having its Galaxy S III out in the US in June, while Apple was still selling an iPhone model it released last October.

Amid expectations of a new iPhone, Amazon, Nokia and Motorola all tried to generate interest in their products last week, hoping that a head start on the buzz will translate into stronger sales.

Makers of consumer electronics also are refreshing their products for the holiday shopping season.

One big change: The new iPhone is getting a new connector to attach to computers and chargers. It had been using the same one from the iPod. Schiller said the old connector has "served us well for nearly a decade, but so much has changed."

That means the new iPhone won't be compatible with old accessories, though Schiller said accessory makers are already working to update their products. Apple will sell an adapter to work with older accessories.

Also as expected, Apple is releasing a new version of its phone software, iOS 6. It will have a new mapping software, as Apple ditches the one from Google it had been using. The new software will have turn-by-turn voice navagation a feature Google had limited to Android versions of its mapping app.

Apple said the phone's virtual assistant, Siri, will be giving the directions.

-AP



Why Most Small Businesses Still Aren\'t Ready to Hire

Although MarketWatch is theorizing a hiring boom may soon be in the offing, small businesses are likely to stay on the sidelines-at least, according to Office Depot's latest SMB National Tracking Survey. The monthly poll of small business sentiment finds 80 percent of small business owners have no plans to hire in the next six months-a figure that has stayed pretty consistent throughout the year.

help wanted not

Just 12 percent of the small businesses surveyed plan to hire in that time period, while 8 percent plan to let staff go. Again, both numbers have remained fairly consistent throughout the year (in this survey; other surveys have indicated nearly opposite findings).

However, the ho-hum hiring news is not all bad. For one thing, of the companies that are hiring, 50 percent say it's because business is improving, and 47 percent say it's because they're understaffed.  In other words, some small businesses are seeing growth that's significant enough to prompt hiring.

On the other side of the coin, the companies not hiring mostly say they already have sufficient staff in place (58 percent). “Economic uncertainty” was cited by a far smaller number (30 percent), and just 18 percent of those not hiring say it's because their businesses were in decline.

Overall, small business owners' top concerns are “making more money” and “saving money.” Not hiring is one way they're cutting costs; 65 percent of those surveyed cite “hiring less” as a money-saving strategy. By comparison, just 10 percent say staffing is a top concern right now.

But there's a bit of a disconnect here. The number one priority small business owners are planning for in the next 12 months is “business expansion”-and to expand, you're likely to need staff, right? Yet, at the same time they're planning to grow, just 10 percent say they're planning ahead for staffing.

I recently discussed the difficulty businesses are having finding qualified hires-so if you're planning to expand, the wait-till-the-last-minute approach to hiring may not be the smartest.

Clearly, small businesses remain in wait-and-see mode. Asked whether they think their businesses will be in better shape at the end of 2012 than at the beginning of the year, about the same number say it “will be better” as “it will be about the same,” while relatively few expect it to get worse.

Despite that seeming confidence, there's widespread worry about a double-dip recession, with the majority of small business owners either “very worried” or at least “slightly worried” about the possibility.

Will the upcoming presidential election make a difference in small businesses' hiring plans? All we can do is wait and see.

No Help Wanted Photo via Shutterstock




Podcast: Technology Is Always Changing And Small Businesses Should Take Advantage

Our very own Ramon Ray, editor of Smallbiztechnology.com,  recently sat with Travis Campbell of Marketing Professor in a hotel lobby in Phoenix to talk about Technology and what he see's as some of the exciting changes that are coming and what every small business should consider when buying technology.

This podcast is a GREAT example of how using very simple and easy (and sometimes free!!) apps can help you to amplify your business by creating great content for your audience.

Technology gives small businesses the power to compete and have themselves seen and heard.  No longer does it take large marketing budgets to make that happen.  The tools and opportunities are all around…you just need to search them out!



5 Things to Avoid When Using Stock Photography

As a blogger, I love stock photography. I mean, I really love it. It's become a staple in my diet as a publisher because it allows me to quickly convey a message, catch a reader's eye, and to easily (and cost effectively!) add more life to my site and/or content. As a small business owner, you probably love the wide assortment of generic image sites too, and I get it. However, as with most things, there are ways to do stock photography well as a SMB, and there are ways to do it not so well.

