We know the Chinese are hacking our government and Fortune 500 companies.  The scary part is that they are probably accumulating much more information on individuals in our country.  Personal cyber security is going to continue to be a big market once these stories become widely reported.  Here is the link to the article in the New York Times: www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/technology/chinas-army-is-seen-as-tied-to-hacking-against-us.html?hp&_r=0

Just signed up to use the remote support software from techinline.com Thanks to Serge Soroka for the assistance.  We can now remotely connect to your computer in seconds to diagnose the issue.  Contact us at 813-579-7190

The family and I are moving to Tampa, Florida in November of 2012.  Goodbye South Carolina and hello Florida.  We look forward to getting settled and helping out businesses and home users throughout the area.  Please contact us if you have any questions.

I’m helping a client roll-out Windows 7 and Office 2010 to their entire firm.  About 500 computers in all.  Mostly upgrades are over the top of existing hardware so pre-screening users with what programs and data they need have been essential part of the process.   Overall, the process has been surprisingly smooth for the amount of users involved.  This is the difference between a small and a large firm.  With a large firm management has to buy into the transition and they are actively involved in making sure attorneys and staff are on-board.  In a small firm most of these upgrades are poorly planned and sometimes done on a whim.  This is where we can help.  Have us do an assessment on your network and applications to make sure there will be no surprises.  We can reach out to vendors and figure out the best way to transition your company to Windows 7 and Office 2010.

I have worked for countless law firms, attorneys, and paralegals.  I have tried to save firms money on things like moving email to SAAS, or virtualizing server infrastructure.  Applications on the other hand have been something that I have stayed away from suggesting change.  Most firms have used two things since they started: Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat.  Google Docs has recently put a dent into Word, however, with DMS setups at most law firms it is still tough to avoid MS Word.  MS Office is a tough pill to swallow, but usually you can justify the cost as it’s used constantly.  The day is coming soon for MS Office as even they have started to offer online apps.  Soon enough DMS companies like Worldox, iManage, Hummingbird will integrate with these setups.

Adobe Acrobat.  I can’t stand Acrobat in law firms for a few reasons.  One it’s always been there so firms just assume people are using it.  A little research will tell you that most folks are just printing Word to PDF (which Word 2010 does now incidentally) which can be done free with many online utilities and applications.   Secondly, nobody knows what it does other than a few paralegals or skilled administrative assistants.  And at $200 or $400 depending on the version you are talking about a major investment.

I’ve been looking for a program that will handle all the functions of Adobe Acrobat Pro for years and I believe I have found one.  NitroPDF Professional.  http://www.nitropdf.com/professional/overview.htm  Their new version 7, not stated on this page,will integrate with DMS.  GENIUS!  I know there are tons of competitors out there that can handle the functions of Acrobat Pro.  There are also a couple other programs like PDFDocs but the interface to interact with DMS is not pretty.

Plus Nitro handles everything that Acrobat Pro does if not better.  Bates labeling, OCR, conversion to all Office formats, plus text, and RTF.  So don’t just pay that license fee, or upgrade fee because Acrobat has always been there.  Look into NitroPDF.  They even offer their own reader that can convert to PDF, but I know Adobe Reader has always been there too.

Why can manufacturers not come up with universal print drivers?  HP did so for the business centered printers but why can they not do the same for the 10,000 deskjets or inkjets?  What are they waiting on?  I’m not picking on HP because this is the same for all manufacturers.

I am currently assisting in rolling out Windows 7 in a large law firm.  A question was asked about the availability of universal printer drivers.  Specifically, can we download a universal driver for each manufacturer and have it reside on the users’ computer to be there ready to go when they plug in a printer.  Makes sense, but in my searching  I found that none of the big companies have this and quite a few folks were inquiring as I was.  Now to Microsoft’s credit they do store a ton of printer drivers for most manufacturers, but it is impossible for them to have every single model on their base OS install.  So why can’t manufacturers just come out with a universal driver and then add to it as they roll out new printers?  This seems easy enough and would certainly ease the pain for IT professionals and end users.  Nobody wants to spend the day searching for the exact model, then specifying the OS, then the bit rate of the new OS, then finally waiting for the download and installation of all the extra ‘helpful’ software that they will never use.  Quite simply it’s too much work for the manufacturer.  Combining all those drivers into one package and maybe the loss of possible sales from those ‘sweet’ add-in software packages.

It sure would be nice to just click on support.hp.com and select Deskjet printers-Windows7.  Download all.  Then have them pull down updates in a Windows update fashion every month or so.

Microsoft finally release Office 365 which is a web based offering of Exchange, Sharepoint, and other Office products.  The offerings are similar to the predecessor but this time around they are based on Office 2010 (not Office 2007 which was terrible) and better yet they are being offered in single licenses.  Now a sole practitioner can use the power of Exchange and other Office Apps just like they would at a big corporate firm.  There are all types of configuration options but this is a good step, albeit a slow one, for Microsoft.  Being able to tie in Office 365 to existing Office desktop apps is a bonus.  However, if you do not have Office 2010 then you of course lose functionality.  Personally I will be considering this product for myself.  Beta testing has been extremely successful for small firms.

Not many people think of what happens if a hacker gets into your system.  We IT guys think of prevention but as we have seen if a hacker really wants to target your business then there is almost no system that is safe–just ask ADP or Sony.  We at Legendary IT Solutions aim to block every hole that might exist in your network, however, it might be time to add a Cyber Insurance policy.  Courts have been inconsistent at best about cyber responsibilities.  Chances are if your clients are more powerful than you then it’s time to consider speaking with your insurance company.  Even if you think you are covered you may want to read the fine print because some legacy policies do not cover hacks, or internal employee theft.  Check this out on Microsoft’s site.  Also more details here on the Small Business Review site.

I have been very impressed by the speed however, there are far too many pages that freeze or lock up.  Case in point as I am applying setting up my business license on the myscbos.sc.gov website.  Filling out lengthy forms and I click submit, hourglass and I get the dreaded please reload later.  Which of course does not work on a secured form.  Twice it fails.  I flip over to Firefox and boom it works.  Again, I did not check the website to see it’s list of compatible web browsers.  If I have to do that for every secured site then Chrome=fail.

Please follow us on Twitter @legendaryit