• The Accounts/ERP Systems people were saying it was a Network Problem.
• The LAN/WAN people were saying it was a Citrix/Remote Access problem.
• The Citrix/Remote Access people said it was a Broadband/Bandwidth problem.
• The Broadband people said it was a CCTV Remote Viewing issue.

I could go on, but the net result was the customer was left “Holding the Baby” and the problem was dragging on for weeks, causing huge disruption and making the IT Systems unusable for a large proportion of the working day.

Because the company had no In-House IT resource or an Independent IT Professional who had no vested interest to call upon, the individual suppliers were able to quote technical terms at the customer and blame everyone else.

After looking at the problem and talking to all the suppliers we were able to establish that the problem was caused by a number of issues;

• The Security company was inadvertently streaming CCTV from the customer site 24 Hours a day using large amounts of bandwidth. We were able to get them to only stream video based on event triggering.
• The LAN/WAN people had added an extra broadband connection to the VPN and the routing of traffic over the networks had not been adjusted to take advantage of the new connection.
• The Citrix and Broadband suppliers had not co-ordinated and optimised their parameters to make sure they were working to maximise the speed of the connection.
• There had been an upgrade to the ERP System that installed a module which was not required, but was using large amounts of the server processing power.

We were able to increase the overall performance of the systems by 80% in a few days and by 100% within a couple of weeks.

Because of our depth of experience, gathered over twenty five years in various industries and business sectors, we were able to get to the root cause of the issues and allow the company to concentrate on their core business and stop wasting time arguing with the various IT Suppliers.

If you find yourself in this type of situation, don’t wast time fighting with IT Suppliers. Talk to an Independent IT Professional who will ultimately save you a lot of time and money. Better still develop an ongoing relationship with a professional who knows your system and can make sure any changes don’t have a knock on affect on  your existing systems.

1. Automatic Updates were Turned Off. The system runs VISTA and had no updates for a year and a half. While VISTA can be very slow at the best of times, the updates (particularly the Service Packs) have a huge impact on speed and resources. So TURN ON AUTOMATIC UPDATES and install all updates form Microsoft when asked. It took me a day to apply all updates that have been released over the last year and a half.
2. Three different versions of Microsoft Office were installed. When there was a problem with reading Word attachments at least two different people tried to reinstall Office without uninstalling previous versions. If you have a problem with a program, DO A COMPLETE UNINSTALL FIRST BEFORE YOU TRY TO REINSTALL.
3. The Laptop had never been Defragemented. When I checked, the system was set up to run a Scheduled Defrag on a weekly basis (at 3:00am on a Wed morning) , but the problem was that my mother never left her Laptop on at night. So if you have an Automatic Schedule for Defragmentation, make sure you leave your PC on at night and that your Power Saving features don’t turn off the PC before it has a chance to do a Defrag.

The final point I would make, is that it is much easier to sort out a problem if three well meaning people, have not tried to fix the problem. Call in somebody in the computer business straight away. The good guys will have a quick look and let you know what the likely costs are before they do any work.

As I was in the area I called out at lunchtime. When I arrived I was told that a guy had been installing a broadband connection the previous day and had done something to stop the main printer working. I quickly established that the new broadband connection wasn’t linked to the network and assured her that this had nothing to do with the problem. I then discovered that the printer had lost it’s network address and working with the printer supplier, reallocated the printer address and the printer started to churn out the queued print jobs.

I thought, great, it’s all working and was about to head out the door when the secretary stopped me and asked what was the cause of the problem. I quickly checked with the printer supplier and explained that we didn’t know, but it was all working now. The secretary then quietly but forcefully insisted the problem was caused by the broadband installer  as the last time somebody worked on the broadband the printer also stopped working and that we needed to find out or it would happen again.

Reluctantly I investigated further and low and behold discovered that the broadband installer had indeed disconnected one of the servers and not only was this the cause of the printer problem, but was also causing the backup to fail among other things.

Tail between my legs I headed back into the office to explain to the secretary that she was quite right and it was the installer that had caused the problem and it would have caused a lot more problems if we had not found the Root Cause of the problem.

While this was a relatively minor incident in a small school, if the same approach was taken in a larger organisation, there could have been much more serious consequences. No matter how small the problem is, it’s critical that you find out what caused the problem and put systems in place to insure it doesn’t happen again. Not just because it’s Good Practice but because it will save your business a lot of time effort and most of all money.