Below are 5 things to avoid when using stock photography on your small business Web site.

1. Selecting boring, lifeless images

How many times have you landed on a Web site and instantly recognized the stock photo model you were looking at? She probably had her head resting ever-so-gently on her hand as she stares off in the distance? Or maybe she was wearing both a big smile and a phone headset? Or maybe it was that generic handshake we've all seen to many times?

Point is, we've seen it already.

Just because you're using stock photography doesn't mean the photos you choose have to be boring. Spend time hunting through a site's photo inventory to find images that will convey the right message and attract your target audience. This may mean dedicating more time to image selection or even spending more money for better images, but it's an investment into the quality of your site. And a worthy one at that! Pictures that command attention will ensure that your message isn't ignored and that users notice them. With the high number of quality photo sites out there, there is no excuse for boring photography.

2. Using visually pretty, but completely unrelated, images

We've all been there â€" searching through the photo gallery only to find a photo that makes us break out into giggles or something we think looks really, really cool. The only problem is, it has absolutely nothing to do with the content we're pairing it with. Hmm, what do you do?

Do yourself a favor and grab another photo.

Get more from your stock photography by selecting images that relate to your content and which will provide strong visual connections to the message that you're trying to deliver. That's when stock photography works the best â€" when the paired text and image compliment one another. Talking about your client successes and pairing it with scowling faces isn't going to be effective. Nor will using a photo of blue skies and rainbows on your About Us page. There's no connection between the image and the text and, as a result, it makes the message harder for a reader to understand or may devalue the larger message.

Even if you love the photo â€" it doesn't match what you're trying to say, don't use it.

3. Choosing models over your own staff

Your staff may not be made up of supermodels (whose is?), but I bet they're all unique, qualified people who your business would be lost without. And even if you don't have a state-of-the-art office, it's probably an environment that you love and that enables you to serve your customers in great ways, right?

So show it off!

When possible, avoid using stock photography on things like your About Us page, your Contact Us page, or any other time when your own pictures would actually do a much better job telling the story. We talk a lot about how important it is that SMBs use their sites to create trust, and showing off your staff or your office space is a great way to do that because it brings people in and lets them know what they'd “see” if they were talking to you in person. Save your stock images for articles, emails newsletters or billboards on the side of the road. When you're talking about things that are unique and personal to you â€" use your own photos. These are often the tie-breakers we use between one company and another.

4. Sharing images with your competitors

Before you place an image on your Web site or use it in a direct mailing, do some due diligence to make sure it's not currently appearing on your competitor's Web site. You might laugh, but you'd be surprised at how often this actually happens when companies offering the same services perform the same searches on the same photo sites. Before you know it, the same models are appearing on both of your sites! You don't have to scour every site on the Web, but do give a glance to the sites you consider yourself most competing with.

5. Using the wrong size photo for your needs

Most sites will provide you with several resolution options for the images that they offer with varying prices. Pick the resolution that is right for your needs, even if that's not necessarily the cheapest option. If you can't find the photo you want in the correct resolution, find another image.

I've seen many SMBs think they can save a few bucks by purchasing low resolution images and then simply “stretch” them to make the image work. Doing so will not only sacrifice the quality of the image (making it pixelated and unattractive), it will also sacrifice the integrity of your brand if it's appearing on your Web site. This is one reason why it's important to know where your images are going to go (on your blog, on your site, in a presentation, on a poster, etc) and have a plan beforehand so that you can make sure you purchase the right size image from the very start. There's nothing worth than selecting an image, only to discover later it doesn't work for your needs.

Stock photography can be incredibly helpful to a small business owner or consultant, adding quick interest on a shoestring budget. However, it's important that small business owners think carefully about how they're using images to make sure they're getting the most from them.


Image credit: basel101658 / 123RF Stock Photo




3 Things You Can Recycle But Probably Don\'t

If you haven't noticed, just about anything can be recycled these days. Think about what items land in your trash can (and then the landfill, of course) and whether you can find an eco-friendlier home for them. Chances are you can - as long as you know where to turn.

recycle phones

Here are three commonly tossed items and how to give them a new life:

Foam Peanuts

Foam peanuts and other plastic-based packaging and shipping materials often get tossed, because they're not generally recycled curbside.  If you can't reuse them yourself, many pack-and-ship stores accept and reuse used packaging materials.

Not sure if there are any such stores in your area? The Plastic Loose Fill Council has a “Peanut Hotline” (800- 828-2214) that you can call to find foam peanut drop-off sites in your area. (You can also use its online search form.) You may be able to find a home for other types of plastics using the search form on PlasticMarkets.org.

Office Supplies

Used paper clips, folders and other common office supplies often get tossed in the trash with little thought. But many of these items can be used multiple times, if someone takes the initiative to save them.

If you have employees, set up a spot where employees can leave extra used supplies and encourage other employees to check that spot first before picking up new ones. Once you do need to throw out worn or unusable supplies, most of them can be recycled.

Personal Gadgets

Manufacturers of popular smartphones will often take back your old gadgets for free and make sure they're responsibly recycled. (Apple, for instance, will recycle used iPhones and other Apple products .)

But other companies, such as Gazelle and NextWorth, will even give you money for old smartphones, digital cameras and other devices and pay you for them. Have a mass quantities of old gadgets to toss (30 or more)? Project Kopeg will recycle them all and cut you a check. (Keep in mind that some nonprofits will also take old gadgets and give them away for a good cause. You might then be eligible for a tax deduction.)

If you have a miscellaneous array of things to get rid of and can't find a good home, check out Freecycle.org. This site helps match you up with people in your community looking for something you no longer want. (Also don't forget about Craigslist.)

Of course, before you give away or recycle any old technological device, make sure to thoroughly clean the hard drive. You don't want your personal or sensitive business information getting into the wrong hands.

Recycle Photo via Shutterstock




Brad Geddes On Paid Search, Analytics and Affiliate Marketing #AMDays

Welcome to this interview of Brad Geddes, one of the world's leading paid search experts, Founder of Certified Knowledge, and author of “Advanced Google AdWords.” At Affiliate Management Days East 2012, Brad's keynote speech will focus on: Building a Brand When No One Cares Who You Are.

* * * * *

Brad GeddesQuestion: What are the major challenges you see your paid search clients struggling with these days?

Brad: One of the major challenges these days is legacy structure and decisions. These two items often hamper their ability to take advantage of new paid search opportunities.

Many companies did a great job of setting up and managing PPC five to ten years ago. However, accounts continue to grow as new products and promotions within a company occur, or new paid features are released.  Many companies used a path of least resistance with these changes to their account.  As a result,  their accounts have grown unwieldy to easily manage or gain insight into the overall changes to their profitability.

Taking a step back and looking at the big picture can help you get a better direction in how the account, or even the paid search teams, should be structured and can help save a lot of time and gain new efficiencies.

The other area where we see a lot of people struggling, and others absolutely succeeding, is with Google's display network. There is so much inventory, so many options, and a lot of bad advice about display that we often see huge gains in accounts on display once an actual plan is put into place.

Question: What are the most frequently overlooked opportunities?

Brad: Display is definitely the most overlooked opportunity. Many companies struggle with it and abandon it.  They aren't taking advantage of what is there.

The other is segmentation of the ad serving. Each company's segmentation will be different.  But if they were to examine their data by device (mobile, tablet, desktop), geography (metros, states), and date information (hour of day, day of week, etc.), often there are new ways to increase the targeting effectiveness.

Another mistake and overlooked opportunity is sitting in someone's abandoned analytics account. Often, PPC managers just look at conversion stats in the search engine or their internal systems and don't examine the analytics. Analytics can give you so much insight about traffic, regardless of the source, that most companies have information sitting in front of them that they could analyze to make better decisions.

The last one is having a good testing methodology. Many companies know they should test, and many do.  But having a system for testing and analyzing the results at scale can increase how much impact the testing really has on the account.

Question: When it comes to affiliate marketing through PPC, I've found averages to be most dangerously misleading (as for example EPC). Can you give us 5 other metrics that shouldn't be taken at face value (and why)?