A wise man once told me that We have two ears and one mouth and they were designed to be used in those proportions. If I had listened to the secretary in the first place I could have saved everyone a lot of time and effort.

It’s time for businesses to get technological

Today things are very different. While walking the dog twice a day over this last cold spell, I very rarely saw children playing in the snow. It was only when I was talking to a collegue in Alpha Broadband (a fixed wireless broadband provider in North Wexford), that I realised what they were all up to.

He proceded to show me the traffic graphs and the traffic rose by over 60% for the period of the cold snap. There was also a corresponding drop in traffic today when the kids went back to school.  He did also note that based on his graphs most school children don’t get up until at least 12:00.

Well you can very easily get remote access to your computer systems and indeed communicate with your work colleagues.

The only thing you require is a Broadband Internet Connection. To access your computer systems you can either;

• Access your existing computer systems using a secure remote connection such as GoToMyPC. This is a hosted implementation of Citrix, which is a well established system used by many larger businesses to access their systems remotely and can cost as little as €12 per month.
• The second option is to consider using Software As A Service (SAAS)  for your main systems. SAAS means that your Integrated Accounts System / CRM systems are not installed on a computer in your office but are installed on a secure server in a Data Centre, which you access remotely using a secure connection. Examples in Ireland are Mamut and Eircom SAAS.

To keep in contact with your work colleagues all you require is Skype and you can talk, and if you have a webcam, have video calls for free.

So if you want to make sure that the next period of  bad weather doesn’t bring you business to a halt why not contact me in Glasgorman Computer Services HERE.

P.S. There is also a very strong argument that a small business can dramatically reduce it’s recurring infrastructure costs, regardless of weather etc. , by using technology to implement Remote Working for employees.

So as they say Prevention is Better than Cure. If your new PC comes with Anti Virus software, then make sure to enable it. If the computer has no Anti Virus software then the VERY FIRST THING you should do when you connect to the Internet is to install Anti Virus software.

Here is a site reviewing the most popular Anti Virus Programs. I personally use Nod32 from ESET but any of the top 10 reviewed would be fine.

Have a great and safe computing time over the holidays.

One of the biggest risks children face is the approach to and lack of knowledge of parents to the real dangers of the internet. Now don’t get me wrong, I am one of the biggest fans of the internet and all my children go online daily. When used correctly the Internet is a fantastic resource and represents tremendous opportunities for our children into the future, but there are risks and by taking a few simple, common sense steps, we can eliminate a lot of the risks.

For a lot of parents they think their children are safe and secure when they are in the house as opposed to when they are out on the streets, but they fail to realise that via the broadband connection in the house they can potentially be exposed to many more dangers.

Here are some simple precautions that you can take to protect your children;

• Don’t let your children use the Internet in their bedrooms. If the computer is located in a public space then your children are much less likely to try and access questionable sites.
• If you have young children, then I would recommended using some parental control software such as Net Nanny. It’s not that ten year olds are going to look up porn on Google, but sometimes an innocent search can produce questionable results.
• Educate yourself about the Internet. If you feel that all this computer stuff is too complicated then do a course. There are evening computer courses in every town and ECDL courses are widely available.
• Talk to your children, ask them about BEBO, Facebook, MSN etc.. and get them to show you how it works. Better still get an account for yourself and see first hand how it works.

There are also some good guides and programs in secondary schools that give some Good practical advice like Teen Safe Computing and childwatch.ie

I also came across an article in the Irish Examiner which said that primary way kids are being bullied  is not face to face but is through social networks such as BEBO and Facebook, so it’s in your interest to find out more.

1. Have a look at the data you are storing and get rid of the rubbish. At least 50% (often 80%) of the data stored on your business computers is useless, out-of-date, drafts or duplicates. Remember you are paying good money to store and backup this data. If you haven’t looked for it in six months, then archive it.
2. Do a little bit of reorganisation of your files and data. A huge amount of time is wasted trying to find files, having multiple versions of files or reediting files because you couldn’t find the latest version. Like a manual file system it doesn’t really matter what system you use, just that there is a system and everyone sticks to it.
3. Finally before you head into 2010 with all guns blazing, please take a master backup of your main systems (accounts, payroll or whatever your key system is) BEFORE you do your Year-End Routines. It’s so much easier to deal with problems if you have a backup from before you hit the Submit Button.

It’s so much easier to get these things done when the phone is not ringing and you’ll be heading into 2010 with your desk and systems cleared of the rubbish from 2009. “Onwards and Upwards” as they say, whoever they are.