Brad: I think the worst offender is average position. I see companies bidding to a position when they are measuring the data on revenue per click. You should always use metrics that are in line with your end goals. Average position and cost per click are more or less linear and if you bid more than you are making per click just to keep a high position then you will end up going out of business.

Another metric that is often overanalyzed is Quality Score. While Quality Score is very important, it should not take precedence over revenue. Having a 10 Quality Score just means Google likes you, it doesn't mean you are making money. Once you test, you will often see that having a 5-7 Quality Score can be more profitable than a 10.

Conversion rates are often given too much weight.  Especially on display or with ad testing. With display, the costs per clicks can vary so widely that you are better using a CPA bid model.

While conversion rates are extremely important, you should use a PPI (profit per impression) or CPI (conversion per impression) testing method for search ads and not just straight conversion rate. If your conversion rate is exceptionally high, but no one clicks on an ad, then the scenario can lead to less profits than if you have a lower conversion rate ad but one with a higher click through rate. That's where measuring from the impression gives you better insight into your ad tests.

Bounce rates is a metric that is useful.  But you need to be careful with it. A bounce in Google Analytics is just a one page visit. If someone gets to your site and calls you, clicks on your PayPal buy button, or clicks on a merchant's link and leaves your site from page one â€" these are all bounces. They are good bounces, but they are bounces.

Bounce rates is a great metric if you have made sure that the above situations aren't recorded as a bounce â€" but few companies have configured analytics to measure good one page visit scenarios.

The last metric that I think a lot of people struggle to give weight to is view through conversions as it can lead to a lot of false information. Many systems do not dedupe view through conversions. Therefore, you might have 3000 view throughs but only 10 sales. If the data is deduped and used correlationally, then it can be very useful. When used in isolation as a bid metric, it can lead to a lot of bad bids.

Question: If a merchant is running their own paid search and also has an affiliate program, what advice would you give them to ensure that the latter doesn't cannibalize but compliment the other?

Brad: That really depends on how sophisticated the merchant is at paid search. Personally, if the merchant is good at paid search, then I have a tendency to be more restrictive in how they handle affiliates than if the merchant is not very good at paid search.  If the affiliates are better than the merchant, then give your affiliates a bit more room.

Sometimes, this isn't the merchant's paid search teams fault â€" it's a legal one. Some merchants have all their offers go through legal before they ever go live.  In this case, your affiliates can be more flexible than you can be, so leverage that flexibility. The other aspect is how much the merchant wants to dominate results versus have the best ROI.

For instance, I see a lot of companies letting affiliates bid on lots of terms, but the merchants will either restrict the ad position or the max CPC so that their ads are always above their affiliates to help promote their own brand. I know one company who, every Monday, gives bids to their top affiliates based upon the previous week's conversion rates and EPC. If a merchant is good at paid search, then making sure your ad appears in the top positions is a good idea and lets your affiliates have the rest of the traffic.

In fact, I find that a lot of merchants do not want affiliates to bid on any brand terms. I think this is a mistake in many cases. The more ads that lead to your site or your affiliate's sites, the more total traffic you will have. I'd recommend, instead of not allowing affiliates to bid on your brand terms, to just make sure they are not above your ad for brand terms. This allows you to make sure you really dominate the ads.

The one exception to this rule is if your brand terms have no other ads on them. In this case, you are the only ad and the top organic (hopefully) result. Therefore, you might want to restrict affiliates in that case.  Of course, to do this well, you often have to help with landing pages so they are unique for the affiliates.

I find that some merchants will give their affiliates template landing pages so that the affiliate can bid on a term and send it to their site to get around Google's ad serving policies. However, if these templates become very common, then sometimes Google steps in and groups all the affiliates together so that only one can ever serve the second ad.

You are better off giving affiliates help, ideas, and advice in how to make their pages unique from your other affiliates so that these pages have different experiences and Google doesn't lump your affiliates together rather than just giving them templates. This is obviously more work, but when you do this, your affiliates bring in more sales through having different messages on the various sites.

Question: Finally, give us one good reason why etailers and affiliate managers should attend your closing keynote session at the upcoming Affiliate Management Days East 2012.

Brad: Building a brand is difficult. Consumers have so many options.  For most brands online, standing out and building brand loyalty or even a social following can be extremely difficult.

However, when you have a semi-recognizable brand (it does not have to be a top brand), then your click through rates for both organic and paid go up, usually your conversion rates increase as well, and you receive more traffic from a larger variety of sources. This is how you build a sustainable and growing business â€" by not just being good at paid search or organic or social â€" but by building a brand through these channels.

I'm going to talk about a company that no one cares about (consumers care about their products and services â€" but not them) who still managed to build a brand that has had positive impacts on all of their marketing channels.

* * * * *

Affiliate Management Days takes place October 9-10, 2012. More information about Affiliate Management Days being held in Ft Lauderdale, can be found here. Or follow the hashtag #AMDays on Twitter. Register using code SBTAM150 to receive $150.00 off your pass.

Be sure to check out the rest of the interview series from #AMDays.




3 Reasons You May Want To Keep Your Backup Out Of The Cloud

The runaway train of cloud adoption seems to be here to stay as businesses are moving entire parts of their infrastructures off-premise. While there's nothing disturbing about moving everything online, there might be some things best kept offline.

There's an ongoing debate about whether you should really back stuff up on the cloud or put them into concrete on-premise backups. While some might err on the side of the cloud, there's no “all-around” argument that supports the need to move onto the cloud in all situations. Here are some situations in which you might want to keep backing up your systems on-site:

  • If you have a lot to back up, such as entire system hierarchies and volumes containing terabytes of data, you'd probably be making a foolish move by relying on the cloud. The process of backing up online isn't problematic. The problem exists when you recover these files. Slower network speeds might cause backups to come back a day or more. It's just not productive at all.
  • On-premise backups are right there next to you and testable on the spot. If you need a rigorous backup solution you're sure no one can tap into, you're set with a few extra hard drives to store all that data.
  • If you run heavy-duty servers, on-premise backups make virtualization very plausible, ensuring that data disasters remain very short-lived and your customers remain minimally affected.

Don't get me wrong. Cloud backup is also very essential for business operations that don't have huge data backup requirements and/or don't need to restore data so quickly. Examples of such data are spreadsheets, contracts, pictures, video, and any sort of data of this nature that doesn't need to come back immediately in order for your business to continue running. A sustainable business will always have duplicates of its most important data on-site. To put it into perspective, think of it this way: Any data that your business utilizes for its own continuity within the hour shouldn't be stored in the cloud if it takes more than an hour to download.



Five Tips for Managing Mobile Devices on your Small Business\'s Network

As the business world shifts increasingly toward mobile devices for employees, small businesses are faced with a new challenged. With little to no I.T. support at many small businesses, owners are often left to either contract support out or try to do it themselves.

But supporting mobile devices requires more than simply showing users how to do various functions. With devices that will be largely outside of the office, the security risk increases dramatically. AT&T recognized the need for increased technical support options for small business and is meeting the need with its new suite of Mobile Device Management services.

” Coming at a time when at least four in 10 employees use smartphones to work away from the office, it is more important than ever for small businesses to have a flexible, cloud-based solution to manage their devices,” AT&T states.  “AT&T Mobile Device Management solutions are now available to small businesses with as few as 20 employees.”

Features included in AT&T's services include lost device detection, remote setting configuration, and app distribution capabilities that enable business owners to push work apps to all their employees. This service can take the guessing game out of managing mobile devices.

For small businesses who choose to go it alone, here are five tips to help keep your corporate network secure.

  • Establish clear written policies and provide to all employees. These policies will not only encourage your workers to practice responsible device use but will also help safeguard you from liability if one of your employees does something damaging. These policies should stress that work devices are to be used for work purposes only and no personal apps or files should be placed on the device. You may also want to outline a policy for personal phone calls, texts, and e-mails sent through the device. Require employees to sign off on these policies before issuing a device.
  • Keep a detailed inventory of all devices. Once they leave your sight, you won't be able to easily get to them for information like serial numbers, model numbers, and SIM card IDs. Keep a spreadsheet that logs each device and the assigned employee. If a device is lost or needs to be managed on your network, you'll always be able to determine which device is which using that spreadsheet.
  • Set up lockscreens on all devices. If possible, take away the user's ability to remove this feature. Employees should be trained on the importance of using complex passwords for all mobile devices that access your servers.
  • Specify a disposal policy. When a device reaches the end of its life, it's important to ensure all data is safely wiped before sending it off to be recycled or resold. Microsoft Exchange offers a service that allows a device to be wiped remotely, which can be handy if a terminated employee doesn't return the device. This can also help if the device is ever stolen or lost. Instructions on performing this remote wipe are available here. e-Cycle also provides a wiping service.
  • Install encryption and antivirus software. Yes, these capabilities are available for smartphones and tablets. With an increasing number of malware attacks being directed toward mobile devices, it's more important than ever that every device on your network be fully protected.

Mobile devices will likely eventually comprise the bulk of your business's devices, if they don't already. Now is the time to start learning to give smartphones and tablets the same precautions you've given your PCs and laptops over the years.



The Small Business Technology Tour 2012 – Let The Tour Begin!

The 3rd Annual Small Business Technology Tour, produced by Smallbiztechnology.com, gets underway next week!  We are so excited to start the tour on September 19th in San Francisco.

The Tour will be a full day event packed with lots of great information for your small business from our expert speakers, networking opportunities and, of course, FUN!! Some of the topics we'll cover include:

  • Making Your Office Productive Using Technology
  • Using Technology To Cut Costs and Boost Profits
  • 7 Steps: Dating Your Leads. Marrying Your Customers

In addition to San Francisco, we will be visiting 7 other cities (that's right…we are coming to 8 cities this year!) including:

One lucky attendee in each city will walk away with a brand new ultra-book notebook computer!

Thanks to our great sponsor, Intel, use code RamonVIP50 to get 50% off your Tour tickets! You can register at any city by clicking the city name above.

Visit the tour website to see the full list of speakers and agenda for each city.

We hope to see you on the tour!!



Microsoft releases two \'important\' patches for XSS vulnerabilities

Microsoft released two bulletins rated as ‘important' on its Patch Tuesday for September yesterday.

As revealed by SC Magazine last week, these address two unique vulnerabilities. Microsoft said that it believed neither of the issues are being actively exploited in the wild and neither bulletin requires customers to restart their machines.

Jason Miller, manager of research and development at VMware, said that both Microsoft security bulletins apply to specific and possible rare software on administrators networks.

He said: “MS12-061 affects Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 SP1 and MS12-062 affects Systems Management Server 2003/2007. Both bulletins are rated as important and fix one privately reported cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability that could lead to elevation of privilege.

“As for priority this month on which bulletin to apply, administrators should assess their servers and prioritise accordingly to their software setup.”

Looking at the patches, Ziv Mador, director of security research at Trustwave SpiderLabs, said that MS12-061 fixes an XSS vulnerability that could allow an attacker to inject a client-side script into a web browser that is using Team Foundation Server web access.

“Basically that would allow the bad guy increased privileges if a user clicks a specially crafted link in an email or on a website. Once the script is installed the bad guy could then spoof content, steal information or do anything that the original user could do,” he said.

Looking at MS12-062, Mador said that the XSS vulnerability can be exploited by tricking a user into visiting a specially crafted URL.

Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle, said: “It's surprising there are only two bulletins in this month's patch because there's definitely a backlog of old bugs in addition to the new ones we already know about. For example, MS-CHAP was discussed at Black Hat this year.

“This does make you wonder what Microsoft has planned for the October patch. Did Microsoft choose to deliver an extremely small patch this month because they have a monster patch in final testing for next month?

This might be the first month Microsoft has delivered a set of patches that don't require a reboot. IT teams focused on uptime and availability metrics will be smiling for the rest of the month.”



Go Daddy suffers four-hour outage following take down by Anonymous member

Anonymous has claimed responsibility for a hack on hosting provider and registrar GoDaddy that caused it to have major service issues last night.

A member of Anonymous who tweets at ‘AnonymoisOwn3r' said that he was taking GoDaddy down because he would "like to test how the cyber security is safe and for more reasons that I can not talk now". He later confirmed that it was "not so complex" to take down the servers.

The account's biography lists the person as the ‘security leader' of Anonymous and an ‘official member', but clarified that this was not an act by the Anonymous ‘collective', but by a single person.

GoDaddy said in a statement on its website that it and associated customer services began experiencing intermittent outages yesterday and that services began to be restored for the bulk of affected customers yesterday evening UK time.

It said: “At no time was any sensitive customer information, such as credit card data, passwords or names and addresses, compromised. We will provide an additional update within the next 24 hours. We want to thank our customers for their patience and support.”

According to the Associated Press, possibly millions of sites were affected. Anonymous in the past has voiced its displeasure with GoDaddy's temporary support for the now-shelved Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

Rob Cotton, CEO at NCC Group, said: “This is a damning indictment of the current state of cyber defences â€" standards are simply not high enough. It's a sad state of affairs when the internet's largest domain registrar isn't adequately prepared for a cyber attack. This is simple digital vandalism â€" yet the measures GoDaddy had in place clearly couldn't handle it.

“The incident also highlights the potential dangers of the supply chain. GoDaddy had poor cyber defences in place, so in turn its customers did too. If organisations don't audit their suppliers' security, then they're leaving themselves wide open.”



Questions asked about Companies House password security

Research has revealed that Companies House sends password reminders by post with the details in plain text.

The research by My Scrib said that Companies House uses post instead of email for sending out companies' passwords, which is a problem when companies are obliged to register and make the majority of changes to their status online.

Companies House requires two passwords â€" one for each user and one for each company - the former is the same across all companies that a person owns or has an online account for.

However it is the password per company that is sent to a company's registered address by post and if this password is lost or forgotten, there is no way to get it online, it is only resent by post, but then the password is not reset.

“In order for Companies House to be able to send out a reminder of the password without resetting it, the password must be stored in plain text on a server somewhere. This means it is vulnerable to hackers,” My Scrib said.

“So what is it possible to do if you gained unauthorised access to Companies House online? You could change the company's address, add and remove directors and secretaries, or change the share distribution or ownership. The company has to keep its own records too, but it is fairly easy to see how a fraudster could do much the same as those American lawyers without too much effort.”

The research cited password questions posed by Troy Hunt against Tesco, which alleged that the retail giant sends out passwords in plain text with security flaws in its website.

Hunt said that he imagined it would be a very big deal if an attacker could go in and change a company's details, but the other issue is about what sensitive information it might disclose.

He said: “I'm not too familiar with the UK structure, but I imagine there might be information which should not be readily disclosed.

“That said, there's still the requirement to intercept or acquire the password but with it emailed in plain text and stored, at best, in an encrypted form (at worst in plain text â€" we have no evidence to suggest anything to the contrary), the bar is just that much lower to begin with. It's unnecessary in this day and age.”

My Scrib said: “Tesco very quickly fixed their system following publication of the vulnerability. I wonder whether Companies House, who keeps rather more valuable information safe than the contents of our last grocery shop, will be as quick to respond.”



Go Daddy blames technical malfunctions rather than a DDoS for outage

Web hosting firm and domain registrar Go Daddy said that technical malfunctions internal to its operations, and not a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, were to blame for Monday's outage.

In a statement, the company's interim CEO Scott Wagner said: “We have determined that the service outage was due to a series of internal network events that corrupted our router data tables.

“Once the issues were identified, we took corrective actions to restore services for our customers and GoDaddy.com. We have implemented measures to prevent this from occurring again.”

He said that the service outage was not caused by external influences and was not a ‘hack' and it was not a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS), and also that no customer data was compromised in the outage, which lasted much of the day for some sites.

Go Daddy said on Monday that it was experiencing intermittent outages but did not suggest any malicious activity.

A purported member of Anonymous, using the handle @AnonymousOwn3r, had taken credit for the takedown. Despite Go Daddy's statement, they stood by their word, tweeting that Go Daddy "is denying that it was hacked by me" and that it does not want to "show their cyber security is bad this way they would lose customers".



TARP Squeeze Threatens Business Lending

As the U.S. Department of the Treasury wraps up its Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), rolled out in the dark days of 2008 at the height of the subprime mortgage crisis in an effort to prevent the collapse of the banking industry, critics worry the end of the program may unintentionally threaten small business lending. Here are some predictions about the difficulties businesses seeking financing may face and how entrepreneurs can weather the storm with some simple strategies.

Payback

Brother, Read More

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